Did You Know - Carol Lam

The following is from Progress Report (3/19/2007)...

ETHICS -- LAM'S FIRING MAY HAVE BEEN TIED TO CIA CORRUPTION PROBE: Yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) revealed that then-San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006 that she intended to execute search warrants on Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, as part of a corruption probe surrounding former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA). The next day, on May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." Lam was dismissed seven months later as part of the Bush administration's purge of eight U.S. attorneys. Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the conviction of Cunningham, who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison. Lam was expanding the Cunningham probe to also look at the actions of then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). "There were clearly U.S. attorneys that were thorns in the side for one reason or another of the Justice Department," Feinstein said. "And they decided, by strategy, in one fell swoop, to get rid of seven of them."