1 Boring Old Man

And so they came to March 2006. Things were spinning out of hand. William Moschella was being called to testify in a Senate Committee. Gonzales had already been. The Press was buzzing like a hive of bees. There was a newly formed Senate Judiciary Committee: "Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?" On Monday, March 5, 2006, William Kelly, Assistant White House Counsel emailed Kyle Sampson after lunch for a White House meeting that day:

They settled on five pm and carpooled over to the White House. I presume they met with Fred Fielding, Harriet Miers’ replacement as White House Counsel, William Kelly, and who else? Maybe Karl Rove? After that meeting, the only emails I know about involving Kyle Sampson have been withheld as privileged:

On Tuesday,  William Moschella, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, testified, along with the fired Attorneys. On Wednesday, it looks like they spent the day trying to figure out what to do about being called by the Senate Judiciary’s Committee’s long-named Subcommittee. On Thursday, they were checking with Alberto Gozales about what documents he’d agreed to send to the Subcommittee. At some point that week, they were apparently calling Senator Specter, a member of that Subcommittee, and working on what they were going to say to him.

I gather things didn’t go so well, because on the following Monday [March 12th], Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, resigned [the day before the first document dump]. Monica Goodling, Special Counsel to the Attorney General and White House Liason, stayed around until March 23rd, then went on leave, resigning on April 6th. Michael Battle, Director of the Executive Office of the U.S. Attorneys, was apparently already going or gone. Somewhere in there, Michael Elston, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General, went on extended leave. Add in Harriet Miers, White House Counsel, who left on January 31st and that makes five of the principles involved in the firings out of there like a blue streak.

According to a congressional aide, McNulty said he attended a White House meeting with Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser, and other officials on March 5, the day before McNulty’s deputy William Moschella was to testify to Congress about the firings.

White House officials told the Justice Department group that they needed to agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired and explain them to Congress, McNulty said, according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the transcript of McNulty’s interview hasn’t been made public.

McNulty said that White House officials never revealed during the meeting that they’d been discussing plans to replace some prosecutors with Gonzales aides, the congressional aide said.

McNulty recalled feeling disturbed and concerned when he found out days later that the White House had been involved, the congressional aide said. McNulty considered the extent of White House coordination to be "extremely problematic."

A Justice Department spokesman declined comment. A White House spokesman said the meeting wasn’t unusual. "We have meetings all the time," said Tony Fratto, who declined to say who attended the March 5 meeting.