Gonzales-appointed attorney close to permanent replacement

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a new U.S. attorney for Missouri late last week, replacing an interim prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales under a controversial Patriot Act provision that the upper chamber today will decide whether to reverse.

{mosads}The Judiciary panel favorably reported U.S. attorney nominee John Wood, former chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and cousin of Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), to the floor last Thursday. Wood’s ascension comes amid the front-page fracas over the Justice Department’s decision to push out a group of U.S. attorneys last year.

If confirmed, Wood would replace Brad Schlozman, named by Gonzales’s office as interim U.S. attorney last March. The U.S. attorneys’ bill slated for a Senate vote today would prevent such interim appointments from serving longer than 120 days without the courts choosing a replacement.

Schlozman’s appointment has aroused its share of controversy, in part because he headed the Justice Department’s civil rights division during its 2003 consideration of the Texas congressional redistricting plan championed by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Texas Democrats alleged that Schlozman helped orchestrate the go-ahead for that redistricting over the recommendations of career professional staff at Justice, who believed it violated the Voting Rights Act.

Schlozman was appointed U.S. attorney just as the Supreme Court began hearing a challenge to the redistricting. He replaced Todd Graves, who faced mounting pressure from Missouri Democrats to resign after it was revealed that his family members received contracts to run motor-vehicle license fee offices from Gov. Matt Blunt (R). The governor is the son of House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

Three months before Graves resigned, he recused himself from a probe of the fee-office awards, in an apparent answer to Democrats’ concern. Bringing the Missouri post into the wider U.S. attorney flap, Graves was replaced on the Blunt case by Arkansas prosecutor H.E. “Bud” Cummins.

Cummins ultimately resigned six months after taking over the Blunt case to make way for Tim Griffin, a former aide to senior White House adviser Karl Rove. Cummins told the Los Angeles Times last Friday that he wonders whether the politically sensitive probe, which he closed last October, led Justice to push him out.

“Now I keep asking myself, ‘What about the Blunt deal?’” Cummins said.