I’m still obsessing on the process that lead to the firing of the U.S. Attorneys in light of Sampson’s and Gonzales’ testimony. Since there are no emails or documents from Gonzales, everything has to be by inference.
In his testimony, Kyle Sampson said that the idea of firing Attorneys dated from 2005, though we pick up the story on January 9, 2006 from his email to Harriet Miers [written as if it’s a response to something from her]. In that email, he argues against a wholesale firing of everyone, and talks about firing just certain U.S. Attorneys. He points out the difficulties of directly firing U.S. Attorneys [e.g. getting Senate Confirmation] and suggests some quiet ways to let them know they are targets so they can resign and "save face." While no one will admit that this kind of pressure was exerted, there’s good presumptive evidence that it did happen.
| State | District | Old | New |
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| Arizona | Paul K. Charlton | Daniel G. Knauss [interim appointment] |
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| Arkansas | Eastern | H. E. (Bud) Cummins, III | Tim Griffin [interim ippointment] |
| California | Central | Deborah Wong Yang [resigned 11/2006] |
George S. Cardona [interim appointment] |
| Northern | Kevin V. Ryan | Scott N. Schools [interim appointment] |
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| Southern | Carol Lam | Karen P. Hewitt [interim appointment] |
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| Colorado | John Suthers [elected State Attorney] |
Troy Eid [confirmed by Senate] |
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| Florida | Southern | Marcos D. Jiminez [resigned 04/21/2005] |
R. Alexander Acosta [confirmed by Senate] |
| Iowa | Northern | Charles W. Larson, Sr [retired 12/31/2006] |
Matt M. Dummermuth [interim appointment] |
| Michigan | Western | Margaret Chiara | Charles R. Gross [interim appointment] |
| Minnesota | Tom Heffelfinger [resigned 02/2006] |
Rachel K. Paulose [confirmed? by Senate] |
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| Nevada | Daniel Bogden | Steven Myhre [interim appointment] |
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| New Mexico | David Iglesias | Larry Gomez [interim appointment] |
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| Wisconsin | Eastern | Steven M. Biskupic [confirmed by Senate] |
· |
| Western | J.B. Van Hollen [elected State Attorney] |
Erik C. Peterson [confirmed by Senate] |
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| Washington | Western | John McKay | Jeffrey C. Sullivan [interim appointment] |
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| Marked by Karl Rove | Fired last December | Not Senate Reviewed | |
In the January 9, 2006 email, he suggests several Attorneys, but everyone except those ultimately fired was redacted, so we don’t know who they were [somewhere along the line Patrick Fitzgerald was on the list, but we don’t know when]. Interestingly, the reason for the firings is never mentioned – never.
In March 2006, when the Patriot Act was reauthorized, there was a change slipped in [apparently by the DOJ, though no one will say for sure], which gets around many of the obstacles Sampson mentions:
SEC. 502. INTERIM APPOINTMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS.
Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, certainly knew about the change [it seems tailor made to solve the problems he mentioned in his January email]. On September 13, 2006, he wrote an email to Monica Goodling about the plan to fire U.S. Attorneys. It was later sent to Harriet Miers . In that email, he talks about "pushing out" certain U.S. Attorneys, again with names of people who weren’t fired redacted.
He goes on to say:
… I strongly recommend that, as a matter of policy, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments. We can continue to do selection in JSC, but then should have DOJ take over entirely the vet and appointment. By not going the PAS route, we can give far less deference to home-State Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less cost to the White House. What say you?
Sampson will later say in his testimony in the Senate Hearing:
SPECTER: … isn’t it true, as these e-mails suggest, that there was a calculation on your part and the part of others in the Department of Justice to utilize this new provision to avoid confirmation by the Senate and to avoid scrutiny by the Senate and to avoid having senators participate in the selection of replacement U.S. attorneys?
SAMPSON: Senator, that was a bad idea by staff that was not adopted by the principals.
I did advocate that at different times. But it was never adopted by Judge Gonzales or by Ms. Miers or any of the…
SPECTER: But it was adopted. It was your idea — at least your idea, according to the e-mails.
SAMPSON: I recommended that at one point.
SPECTER: But you’re saying that others didn’t adopt it?
SAMPSON: I was the chief of staff, and I made recommendations of different options that the decision-makers might pursue. And I did recommend that at one point. But it was never adopted by the attorney general.
SPECTER: Was it ever rejected by the attorney general or Ms. Miers?
