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Attorney general refuses to step down on prosecutor sacking issue
WASHINGTON: U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales said he will not step down over the controversial issue of sacking eight federal prosecutors.
Addressing a press conference Tuesday, Gonzales said he admitted that mistakes have been made and he would, like the CEO of an organization, take responsibility for what happened at the department of justice. He vowed to find out what went wrong but insisted he had no direct knowledge of how his staff had made the firing decisions.
He then laid the entire blame on his top assistant, Kyle Sampson, who has resigned on this account. He said Sampson had been entrusted with directing the process to ascertain where were the weak performers, where the department could do better in districts around the country. It was his responsibility to drive the process, he added.
Meanwhile, emails exchanged between Sampson and Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel, indicated that the decision to sack the prosecutors was at the behest of senior aides of president George W. Bush. One of the emails from Sampson talked about prosecutor Henry "Bud" Cummins of Little Rock, Arkansas, who was "in the process of being pushed out."
An email from Sampson in March 2005 shows a formula for evaluation of the performance of the attorneys. The attorneys are to be listed in three categories -- bold = recommend retaining, strong attorneys who have managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general; strikeout = recommend removing, weak attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against administration initiatives, etc.; and nothing = no recommendation, have not distinguished themselves either positively or negatively.
Another email openly talks about replacing Cummins with Timothy Griffin, a former aide to top White House official Karl Rove.
The emails also revealed that Miers had suggested in February 2005 that all of the attorneys should be fired in order to get fresh faces. Gonzales, however, rejected the proposal. Sampson then drew up a list of 10 attorneys on the basis of their "underperformance."
Miers had stepped down in January 2007.
Under existing rules, federal prosecutors -- there are 93 in number -- are appointed by the president for four-year terms and they can be got rid of at any time. But lawmakers, especially Democrats, say these eight prosecutors were identified and sacked because they refused to toe the lines dictated by Republican politicians on the investigations into possible voter fraud which they felt had benefited the Democrats.
Gonzales said there were mistakes by the department and that the Congress was not fully informed about the decision. However, he maintained, there was nothing wrong in firing the prosecutors.
Democratic Congressmen are now demanding that Gonzales should resign. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has insisted that Gonzales should step down.
WASHINGTON: U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales said he will not step down over the controversial issue of sacking eight federal prosecutors.
Addressing a press conference Tuesday, Gonzales said he admitted that mistakes have been made and he would, like the CEO of an organization, take responsibility for what happened at the department of justice. He vowed to find out what went wrong but insisted he had no direct knowledge of how his staff had made the firing decisions.
He then laid the entire blame on his top assistant, Kyle Sampson, who has resigned on this account. He said Sampson had been entrusted with directing the process to ascertain where were the weak performers, where the department could do better in districts around the country. It was his responsibility to drive the process, he added.
Meanwhile, emails exchanged between Sampson and Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel, indicated that the decision to sack the prosecutors was at the behest of senior aides of president George W. Bush. One of the emails from Sampson talked about prosecutor Henry "Bud" Cummins of Little Rock, Arkansas, who was "in the process of being pushed out."
An email from Sampson in March 2005 shows a formula for evaluation of the performance of the attorneys. The attorneys are to be listed in three categories -- bold = recommend retaining, strong attorneys who have managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general; strikeout = recommend removing, weak attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against administration initiatives, etc.; and nothing = no recommendation, have not distinguished themselves either positively or negatively.
Another email openly talks about replacing Cummins with Timothy Griffin, a former aide to top White House official Karl Rove.
The emails also revealed that Miers had suggested in February 2005 that all of the attorneys should be fired in order to get fresh faces. Gonzales, however, rejected the proposal. Sampson then drew up a list of 10 attorneys on the basis of their "underperformance."
Miers had stepped down in January 2007.
Under existing rules, federal prosecutors -- there are 93 in number -- are appointed by the president for four-year terms and they can be got rid of at any time. But lawmakers, especially Democrats, say these eight prosecutors were identified and sacked because they refused to toe the lines dictated by Republican politicians on the investigations into possible voter fraud which they felt had benefited the Democrats.
Gonzales said there were mistakes by the department and that the Congress was not fully informed about the decision. However, he maintained, there was nothing wrong in firing the prosecutors.
Democratic Congressmen are now demanding that Gonzales should resign. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has insisted that Gonzales should step down.
