Of Local Interest

This appeared in Saturday's Arizona Republic. To me it represents a living example of reckless rhetoric from Senate Democrats. A former Arizona prison official, Terry Stewart, is threatening to sue Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) over remarks he made:

"He (Schumer) tried to link myself and others who risked their lives for their country by going to Iraq to the Abu Ghraib scandal, and clearly there was no link there," Stewart said. "This was simply an effort on his part to use a person in Arizona as a pawn in the political process, and I think it is unconscionable."

This is normally the purview of such as Sy Hersch and the eternal effort to tie Abu Ghraib to administration officials and official policy. Was Senator Schumer using the same anonymous sources? Well, it doesn't appear so but it does seem that he reached some conclusions he ought not to have:

In asking for the investigation last June, Schumer actually did not accuse Stewart or the three other former state prison officials of having direct roles in the prison abuses in Iraq. Stewart was in Iraq as a private contractor in May and June 2003, months before the scandal broke.

Instead, Schumer pointed to lawsuits or other problems linked to their earlier tenures as prison chiefs in their respective state governments. For those reasons, he said, each should have been precluded from being hired to help out in prison rebuilding in Iraq.

It appears that the Senator opened his mouth before engaging his brain. Based on cursory reading of past events in the tenure of Terry Stewart and two other men, Schumer called for a Justice Department investigation. Just what did the Senator believe the issues to be?

In a press release written last year, Schumer alleged that "Stewart, director of Arizona's prisons from December 1995 until November 2002, had "turned a blind eye" by failing to prevent the sexual abuse of female inmates in Arizona." In addition, Schumer referred to three other lawsuits that involved Stewart.

Two suits involved a 1995 allegation by inmates about "inhumane conditions." The third alleged that Stewart's department provided inadequate "protective custody to shield certain at-risk inmates from harm."

While I can understand the motivation, and even impute honest intentions to it, a closer reading of the record would have found the following:

1. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division started it's investigation into the sexual abuse of female inmates in Arizona's Department of Corrections facilities prior to Stewart's rise to Director. The quote from the Republic's report: "The CRD indicated that the case was settled after Stewart became director, that no pattern or practice of misconduct by the Arizona Department of Corrections had been established, and that Stewart was active in implementing the settlement agreement," Fine's report states. In other words, he was guilty of nothing.
2. The first of the lawsuits involving "inhumane conditions," came out of an incident that occurred prior to Stewart's becoming director while the second lawsuit involved an incident that occurred less than a week into his tenure. Again from the Republic: Fine said in his report that "the lawsuits were ultimately tried before a federal district judge and decided in favor of the defendants." And again, Stewart was guilty of nothing.
3. In the matter of the final lawsuit about protective custody issues, the Justice Department found that (what a surprise!) it also arose out of a previous policy implemented by Stewart's predecessor. Again, Stewart had no direct involvement in any wrongdoing.

In all three cases, the honorable Senator's assumptions were not based on the facts. Mr. Stewart is convinced that Schumer's allegations have harmed him:

Stewart, who now runs his own security systems firm, Hummingbird Defense Systems Inc., said Friday that Schumer's "allegations have had a very detrimental impact on my career in corrections and anything I would want to do in government." But he added that he believes Fine's report has "vindicated" him.

Schumer's rhetoric is careless, and in a situation where it potentially caused harm is inexcusable--even or maybe more-so especially for a US Senator. Sadly, it is also a shining example of politicians protected by position with the ability to say anything no matter how outrageous. Such rhetoric about members of the opposition party is expected, but saying such things about private citizens without any substantiation is just wrong.

Stewart has even sought the help of Arizona senator Jon Kyl in eliciting an apology from Senator Schumer. None has been forthcoming as of yet.