Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
Encyclopedia
The dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy was initiated by the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorney
s on December 7, 2006 by the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice
. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican
politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic
politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters.
The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act
reauthorization.
The dismissed U.S. Attorneys had all been appointed by President George W. Bush
and confirmed by the Senate
, more than four years earlier.
Two other attorneys were dismissed in controversial circumstances in 2005-2006. Twenty-six or more U.S. Attorneys had been under consideration for dismissal during this time period.
The firings received attention via hearings in Congress
in January 2007, and by March 2007 the controversy had national visibility. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales
stated that the U.S. Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" and described the affair as "an overblown personnel matter."
By mid-September 2007, nine of the highest-level officers of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned,
most prominently, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
A subsequent report by the Justice Department Inspector General in October 2008 found that the process used to fire the first seven attorneys and two others dismissed around the same time was "arbitrary", "fundamentally flawed", and "raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecution decisions." In July 2010, the Department of Justice prosecutors closed the two-year investigation without filing charges after determining that the firing was inappropriately political, but not criminal, saying "Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias. The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias."
issues. As the controversy unfolded, it led to other controversies, notably the politicization of hiring at the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bush White House e-mail controversy
, and the alleged politically-motivated prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys in several states.
The following sections briefly summarize aspects of the controversy. More thorough analyses are further below, or in the related articles.
in 2006 which eliminated the 120-day term limit on interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys made by the United States Attorney General
to fill vacancies. The law permitted the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without a term limit in office, and avoid a confirming vote by the Senate. The change gave the Attorney General greater appointment powers than the President, since the President's U.S. Attorney appointees are required to be confirmed by the Senate; the law undermined the confirmation authority of the Senate.
The U.S. Senate was concerned that, in dismissing the U.S. Attorneys, the administration planned to fill the vacancies with its own choices, thus bypassing not only the Senate confirmation, but also the traditional consultation with Senators in the selection process.
Congress rescinded the provision by very large majorities in March 2007.
Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democrat
ic politicians, for failing to prosecute claims of election fraud that would hamper Democratic voter registration, as retribution for prosecuting Republican
politicians, or for failing to pursue adult obscenity prosecutions.
The administration and its supporters said that the attorneys were dismissed for job-performance reasons "related to policy, priorities and management", and that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. However, at least six attorneys had recently received positive evaluations of their performance from the Department of Justice.
In September 2008, the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation concluded that the dismissals were politically motivated and improper.
from Department of Justice officials appeared to be contradicted by internal Department memoranda and e-mail, and that possibly Congress was deliberately misled. The White House role in the dismissals remained unclear despite hours of testimony by Attorney General Gonzales and senior Department of Justice staff in congressional committee hearings.
The Bush administration issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings.
The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear.
In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress.
and Kyle Sampson
to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions.
On May 2, 2007, the Department of Justice announced two separate investigations into hirings conducted by Goodling: one by the department's Inspector General, and a second by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, on May 23, 2007, Goodling stated that she had "crossed the line" and broke civil service laws regulating hiring for civil service positions, and had improperly weighed political factors in assessing applicants.
According to a January 2009 Justice Department report, investigators found that Bradley Schlozman
, as interim head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, "favored applicants with conservative political or ideological affiliations and disfavored applicants with civil rights or human rights experience whom he considered to be overly liberal." The positions under consideration were not political, but career, for which the political and ideological views of candidates are not to be considered, according to federal law and guidelines.
In a May 30, 2007 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General
and Counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility
confirmed that they were expanding their investigation beyond "the removals of United States Attorneys" to also include "DOJ hiring and personnel decisions" by Monica Goodling
and other Justice Department employees.
Such allegations were made by some of the dismissed U.S. Attorneys themselves to suggest reasons they may have been dismissed.
The background to the allegations is the recent tendency for elections in parts of the United States to be very close; an election outcome can be affected by a mere announced investigation of a politician. Indeed, it is explicit policy of the Department of Justice to avoid bringing voter-related cases during an election for this reason. The pursuit of voter fraud cases was an acknowledged political strategy of the Republican Party by 2006.
The use of U.S. Attorneys for partisan purposes is highly improper, particularly given the strong non-partisan traditions of the U.S. Attorneys.
In September 2008, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice concluded that some of the dismissals were motivated by the refusal of some of the U.S. Attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases during the 2006 election cycle.
[ c.f., Georgia Thompson
] , some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers to question the political motivation of prosecutors in certain cases; make magistrates and judges more skeptical of the evidence before them; and perhaps even chill line prosecutors in their pursuit of some indictments."
By mid-September 2007, nine senior staff of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned.
The most prominent resignations include:
In June 2008, a grand jury was empaneled to consider criminal indictments against officials involved in the firings. The grand jury was presented evidence from ongoing investigations at the Department of Justice Inspector General's office and at the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.
In reply, Kyle Sampson, then Department of Justice counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft
, wrote that it would be "weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term", that they "would like to replace 15–20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys" and that the rest "are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc."
The White House at one time suggested that the plan for dismissals came from White House counsel Harriet Miers
, who left the White House in January 2007 before the dismissal received public attention.
Alberto Gonzales
.
In March 2005, Sampson "came up with a checklist. He rated each of the U.S. Attorneys with criteria that appeared to value political allegiance as much as job performance. He recommended retaining 'strong U.S. Attorneys who have... exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General.' He suggested 'removing weak U.S. Attorneys who have... chafed against Administration initiatives'".
In September 2005, Sampson became Gonzales's Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice.
Sampson wrote in January 2006 to Miers that he recommended that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys, and that by limiting the number of attorneys "targeted for removal and replacement" it would "mitigat[e] the shock to the system that would result from an across-the-board firing."
On February 12, 2006, Monica Goodling
sent a spreadsheet of each U.S. Attorney's political activities and memberships in conservative political groups, in an email to senior Administration officials, with the comment "This is the chart that the AG requested".
(In late February 2006, the White House and the Senate had a minor dispute over the nomination of a U.S. Attorney to Utah. The White House favored Kyle Sampson for the position, while Senator Hatch
(R
, Utah
) favored Brett Tolman
. Tolman, who had been instrumental in changing the legislation within the USA PATRIOT Act governing the appointment of U.S. Attorneys, was eventually nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate.)
Sampson strongly urged using changes to the law governing U.S. Attorney appointments to bypass Congressional confirmation, writing in a September 17, 2006 memo to Harriet Miers
: "I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed...It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately...I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments...[By avoiding Senate confirmation] we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House."
told Alberto Gonzales
that he had received complaints that some of the U.S. Attorneys had not pursued certain voter-fraud investigations.
The complaints came from Republican officials, who demanded fraud investigations into a number of Democratic campaigns. The 2006 United States general election was forthcoming (November) and Republicans were concerned about losing Congressional seats to Democrats. (The election in fact did overturn Congressional control to the Democratic Party.)
Furthermore, "The documents show that in one case, officials were eager to free up the prosecutor's slot in Little Rock, Ark., so it could be filled by Timothy Griffin, a GOP operative close to White House political guru Karl Rove
— at all costs."
According to Newsweek
, "Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House."
On November 21, 2006, Sampson sent an e-mail
to an assistant in the Attorney General's office, scheduling a meeting in Gonzales' conference room with senior Justice Department advisors to discuss "U.S. Attorney Appointments." Those asked to be scheduled in the meeting included Gonzales, Sampson, Monica Goodling
, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
, Associated Deputy A.G. William Moschella, Michael Elston
, and Michael Battle
. On November 27, 2006, Gonzales met with senior advisors to discuss the plan.
The Justice Department did not receive White House approval for the firings until early December. As late as December 2, Sampson had written to Michael Elston
that the Justice department was "[s]till waiting for green light from White House" with regards to the firing. Deputy White House counsel William K. Kelley
responded on December 4, 2006, stating that "We're a go for the U.S. Atty plan... [the White House office of legislative affairs], political, communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes."
On December 7, 2006, Justice Department official Michael A. Battle
informed seven U.S. Attorneys that they were being dismissed.
Although seven attorneys were dismissed on December 7, 2006, subsequent disclosures show that three or more additional attorneys were dismissed under similar circumstances between 2005-2006. U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins
in Arkansas had been informed in June 2006 that he was to be replaced, and he resigned, effective December 20, 2006, several days after the public announcement of the appointment of his successor Timothy Griffin
.
David Iglesias
(R) believes he was removed from office at the behest of two NM Republican congressmen when he refused to prosecute state Democratic senators before the November 2006 election.
Kevin Ryan
(R) Though described as "loyal to the Bush administration" he was allegedly fired for the possible controversy that negative job performance evaluations might cause if they were released.
John McKay
(R) Was given a positive job evaluation just 7 months before he was fired. After a close WA governor's race resulted in a Democratic victory local Republicans criticized McKay for not investigating allegations of voter fraud.
Paul K. Charlton
(R) Was given a positive job performance evaluation before he was dismissed. He may have been fired because he had started a corruption investigation about Rick Renzi
(R) AR.
Carol Lam
(R) No reason was given or suggested for her dismissal.
Daniel Bogden
(R) was dismissed after 17 years because of a vague sense that a "stronger leader" was needed. His loyalty to President Bush was also questioned by Kyle Sampson
Margaret Chiara
(R) Was given a positive job evaluation in 2005 and told she was being removed to "make way" for another individual.
Todd Graves
(R) had been pressed to bring a civil suit against Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, (D) for allegedly failing to crack down on voting fraud.
Bud Cummins
allegedly was asked to leave so Timothy Griffin
an aid to Karl Rove
could have his job.
Thomas M. DiBiagio
(R) believes he was asked to step down for his corruption investigations into the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R)
on January 4 with its new Democratic
majority. The Senate Judiciary Committee has oversight over the U.S. Attorneys
. In a letter to Gonzales on January 9, 2007 Senators Feinstein
(D
, California
) and Leahy
(D
, Vermont
; Chair of the Committee) of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern that the confirmation process for U.S. attorneys would be bypassed, and on January 11, they, together with Senator Pryor
(D
, Arkansas
), introduced legislation "to prevent circumvention of the Senate's constitutional prerogative to confirm U.S. Attorneys", called Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, and . Feinstein issued a press release about the bill.
The initial concern was about the USA PATRIOT Act and the confirmation process, rather than the politicization of the U.S. Attorneys that later dominated the controversy.
The earliest reporting of this affair was by Josh Marshall
and his associates on Marshall's TalkingPointsMemo
blog
.
Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18. He assured the committee that he did not intend to bypass the confirmation process and denied the firings were politically motivated.
On January 18, 2007, in an opinion piece for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jane Ann Morrison reported that "A GOP source [had indicated] that the decision to remove U.S. attorneys, primarily in the West, was part of a plan to 'give somebody else that experience' to build up the back bench of Republicans by giving them high-profile jobs."
Marisa Taylor, writing for McClatchey Newspapers
noted that, "The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors. The nine recent appointees identified [as replacements] held high-level White House or Justice Department jobs, and most of them were handpicked by Gonzales..." "Being named a U.S. attorney 'has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration,' said Laurie Levenson
, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at the Loyola Law School
in Los Angeles."
, New York) in February.
Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6. He underscored that the seven were fired for job performance issues, and not political considerations. In subsequent closed-door testimony on April 27, 2007 to the committee, McNulty said that days after the February hearing, he learned that White House officials had not revealed to him White House influence and discussions on creating the list.
McNulty in February called Senator Schumer by telephone to apologize for the inaccurate characterization of the firings.
At least six of the seven had recently received outstanding job performance ratings. McNulty testified that Bud Cummins
, the U.S. Attorney for Arkansas, was removed to install a former aide to Karl Rove
and Republican National Committee
opposition research director, the 37-year-old Timothy Griffin
.
Cummins, apparently, "was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of Griffin."
However, McNulty's testimony that the attorneys were fired for "performance related issues" caused the attorneys to come forward in protest.
Indeed, there is some evidence that the administration was concerned about the attorneys going public with complaints prior to this time.
Salon.com
reported: "at least three of the eight fired attorneys were told by a superior they were being forced to resign to make jobs available for other Bush appointees, according to a former senior Justice Department official knowledgeable about their cases."
The proceedings were politically charged. At one point Senator Schumer was criticized by Senator Specter
(R
, Pennsylvania
), also on the Judiciary Committee, for having a conflict of interest by being a lead investigator of the affair while also chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
; such criticism was short-lived.
resigned his position of Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA).
On March 6, 2007, Gonzales responded to the controversy in an op-ed in USA Today
in which he said, "To be clear, [the firing] was for reasons related to policy, priorities and management — what have been referred to broadly as "performance-related" reasons — that seven U.S. attorneys were asked to resign last December.... We have never asked a U.S. attorney to resign in an effort to retaliate against him or her or to inappropriately interfere with a public corruption
case (or any other type of case, for that matter). Like me, U.S. attorneys are political appointees, and we all serve at the pleasure of the president. If U.S. attorneys are not executing their responsibilities in a manner that furthers the management and policy goals of departmental leadership, it is appropriate that they be replaced...While I am grateful for the public service of these seven U.S. attorneys, they simply lost my confidence. I hope that this episode ultimately will be recognized for what it is: an overblown personnel matter."
On March 13, Gonzales stated in a news conference that he accepted responsibility for mistakes made in the dismissal and rejected calls for his resignation that Democratic members of Congress had been making. He also stood by his decision to dismiss the attorneys, saying "I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision."
Gonzales admitted that "incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to Congress" by Justice Department officials, and said that "I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood."
Gonzales lost more support when records subsequently challenged some of these statements. Although the Department of Justice released 3,000 pages of its internal communications related to this issue, none of those documents discussed anything related to a performance review process for these attorneys before they were fired.
Records released on March 23 showed that on his November 27 schedule "he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge
."
Chairman Patrick Leahy
stated that Congress has the authority to subpoena
Justice Department and White House officials including chief political advisor to the president Karl Rove
and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. On March 20, President Bush declared in a press conference that his aides would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoena
ed by Congress. Bush explained his position saying "The President relies upon his staff to provide him candid advice. The framers of the Constitution understood this vital role when developing the separate branches of government. And if the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.... I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials.... My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for Presidents to get good decisions."
Despite the President's position against aides testifying, on March 21 the House Judiciary Committee authorized the subpoena of five Justice Department officials,
and on March 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas as well.
, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to hire a new career prosecutor, Seth Adam Meinero, in the fall of 2006. Goodling judged Meinero too "liberal" and declined to approve the hire. Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency, was serving as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office. Taylor went around Goodling, and demanded Sampson's approval to make the hire. In another example,
Goodling removed an attorney from her job at the Department of Justice because she was rumored to be a lesbian, and, further, blocked the attorney from getting other Justice Department jobs she was qualified for.
Rules concerning hiring at the Justice department forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.
On March 26, 2007, Goodling, who had helped coordinate the dismissal of the attorneys with the White House,
took leave from her job as counsel to the attorney general and as the Justice Department's liaison to the White House.
Goodling was set to testify before Congress, but on March 26, 2007, Goodling cancelled her appearance at the Congressional hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination.
On April 6, 2007, Ms. Goodling resigned from the Department of Justice,
stating in her three-sentence resignation letter to Mr. Gonzales, "May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America."
On April 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee
passed a resolution,
by a 32-6 vote, authorizing lawyers for the House to apply for a court order granting Goodling immunity in exchange for her testimony and authorizing a subpoena for her.
On May 11, 2007 U.S. District Court Chief Judge Thomas Hogan signed an order granting Goodling immunity in exchange for her truthful testimony in the U.S. Attorney firings investigation, stating that "Goodling may not refuse to testify, and may not refuse to provide other information, when compelled to do so" before the Committee.
The United States Congress's House Committee on the Judiciary
and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
have oversight authority over Department of Justice
(DOJ). In 2007 the two committees conducted a number of public and closed-door oversight and investigative hearings on the topic of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and DOJ's interactions with the White House and with staff members of the Executive Office of the President. A routine oversight hearing on January 18, 2007 by the Senate committee with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was the first public congressional occasion that Gonzales responded to questions about the dismissed attorneys. Through the winter and spring, appearing in more than eleven public committee hearings were a number of key players in the controversy, past and continuing DOJ officials, dismissed U.S. Attorneys, and others. Some individuals appeared at the invitation of the committees, and some appeared only under the compulsion of committee-issued subpoena. One former DOJ official Monica Goodling
testified in May 2007, only after the grant of a limited "use" immunity, after reserving the right to not incriminate herself. The two committees made public through their web sites thousands of pages of documents and correspondence that had been subpoenaed from the Department of Justice, individuals, and other organizations.
, former top aid to Karl Rove, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She was granted the unusual allowance of having her attorney, Neil Eggleston, next to her at the witness table to advise her on which questions she could answer and remain in accord with Bush's claim of executive privilege
.
(Testimony on Youtube
: 1 • 2 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7)
Throughout Taylor's testimony she refused to answer many questions, saying "I have a very clear letter from [White House counsel] Mr. [Fred] Fielding. That letter says and has asked me to follow the president's assertion of executive privilege."
Chairman Patrick Leahy
(D-VT) dismissed the claims and warned Taylor she was "in danger of drawing a criminal contempt of Congress citation." Senator Ben Cardin
(D-MD) took issue with the claim as well, telling Taylor "You seem to be selective in the use of the presidential privilege. It seems like you're saying that, 'Yes, I'm giving you all the information I can,' when it's self-serving to the White House, but not allowing us to have the information to make independent judgment."
Leahy added "I do note your answer that you did not discuss these matters with the president and, to the best of your knowledge, he was not involved is going to make some nervous at the White House because it seriously undercuts his claim of executive privilege if he was not involved." He also said "It's apparent that this White House is contemptuous of the Congress and feels it does not have to explain itself to anyone, not to the people's representatives in Congress nor to the American people."
In summary, Taylor told the Senate that she "did not talk to or meet with President Bush about removing federal prosecutors before eight of them were fired", she had no knowledge on whether Bush was involved in any way in the firings, her resignation had nothing to do with the controversy, "she did not recall ordering the addition or deletion of names to the list of prosecutors to be fired", and she refuted the testimony of Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
' chief of staff, that she sought "to avoid submitting a new prosecutor, Tim Griffin
, through Senate confirmation."
Harriet Miers, that Miers intended to follow the request of the Bush Administration and not appear before the Committee the following day.
Manning stated Miers "cannot provide the documents and testimony that the committee seeks."
In response to the announcement Committee Chairman John Conyers
(D-MI) and Rep. Linda Sánchez
(D-CA) Chair of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, released a letter saying the decision "could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings." Conyers wrote "I am extremely disappointed in the White House's direction to Ms. Miers that she not even show up to assert the privilege before the Committee. We understand that the White House has asserted privilege over both her testimony and documents, and we are prepared to consider those claims at tomorrow's hearing." Sánchez wrote "It is disappointing that Ms. Miers has chosen to forego this opportunity to give her account of the potential politicization of the justice system.", Sánchez added "Our investigation has shown - through extensive interviews and review of documents - that Ms. Miers played a central role in the Bush Administration's decision to fire chief federal prosecutors. I am hopeful that Ms. Miers will reconsider the White House's questionable assertion of executive privilege and give her testimony on the firing of U.S. Attorneys."
On July 17, 2007 Sanchez and Conyers notified White House Counsel Fred Fielding that they were considering the executive privilege claims concerning a "subpoena issued on June 13 to Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff
, to produce documents." Warning him that "If those objections are overruled, you should be aware that the refusal to produce the documents called for in the subpoena could subject Mr. Bolten to contempt proceedings". The panel then ruled the claims of privilege as invalid on a party-line vote of 7-3.
The White House has consistently refused to provide the sought after documents but has "offered to permit former and current aides to talk with lawmakers behind closed doors -- but without a transcript and not under oath." This offer has been rejected by the Democratic Leadership in the House as unacceptable.
On July 25, 2007 the United States House Committee on the Judiciary
voted along party lines 22-17 to issue citations of Contempt of Congress
to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Committee Republicans voted against the measure calling it "a partisan waste of time", while Democrats said "this is the moment for Congress to rein in the administration." White House Press Secretary
Tony Snow
said of the move "For our view, this is pathetic. What you have right now is partisanship on Capitol Hill that quite often boils down to insults, insinuations, inquisitions and investigations rather than pursuing the normal business of trying to pass major pieces of legislation...now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that's never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege, which hails back to the administration of George Washington
".
Committee Chairman John Conyers
said "Unlike other disputes involving executive privilege, the president has never personally asserted privilege. The committee has never been given a privilege log, and there is no indication the president was ever personally involved in the termination decisions." Having passed the Committee the motion goes to the full House where it is unlikely to receive a vote until after Congress's August recess. If the measure passes the full House, the case would be given to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. "The administration has said it will direct federal prosecutors not to prosecute contempt charges."
