`Safe' prosecutor pick among those fired

It's an odd twist that Carol Lam is among eight federal prosecutors fired by the Justice Department.

A low-key litigator who made her name prosecuting health care fraud, Lam got the job as U.S. attorney in San Diego because she was seen as a safe choice after a protracted search for a top prosecutor in the nation's eighth-largest city.

Democrats investigating the firings have questioned whether Lam's dismissal was linked to her office's corruption prosecution of now-jailed former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. That investigation expanded to ensnare a former top CIA official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who along with his best friend, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, faces fraud and conspiracy charges.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she had no evidence to prove a connection between the investigation and Lam's firing but that is pushing for more information.

Feinstein is among a growing chorus of lawmakers taking the White House to task for the handling of the firings, which critics say were politically motivated. The White House says the prosecutors failed to follow policy objectives. Some lawmakers, including several Republicans, have called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

Lam, now a corporate attorney for San Diego-based wireless technology firm Qualcomm Inc., has not commented publicly about her dismissal. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

Lam became U.S. attorney in 2002 after a drawn-out search to fill the city's top prosecutor's slot. A political independent who had spent less than two years as a Democratic appointee to a state court judgeship, Lam won out over a crowded field of candidates that included Jeffrey Taylor, a former Republican Senate committee counsel who now is the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

"She was a wonderful political appointee: She was a woman, she was Asian-American, she went to Stanford and Yale, clerked for a judge, she was a terrific lawyer and a mother and a wife," said Pete Nunez, a former San Diego U.S. attorney who hired Lam as an assistant U.S. attorney in 1986. "She was a superwoman _ what else would you want?"

A career prosecutor, the 47-year-old Lam took the post with plans to shift the caseload away from low-level immigration and drug violations _ San Diego's signature cases _ and focus instead on breaking up organized immigrant smuggling rings and pursuing white-collar offenses.

Lam, who in 2002 wrote a book on trying medical fraud cases, took the unusual step of personally prosecuting Tenet Healthcare Corp. on charges the company paid kickbacks to doctors for patient referrals. The case resulted in a mistrial, though Tenet later agreed to settle with the government.

Lam's goals put her at odds with her superiors in Washington.

"She won't just say, 'You got me. You're right, I've ignored national priorities and obvious local needs,'" associate attorney general Bill Mercer wrote in an e-mail last July criticizing Lam to his colleague Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

Lam met later in the summer with San Diego-area Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, who had publicly criticized her for filing too few immigration cases.

In an e-mail to Justice Department attorney Rebecca Seidel, Lam said she defended her record to Issa by explaining that she had traded "low-end coyote cases" _ a reference to immigrant smugglers _ for more complicated prosecutions of smuggling ringleaders and violent criminals.

"Essentially I must make a choice _ prosecute the coyotes who are smuggling but not endangering anyone, or the rapists and murderers who are coming back to rape and murder again," Lam wrote.

Shaun Martin, a law professor at the University of San Diego who keep tabs on the local legal scene, said no one should be surprised by Lam's job performance.

"She's very strong-willed, and she didn't change her mind," he said. "But Carol turned out to be exactly what everyone thought she'd turn out to be, which was very hard-working, very personally involved and very willing to get dirty in the details of particular cases."