Political Outcry on Purge of U.S. Prosecutors

By David Johnston, Eric Lipton and William Yardley

Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, said Sunday that he had urged the Justice Department to dismiss the state’s top federal prosecutor, who in December was one of eight U.S. attorneys abruptly ousted from their jobs.

Congressional Democrats, summoning five of the dismissed prosecutors for hearings on Tuesday, have charged that the mass firing was a political purge, intended to squelch corruption investigations or install less independent-minded successors. Even some Republicans who generally support the administration have expressed skepticism.

Domenici said in a statement that last year he had called the prosecutor, David Iglesias, asking about the status of a federal inquiry in New Mexico. The case centers on alleged kickbacks in a statehouse construction project in which a former Democratic state official was said to be involved.

“I asked Mr. Iglesias if he could tell me what was going in that investigation and give me an idea of what time frame we were looking at,” Domenici said. “It was a very brief conversation.”

Domenici apologized and said he regretted making the call, but insisted that he did not urge any course of action in any investigation.

“I have never pressured him nor threatened him in way,” he said.

Iglesias, one of the five ousted prosecutors scheduled to testify Tuesday, has said he interpreted the call, and another from a still unidentified federal lawmaker from New Mexico, as an effort to pressure him into bringing indictments before the November 2006 elections in an attempt to embarrass Democrats.

Of the state’s two other Republicans in Congress, Representative Steve Pearce has said he did not call Iglesias, while aides to Representative Heather Wilson have declined to comment.

Iglesias said that his unwillingness to move quickly to bring indictments led to his removal.

Justice Department officials have insisted that the prosecutors were placed on the dismissal list for a variety of reasons, not because of political pressure.

However, repeated complaints from a veteran lawmaker like Domenici, who is influential on law enforcement issues, would not be easily dismissed by the Justice Department.

After another of the prosecutors, Daniel Bogden, got a call in December telling him that he was being dismissed as U.S. attorney in Nevada, he too had pressed for an explanation.

Bogden, who was named the top federal prosecutor in Nevada in 2001, asked an official at Justice Department headquarters if the firing was related to his performance or to that of his office. “That didn’t enter into the equation,” he said he was told.

After several more calls, Bogden reached a senior official who offered an answer. “There is a window of opportunity to put candidates into an office like mine,” Bogden said, recalling the conversation. “They were attempting to open a slot and bring someone else in.”

The ouster of Iglesias, Bogden and the other U.S. attorneys has set off a furor in Washington that took the Bush administration by surprise.

Interviews with several of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials, lawmakers and others provide a fuller picture of the events behind the dismissals. Like Bogden, some prosecutors believe they were forced out for replacements who could gild resumes; several heard that favored candidates had been identified.

Other prosecutors may have been vulnerable because they had had run-ins with the Justice Department, not over corruption cases against Republicans, but on less visible issues.

Paul Charlton in Arizona, for example, annoyed FBI officials by pushing for confessions to be tape-recorded. Carol Lam of San Diego, who successfully prosecuted former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a Republican, had drawn complaints that she was not sufficiently aggressive on immigration cases.

Justice Department officials deny that the dismissals were politically motivated or that the action resulted from White House pressure.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said: “These decisions were based on the individual concerns about each U.S. attorney’s overall performance. This included performance concerns about ineffectively prosecuting departmental priority areas, failure to follow departmental guidelines, or just overall concerns about an ability to lead and effectively manage a U.S. attorney’s office.”

U.S. attorneys have four-year terms but can be removed at any time, and for almost any reason.

But across the country, legal and public officials have expressed dismay over the firings. In Western Michigan, for example, lawyers and a federal judge came to the defense of Margaret Chiara, the U.S. attorney there, saying she was well-regarded.

“It just doesn’t look right,” said James Brady, who was U.S. attorney in Western Michigan during the Carter administration. “It compromises the credibility that justice is being dealt with fairly and impartially. There is a fear that politics have entered in life- and-death situations.”

The list of prosecutors who were targets was approved by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. The White House also eventually approved the list, officials said.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.