On February 14, 2008 the full United States House of Representatives
voted 223-32 to pass the contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
that included the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely redacted
in the DOJ's previous release of documents.
In a letter accompanying the subpoena, Rep. John Conyers
(D
), the chair of the committee, wrote "We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials.... Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs...At this point further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose."
The Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, responded to the subpoena stating that the administration would like "to reach an accommodation with the Congress" but that it might not be possible. "Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned.... Furthermore, many of the documents Congress is now seeking have already been available to them for review. Because there are individual privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate the Congress would choose this option."
Later that day a White House spokesman stated that some of the emails that had involved official correspondence relating to the firing of attorneys may have been lost because they were conducted on Republican party accounts and not stored properly. "Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct." said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman. Stonzel said that they could not rule out the possibility that some of the lost emails dealt with the firing of U.S. attorneys. For example, J. Scott Jennings
, an aide to Karl Rove
communicated with Justice Department officials
"concerning the appointment of Tim Griffin
, a former Rove aide, as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, according to e-mails released in March, 2007. For that exchange, Jennings, although working at the White House, used an e-mail account registered to the Republican National Committee
, where Griffin had worked as a political opposition researcher."
CNN reported a larger question concerning the lost e-mails: "Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are intentionally conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records."
On May 2, 2007, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Attorney General Gonzales compelling the Department of Justice to produce all email from Karl Rove
regarding evaluation and dismissal of attorneys that was sent to DOJ staffers, no matter what email account Rove may have used, whether White House, National Republican party, or other accounts, with a deadline of May 15, 2007 for compliance. The subpoena also demanded relevant email previously produced in the Valarie Plame controversy and investigation for the CIA leak scandal (2003).
In August 2007, Karl Rove resigned without responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena claiming, "I just think it's time to leave." President Bush bid a fond farewell to his good friend and promised to follow him soon.
A number of members of both houses of Congress publicly said Gonzales should resign, or be fired by Bush. On March 14, 2007, Senator John E. Sununu
(R
, New Hampshire
) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for Gonzales' resignation. Sununu cited not only the controversial firings but growing concern over the use of the USA PATRIOT Act
and misuse of national security letters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
. Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19, 2007. By May 16, at least twenty-two Senators and seven Members of the House of Representatives — including Senators Hillary Clinton (D
, New York) and Mark Pryor
(D
, Arkansas
)— had called for Gonzales' resignation.
(See Alberto Gonzales#Calls for resignation for further details.)
On May 24, 2007, Senators Charles Schumer
(D-NY), Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-RI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced the Democrats' proposed no-confidence resolution
to vote on whether "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and the American People." The resolution would have had no legal effect, but was designed to persuade Gonzales to depart or President Bush to seek a new attorney general. A similar resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-CA). On June 11, 2007, the resolution failed when a Senate vote failed to obtain the 60 votes required for cloture
. The vote was 53 for, 38 against with 7 not voting, 1 voting "present", and one vacant senate seat.
University of Missouri
law professor
Frank Bowman observed that Congress has the power to impeach
Gonzales if he willfully lied or withheld information from Congress during his testimony about the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys.
On July 30, 2007, Rep. Jay Inslee
(D-WA) announced that he would introduce a bill that would require the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation against Gonzales.
Gonzales submitted his resignation as Attorney General effective September 17, 2007, by a letter addressed to President Bush on August 26, 2007. In a statement on August 27, Gonzales thanked the President for the opportunity to be of service to his country, giving no indication of either the reasons for his resignation or his future plans. Later that day, President Bush praised Gonzales for his service, reciting the numerous positions in Texas government, and later, the government of the United States, to which Bush had appointed Gonzales. Bush attributed the resignation to Gonzales' name having been "dragged through the mud" for "political reasons". Senators Schumer (D-NY), Feinstein (D-CA) and Specter (R-PA) replied that the resignation was entirely attributable to the excessive politicization of the Attorney General's office by Gonzales, whose credibility with Congress, they asserted, was nonexistent.
On September 17, 2007, President Bush announced the nomination of ex-Judge Michael Mukasey to serve as Gonzales' successor.
Bills to rescind the controversial USA PATRIOT Act provision were approved by very large majorities in the Senate and the House prior to the end of March, 2007. Ultimately S.214 was signed into law by the President on June 14, 2007, designated Public Law No: 110-34.
A bill to amend chapter 35 of title 28, United States Code, to preserve the independence of United States attorneys. (S.214 & H.R.580) THOMAS (Library of Congress). Retrieved May 28, 2007. (Updated as activity occurs on the bill.)
The new law specified that all interim attorneys then in office shall serve terms ending 120 days from the signing of the bill.
In May 2007 there were 22 U.S. attorney positions out of 93 that were not held by a presidentially nominated occupant: either acting (filled by civil service First Assistant U.S. Attorneys), or interim (nearly all appointed by the Attorney General). Only four nominees have been submitted by the administration for the 22 positions, though White House spokesperson Tony Fratto was reported saying that the administration is committed to nominating candidates for all 22 positions. Fratto said the number of new nominees "has nothing to do with recent events. The closer you get toward the end of the second term, you're going to have fewer people."
David Iglesias, the dismissed New Mexico U.S. attorney, said that the administration is in denial if it doesn't believe there are concerns about low office morale, the ability to remain independent or even the odds of being confirmed by a suspicious Senate controlled by the Democrats.
Timothy Griffin
, the interim attorney for Eastern Arkansas, announced in February 2007 that he would not seek a presidential nomination. In early February, Deputy Attorney General McNulty had testified that a vacancy was specifically created for Griffin by dismissing Bud Cummins
.
Griffin said that he did not believe he would get a "fair consideration" from the Senate.
Interim U.S. Attorneys appointed under the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act Re-authorization were not term limited. Timothy Griffin
's continuing term was challenged in court, but Judge G. Thomas Eisele rejected the challenge, finding that Griffin held the position under the USA PATRIOT Act
provision that allowed unlimited-term appointments.
Under the previous law, Griffin's term would have been limited to 120 days, which would have expired in mid-April 2007. Legislation restoring the term limits to interim U.S. Attorneys (S214) also limits the terms of those interim U.S. Attorneys appointed under the Patriot Act Reauthorization to 120 days from the time of enactment of the legislation, which was June 14, 2007.
, to decide whether criminal charges should be brought against Gonzales and other officials involved in the firings. The IG's report contained "substantial evidence" that party politics drove a number of the firings, and IG Glenn Fine said in a statement that Gonzales had "abdicated his responsibility to safeguard the integrity and independence of the department."
The report itself stopped short of resolving questions about higher White House involvement in the matter, because of what it said were the refusal to cooperate of a number of key players, among them Karl Rove
, Senator Pete Domenici
and Harriet Miers and because the White House refused to hand over its documents related to the firings.
On July 21, 2010, Nora Dannehy
, the special prosecutor tasked with investigating the attorney dismissals, concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to establish that persons knowingly made material false statements to [the Office of Inspector General] or Congress or corruptly endeavored to obstruct justice" and that no criminal charges would be filed against Sampson or Gonzales. This decision has been criticized as an indication that the Department of Justice was being too lenient with Bush-era officials.
has the authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys
, with the consent of the United States Senate
, and the President may remove U.S. Attorneys from office.
In the event of a vacancy, the United States Attorney General
is authorized to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney. Before March 9, 2006, such interim appointments expired after 120 days, if a Presidential appointment had not been approved by the Senate. Vacancies that persisted beyond 120 days were filled through interim appointments made by the Federal District Court for the district of the vacant office.
Senate
-confirmed appointments to the Department of Justice
(DOJ) offices, particularly U.S. Attorneys, are political in nature. Appointments to U.S. Attorney positions are often made in consultation with individual senators representing the state with the vacant position, typically with some emphasis in consulting Senators of the same party as the President.
, signed into law March 9, 2006, amended the law for the interim appointment of U.S. Attorneys by deleting two provisions: (a) the 120-day maximum term for the Attorney General's interim appointees, and (b) the subsequent interim appointment authority of Federal District Courts. (See Law references for the text to the statute , and its amendments.) With the revision, an interim appointee can potentially serve indefinitely (though still removable by the President), if the President declines to nominate a U.S. Attorney for a vacancy, or the Senate either fails to act on a Presidential nomination, or rejects a nominee that is different than the interim appointee.
The change was written into the bill by a Judiciary committee staff member of Republican
Senator
Arlen Specter
when the bill was modified in joint conference committee, reconciling the Senate and House versions of the bill.
During Senate hearings on February 6, 2007, Senator Specter stated that Brett Tolman
, a committee staffer, had inserted the clause at the request of behalf of the Department of Justice.
Specter stated that the change in the law had been partly to address separation of powers
concerns expressed by a number of court districts, the issue being the interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys (executive branch) by the courts (judicial branch).
The courts had appointed interim U.S. Attorneys for over a hundred years by then.
The Department of Justice had been seeking a way to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval prior to 2005.
On March 20, 2007, the Senate voted 94-2 to re-instate the 120-day term limit on interim attorneys appointed by the Attorney General.
On March 26, the U.S. House voted to reinstate the 120-day term limit as well, by a vote of 329-78.
The bill was eventually passed in identical form by both houses in May 2007 and was signed into law by the President on June 14, 2007.
A bill to amend chapter 35 of title 28, United States Code, to preserve the independence of United States attorneys. (S.214 & H.R.580) THOMAS (Database), Library of Congress. Retrieved June 15, 2007.
authored the change in the law. He held two positions at the same time, the U.S. Attorney for Montana, and the Acting Associate Attorney General while residing in Washington. D.C. Senator Jon Tester
(D
, Montana
) called for Mercer to resign.
In the summer of 2007, Mercer resigned from his Acting Associate Attorney General office, and withdrew his presidential nomination for the same office, and returned to Montana to his other position, U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana.
A Department of Justice list noted that "in 1981, Reagan's first year in office, 71 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys. In 1993, Clinton's first year, 80 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys." Similarly, a Senate study noted that "Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years."
In contrast to the 2006 dismissals, Presidents rarely dismiss U.S. attorneys they appoint. Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice, noted in a January 9, 2006, e-mail to Harriet Miers: "In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan
and Clinton
did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys they had appointed, but instead permitted such U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision" (underlining original).
There is no precedent for a President to dismiss several U.S attorneys at one time while in the middle period of the presidential term in office.
