SEATTLE – U.S. Reps. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., and Jay Inslee, D-Wash., were angered enough by the Justice Department’s firing of Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay that they suggested he be given his job back.
McKay’s response? Thanks, but no thanks.
“I appreciate the idea, but I don’t think that’s a reasonable outcome here,” McKay said after teaching his Seattle University Law School class this week. “It would not be right for me to go back.”
McKay said that right now he’s more interested in focusing on his students, as tough as that has been given the distractions of media requests and congressional inquiries.
McKay was fired along with seven other U.S. attorneys around the country, and the Justice Department’s shifting rationale for the cuts – as well as the perception that they may have been politically motivated – have drastically eroded support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales among both parties.
Gonzales’ former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, was scheduled to testify before a U.S. Senate panel Thursday. About a month before putting McKay on the list of U.S. attorneys to be pushed out, Sampson tried to help him win a federal judgeship in Seattle, writing to the White House, “it’s highly unlikely that we could do better.”
McKay began teaching the constitutional law and terrorism class in January, relying in part on his experience in cases against “millennium bomber” Ahmed Ressam and James Ujaama, a Seattle native convicted of providing material support to the Taliban. His guest speakers have included U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who ruled on Ressam’s case.
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