To: i-node who wrote (791338 ) 6/22/2014 4:15:11 PM From: combjelly Read Replies (4) | Respond to They determined they didn't have enough evidence to proceed. Which is why those emails were so important.Inspector General Report and Special Prosecutor , Carol Lam , Rick Renzi and Paul K. Charlton [2] [31] [32] Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democratic 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. [33] 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. [14] However, at least six attorneys had recently received positive evaluations of their performance from the Department of Justice. [34] In September 2008, the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation concluded that the dismissals were politically motivated and improper. [24] Bush White House e-mail controversy sworn testimony 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. [35] [36] 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. [37] [38] [39] [40] The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear. [41] [42] [43] [44] 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. [45] Federal Register, formally delegated authority to senior DOJ staff Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions. [46] [47] 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 . [36] In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, on May 23, 2007, Goodling stated that she had "crossed the line" and broken civil service laws regulating hiring for civil service positions, and had improperly weighed political factors in assessing applicants. [48] 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. [49] 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 include "DOJ hiring and personnel decisions" by Monica Goodling and other Justice Department employees. [50] [51] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy
