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<DIV><A
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys14apr14,0,497040.story?track=ntothtml">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys14apr14,0,497040.story?track=ntothtml</A><BR>
<H1>Attorneys assessed long before firings</H1>
<DIV class=storysubhead>Bush officials looked at insiders to take the prosecutor
jobs, new documents show.</DIV>By Richard A. Serrano<BR>Times Staff
Writer<BR><BR>April 14, 2007<BR><BR>WASHINGTON — Long before they fired a group
of U.S. attorneys, senior White House and Justice Department officials were
already discussing some politically connected insiders for their replacements,
documents released Friday show.<BR><BR>The documents, turned over to
congressional investigators in a widening probe of the firings, undercut earlier
claims that the prosecutors were terminated for purely performance
reasons.<BR><BR>They also show that the administration prized attorneys who
shared its Republican ideology. For instance, the personnel charts of some
prosecutors note their membership in the conservative Federalist
Society.<BR><BR>Starting in January of last year — 11 months before most of the
terminations were carried out — Justice Department officials were deep in
confidential discussions with the White House over who might get the prized
political appointments.<BR><BR>"I recommend that the Department of Justice and
the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement
of a limited number of U.S. attorneys," D. Kyle Sampson, then-chief of staff to
Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, wrote in a January 2006 memo to then-White House
Counsel Harriet E. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.<BR><BR>Sampson then
listed four candidates to replace them: Dan Levin, a former senior Justice
Department and White House official; Jeffrey A. Taylor, now the U.S. attorney in
Washington, D.C.; Deborah J. Rhodes, now the top prosecutor for the Southern
District of Alabama; and Rachel Brand, currently head of the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Policy.<BR><BR>Under Sampson's plan, Levin was
mentioned to replace Kevin Ryan, who was fired as the U.S. attorney in San
Francisco; Taylor or Rhodes to take over for Carol C. Lam, who was terminated in
San Diego; and Brand to succeed Margaret M. Chiara, who was fired in Grand
Rapids, Mich.<BR><BR>Sampson also listed U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III of
Little Rock, Ark., to be terminated and replaced by Timothy Griffin, a protege
of White House political advisor Karl Rove.<BR><BR>"Please let me know how you
would like to proceed," he added. "The first steps, I think, would be (1) to
agree on the target list of U.S. attorneys and (2) ask EOUSA [their supervisors]
to begin quietly calling them to ascertain their intentions for continued
service, indicating to them that they might want to consider looking for other
employment."<BR><BR>Eight prosecutors were eventually fired — Cummins last
summer and seven others in December.<BR><BR>Officials first insisted that the
firings were based solely on poor performance evaluations, although they
acknowledged that Cummins was pushed aside to make way for Griffin.<BR><BR>But
that stance has steadily drawn more questions from congressional Democrats, and
the new documents, part of about 2,400 pages delivered to Capitol Hill on
Friday, will probably bring more queries when Gonzales testifies Tuesday before
the Senate Judiciary Committee.<BR><BR>Sampson's e-mail to Miers and Kelley
appears to conflict with what Sampson said in his testimony to the committee
last month. He denied that he had specific names in mind as replacements for the
fired prosecutors.<BR><BR>"I personally did not," he told the
committee.<BR><BR>Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is leading the
investigation in the Judiciary Committee, said the documents strongly suggested
that the firings were politically driven. He said Gonzales would be questioned
about whether the department already had replacements in line.<BR><BR>Earlier
this year, the attorney general said he would never allow prosecutors to be
removed for political reasons.<BR><BR>But Schumer said that "today makes clear
that they did have a list of replacements. And that is extremely troubling, and
it goes to the core of why certain attorneys were chosen to be
fired."<BR><BR>Sampson's lawyer, Brad Berenson, said his client's testimony was
"entirely accurate." He said that when the seven prosecutors were asked to step
down in December, "no specific candidate had been selected to replace any of
them, and Kyle had none in mind."<BR><BR>Berenson added that "some names had
been tentatively suggested for discussion much earlier in the process, but by
the time the decision to ask for the resignations was made, none had been chosen
to serve as a replacement. Most, if all, had long since ceased even to be
possibilities."<BR><BR>Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse echoed that
assertion.<BR><BR>"The list," he said, "reflects Kyle Sampson's initial
thoughts, not pre-selected candidates by the administration."<BR><BR>Sampson
resigned in March.<BR><BR>Some Democrats on Capitol Hill were not satisfied with
the huge new pile of documents, which brought the total disclosure to about
6,000 pages.<BR><BR>"Today's documents were not a complete response to our
subpoena request. I expect that the attorney general, as the nation's chief law
enforcement officer, will be respectful of his obligations under the committee's
subpoena and respond in full by Monday," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman
John Conyers Jr.<BR><BR>E-mails show that as late as January, when the scandal
was breaking, Justice Department officials were turning to congressional staff
members for help with damage control.<BR><BR>In a Jan. 25 e-mail, Sampson noted
that he and others were going to brief Schumer's legal counsel, adding that
"he's a reasonable former [assistant prosecutor in Manhattan] who we hope to
talk some sense into."<BR><BR>According to the e-mails, the White House sought
to recruit Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to help defend against charges that
Griffin was unqualified to become U.S. attorney in Arkansas.<BR><BR>"WH
political reached out to Sen. Sessions and requested that he ask helpful
questions to make clear that Tim Griffin is qualified to serve," wrote former
Justice Department official Monica M. Goodling, who resigned last week after
refusing to appear before Congress. "They requested that someone in our [Office
of Legislative Affairs] call the senator's staff and make sure that we take
advantage of the offer."<BR><BR>And as congressional Democrats continued to
mount their investigation, Justice Department officials tried to find ways to
explain their contention that the firings were justified.<BR><BR>"Yeah, I think
our game plan is to try to lower the [political] temperature by explicating that
when we said 'performance-related' we tended to mean disagreements over
priorities or other policy differences or management shortcomings," Richard A.
Hertling, acting assistant attorney general, said in a March 5 e-mail. "Rather
than 'they were doing a bad job as prosecutors/lawyers,' " he
said.<BR><BR>Hertling, aware that the fired U.S. attorneys were angry that they
had been publicly besmirched even though they had received favorable job
evaluations, added, "That may take the temperature of most of these former [U.S.
attorneys] down a couple of notches."<BR><BR>Nevertheless, he conceded, "I think
we are also going to admit mishandling the firings."<BR><BR>In another March 5
e-mail, Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos described in more detail
the strategy for controlling news coverage and mollifying other U.S. attorneys:
"Right now the coverage will be dominated by how qualified these folks were and
their theories for their dismissals. We are trying to muddy the coverage up a
bit by trying to put the focus on the process in which they were told. I suspect
we are going to get to the point where DOJ has to say this anyway. First, it is
true. Second, we are having morale problems with our other U.S. attorneys who
understand the decision but think that these folks were not treated well in the
process."<BR><BR>The firing that has drawn the greatest scrutiny is that of
David C. Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, especially since Sen. Pete
V. Domenici (R-N.M.) allegedly was eager to see indictments against Democrats in
the state before last year's midterm elections.<BR><BR>One of the newly released
documents was two pages of handwritten notes about the fired prosecutors that
was attributed to Goodling. Under "Iglesias" there is a notation: "Domenici says
he doesn't move cases."<BR><BR>There was no further explanation.<BR><BR>
<HR width="20%">
<I>richard.serrano@latimes.com<BR><BR>Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt
contributed to this report.</I></DIV></BODY></HTML>