The few examples of forced dismissals available are based on misconduct. The Congressional Research Service
investigated the precedent of dismissing U.S. Attorneys over the 25 years 1981-2006 and identified 54 attorneys who did not serve their full 4-year term. Of these, only two were documented involuntary dismissals: William Kennedy in 1982 and J. William Petro in 1984. Both were Reagan appointees. Kennedy was dismissed for "for asserting that the CIA had pressured DOJ to pressure him not to pursue a case", and Petro was dismissed for "disclosing information about an indictment."
However, all of the U.S. Attorneys dismissed in 2006 were in office longer than four years, and appointments lasting into a President's second term were beyond the scope of the study.
Before 1981, President Carter
replaced U.S. Attorney David Marston at the request of Democratic Representative Joshua Eilberg
. Marston had been investigating corruption charges against Eilberg and Daniel Flood, another Democratic Representative.
The probe continued after the attorney was replaced, however, and Eilberg lost his 1978 reelection bid. Eilberg was eventually sentenced to five years probation and a $10,000 fine,
and Flood was censured for bribery by 96th United States Congress
.
Statute, prior to March 9, 2006 USA PATRIOT ACT Re-authorization Act's amendments, and after June 14, 2007, when S.214 was signed into law
USA PATRIOT Act
reauthorization
Statute from March 9, 2006 through June 14, 2007
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
s on December 7, 2006 by the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters.
The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
reauthorization.
The dismissed U.S. Attorneys had all been appointed by President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and confirmed by the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, more than four years earlier.
Two other attorneys were dismissed in controversial circumstances in 2005-2006. Twenty-six or more U.S. Attorneys had been under consideration for dismissal during this time period.
The firings received attention via hearings in Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in January 2007, and by March 2007 the controversy had national visibility. Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
stated that the U.S. Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" and described the affair as "an overblown personnel matter."
By mid-September 2007, nine of the highest-level officers of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned,
most prominently, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
A subsequent report by the Justice Department Inspector General in October 2008 found that the process used to fire the first seven attorneys and two others dismissed around the same time was "arbitrary", "fundamentally flawed", and "raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecution decisions." In July 2010, the Department of Justice prosecutors closed the two-year investigation without filing charges after determining that the firing was inappropriately political, but not criminal, saying "Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias. The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias."
Issues in brief
The U.S. Attorneys controversy touches upon a wide range of issues. The U.S. Attorneys, in their pursuit of justice, wield enormous power. Their political impartiality in deciding which cases to prosecute and in arguing those cases before judges and juries with diverse views is essential. The scandal pitted Congress against the Bush White House, generating a series of constitutionalUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
issues. As the controversy unfolded, it led to other controversies, notably the politicization of hiring at the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bush White House e-mail controversy
Bush White House e-mail controversy
The Bush White House email controversy surfaced in 2007, during the controversy involving the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S...
, and the alleged politically-motivated prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys in several states.
The following sections briefly summarize aspects of the controversy. More thorough analyses are further below, or in the related articles.
Changed interim appointment law in 2006
As the controversy emerged, U.S. Senators were concerned about a little-noticed provision in the re-authorization of the USA PATRIOT ActUSA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
in 2006 which eliminated the 120-day term limit on interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys made by the United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
to fill vacancies. The law permitted the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without a term limit in office, and avoid a confirming vote by the Senate. The change gave the Attorney General greater appointment powers than the President, since the President's U.S. Attorney appointees are required to be confirmed by the Senate; the law undermined the confirmation authority of the Senate.
The U.S. Senate was concerned that, in dismissing the U.S. Attorneys, the administration planned to fill the vacancies with its own choices, thus bypassing not only the Senate confirmation, but also the traditional consultation with Senators in the selection process.
Congress rescinded the provision by very large majorities in March 2007.
Administration rationale unclear
The reasons for the dismissal of each individual U.S. Attorney were unclear. Two suggested motivations were that the administration wanted to make room for U.S. Attorneys that were more sympathetic to the administration's political agenda, and the administration wanted to advance the careers of promising conservatives.Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
ic politicians, for failing to prosecute claims of election fraud that would hamper Democratic voter registration, as retribution for prosecuting Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
politicians, or for failing to pursue adult obscenity prosecutions.
The administration and its supporters said that the attorneys were dismissed for job-performance reasons "related to policy, priorities and management", and that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. However, at least six attorneys had recently received positive evaluations of their performance from the Department of Justice.
In September 2008, the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation concluded that the dismissals were politically motivated and improper.
Administration testimony contradicted by documents
Members of Congress investigating the dismissals found that sworn testimonySworn testimony
Sworn testimony is evidence given by a witness who has made a commitment to tell the truth. If the witness is later found to have lied whilst bound by the commitment, they can often be charged with the crime of perjury. The types of commitment can include oaths, affirmations and promises which are...
from Department of Justice officials appeared to be contradicted by internal Department memoranda and e-mail, and that possibly Congress was deliberately misled. The White House role in the dismissals remained unclear despite hours of testimony by Attorney General Gonzales and senior Department of Justice staff in congressional committee hearings.
The Bush administration issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings.
The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear.
In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress.
Politicization of hiring at the Department of Justice
Attorney General Gonzales, in a confidential order dated March 1, 2006 not published in the Federal Register, formally delegated authority to senior DOJ staff Monica GoodlingMonica Goodling
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
and Kyle Sampson
Kyle Sampson
D. Kyle Sampson was the Chief of Staff and Counselor of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He resigned on March 12, 2007, amid the controversy surrounding the firing of eight United States Attorneys in 2006 and was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in July 2010...
to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions.
On May 2, 2007, the Department of Justice announced two separate investigations into hirings conducted by Goodling: one by the department's Inspector General, and a second by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, on May 23, 2007, Goodling stated that she had "crossed the line" and broke civil service laws regulating hiring for civil service positions, and had improperly weighed political factors in assessing applicants.
According to a January 2009 Justice Department report, investigators found that Bradley Schlozman
Bradley Schlozman
Bradley J. Schlozman is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Schlozman was also later appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri,...
, as interim head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, "favored applicants with conservative political or ideological affiliations and disfavored applicants with civil rights or human rights experience whom he considered to be overly liberal." The positions under consideration were not political, but career, for which the political and ideological views of candidates are not to be considered, according to federal law and guidelines.
In a May 30, 2007 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General
United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General
The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice is the Office of the Inspector General specific to the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for conducting nearly all of the investigations of DOJ employees and programs. The present Inspector General is Glenn A...
and Counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility
Office of Professional Responsibility
The Office of Professional Responsibility is part of the United States Department of Justice responsible for investigating attorneys employed by the DOJ who have been accused of misconduct or crimes in their professional functions...
confirmed that they were expanding their investigation beyond "the removals of United States Attorneys" to also include "DOJ hiring and personnel decisions" by Monica Goodling
Monica Goodling
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
and other Justice Department employees.
Dismissed attorneys and elections
The controversy surrounding the U.S. Attorneys dismissals was often linked to elections or voter-fraud issues. Allegations were that some of the U.S. Attorneys were dismissed for failing to instigate investigations damaging to Democratic politicians, or for failing to more aggressively pursue voter-fraud cases.Such allegations were made by some of the dismissed U.S. Attorneys themselves to suggest reasons they may have been dismissed.
The background to the allegations is the recent tendency for elections in parts of the United States to be very close; an election outcome can be affected by a mere announced investigation of a politician. Indeed, it is explicit policy of the Department of Justice to avoid bringing voter-related cases during an election for this reason. The pursuit of voter fraud cases was an acknowledged political strategy of the Republican Party by 2006.
The use of U.S. Attorneys for partisan purposes is highly improper, particularly given the strong non-partisan traditions of the U.S. Attorneys.
In September 2008, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice concluded that some of the dismissals were motivated by the refusal of some of the U.S. Attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases during the 2006 election cycle.
Fallout
By April 2007, the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice, the influence of politics on the appointment of some of the U.S. Attorneys, and the alleged politically-motivated prosecutions by some of the U.S. Attorneys began to affect cases of public corruption and voter fraud nationwide. According to the National Law Journal, "Just the appearance of political influence in cases related to those firings, combined with the recent, unusual reversal of a federal public corruption conviction in WisconsinGeorgia Thompson
Georgia L. Thompson is a current Wisconsin civil servant who was convicted of federal corruption charges in 2006, but released by an appeals court in 2007 when her conviction was overturned....
By mid-September 2007, nine senior staff of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned.
The most prominent resignations include:
- Attorney General Alberto GonzalesAlberto GonzalesAlberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
- Deputy Attorney GeneralUnited States Deputy Attorney GeneralUnited States Deputy Attorney General is the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. In the United States federal government, the Deputy Attorney General oversees the day-to-day operation of the Department of Justice, and may act as Attorney General during the...
Paul McNultyPaul McNultyPaul J. McNulty is the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, having previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He held the position until July 26, 2007....
; - Acting Associate Attorney GeneralUnited States Associate Attorney GeneralThe Associate Attorney General is the third-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. The Associate Attorney General advises and assists the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General in policies relating to civil justice, federal and local law enforcement, and public...
William W. MercerWilliam W. MercerWilliam W. Mercer is a United States Attorney for the District of Montana, as well as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice. In September 2006, Mercer was nominated by George W...
resigned from the acting office prior to Senate confirmation hearings for the same position, and returned to his post as U.S. Attorney for Montana (he held dual positions); - Chief of staffChief of StaffThe title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
for the Attorney General Kyle SampsonKyle SampsonD. Kyle Sampson was the Chief of Staff and Counselor of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He resigned on March 12, 2007, amid the controversy surrounding the firing of eight United States Attorneys in 2006 and was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in July 2010... - Chief of Staff for the Deputy Attorney General Michael ElstonMichael ElstonMichael Elston , is a United States lawyer.He is currently the Chief Counsel for Appellate & Commercial Litigation in the Office of the General Counsel, United States Postal Service, in Washington, D.C. From November 2005 to June 2007, he was a political appointee in the administration of...
; - Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA) Michael A. BattleMichael A. BattleFor the theologian and academic see Michael J. Battle.Michael A. Battle was the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys at the United States Department of Justice until he resigned, effective March 16, 2007. He was the person who informed seven United States Attorneys on...
; - the subsequently appointed Director to the EOUSA, Bradley SchlozmanBradley SchlozmanBradley J. Schlozman is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Schlozman was also later appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri,...
, also the former acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights DivisionUnited States Department of Justice Civil Rights DivisionThe U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is the institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. The Division was established on December 9, 1957, by...
; - the Department of Justice's White House Liaison Monica GoodlingMonica GoodlingMonica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
In June 2008, a grand jury was empaneled to consider criminal indictments against officials involved in the firings. The grand jury was presented evidence from ongoing investigations at the Department of Justice Inspector General's office and at the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.
