White House sought to fire 93 attorneys

WASHINGTON — The White House suggested to the Justice Department two years ago that all 93 U.S. attorneys be fired, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

Eventually, eight U.S. attorneys were dismissed by last December.

The firings took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. One of the U.S. attorneys dismissed was John McKay of Seattle.

Documents and interviews indicate that Harriet Miers, who was then the White House counsel, suggested in February 2005 that all the prosecutors be dismissed and replaced with new Republican appointees for Bush's second term.

That proposal was rejected by Gonzales as impractical and disruptive, Justice officials said.

Gonzales did approve the idea of firing the smaller group of U.S. attorneys, but he left it to an aide, Kyle Sampson, to carry out most of the details, according to interviews and documents reviewed Monday by The Washington Post.

The documents include numerous e-mails between Sampson and Miers and others in the White House counsel's office.

Sampson resigned Monday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell other Justice Department officials who testified to Congress about the extent of his communications with the White House about the U.S. attorneys, leading them to provide incomplete information in their testimony to lawmakers.

Congress has requested the documents as part of an investigation by the House and Senate Judiciary committees into whether the firings were politically motivated. While it is unclear whether the documents answer that question, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more deeply involved in the dismissals, and at an earlier date, than they have acknowledged.

Seven U.S. attorneys, including McKay, were fired Dec. 7, and another was fired months earlier, with little explanation from the Justice Department. Several of the former prosecutors have since alleged intimidation, including improper telephone calls from GOP lawmakers or their aides, and have alleged threats of retaliation by a Justice Department official.

Administration officials have repeatedly portrayed the firings as a routine personnel matter.

But interviews and documents indicate that over the course of two years, Bush, his top political adviser Karl Rove and other White House officials passed on to the Justice Department complaints they had received that some U.S. attorneys were not doing enough to prosecute certain crimes, such as voter fraud.

Bush personally mentioned such complaints to Gonzales in a conversation in October 2006, Perino said. "He believes informally he may have mentioned it to the AG during the meeting discussing other matters," Perino said. "White House officials, including the president, did not direct DOJ to take any specific action with regards to any specific U.S. attorney."

Perino said that "it doesn't appear the president was told about a list nor shown a list" of U.S. attorneys at any point in the discussions. She said Rove had an early conversation with Miers about the idea of firing all chief prosecutors and did not think it was wise.

Administration officials say they are braced for a new round of criticism today from lawmakers who may feel they were misled by testimony in recent weeks from Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general. Several Democrats, including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, in recent days have asked for Gonzales' resignation.

Although Gonzales rejected Miers' suggestion to fire all 93 prosecutors, her proposal led his aide Sampson to send an e-mail to Miers in March 2005 ranking all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Strong performers "exhibited loyalty" to the administration; low performers were "weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc."; a third group merited no opinion.

Only three of those eventually fired were given low rankings: Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark.; and Carol Lam in San Diego. Two were given strong evaluations: David Iglesias in Albuquerque, N.M., who has alleged political interference from GOP lawmakers, and Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, whose firing has generated few complaints because of widespread management and morale problems in his office.

Ten months later, in January 2006, Sampson sent to the White House the first list of seven potential candidates for dismissal, including four who ultimately were dismissed at year's end: Chiara, Cummins, Lam and Ryan.

In September, Sampson produced another list of potential candidates for dismissal, telling the White House that Cummins was "in the process of being pushed out" and providing the names of eight others who "we should consider pushing out." Five of the candidates on that list were fired in December; three others were spared.

Iglesias, the New Mexico prosecutor, was not on the list in September. Justice officials said Sampson added Iglesias in October, based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases.

Sampson also strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.

One e-mail from Miers' deputy, William Kelley, on the day of the Dec. 7 firings said Domenici's chief of staff "is happy as a clam" about Iglesias.

Sampson wrote in an e-mail a week later: "Domenici is going to send over names [of possible replacements] tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool)."