Specter Detector

U.S. attorney scandal update: Who's to blame for those alarming Patriot Act revisions?

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Monday, March 5, 2007, at 6:58 PM ET

Listen to the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up for Slate's free daily podcast on iTunes.

The U.S. attorneys purge scandal is heating up. The House and Senate have convened hearings for Tuesday, promising an orgy of named names and pointed fingers. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., now admits what he once denied: that he may have had a hand in the removal of New Mexico's U.S. attorney. And the senior Justice Department official who personally canned the U.S. attorneys has just announced the date of his resignation.

But as the political scandal spreads, the question at its heart gets less and less public attention: Who changed the Patriot Act to make it easier to replace U.S. attorneys without oversight, and how did it happen with nobody looking?