Abstract

Rosenbaum Inquisition

This article looks at the attack on a Minnesota judge by a House Judiciary subcommittee. In 2002, Republicans on a House Judiciary subcommittee trained their sights on an unlikely target: conservative Judge James Rosenbaum, Chief Judge of the US District Court for the Minnesota District. The attack turns out to have been the opening salvo of a coordinated campaign by conservative Republicans, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and House majority leader Tom DeLay, to promote stricter criminal penalties for federal crimes and to consolidate power in the Justice Department's headquarters at the expense of judges and prosecutors in the field. A week later Judge Rosenbaum received a letter framed as a discovery request and demanding further information on court cases he had cited. Committee member Robert Scott, a Virginia Democrat, says he hasn't seen anything like the attack on Rosenbaum in eleven years in Congress. A Judiciary Committee source, speaking anonymously, noted that lying to a public official is a crime but added that should not be construed to mean a criminal charge was in the offing: A second possibility is an impeachment attempt, but that could backfire, given the support Rosenbaum has garnered from the media and a wide spectrum of the judiciary, notably Chief Justice William Rehnquist.