Ex-aide contradicts Gonzales on firings
Says AG involved in talks since 2005
WASHINGTON -- The former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales contradicted Gonzales's assertion that he had not been involved in deliberations about firing eight US attorneys, and testified yesterday that White House political adviser Karl Rove had personally asked Gonzales to fire several US attorneys.
But D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned from the Justice Department two weeks ago, also said there had been no connection "in my mind" between the decision to fire eight US attorneys and the fact that several of them had either been handling public corruption cases against Republicans or had not brought cases against Democrats.
The all-day testimony from Sampson before the Senate Judiciary Committee gave new ammunition to Democrats and some Republicans who have said Gonzales lied about his own role in the firings.
Gonzales said at a March 13 news conference that he "was not involved in any discussions" about the firings. But a Justice Department document released last week revealed that Gonzales had attended a meeting about the firings, and Sampson said yesterday that he had repeatedly discussed the firings with Gonzales.
"I don't think it's entirely accurate, what [Gonzales] said," Sampson said, referring to the March 13 news conference.
He said he first discussed firing US attorneys with Gonzales in January 2005, before the attorney general was confirmed. Around that time, documents indicate, White House counsel Harriet E. Miers had first broached the idea of firing all 93 US attorneys.
Sampson testified that he had further conversations with Gonzales over the next two years, as the plan evolved from firing all the attorneys to firing only eight. In total, Sampson testified, he and Gonzales had "at least five" conversations on the matter, he said.
"We did discuss it as early as before he became the attorney general . . . and then from time to time, as the process was sort of in a thinking phase through 2005 and 2006," Sampson said. "And then I remember discussing it with him as the process sort of came to a conclusion in the fall of 2006."
Sampson also said Gonzales was getting pressure from Rove, the White House's chief political officer, to fire David Iglesias , the US attorney for New Mexico, because of complaints by Republicans in the run-up to the 2006 elections that Iglesias was not aggressively investigating allegations of voter fraud by Democrats. Iglesias was among the attorneys fired on Dec. 7, 2006.
Sampson also said Rove aides contacted him repeatedly about installing a Rove protégé as a replacement for a fired US attorney. A major theme of the simmering firings scandal has been whether US attorneys were improperly targeted for firing for partisan political purposes.
"What's the public's perception to be when someone . . . like Karl Rove, who's the ultimate political operative, the ultimate political insider, whose function is political almost by definition, is so involved in this process?" asked Senator Herb Kohl , Democrat of Wisconsin, adding that there had been "tremendous damage done" to the justice system's appearance of fairness by the firings.
Lawmakers focused particularly on the decision to fire former US attorney Carol Lam of San Diego because she had been leading high-profile corruption investigations into major Republican figures. Critics have voiced suspicions that Lam was removed because of her aggressive pursuit of former Republican congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham , who pleaded guilty to accepting bribes, and because she had been expanding her probe to other GOP figures.
"We have to make a determination as to why these US attorneys were asked to resign," said Senator Arlen Specter , Republican of Pennsylvania. "It is admitted that the president has the authority to replace US attorneys for no reason, but I think there's a consensus that the president does not have a right to ask for resignations for a bad reason -- that is, whether US Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego was asked to resign because she was hot on the trail of confederates of Duke Cunningham."
Specter focused on an e-mail Sampson wrote on May 11, 2006, to deputy White House counsel William Kelley in which Sampson said that because of "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam" they should get ready to replace her soon. The e-mail did not say what the problem was.
Sampson sent the letter one day after Lam had notified the Justice Department that she was about to serve a search warrant on another figure in the Cunningham probe -- Kyle "Dusty" Foggo , who had resigned two days earlier as the number three official at the CIA.
And on the same day as Sampson's e-mail, the Los Angles Times reported that Lam's investigation was expanding to Representative Jerry Lewis , a California Republican who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Testifying yesterday, however, Sampson denied any connection between the corruption case and Lam's firing. Instead, he said, the problem to which he referred had been Lam's allegedly lax approach to prosecuting immigration violations.
Sampson received support from Senator Orrin G. Hatch , a Utah Republican who was Sampson's boss when he was a congressional staff member. Hatch said there was "not one shred of evidence" that Lam's dismissal had anything to do with the Cunningham case, asserting that Sampson had already listed Lam among the US attorneys to be fired before the Cunningham scandal became known.
But Senator Dianne Feinstein , Democrat of California, challenged the idea that Lam was fired for failing to prosecute immigration cases. She produced a Feb. 15 letter from the top Customs and Border Protection official in San Diego praising Lam for prosecuting 100 percent of the immigrant cases the agency referred to her office.
Under earlier questioning, Sampson disclosed that in 2006, he had proposed firing Patrick J. Fitzgerald as US attorney for the northern district of Illinois. At the time, Fitzgerald was leading a high-profile independent investigation into who in the White House leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson .
Sampson said he did not remember why he suggested firing Fitzgerald, but thought perhaps it was to "get a reaction" from Miers and her deputy, Kelley. Neither embraced the idea, and Fitzgerald was never added to any list, he said. Fitzgerald later won a perjury conviction against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I raised Pat Fitzgerald [for possible firing], and immediately after I did it, I regretted it," Sampson said. "I thought, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I knew it was inappropriate. And I remember at the time that Ms. Miers and Bill Kelley said nothing; they just looked at me. And I immediately regretted it and I withdrew it at the time, and I regret it now." 