Replacement of the U.S. Attorneys
Initial planning
On January 6, 2005 Colin Newman, an assistant in the White House counsels office, wrote to David Leitch stating, "Karl Rove stopped by to ask you (roughly quoting) 'how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them or selectively replace them, etc.'". The email was then forwarded to Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.In reply, Kyle Sampson, then Department of Justice counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...
, wrote that it would be "weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term", that they "would like to replace 15–20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys" and that the rest "are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc."
The White House at one time suggested that the plan for dismissals came from White House counsel Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
, who left the White House in January 2007 before the dismissal received public attention.
Kyle Sampson
In February 2005, Sampson became Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
.
In March 2005, Sampson "came up with a checklist. He rated each of the U.S. Attorneys with criteria that appeared to value political allegiance as much as job performance. He recommended retaining 'strong U.S. Attorneys who have... exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General.' He suggested 'removing weak U.S. Attorneys who have... chafed against Administration initiatives'".
In September 2005, Sampson became Gonzales's Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice.
Sampson wrote in January 2006 to Miers that he recommended that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys, and that by limiting the number of attorneys "targeted for removal and replacement" it would "mitigat[e] the shock to the system that would result from an across-the-board firing."
On February 12, 2006, Monica Goodling
Monica Goodling
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
sent a spreadsheet of each U.S. Attorney's political activities and memberships in conservative political groups, in an email to senior Administration officials, with the comment "This is the chart that the AG requested".
(In late February 2006, the White House and the Senate had a minor dispute over the nomination of a U.S. Attorney to Utah. The White House favored Kyle Sampson for the position, while Senator Hatch
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch is the senior United States Senator for Utah and is a member of the Republican Party. Hatch served as the chairman or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005...
(R
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
) favored Brett Tolman
Brett Tolman
Brett Tolman was the United States Attorney for the District of Utah from July 2006 to December 2009. Before becoming U.S. Attorney, Tolman worked as counsel in the Senate Judiciary Committee for committee chairs Orrin Hatch and then Arlen Specter during the 109th United States Congress...
. Tolman, who had been instrumental in changing the legislation within the USA PATRIOT Act governing the appointment of U.S. Attorneys, was eventually nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate.)
Sampson strongly urged using changes to the law governing U.S. Attorney appointments to bypass Congressional confirmation, writing in a September 17, 2006 memo to Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
: "I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed...It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately...I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments...[By avoiding Senate confirmation] we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House."
Implementing the plan
In October 2006, George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
told Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
that he had received complaints that some of the U.S. Attorneys had not pursued certain voter-fraud investigations.
The complaints came from Republican officials, who demanded fraud investigations into a number of Democratic campaigns. The 2006 United States general election was forthcoming (November) and Republicans were concerned about losing Congressional seats to Democrats. (The election in fact did overturn Congressional control to the Democratic Party.)
Furthermore, "The documents show that in one case, officials were eager to free up the prosecutor's slot in Little Rock, Ark., so it could be filled by Timothy Griffin, a GOP operative close to White House political guru Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
— at all costs."
According to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, "Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House."
On November 21, 2006, Sampson sent an e-mail
to an assistant in the Attorney General's office, scheduling a meeting in Gonzales' conference room with senior Justice Department advisors to discuss "U.S. Attorney Appointments." Those asked to be scheduled in the meeting included Gonzales, Sampson, Monica Goodling
Monica Goodling
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
Paul McNulty
Paul J. McNulty is the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, having previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He held the position until July 26, 2007....
, Associated Deputy A.G. William Moschella, Michael Elston
Michael Elston
Michael Elston , is a United States lawyer.He is currently the Chief Counsel for Appellate & Commercial Litigation in the Office of the General Counsel, United States Postal Service, in Washington, D.C. From November 2005 to June 2007, he was a political appointee in the administration of...
, and Michael Battle
Michael A. Battle
For the theologian and academic see Michael J. Battle.Michael A. Battle was the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys at the United States Department of Justice until he resigned, effective March 16, 2007. He was the person who informed seven United States Attorneys on...
. On November 27, 2006, Gonzales met with senior advisors to discuss the plan.
The Justice Department did not receive White House approval for the firings until early December. As late as December 2, Sampson had written to Michael Elston
Michael Elston
Michael Elston , is a United States lawyer.He is currently the Chief Counsel for Appellate & Commercial Litigation in the Office of the General Counsel, United States Postal Service, in Washington, D.C. From November 2005 to June 2007, he was a political appointee in the administration of...
that the Justice department was "[s]till waiting for green light from White House" with regards to the firing. Deputy White House counsel William K. Kelley
William K. Kelley
William K. Kelley served as Deputy Counsel to United States President George W. Bush. He worked as a deputy to White House Counsel Harriet Miers prior to her departure from the White House, and Counsel Fred Fielding, who succeeded Miers....
responded on December 4, 2006, stating that "We're a go for the U.S. Atty plan... [the White House office of legislative affairs], political, communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes."
On December 7, 2006, Justice Department official Michael A. Battle
Michael A. Battle
For the theologian and academic see Michael J. Battle.Michael A. Battle was the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys at the United States Department of Justice until he resigned, effective March 16, 2007. He was the person who informed seven United States Attorneys on...
informed seven U.S. Attorneys that they were being dismissed.
Although seven attorneys were dismissed on December 7, 2006, subsequent disclosures show that three or more additional attorneys were dismissed under similar circumstances between 2005-2006. U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins
Bud Cummins
Harry Earnest "Bud" Cummins III is a former United States Attorney of five years in the Eastern District of Arkansas.-Career:...
in Arkansas had been informed in June 2006 that he was to be replaced, and he resigned, effective December 20, 2006, several days after the public announcement of the appointment of his successor Timothy Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
.
David Iglesias
David Iglesias (attorney)
David Claudio Iglesias is an American attorney from Albuquerque, New Mexico.He was appointed by President George W. Bush as the United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico in August 2001 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in October 2001. He served for 6 years. He was one of eight U.S...
(R) believes he was removed from office at the behest of two NM Republican congressmen when he refused to prosecute state Democratic senators before the November 2006 election.
Kevin Ryan
Kevin V. Ryan
Kevin V. Ryan is the founding principal of The Law Offices of Kevin V. Ryan and an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law....
(R) Though described as "loyal to the Bush administration" he was allegedly fired for the possible controversy that negative job performance evaluations might cause if they were released.
John McKay
John McKay (attorney)
John Larkin McKay is a former United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington.John Larkin McKay, a member of a prominent Republican family in the state, attended the University of Washington, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1978...
(R) Was given a positive job evaluation just 7 months before he was fired. After a close WA governor's race resulted in a Democratic victory local Republicans criticized McKay for not investigating allegations of voter fraud.
Paul K. Charlton
Paul K. Charlton
Paul K. Charlton is a former United States Attorney and currently a partner at the Phoenix, Ariz., law firm Gallagher & Kennedy.Charlton primarily represents corporations and public officials seeking to interface with federal and state law enforcement officials...
(R) Was given a positive job performance evaluation before he was dismissed. He may have been fired because he had started a corruption investigation about Rick Renzi
Rick Renzi
Richard George "Rick" Renzi is a former American politician and was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing . Renzi has pending Federal criminal charges against him for his involvement in a land-swap deal. On April 19, 2007, the FBI raided his family...
(R) AR.
Carol Lam
Carol Lam
Carol Chien-Hua Lam is a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of California. Lam was sworn into office on an interim basis on September 4, 2002. On November 12, 2002, Lam was further sworn in as a Senate confirmed Presidential appointee. She oversaw the Rep. Randy "Duke"...
(R) No reason was given or suggested for her dismissal.
Daniel Bogden
Daniel Bogden
Daniel G. Bogden is best known for serving as United States Attorney for the District of Nevada, and being part of the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy....
(R) was dismissed after 17 years because of a vague sense that a "stronger leader" was needed. His loyalty to President Bush was also questioned by Kyle Sampson
Kyle Sampson
D. Kyle Sampson was the Chief of Staff and Counselor of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He resigned on March 12, 2007, amid the controversy surrounding the firing of eight United States Attorneys in 2006 and was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in July 2010...
Margaret Chiara
Margaret Chiara
Margaret M. Chiara is most notable for serving as United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, from 2001 until she was dismissed in the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy; her forced resignation was effective March 16, 2007. She was Michigan’s first female U.S. attorneyChiara...
(R) Was given a positive job evaluation in 2005 and told she was being removed to "make way" for another individual.
Todd Graves
Todd Graves
This article is about the U.S. Attorney. For the entrepreneur/restaurateur, see Todd Graves .Todd Graves was United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. He took his oath of office on September 17, 2001, initially as an interim United States attorney appointed by the U.S...
(R) had been pressed to bring a civil suit against Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, (D) for allegedly failing to crack down on voting fraud.
Bud Cummins
Bud Cummins
Harry Earnest "Bud" Cummins III is a former United States Attorney of five years in the Eastern District of Arkansas.-Career:...
allegedly was asked to leave so Timothy Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
an aid to Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
could have his job.
Thomas M. DiBiagio
Thomas M. DiBiagio
Thomas M. DiBiagio is a former United States Attorney in the state of Maryland. After eight U.S. attorneys were fired by the Bush administration in 2006 for performance-related issues under a clause of the PATRIOT Act Thomas M. DiBiagio is a former United States Attorney in the state of Maryland....
(R) believes he was asked to step down for his corruption investigations into the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R)
Reactions and congressional investigation
January 2007: Initial reaction
The initial reaction was from the senators of the affected states. The U.S. Senate convened for the 110th Congress110th United States Congress
The One Hundred Tenth United States Congress was the meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the second term of President George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of...
on January 4 with its new Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
majority. The Senate Judiciary Committee has oversight over the U.S. Attorneys
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
. In a letter to Gonzales on January 9, 2007 Senators Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
) and Leahy
Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,...
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
; Chair of the Committee) of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern that the confirmation process for U.S. attorneys would be bypassed, and on January 11, they, together with Senator Pryor
Mark Pryor
Mark Lunsford Pryor is the senior United States Senator from Arkansas, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party and former Attorney General of Arkansas....
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
), introduced legislation "to prevent circumvention of the Senate's constitutional prerogative to confirm U.S. Attorneys", called Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, and . Feinstein issued a press release about the bill.
The initial concern was about the USA PATRIOT Act and the confirmation process, rather than the politicization of the U.S. Attorneys that later dominated the controversy.
