Ex-aide: Gonzales had role in firings
By LAURIE KELLMAN,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrongly stated he was not involved in discussions about the firings of federal prosecutors, his former chief of staff told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate," testified Kyle Sampson, who quit this month as Gonzales' top aide. "I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign."
Sampson said Gonzales attended a crucial meeting on the firings Nov. 27, 10 days before they were carried out.
Under questioning by Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., Sampson said Gonzales also was wrong when he said other senior Justice Department aides gave Congress inaccurate information because they hadn't been fully briefed about the firings.
"I shared information with anyone who wanted it," Sampson said. Asked by Schumer if Gonzales' statement was false, Sampson replied, "I don't think it's accurate if the statement implies that I intended to mislead the Congress."
In earlier testimony Sampson said the prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support
President Bush's priorities, defending a standard that Democrats called "highly improper."
"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," he said. "A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful."
Gonzales planned to meet with U.S. attorneys from the mid-Atlantic region at Justice Department headquarters Thursday. It's part of a nationwide series of meetings to discuss the issue.
The Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, scolded Sampson for causing an uproar that has distracted the Justice Department and jeopardized Gonzales' job.
"It is generally acknowledged that the
Department of Justice is in a state of disrepair, perhaps even dysfunction, because of what has happened," Specter said. The remaining U.S. attorneys are skittish, he said, "not knowing when the other shoe may drop."
Democrats rejected the concept of mixing politics with federal law enforcement. They accused the Bush administration of cronyism and trying to circumvent the Senate confirmation process by installing favored GOP allies in plum jobs as U.S. attorneys.
"We have a situation that's highly improper. It corrodes the public's trust in our system of Justice," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record). "It's wrong."
Sampson, who quit earlier this month amid the furor, disputed Democratic charges that the firings were a purge by intimidation and a warning to the remaining prosecutors to fall in line. Nor, he said, were the prosecutors dismissed to interfere with corruption investigations.
"To my knowledge, nothing of the sort occurred here," Sampson told the committee.
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, backed up Sampson, saying he had seen no evidence that the dismissals were "designed to impede or actually did impede a criminal investigation or prosecution."
Sampson testified that federal prosecutors serve at the president's pleasure and are judged in large part on whether they pursue or resist administration policy.
"I came here today because this episode has been personally devastating to me and my family," Sampson told the panel. "It's my hope that I can come up here today and share the information that this committee and the Congress wants, and frankly put this behind me and my family."
The Justice Department admitted Wednesday that it gave senators inaccurate information about the firings and presidential political adviser Karl Rove's role in trying to secure a U.S. attorney's post in Arkansas for one of his former aides, Tim Griffin.
Justice officials acknowledged that a Feb. 23 letter to four Democratic senators erred in asserting that the department was not aware of any role Rove played in the decision to appoint Griffin to replace U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said that certain statements in last month's letter to Democratic lawmakers appeared to be "contradicted by department documents included in our production."
That admission, only hours before Sampson's testimony, took some of the sting out of Democrats' key pieces of evidence that the administration had misled Congress.
Still, Sampson provided plenty of fodder. He acknowledged planning the firings as much as two years ago with the considered, collective judgment of a number of senior Justice Department officials.
Sampson strongly denied Democrats' allegations that some of the prosecutors were dismissed for pursuing Republicans too much and Democrats not enough in corruption cases.
The Feb. 23 letter, which was written by Sampson but signed by Hertling, emphatically stated that "the department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." It also said that "the Department of Justice is not aware of anyone lobbying, either inside or outside of the administration, for Mr. Griffin's appointment."
Those assertions are contradicted by e-mails from Sampson to White House aide Christopher G. Oprison on Dec. 19, 2006, saying that getting Griffin appointed "was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers was among the first people to suggest Griffin as a replacement for Cummins.
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Associated Press Writers Lara Jakes Jordan and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report. |
