More of the MSM trying to make a crime out of what is basically the same poltics as usual that has existed for years.

For the criminally uniformed a US prosecutor is free to pursue any and all crime committed in their jurisdiction. However, that said they are expected to persue those things which the DOJ and the Administration consider to be items of interest. In the case of Carol Lam it was illegal immigration and according to records, she sucked at it.

“Democrats in Congress and others have suggested that Ms. Lam, the former United States attorney in San Diego, was ousted largely to stymie her investigations of Republicans and Defense Department officials, after a prosecution of a Republican congressman from California.

But interviews with law enforcement officials in California and an examination of e-mail released by the Justice Department demonstrate that Ms. Lam was a source of longstanding vexation to the department, with which she differed on strategy.

Ms. Lam ran afoul of local officials and the department as far back as 2004 over her decision to pursue far fewer illegal immigration cases than similar districts did, choosing instead to personally prosecute a case against a health care company. She also prosecuted too few gun-crime cases for the administration’s taste.

“Have a heart-to-heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement,” said a June 2006 e-mail message that D. Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, wrote to another senior department official. “If she balks on any of the foregoing or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way by July 15 [my date] remove her.”

The dismissal of Ms. Lam, who declined to comment for this article, still came as a shock to many of her colleagues in California. They said that they never saw her problems with the Justice Department as serious enough to warrant removal and that her record on white-collar prosecutions, including that of former Representative Randy Cunningham, was considered exemplary.”

Again, the cluelessness is breath-taking. First, as I asked Iglesias what part of “Serves at the pleasure of the president” does she not understand? The point is that she displeased the administration by her lack (more or less an act of wilful ommission) of enforcing immigration laws. Therefore she’s gone.

Additionally let’s not forget that Lam was selected for removal long before Duke Cunningham and was still permitted to prosecute that crook. So let’s dispense with the asinine assumption that this was all about hiding corruption.

As Patterico noted about the emails referring to Lam:

“As shown in pages 9-12 of Documents 11-5, someone was concerned enough to write a report comparing Lam‚Äôs total prosecutions of immigration, firearms, and fraud cases to the total number of such prosecutions in other border districts (such as Arizona and Texas). The report also notes (in bold text) that federal firearms cases ‚Äúhit a 10 year low in SD CA in FY 2005 even after the conversation between Jim and Carol [Lam.]. . . . This is a long-standing issue.‚Äù

So what you have in essence was that Carol Lam wasn’t doing her job as her employer was rating her and thus was let go.

Not rocket science!