SAMPSON: It was rejected by the attorney general. He thought it was a bad idea and he was right.
SPECTER: Do you have an e-mail or any confirmation of that rejection?
SAMPSON: I didn’t communicate with the attorney general by e- mail, so I don’t.
As I noted previously, Michael Elston let the cat out of the bag early in a conversation with Margaret Chiara [W.MI]. So we know that the Plan was to be implemented immediately after the election:
On November 7, 2006, Sampson circulated his Plan for firing the Attorneys [Note that Tuesday, November 7, 2006 was Election Day]. I wondered earlier, why immediately after the election? but the answer now seems obvious. They didn’t know they were going to lose and thought that would be a good time to get this done when it would be lost in the confusion of the elections. But, as fate would have it, the Republicans lost control of the Senate. There were a quiet few days email-wise, but the Plan didn’t get put into action. Then came several emails with a new version of the Plan attached. Then there was an 18 day gap in the emails, followed by approval from the White House. During the "gap," there was a meeting with the Attorney General [11/27/2006] to go over the Plan:
The next day [December 5, 2006], Sampson posted the final Plan. The three versions of the Plan differed:
The Plan
| November 7th, 2006 | November 15 th, 2006 | December 5th, 2006 |
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| FIRING DATE |
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| 11/08-10/2006 | 11/15-17/2006 | 12/07/2006 |
| CHANGE DATE |
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| 01/01/2007 | 01/01/2007 | 01/31/2007 |
| ATTORNEYS |
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| SENATORS [OR BUSH POLITICAL LEADS] |
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Called by Kelly:
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Called by Kelly:
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Called by Gonzales:
Called by Kelly:
Called by Rove:
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| STEPS IN THE PLAN |
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| 4 | 5 | 5 |
Obviously, they had to revise the dates as the Plan kept being postponed after the Midterm Elections. Here’s what the Attorneys were to be told [the same in all three versions, except termination date]:
The Attorneys targeted changed between November 7 and November 15. Three Attorneys were removed from the list. My guess would be that they were people that might provoke some kind of reaction in the new Democratic Congress.
There were changes made in the Plan to notify Senators of the firings in response to the Midterm Election losses. Originally, White House Counsel William Kelly was going to call the Senators in the States affected by the firings and say:
In response to the Midterm Elections, by November 15th, the sentence in red was removed [perhaps because it wasn’t true]. Also the calls were initially going out to Senators, but by November 15, they were going out to Senators [in States with Republican Senators] or Bush Political Leads [in States with Democratic Senators]. Kelly was still to do the calls on November 15. By December 5, that had changed too. Alberto Gonzales was calling Sewnator Jon Kyl of Arizona. William Kelly was still calling the remaining two Republican Senators. And Karl Rove was calling the Bush Political Leads in the Democratic States. And they’d added Kevin Ryan to their Target list. They were running a bit scared.
To further highlight the fact that they were running scared, they added a whole new Step to the Plan by November 15 – to deal with a reaction of the Attorneys.
Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval: U.S. Attorneys desiring to save their jobs (aided by their allies in the political arena as well as the Justice Department community), likely will make efforts to preserve themselves in office. We should expect these efforts to be strenuous. Direct and indirect appeals of the Administration’s determination to seek these resignations likely will be directed at: various White House offices, including the Office of the Counsel to the President and the Office of Political Affairs; Attorney General Gonzales and DOJ Chief of Staff Sampson; Deputy Attorney General McNulty and ODAG staffers Moschella and Elston; Acting Associate AG Bill Mercer; EOUSA Director Mike Battle; and AGAC Chair Johnny Suitton. Recipients of such "appeals" must respond identically:
- What? U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President (there is no right, nor should there be any expectation, that U.S. Attorneys would be entitled to serve beyond their four-year term).
- Who decided? The Administration made the determination to seek the resignations (not any specific person at the White House or the Department of Justice).
- Why me? The Administration is grateful for your service, but wants to give someone else the chance to serve in your district.
The last two steps of the Plan established the DOJ and the White House Office of the Counsel as appointing the Interim Attorneys and gave lips service to soliciting candidates to submit to the Senate. As I’ve said previously, I doubt the genuineness of this last Step for a number of reasons which I’ll elaborate in the next post.
And so, on December 7, 2006, the dirty deed was done at long last…
Thank you for this very clear and helpful analysis. I hope it is widely circulated.