Capitol Hill probes White House role in firings

Congressional subpeonas portend a showdown over executive privilege.

from the June 15, 2007 edition

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US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president – indeed, Miers reportedly urged that all 93 be replaced at the start of Bush's second term. But Democratic lawmakers say they suspect that the dismissal of eight of the top prosecutors last year may have reflected some White House plan to improperly use the posts to gain political advantage.

Incomplete, contradictory, and shifting explanations for the dismissals offered by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials have fed Democratic suspicions.

Miers appears to have communicated often with Kyle Sampson, ex-chief of staff to Mr. Gonzales, before any attorneys were actually fired.

In January 2006, Mr. Sampson sent her an e-mail that said a limited number of firings would "mitigate the shock to the system."

Seven US attorneys were dismissed in December 2006. By January 2007, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California began to complain on the Senate floor that the purge might have been political – and that Gonzales might be using newly expanded appointment powers to circumvent the Senate's traditional confirmation role.

Through an intermediary, Miers assured Senator Feinstein that her suspicions were not true, and that the new interim US attorneys would eventually come to the Senate for a confirmation vote. Having done so, she then had to turn to the Justice Department to make sure she was right. "Am I correct in what I told [the intermediary]?" Miers wrote to Sampson in a Jan. 7, 2007 e-mail released this week by the Justice Department. Mr. Sampson replied that she was.

Congressional investigators would also like to talk to Taylor, so they can understand the role of her former boss, White House Political Adviser Karl Rove.

E-mails released this week make it clear that Taylor was particularly active in regard to the Arkansas attorney position. Lengthy exchanges document her efforts to bolster the prosecutorial credentials of Griffin, trying to counter media depictions that focused on his ties to Mr. Rove.

As for the ousted prosecutor Cummins, in the same e-mail Taylor complains that Justice officials "refuse to say Bud is lazy – which is why we got rid of him in the first place."

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