The earliest reporting of this affair was by Josh Marshall
Josh Marshall
Joshua Micah Marshall is an American Polk Award-winning journalist who founded Talking Points Memo, which The New York Times Magazine called "one of the most popular and most respected sites" in the blogosphere...
and his associates on Marshall's TalkingPointsMemo
Talking Points Memo
Talking Points Memo is a web-based political journalism organization created and run by Josh Marshall, journalist and historian covering issues from a "politically left perspective,". It debuted on November 12, 2000...
blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
.
Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18. He assured the committee that he did not intend to bypass the confirmation process and denied the firings were politically motivated.
On January 18, 2007, in an opinion piece for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jane Ann Morrison reported that "A GOP source [had indicated] that the decision to remove U.S. attorneys, primarily in the West, was part of a plan to 'give somebody else that experience' to build up the back bench of Republicans by giving them high-profile jobs."
Marisa Taylor, writing for McClatchey Newspapers
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...
noted that, "The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors. The nine recent appointees identified [as replacements] held high-level White House or Justice Department jobs, and most of them were handpicked by Gonzales..." "Being named a U.S. attorney 'has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration,' said Laurie Levenson
Laurie Levenson
Laurie L. Levenson is the William M. Rains Fellow and Director of the Center for Ethical Advocacy at Loyola Law School. She has written books on California criminal law and is a frequent television commentator on criminal legal issues, first coming to fame as a frequent commentator for CBS in the...
, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at the Loyola Law School
Loyola Law School
Loyola Law School is the law school of Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions, in Los Angeles, California. Loyola was established in 1920. Like Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law , it...
in Los Angeles."
February 2007: The controversy grows
The concerns expressed by Senators Feinstein and Pryor were followed up by hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee called by Senator Schumer (DDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, New York) in February.
Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
Paul McNulty
Paul J. McNulty is the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, having previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He held the position until July 26, 2007....
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6. He underscored that the seven were fired for job performance issues, and not political considerations. In subsequent closed-door testimony on April 27, 2007 to the committee, McNulty said that days after the February hearing, he learned that White House officials had not revealed to him White House influence and discussions on creating the list.
McNulty in February called Senator Schumer by telephone to apologize for the inaccurate characterization of the firings.
At least six of the seven had recently received outstanding job performance ratings. McNulty testified that Bud Cummins
Bud Cummins
Harry Earnest "Bud" Cummins III is a former United States Attorney of five years in the Eastern District of Arkansas.-Career:...
, the U.S. Attorney for Arkansas, was removed to install a former aide to Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
and Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
opposition research director, the 37-year-old Timothy Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
.
Cummins, apparently, "was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of Griffin."
However, McNulty's testimony that the attorneys were fired for "performance related issues" caused the attorneys to come forward in protest.
Indeed, there is some evidence that the administration was concerned about the attorneys going public with complaints prior to this time.
Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
reported: "at least three of the eight fired attorneys were told by a superior they were being forced to resign to make jobs available for other Bush appointees, according to a former senior Justice Department official knowledgeable about their cases."
The proceedings were politically charged. At one point Senator Schumer was criticized by Senator Specter
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009...
(R
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
), also on the Judiciary Committee, for having a conflict of interest by being a lead investigator of the affair while also chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is the Democratic Hill committee for the United States Senate. It is the only organization solely dedicated to electing Democrats to the United States Senate. The DSCC's current chair is Sen. Patty Murray, who succeeded Sen. Robert Menendez following...
; such criticism was short-lived.
Battle resignation
On March 5, 2007 effective March 16, Michael A. BattleMichael A. Battle
For the theologian and academic see Michael J. Battle.Michael A. Battle was the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys at the United States Department of Justice until he resigned, effective March 16, 2007. He was the person who informed seven United States Attorneys on...
resigned his position of Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA).
On March 6, 2007, Gonzales responded to the controversy in an op-ed in USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
in which he said, "To be clear, [the firing] was for reasons related to policy, priorities and management — what have been referred to broadly as "performance-related" reasons — that seven U.S. attorneys were asked to resign last December.... We have never asked a U.S. attorney to resign in an effort to retaliate against him or her or to inappropriately interfere with a public corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
case (or any other type of case, for that matter). Like me, U.S. attorneys are political appointees, and we all serve at the pleasure of the president. If U.S. attorneys are not executing their responsibilities in a manner that furthers the management and policy goals of departmental leadership, it is appropriate that they be replaced...While I am grateful for the public service of these seven U.S. attorneys, they simply lost my confidence. I hope that this episode ultimately will be recognized for what it is: an overblown personnel matter."
Sampson resignation
On March 12, 2007, Sampson resigned from the Department of Justice.On March 13, Gonzales stated in a news conference that he accepted responsibility for mistakes made in the dismissal and rejected calls for his resignation that Democratic members of Congress had been making. He also stood by his decision to dismiss the attorneys, saying "I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision."
Gonzales admitted that "incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to Congress" by Justice Department officials, and said that "I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood."
Gonzales lost more support when records subsequently challenged some of these statements. Although the Department of Justice released 3,000 pages of its internal communications related to this issue, none of those documents discussed anything related to a performance review process for these attorneys before they were fired.
Records released on March 23 showed that on his November 27 schedule "he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge
Purge
In history, religion, and political science, a purge is the removal of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, from another organization, or from society as a whole. Purges can be peaceful or violent; many will end with the imprisonment or exile of those purged,...
."
Executive Privilege claims
Senate Judiciary CommitteeUnited States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
Chairman Patrick Leahy
Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,...
stated that Congress has the authority to subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
Justice Department and White House officials including chief political advisor to the president Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. On March 20, President Bush declared in a press conference that his aides would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
ed by Congress. Bush explained his position saying "The President relies upon his staff to provide him candid advice. The framers of the Constitution understood this vital role when developing the separate branches of government. And if the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.... I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials.... My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for Presidents to get good decisions."
Despite the President's position against aides testifying, on March 21 the House Judiciary Committee authorized the subpoena of five Justice Department officials,
and on March 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas as well.
Goodling resignation
Sampson's replacement as the Attorney General's temporary chief of staff was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg. Rosenberg initiated a DOJ inquiry into possibly inappropriate political considerations in Monica Goodling's hiring practices for civil service staff. Civil service positions are not political appointments and must be made on a nonpartisan basis. In one example, Jeffrey A. TaylorJeffrey A. Taylor
Jeffrey A. Taylor is the former interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.-Career:Prior to his work in Washington, DC, Jeffrey Taylor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1995–1999. From 1999 to 2002, Mr...
, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to hire a new career prosecutor, Seth Adam Meinero, in the fall of 2006. Goodling judged Meinero too "liberal" and declined to approve the hire. Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency, was serving as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office. Taylor went around Goodling, and demanded Sampson's approval to make the hire. In another example,
Goodling removed an attorney from her job at the Department of Justice because she was rumored to be a lesbian, and, further, blocked the attorney from getting other Justice Department jobs she was qualified for.
Rules concerning hiring at the Justice department forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.
On March 26, 2007, Goodling, who had helped coordinate the dismissal of the attorneys with the White House,
took leave from her job as counsel to the attorney general and as the Justice Department's liaison to the White House.
Goodling was set to testify before Congress, but on March 26, 2007, Goodling cancelled her appearance at the Congressional hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
right against self-incrimination.
On April 6, 2007, Ms. Goodling resigned from the Department of Justice,
stating in her three-sentence resignation letter to Mr. Gonzales, "May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America."
On April 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee
United States House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
passed a resolution,
by a 32-6 vote, authorizing lawyers for the House to apply for a court order granting Goodling immunity in exchange for her testimony and authorizing a subpoena for her.
On May 11, 2007 U.S. District Court Chief Judge Thomas Hogan signed an order granting Goodling immunity in exchange for her truthful testimony in the U.S. Attorney firings investigation, stating that "Goodling may not refuse to testify, and may not refuse to provide other information, when compelled to do so" before the Committee.
Congressional hearings
- See: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy documentsDismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy documentsThe various documents obtained by request or subpoena during dismissal of U.S attorneys controversy by both the United States House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary, originally produced by the Department of Justice or White House have been made available to the public and press via the two...
for released documents and hearings transcripts
The United States Congress's House Committee on the Judiciary
United States House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
have oversight authority over Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
(DOJ). In 2007 the two committees conducted a number of public and closed-door oversight and investigative hearings on the topic of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and DOJ's interactions with the White House and with staff members of the Executive Office of the President. A routine oversight hearing on January 18, 2007 by the Senate committee with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was the first public congressional occasion that Gonzales responded to questions about the dismissed attorneys. Through the winter and spring, appearing in more than eleven public committee hearings were a number of key players in the controversy, past and continuing DOJ officials, dismissed U.S. Attorneys, and others. Some individuals appeared at the invitation of the committees, and some appeared only under the compulsion of committee-issued subpoena. One former DOJ official Monica Goodling
Monica Goodling
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who became known in 2007 in the midst of a political controversy surrounding the firings of several United States Attorneys...
testified in May 2007, only after the grant of a limited "use" immunity, after reserving the right to not incriminate herself. The two committees made public through their web sites thousands of pages of documents and correspondence that had been subpoenaed from the Department of Justice, individuals, and other organizations.
Testimony of Sara Taylor: Claims of executive privilege
On July 11, 2007, Sara TaylorSara Taylor
Sara Marie Taylor is a public relations consultant who was the Director of the White House Office of Political Affairs and Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush from February 2005 to May 30, 2007. A Republican campaign strategist, field operator, pollster, she was one of George W. Bush's...
, former top aid to Karl Rove, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She was granted the unusual allowance of having her attorney, Neil Eggleston, next to her at the witness table to advise her on which questions she could answer and remain in accord with Bush's claim of executive privilege
Executive privilege
In the United States government, executive privilege is the power claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government...
.
(Testimony on Youtube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
: 1 • 2 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7)
Throughout Taylor's testimony she refused to answer many questions, saying "I have a very clear letter from [White House counsel] Mr. [Fred] Fielding. That letter says and has asked me to follow the president's assertion of executive privilege."
Chairman Patrick Leahy
Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,...
(D-VT) dismissed the claims and warned Taylor she was "in danger of drawing a criminal contempt of Congress citation." Senator Ben Cardin
Ben Cardin
Benjamin Louis "Ben" Cardin is the junior United States Senator from Maryland and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the Senate, Cardin was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing from 1987 to 2007.Cardin was elected to succeed Paul Sarbanes in...
(D-MD) took issue with the claim as well, telling Taylor "You seem to be selective in the use of the presidential privilege. It seems like you're saying that, 'Yes, I'm giving you all the information I can,' when it's self-serving to the White House, but not allowing us to have the information to make independent judgment."
Leahy added "I do note your answer that you did not discuss these matters with the president and, to the best of your knowledge, he was not involved is going to make some nervous at the White House because it seriously undercuts his claim of executive privilege if he was not involved." He also said "It's apparent that this White House is contemptuous of the Congress and feels it does not have to explain itself to anyone, not to the people's representatives in Congress nor to the American people."
In summary, Taylor told the Senate that she "did not talk to or meet with President Bush about removing federal prosecutors before eight of them were fired", she had no knowledge on whether Bush was involved in any way in the firings, her resignation had nothing to do with the controversy, "she did not recall ordering the addition or deletion of names to the list of prosecutors to be fired", and she refuted the testimony of Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
' chief of staff, that she sought "to avoid submitting a new prosecutor, Tim Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
, through Senate confirmation."
Contempt of Congress charges
On July 11, 2007, as Sara Taylor testified, it was announced by George Manning, the attorney to former White House CounselWhite House Counsel
The White House Counsel is a staff appointee of the President of the United States.-Role:The Counsel's role is to advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and the White House...
Harriet Miers, that Miers intended to follow the request of the Bush Administration and not appear before the Committee the following day.
Manning stated Miers "cannot provide the documents and testimony that the committee seeks."
In response to the announcement Committee Chairman John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(D-MI) and Rep. Linda Sánchez
Linda Sánchez
Linda T. Sánchez is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. She is a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life, education and career:...
(D-CA) Chair of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, released a letter saying the decision "could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings." Conyers wrote "I am extremely disappointed in the White House's direction to Ms. Miers that she not even show up to assert the privilege before the Committee. We understand that the White House has asserted privilege over both her testimony and documents, and we are prepared to consider those claims at tomorrow's hearing." Sánchez wrote "It is disappointing that Ms. Miers has chosen to forego this opportunity to give her account of the potential politicization of the justice system.", Sánchez added "Our investigation has shown - through extensive interviews and review of documents - that Ms. Miers played a central role in the Bush Administration's decision to fire chief federal prosecutors. I am hopeful that Ms. Miers will reconsider the White House's questionable assertion of executive privilege and give her testimony on the firing of U.S. Attorneys."
On July 17, 2007 Sanchez and Conyers notified White House Counsel Fred Fielding that they were considering the executive privilege claims concerning a "subpoena issued on June 13 to Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff
White House Chief of Staff
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
, to produce documents." Warning him that "If those objections are overruled, you should be aware that the refusal to produce the documents called for in the subpoena could subject Mr. Bolten to contempt proceedings". The panel then ruled the claims of privilege as invalid on a party-line vote of 7-3.
The White House has consistently refused to provide the sought after documents but has "offered to permit former and current aides to talk with lawmakers behind closed doors -- but without a transcript and not under oath." This offer has been rejected by the Democratic Leadership in the House as unacceptable.
On July 25, 2007 the United States House Committee on the Judiciary
United States House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
voted along party lines 22-17 to issue citations of Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Committee Republicans voted against the measure calling it "a partisan waste of time", while Democrats said "this is the moment for Congress to rein in the administration." White House Press Secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
Tony Snow
Tony Snow
Robert Anthony "Tony" Snow was an American journalist, political commentator, television news anchor, syndicated columnist, radio host, musician, and the third White House Press Secretary under President George W. Bush. Snow also worked for President George H. W. Bush as chief speechwriter and...
said of the move "For our view, this is pathetic. What you have right now is partisanship on Capitol Hill that quite often boils down to insults, insinuations, inquisitions and investigations rather than pursuing the normal business of trying to pass major pieces of legislation...now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that's never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege, which hails back to the administration of George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
".
Committee Chairman John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
said "Unlike other disputes involving executive privilege, the president has never personally asserted privilege. The committee has never been given a privilege log, and there is no indication the president was ever personally involved in the termination decisions." Having passed the Committee the motion goes to the full House where it is unlikely to receive a vote until after Congress's August recess. If the measure passes the full House, the case would be given to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. "The administration has said it will direct federal prosecutors not to prosecute contempt charges."
On February 14, 2008 the full United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
voted 223-32 to pass the contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Subpoenas and lost emails
On April 10, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for documents from GonzalesAlberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
that included the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely redacted
Redaction
Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent work...
in the DOJ's previous release of documents.
In a letter accompanying the subpoena, Rep. John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
), the chair of the committee, wrote "We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials.... Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs...At this point further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose."
The Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, responded to the subpoena stating that the administration would like "to reach an accommodation with the Congress" but that it might not be possible. "Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned.... Furthermore, many of the documents Congress is now seeking have already been available to them for review. Because there are individual privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate the Congress would choose this option."
Later that day a White House spokesman stated that some of the emails that had involved official correspondence relating to the firing of attorneys may have been lost because they were conducted on Republican party accounts and not stored properly. "Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct." said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman. Stonzel said that they could not rule out the possibility that some of the lost emails dealt with the firing of U.S. attorneys. For example, J. Scott Jennings
J. Scott Jennings
Jeffery Scott Jennings , a United States political appointee in the administration of George W. Bush. The president appointed Jennings to the position of Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs on October 17, 2005...
, an aide to Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
communicated with Justice Department officials
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
"concerning the appointment of Tim Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
, a former Rove aide, as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, according to e-mails released in March, 2007. For that exchange, Jennings, although working at the White House, used an e-mail account registered to the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
, where Griffin had worked as a political opposition researcher."
CNN reported a larger question concerning the lost e-mails: "Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are intentionally conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records."
On May 2, 2007, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Attorney General Gonzales compelling the Department of Justice to produce all email from Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
regarding evaluation and dismissal of attorneys that was sent to DOJ staffers, no matter what email account Rove may have used, whether White House, National Republican party, or other accounts, with a deadline of May 15, 2007 for compliance. The subpoena also demanded relevant email previously produced in the Valarie Plame controversy and investigation for the CIA leak scandal (2003).
In August 2007, Karl Rove resigned without responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena claiming, "I just think it's time to leave." President Bush bid a fond farewell to his good friend and promised to follow him soon.
March–August 2007: Gonzales resignation
John E. Sununu
John Edward Sununu is a former Republican United States Senator from New Hampshire, of Lebanese and Palestinian Christian ancestry. Sununu was the youngest member of the Senate for his entire six year term. He is the son of former New Hampshire Governor John H...
(R
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for Gonzales' resignation. Sununu cited not only the controversial firings but growing concern over the use of the USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
and misuse of national security letters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
. Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19, 2007. By May 16, at least twenty-two Senators and seven Members of the House of Representatives — including Senators Hillary Clinton (D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, New York) and Mark Pryor
Mark Pryor
Mark Lunsford Pryor is the senior United States Senator from Arkansas, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party and former Attorney General of Arkansas....
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
)— had called for Gonzales' resignation.
(See Alberto Gonzales#Calls for resignation for further details.)
On May 24, 2007, Senators Charles Schumer
Charles Schumer
Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer is the senior United States Senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected in 1998, he defeated three-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato by a margin of 55%–44%. He was easily re-elected in 2004 by a margin of 71%–24% and in 2010 by a...
(D-NY), Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
(D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse
Sheldon Whitehouse
Sheldon Whitehouse is the junior U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(D-RI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced the Democrats' proposed no-confidence resolution
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
to vote on whether "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and the American People." The resolution would have had no legal effect, but was designed to persuade Gonzales to depart or President Bush to seek a new attorney general. A similar resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Schiff
Adam Schiff
Adam Bennett Schiff is the U.S. Representative for . He has served in Congress since 2001. He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(D-CA). On June 11, 2007, the resolution failed when a Senate vote failed to obtain the 60 votes required for cloture
Cloture
In parliamentary procedure, cloture is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. It is also called closure or, informally, a guillotine. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. Clôture is French for "ending" or "conclusion"...
. The vote was 53 for, 38 against with 7 not voting, 1 voting "present", and one vacant senate seat.
University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
law professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
Frank Bowman observed that Congress has the power to impeach
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....
Gonzales if he willfully lied or withheld information from Congress during his testimony about the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys.
On July 30, 2007, Rep. Jay Inslee
Jay Inslee
Jay Robert Inslee is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1999. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes many of Seattle's northern suburbs in King, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties...
(D-WA) announced that he would introduce a bill that would require the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation against Gonzales.
Gonzales submitted his resignation as Attorney General effective September 17, 2007, by a letter addressed to President Bush on August 26, 2007. In a statement on August 27, Gonzales thanked the President for the opportunity to be of service to his country, giving no indication of either the reasons for his resignation or his future plans. Later that day, President Bush praised Gonzales for his service, reciting the numerous positions in Texas government, and later, the government of the United States, to which Bush had appointed Gonzales. Bush attributed the resignation to Gonzales' name having been "dragged through the mud" for "political reasons". Senators Schumer (D-NY), Feinstein (D-CA) and Specter (R-PA) replied that the resignation was entirely attributable to the excessive politicization of the Attorney General's office by Gonzales, whose credibility with Congress, they asserted, was nonexistent.
On September 17, 2007, President Bush announced the nomination of ex-Judge Michael Mukasey to serve as Gonzales' successor.
Status of interim U.S. Attorneys, through June 2007
Gonzales affirmed in his January 18, 2007 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee:Bills to rescind the controversial USA PATRIOT Act provision were approved by very large majorities in the Senate and the House prior to the end of March, 2007. Ultimately S.214 was signed into law by the President on June 14, 2007, designated Public Law No: 110-34.
A bill to amend chapter 35 of title 28, United States Code, to preserve the independence of United States attorneys. (S.214 & H.R.580) THOMAS (Library of Congress). Retrieved May 28, 2007. (Updated as activity occurs on the bill.)
The new law specified that all interim attorneys then in office shall serve terms ending 120 days from the signing of the bill.
In May 2007 there were 22 U.S. attorney positions out of 93 that were not held by a presidentially nominated occupant: either acting (filled by civil service First Assistant U.S. Attorneys), or interim (nearly all appointed by the Attorney General). Only four nominees have been submitted by the administration for the 22 positions, though White House spokesperson Tony Fratto was reported saying that the administration is committed to nominating candidates for all 22 positions. Fratto said the number of new nominees "has nothing to do with recent events. The closer you get toward the end of the second term, you're going to have fewer people."
David Iglesias, the dismissed New Mexico U.S. attorney, said that the administration is in denial if it doesn't believe there are concerns about low office morale, the ability to remain independent or even the odds of being confirmed by a suspicious Senate controlled by the Democrats.
