Marston and Sir Mordred

The case of David Marston will not go away. Mr. Marston was the United States Attorney for southeast Pennsylvania until he was sacked by Attorney General Griffin Bell two months ago. In the normal course of events it would have been a routine political maneuver: Marston is a Republican, a Ford appointee, and a former Schweiker aide. In any traditional political scheme, it would have been a simple matter of dropping the “outs” to make room for a loyal Democrat. Instead of which, a political storm brewed up, and dumped its record load on Bell, and on Jimmy Carter.

The storm that dumped on the White House pretty much originated in the White House. One can only assume that the Executive Branch had few contacts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Someone in the White House, or the Justice Department, should have posed the basic question: “Why is Joshua Eilberg [D., Pa.] in such a hurry to get rid of this U.S. Attorney?” And a few discreet phone calls would have revealed that the aforementioned Eilberg was under investigation by the office of David Marston.

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Sheldon Moody Smith

The case of David Marston will not go away. Mr. Marston was the United States Attorney for southeast Pennsylvania until he was sacked by Attorney General Griffin Bell two months ago. In the normal course of events it would have been a routine political maneuver: Marston is a Republican, a Ford appointee, and a former Schweiker aide. In any traditional political scheme, it would have been a simple matter of dropping the “outs” to make room for a loyal Democrat. Instead of which, a political storm brewed up, and dumped its record load on Bell, and on Jimmy Carter.

The storm that dumped on the White House pretty much originated in the White House. One can only assume that the Executive Branch had few contacts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Someone in the White House, or the Justice Department, should have posed the basic question: “Why is Joshua Eilberg [D., Pa.] in such a hurry to get rid of this U.S. Attorney?” And a few discreet phone calls would have revealed that the aforementioned Eilberg was under investigation by the office of David Marston.