Scandal Overview: Fired US Attorneys

Like sewage from punctured pipes, info keeps spurting out of the fired U.S. Attorneys scandal. The key question: were the firings politically motivated? This prosepect is terrifying, because prosecutors aren't supposed to bully political enemies or let felonious friends slide--not in America.

In December 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)--with White House approval--fired seven U.S. Attorneys.  Months earlier, two others were asked to resign. DoJ officials publicly claimed the firings were performance based, though most of those attorneys had positive job-performance reviews.

Under oath, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales answered Congress's questions about the firings 60+ times by saying that he didn't recall ( video). Since then, prominent Republicans have called for Gonzales' resignation ( names at Talking Points Memo).

Ongoing Congressional investiagtions have unearthed piles of evidence, some of which conflicts with DoJ officials' public statements about the firings. . . .

Evidence that the Unprecedented Firings were Planned

Documents suggest that DoJ and White House staff discussed firing certain US attorneys for at least two years before this scandal erupted. For example, a January 2005 email from Gonzales's the Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson to White House counsel's staff states:

"We would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys --the underpeforming ones. . . . The vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies . . . ."

In that email, Sampson explains that it was not unusual for a new president to fire a former president's U.S. Attorneys (as both Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush did) but that U.S. Attorneys historically stayed on when a president won a second term.  That's why people find the firings unprecedented.

The Fired Prosecutors

When the scandal broke, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and DoJ staff said that only 8 U.S. Attorneys had been told to resign.  In May, former U.S. Atty Todd Graves came forward to say that he too had been forced out.  President Bush appointed all 9 U.S. Attorneys, whose names follow:

     Daniel Bogden    (Nevada)                         Paul Charlton      (Airzona)

       Margaret Chiara   (Michigan)                     Bud Cummins      (Eastern Arkansas)

       Todd Graves      (Missouri)                         David Iglesias     (New Mexico)

       Carol Lam         (S. California)                     John McKay (Washington)

       Kevin Ryan       (N. California)

Evidence of Political Motives

Some onlookers are intrigued by the fact that most of the fired U.S. Attorneys had either pursued corruption cases against well connected Republicans or had refrained from pouncing on prominent Democrats.  A few examples are below.

Carol Lam put former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) behind bars for taking bribes.  Lam also secured an indictment against ex-CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and his friend Brent Wilkes after Foggo helped Wilkes get a $100 million government contract.

Paul Charlton probed Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ) over a questionable land deal and legislation Renzi had sponsored that benefited a military contractor that employed Renzi's father. According to the Wall Street Journal, the DoJ dragged its feet for a year on the Renzi case, refusing to give Charlton's office necessary "search warrants, subpoenas and other legal tools" until after the November 2006 election. A month later, Charlton was told to resign.  In April 2007, the FBI raided Renzi's wife's business in search of evidence.

Dan Bogden investigated former Republican Congressman-turned-Nevada-Governor Jim Gibbons over questionable financial dealings with a government contractor dating back to Gibbons' days in Congress. The LA Times quoted an email to the contractor from his wife (sent before they took a trip with Jim and Dawn Gibbons), which said: "Please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn."  The contractor's email response to his wife: "Don't you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!"

In January 2006, Bud Cummins investigated whether Missouri Governor Matt Blunt had given big government contracts to his big Republican supporters. In June 2006, a DoJ official told Cummins to resign at year's end because the White House wanted to give someone else the position. Karl Rove's former aide  Tim Griffin replaced Cummins.

David Iglesias was pursuing a public corruption case involving a democratic state senator from New Mexico.  In October 2006, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) separately called Iglesias and reportedly pressured him to speed up indictment of the democrat before the November 2006 election. At that time, Wilson faced a tough re-election race against a Democrat. Iglesias refused to rush the indictment, and he was fired the following month.

Despite political pressure to secure indictments before the November 2006 election,Todd Graves refused to pursue a voter-fraud case implicating Democrats in Missouri. Graves' replacement later pursued the case, which ended up dismissed for lack of evidence--not on technicalities, as some pundits have said.

After the Firings, DoJ said Be quiet or else

According to documents from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, DoJ officials told at least three of the fired U.S. Attorneys (John McKay, Bud Cummins, and Paul Charlton) to remain silent about the growing scandal or the DoJ would publicly say nasty things about them.

Some Scandal-Related Sources

-Talking Points Memo: a great timeline (2001-2007) with linked sources.

-U.S. House Judiciary Committee: douments released by DoJ (pdf files), orgainzed by date: pages for April 26th and 27th include indexes of docs that DoJ refused to release.

-U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee: table of hearings (look for "Preserving Prosecutorial Independence . . ." Parts II, III, and IV).  Website has printed versions of witnesses' statements and some webcasts of testimony.  I couldn't find transcripts, but they might be there.

-US News & World Report: an index of pdf docs released by DoJ.

-Washington Post: links to documents including hearings transcripts.

-Wikipedia: a great explanation of the scandal w/links to 100+ sources.