Days before his Senate confirmation hearing, William Mercer withdrew his nomination for the position of Associate Attorney General. Mercer is the sixth Justice Department official to resign
since probes of the U.S. Attorney firings began (Washington Post).
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) commented, "The attorney general is running out of fall guys" (WaPo).
Mercer doubled as acting-Associate AG in Washington and U.S. Attorney in Montana. He plans to continue as U.S. Attorney. In 2005, federal judge Don Molloy asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to replace Mercer as U.S. Attorney:...
due to time in Washington, Mercer's absence from his Montana office caused problems for the court. (Billings Gazette) Molloy also alleged that Mercer violated a legal require-ment that U.S. Attorneys live in the states where they serve.
Later, Mercer arranged to have an exception to the residency requirement inserted into the U.S. Patriot Act reauthorization bill. (TPM) A 2007 Senate bill seeks to strike that exception.
Also in 2005, Montana's Democratic Party chairman criticized Mercer's failure to investigate Montana Senator Conrad Burns' ties to lobbyist-turned-prison-inmate Jack Abramoff; Burns had pushed Mercer's U.S. Attorney nomination. (ePluribus Media) After receiving buckets of Abramoff money, Burns was voted out of office in 2006. (Beyond Delay)
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