Timothy Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
, the interim attorney for Eastern Arkansas, announced in February 2007 that he would not seek a presidential nomination. In early February, Deputy Attorney General McNulty had testified that a vacancy was specifically created for Griffin by dismissing Bud Cummins
Bud Cummins
Harry Earnest "Bud" Cummins III is a former United States Attorney of five years in the Eastern District of Arkansas.-Career:...
.
Griffin said that he did not believe he would get a "fair consideration" from the Senate.
Interim U.S. Attorneys appointed under the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act Re-authorization were not term limited. Timothy Griffin
Timothy Griffin
John Timothy Griffin is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.-Early life and education:Griffin was born in...
's continuing term was challenged in court, but Judge G. Thomas Eisele rejected the challenge, finding that Griffin held the position under the USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
provision that allowed unlimited-term appointments.
Under the previous law, Griffin's term would have been limited to 120 days, which would have expired in mid-April 2007. Legislation restoring the term limits to interim U.S. Attorneys (S214) also limits the terms of those interim U.S. Attorneys appointed under the Patriot Act Reauthorization to 120 days from the time of enactment of the legislation, which was June 14, 2007.
Inspector General Report and Special Prosecutor
On September 29, 2008 the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) released a report on the matter that found most of the firings were politically motivated and improper. The next day Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor, Nora DannehyNora Dannehy
Nora R. Dannehy was appointed Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut on April 4, 2008. She is the first woman to hold the office, which was established in 1789. Dannehy, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, joined the United States Department of Justice in 1991...
, to decide whether criminal charges should be brought against Gonzales and other officials involved in the firings. The IG's report contained "substantial evidence" that party politics drove a number of the firings, and IG Glenn Fine said in a statement that Gonzales had "abdicated his responsibility to safeguard the integrity and independence of the department."
The report itself stopped short of resolving questions about higher White House involvement in the matter, because of what it said were the refusal to cooperate of a number of key players, among them Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
, Senator Pete Domenici
Pete Domenici
Pietro Vichi "Pete" Domenici is an American Republican politician, who served six terms as a United States Senator from New Mexico, from 1973 to 2009, the longest tenure in the state's history....
and Harriet Miers and because the White House refused to hand over its documents related to the firings.
On July 21, 2010, Nora Dannehy
Nora Dannehy
Nora R. Dannehy was appointed Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut on April 4, 2008. She is the first woman to hold the office, which was established in 1789. Dannehy, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, joined the United States Department of Justice in 1991...
, the special prosecutor tasked with investigating the attorney dismissals, concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to establish that persons knowingly made material false statements to [the Office of Inspector General] or Congress or corruptly endeavored to obstruct justice" and that no criminal charges would be filed against Sampson or Gonzales. This decision has been criticized as an indication that the Department of Justice was being too lenient with Bush-era officials.
The appointment process for U.S. Attorneys
The President of the United StatesPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
has the authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
, with the consent of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, and the President may remove U.S. Attorneys from office.
In the event of a vacancy, the United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
is authorized to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney. Before March 9, 2006, such interim appointments expired after 120 days, if a Presidential appointment had not been approved by the Senate. Vacancies that persisted beyond 120 days were filled through interim appointments made by the Federal District Court for the district of the vacant office.
Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
-confirmed appointments to the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
(DOJ) offices, particularly U.S. Attorneys, are political in nature. Appointments to U.S. Attorney positions are often made in consultation with individual senators representing the state with the vacant position, typically with some emphasis in consulting Senators of the same party as the President.
- For further information:
- Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy#Law references
- United States Attorney#History of interim U.S. Attorney appointments
Revised interim appointment process in March 2006
The USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
, signed into law March 9, 2006, amended the law for the interim appointment of U.S. Attorneys by deleting two provisions: (a) the 120-day maximum term for the Attorney General's interim appointees, and (b) the subsequent interim appointment authority of Federal District Courts. (See Law references for the text to the statute , and its amendments.) With the revision, an interim appointee can potentially serve indefinitely (though still removable by the President), if the President declines to nominate a U.S. Attorney for a vacancy, or the Senate either fails to act on a Presidential nomination, or rejects a nominee that is different than the interim appointee.
The change was written into the bill by a Judiciary committee staff member of Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009...
when the bill was modified in joint conference committee, reconciling the Senate and House versions of the bill.
During Senate hearings on February 6, 2007, Senator Specter stated that Brett Tolman
Brett Tolman
Brett Tolman was the United States Attorney for the District of Utah from July 2006 to December 2009. Before becoming U.S. Attorney, Tolman worked as counsel in the Senate Judiciary Committee for committee chairs Orrin Hatch and then Arlen Specter during the 109th United States Congress...
, a committee staffer, had inserted the clause at the request of behalf of the Department of Justice.
Specter stated that the change in the law had been partly to address separation of powers
Separation of powers
The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
concerns expressed by a number of court districts, the issue being the interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys (executive branch) by the courts (judicial branch).
The courts had appointed interim U.S. Attorneys for over a hundred years by then.
The Department of Justice had been seeking a way to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval prior to 2005.
On March 20, 2007, the Senate voted 94-2 to re-instate the 120-day term limit on interim attorneys appointed by the Attorney General.
On March 26, the U.S. House voted to reinstate the 120-day term limit as well, by a vote of 329-78.
The bill was eventually passed in identical form by both houses in May 2007 and was signed into law by the President on June 14, 2007.
A bill to amend chapter 35 of title 28, United States Code, to preserve the independence of United States attorneys. (S.214 & H.R.580) THOMAS (Database), Library of Congress. Retrieved June 15, 2007.
Related USA Patriot Act provision
Another change to the laws governing the appointment of U.S. Attorneys concerned the residency requirements. The Patriot Act re-authorization included a provision that allowed U.S. Attorneys to reside outside of their appointed state. William W. MercerWilliam W. Mercer
William W. Mercer is a United States Attorney for the District of Montana, as well as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice. In September 2006, Mercer was nominated by George W...
authored the change in the law. He held two positions at the same time, the U.S. Attorney for Montana, and the Acting Associate Attorney General while residing in Washington. D.C. Senator Jon Tester
Jon Tester
Jon Tester is the junior U.S. Senator for Montana, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served as President of the Montana Senate.-Early life, education, and farming career:...
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
) called for Mercer to resign.
In the summer of 2007, Mercer resigned from his Acting Associate Attorney General office, and withdrew his presidential nomination for the same office, and returned to Montana to his other position, U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana.
Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys under previous administrations
By tradition, U.S. Attorneys are replaced only at the start of a new White House administration. U.S. Attorneys hold a "political" office, and therefore they are considered to "serve at the pleasure of the President." At the beginning of a new presidential administration, it is traditional for all 93 U.S. Attorneys to submit a letter of resignation. When a new President is from a different political party, almost all of the resignations will be eventually accepted. The attorneys are then replaced by new political appointees, typically from the new President's party.A Department of Justice list noted that "in 1981, Reagan's first year in office, 71 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys. In 1993, Clinton's first year, 80 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys." Similarly, a Senate study noted that "Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years."
In contrast to the 2006 dismissals, Presidents rarely dismiss U.S. attorneys they appoint. Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice, noted in a January 9, 2006, e-mail to Harriet Miers: "In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys they had appointed, but instead permitted such U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision" (underlining original).
There is no precedent for a President to dismiss several U.S attorneys at one time while in the middle period of the presidential term in office.
The few examples of forced dismissals available are based on misconduct. The Congressional Research Service
Congressional Research Service
The Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...
investigated the precedent of dismissing U.S. Attorneys over the 25 years 1981-2006 and identified 54 attorneys who did not serve their full 4-year term. Of these, only two were documented involuntary dismissals: William Kennedy in 1982 and J. William Petro in 1984. Both were Reagan appointees. Kennedy was dismissed for "for asserting that the CIA had pressured DOJ to pressure him not to pursue a case", and Petro was dismissed for "disclosing information about an indictment."
However, all of the U.S. Attorneys dismissed in 2006 were in office longer than four years, and appointments lasting into a President's second term were beyond the scope of the study.
Before 1981, President Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
replaced U.S. Attorney David Marston at the request of Democratic Representative Joshua Eilberg
Joshua Eilberg
Joshua Eilberg was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.-Early life and education:Eilburg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
. Marston had been investigating corruption charges against Eilberg and Daniel Flood, another Democratic Representative.
The probe continued after the attorney was replaced, however, and Eilberg lost his 1978 reelection bid. Eilberg was eventually sentenced to five years probation and a $10,000 fine,
and Flood was censured for bribery by 96th United States Congress
96th United States Congress
The Ninety-sixth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1979 to January 3, 1981, during the last two years...
.
Law references
Part of the governing federal law for appointing United States Attorneys.Statute, prior to March 9, 2006 USA PATRIOT ACT Re-authorization Act's amendments, and after June 14, 2007, when S.214 was signed into law
United States Code, Title 28 § 546. Vacancies Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant. The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent. A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of—
- (1) the qualification of a United States attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title; or
- (2) the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section. If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.
- (2000 ed., Supp IV).
USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
reauthorization
SEC. 502. INTERIM APPOINTMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS.
Section 546 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by striking subsections (c) and (d) and inserting the following new subsection:
'(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.'
Statute from March 9, 2006 through June 14, 2007
United States Code, Title 28 § 546. Vacancies Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant. The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent. A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.
- 28 U.S.C. § 546 (2007). (Note that published versions of the United States Code usually run two years behind recent legislation.)
See also
- List of federal political scandals in the United States
- List of state and local political scandals in the United States
- Prosecution of Don SiegelmanDon SiegelmanDon Eugene Siegelman is an American Democratic Party politician who held numerous offices in Alabama. He was the 51st Governor of Alabama for one term from 1999 to 2003...
in Alabama - Prosecution of Dr. Cyril WechtCyril WechtDr. Cyril Harrison Wecht is an American forensic pathologist. He has been a consultant in numerous high-profile cases, but is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's findings concerning the assassination of John F...
in Pennsylvania - Prosecutions of Association of Community Organizations for Reform NowAssociation of Community Organizations for Reform NowThe Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues...
(ACORN) and voter registration: Bradley SchlozmanBradley SchlozmanBradley J. Schlozman is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Schlozman was also later appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri,...
(Missouri) - Protests of Rachel PauloseRachel PauloseRachel Kunjummen Paulose is an attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission in Miami, United States. She is the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. Palouse resigned the position of U.S. Attorney on November 19, 2007...
appointment in Minnesota