Documents Link Gonzales

Documents link Gonzales, firings
AG attended session on plan

By Dan Eggen, Washington Post | March 24, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with senior aides on Nov. 27 to review a plan to fire a group of US attorneys, according to new documents released last night, a disclosure that contradicts Gonzales's previous statement that he was not involved in "any discussions" about the dismissals.

Justice Department officials also announced last night that the department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility had launched a joint investigation into the dismissals, including an examination of whether they were improper and whether any Justice officials misled Congress about the matter.

The hourlong November meeting in the attorney general's conference room included Gonzales, his deputy, and four other senior Justice officials, including the Gonzales aide who coordinated the firings, Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson, records show.

The previously undisclosed meeting appears to conflict with a statement by Gonzales on March 13, when he told reporters he "was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on" with the firings.

He said all the details were left to Sampson, who has since resigned and who agreed yesterday to testify in the Senate.

Justice Department officials said last night that those at the meeting discussed a detailed plan for firing the prosecutors, including notifying GOP senators of impending dismissals in their states, preparing for any political ramifications, selecting replacements, and submitting their names to the Senate for confirmation, the Associated Press reported.

Spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said last night that the department does not see Gonzales's remarks as inconsistent with the Nov. 27 meeting. She said there is no information on whether Gonzales gave final approval to a draft memo of the firings plan, which was dated six days earlier.

Nearly 300 pages of new records were released by the department last night. That followed the announcement earlier yesterday that Sampson had agreed to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats reacted sharply to the new disclosures.

"Clearly the attorney general was not telling the whole truth, but what is he trying to hide?" said Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada.

"If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as attorney general," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who is heading the Senate's investigation into the firings.

Sampson, who resigned March 12 after the discovery of e-mails contradicting contentions that the White House was not closely involved in the firings, may be the official best positioned to describe the roles top Justice and White House officials played in the ouster of the federal prosecutors.

The Justice Department also said yesterday that Monica Goodling, a senior counselor to Gonzales who worked closely with Sampson on the firings, took an indefinite personal leave from her job Monday. A Justice official said she is still employed there but it is not clear when she will return.

Sampson's planned testimony complicates the standoff that developed this week between Democrats and the Bush administration, which has refused demands for public testimony from presidential adviser Karl Rove and other White House aides. The House and Senate judiciary committees have authorized, but not issued, subpoenas for the testimony.

Gonzales and other Justice officials have said Sampson quit because he withheld information from other officials that may have led them to give misleading testimony before Congress. Sampson's attorney has disputed that characterization and has said that others in the Justice Department were fully aware of "several years" of discussions with the White House about dismissing the prosecutors.

The point is crucial because Justice officials said in previous statements and testimony that the White House was involved only tangentially, at the end of the process.

Congressional Democrats said Sampson's agreement to testify should increase the political pressure on the administration to allow Rove and others to testify under oath about the US attorneys' firings. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

The White House offered this week to allow Rove, former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers, and other aides to be interviewed privately, without transcripts and not under oath. Democrats swiftly rejected the offer.

Seven US attorneys were fired on Dec. 7; one had been sacked months earlier. The Justice Department's shifting explanations of the dismissals have sparked an uproar in Congress, where lawmakers from both parties have called for Gonzales's resignation. But President Bush this week expressed support for Gonzales.

Some of the prosecutors have objected to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's assertion that the firings were related to their performance, and two have alleged they were pressured by elected officials over investigations.

Sampson's attorney, Bradford Berenson, wrote in a letter yesterday to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and ranking GOP member Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, that he hopes the voluntary testimony "will satisfy the need of the Congress to obtain information" from Sampson.

In a March 16 statement, Berenson said the fact that White House and Justice Department officials had been discussing the firings "for several years was well known to a number of other senior officials at the department."

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