It's not just about fired US attorneys anymore

Congress is asking pointed questions about the role of partisanship in prosecutions, hirings at Justice Department.

from the May 9, 2007 edition

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"One ... reason there has been such reluctance [by] the administration to replace [Gonzales] is that it's a very difficult squeeze now to find somebody who is both acceptable to the administration and ... is confirmable," said Mr. Wittes. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the quote.]

Yet the continued presence of Gonzales at the Justice helm is not helpful to the department, say critics. Crucial management attention is undoubtedly being diverted from day-to-day administration to the continuing controversy over the US attorney firings, say some.

Furthermore, Gonzales has been unable to dispel a perception that some Justice Department prosecutorial actions were undertaken for partisan reasons, say critics, who cite concern about morale at the department.

"I just wonder about what's going on at the Justice Department on a day-to-day basis," says Mr. Tobias.

Even if Gonzales were to leave, Democrats in Congress would undoubtedly continue to investigate the department. Events of recent days have seen to that.

The controversy is no longer just about fired US attorneys, for example. The Justice Department itself has now begun an internal investigation into whether Monica Goodling, Gonzales's White House liaison, illegally took partisan affiliation into account when hiring lower-level prosecutors.

The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know whether a similar process occurred at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Panel members have written Civil Rights Division official Bradley Schlozman to ask about allegations that job applicants were told to scrub GOP references from their résumés.

And lawmakers continue to pursue that vexing question: Why were those US attorneys fired?

On May 4 a former deputy attorney general told a House panel that in his view only one of the eight dismissed attorneys had serious performance problems.

As second-in-command at Justice from 2003 to 2005, James Comey was the direct supervisor of US attorneys yet said he never knew that Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Gonzales, was compiling a list of prosecutors to be fired.

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