As soon as Barack Obama has the power to hire and fire, one of his first acts will be to replace Jeffrey Taylor as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Taylor, the highest ranking and most powerful law enforcement official in town, has two strikes against him.
He was appointed by President Bush, and his pedigree includes serving as a top adviser for Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales from 2002 to 2006. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has criticized him and essentially stood in the way of his Senate confirmation. Bush nominated him in September 2006; he’s kept his job by appointment of D.C.’s federal judges.
But I’m not so sure Obama and his prospective Attorney General Eric Holder should boot Taylor. My cop sources love the guy; I appreciate his crusade to crack down on gun violence by trying to make sure people arrested with guns stay off the street and serve time.
“He’s done a lot to put police on the street and money back in the D.C. budget,” says police union chief Kris Baumann. “He’s done things quietly. Just because he’s a Republican, no one wants to talk about it.”
It has always stuck in the craw of D.C. politicians that the top lawman is appointed by the president, especially when the White House is occupied by a Republican. In the 1980s, boisterous Joe DiGenova hounded Marion Barry during his third mayoral term; Charles Ruff was a legend on the Democratic side. Eric Holder was U.S. attorney before he became number two in the Clinton Justice Department.
If you get busted for repeat muggings (Michael Richardson), or embezzling millions from the D.C. government (Harriet Walters) or lying under oath to the FBI (I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby), it’s Taylor’s job to make you pay.
Taylor’s efforts to make D.C. a safer city do not make for great TV drama. He’s made it more simple for D.C. cops to “paper” cases. Each time cops made an arrest, they had to show up at the courthouse and complete a six-step process, including making copies. Papering could keep a cop off the beat for an hour or an entire day.
Thanks to Taylor, and Superior Court chief Brad Weinsheimer, “officerless” papering works in half of the cases.
The two also have reorganized Superior Court prosecutors: now they are aligned by police districts, and each stays with a case from arrest to prosecution.
“They get to know the officers, the bad guys, the victims,” Taylor says. “One prosecutor has a case from cradle to grave.”
Taylor, who lives on Capitol Hill with his wife and 1-year-old daughter, has more improvements in mind, but I doubt Norton and Holder will let him stay. He knows it and plans to remain in D.C.
Names of who might replace him are reaching the rumor mill. Norton hopes to establish a commission to recommend names. The most mentioned candidate is DeMaurice Smith, a D.C. native who worked as a prosecutor under Holder.
But keeping Taylor would be a fine idea, too.
