Billiken Man

In the past two decades he's practiced criminal defense law primarily in the federal court system.

Earlier this month he filed a motion unlike any he's filed before.

Carver is seeking information that could shed light on whether the federal government is prosecuting his client for political purposes.

The eight-page legal brief is just the latest salvo in the simmering controversy over the White House's involvement in the firing of several U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department. The battle over Carver's attempt to gain information once again makes Missouri Ground Zero in the discussion.

While Democrats in Congress press the case over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' inability to run his department, and Republicans try to deflect the criticism as nothing but a political witchunt, the real damage in the affair might end up being played out in the nation's halls of justice.

At the federal courthouse in Springfield, Carver is seeking information about communication that two former U.S. attorneys for the Western District of Missouri, Bradley Schlozman and Todd Graves, might have had with former undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson. He's not alleging corruption, Carver says, but like the Democrats seeking the paper trail that led to the politically motivated firings of several U.S. attorneys, Carver wants to see whether Schlozman or others targeted his clients for political purposes.

Carver represents Brentt G. Tumey, who along with other members of his family own an Arkansas contracting company, Managed Subcontractors Inc. The company was involved as a labor broker on a $50 million construction project at Fort Leonard Wood. At some point, federal investigators discovered violations of prevailing wage laws, and many companies, including MSI, paid fines to the government.

Only one of those companies has faced federal indictment. And Carver argues that the political implications are clear. Tumey's mother, Robbyn, was a candidate for Arkansas state representative in 2004. Her opponent? Timmy Hutchinson, son of a U.S. senator and nephew of Asa Hutchinson, who at the time was running for Arkansas governor. Tumey later withdrew from that race. But in April 2006, she again announced her intention to seek the House seat as a Democrat. Two months later, Asa Hutchinson, in the midst of the gubernatorial race he would later lose, announced plans to be tough on illegal immigrants.

Six days later, MSI, and Carver's client, Brentt Tumey, were indicted as a result of a federal immigration investigation into the long-ago completed construction project at Fort Leonard Wood. The indictment focuses on what Carver calls "technical violations" of prevailing wage laws.

"It is ironic to say the least that almost three years after an investigation of alleged wage and hour violations by virtually every contractor and subcontractor on the Fort Leonard Wood Construction project was concluded, an indictment was handed down in which, by implication, a candidate for public office was charged with a crime through her company, her son and her sister," Carver argues in his motion seeking communication from Schlozman or Graves to their superiors, or to the U.S. attorneys prosecuting the case, that might indicate the case has political implications. "Even more alarming is the possibility that the Department of Justice has been manipulated by political opportunists."

That sentence alone sums up the greater implications in the replacement of U.S. attorneys so that political operatives such as Schlozman could sully the reputation of the Department of Justice.

Carver has great respect for the department that he usually does battle with in his cases.

"I think that generally speaking in the past, the motives of the U.S. attorney's office has been above reproach," he says. "I am not of the same mind today."

Regardless of the guilt or innocence of Carver's clients, the very fact that the Department of Justice is now in the business of having to defend itself from allegations of corruption hurts the cause of justice. If Carver's clients are guilty, the process of having to prove that Schlozman wasn't doing the bidding of Republican higher-ups could negatively affect the ability to get a conviction. And if Carver's clients are innocent — or they're being singled out while other similar violations are ignored — then the long-term damage to our system is immeasurable.

"I don't think it occurred to them the potential damage to our system of justice," Carver says of those in the White House who sought to use the Department of Justice as a means to a political end. "It's a tremendous blow to people's understanding of justice."