Sampson says Gonzales’s statements inaccurate

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s statements that he was not involved in discussions about the firings of U.S. attorneys are inaccurate, his former chief of staff told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

“I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals is accurate,” said Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’s chief of staff before he resigned earlier this month. “I remember discussing with him this process of asking U.S. attorneys to resign.”

Sampson said he discussed the issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys with Gonzales after his nomination. But that was before Congress confirmed Gonzales as attorney general in January 2005 and during the process of the “thinking phase,” and again in the fall of 2006. All of that was before most of the firings occurred, in early December 2006.

When asked by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) whether there were at least five discussions between himself and Gonzales on the matter, Sampson said: “I think at least five.”

Sampson said he did not remember whether Gonzales ever saw documents about the firing plan or whether any were handed out at a Nov. 27, 2006, meeting he attended with Sampson, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and other Justice Department officials 10 days before seven U.S. attorneys were asked to resign.

An e-mail about that meeting released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) last Friday conflicts with Gonzales’s earlier statements that he was not involved in any discussions about the firings.

Sampson also said Gonzales was incorrect when he stated that McNulty and another DoJ official, William Moschella, made inaccurate statements in testimony to Congress because they were not given all the information about the firings.

“I shared information with anyone who wanted it,” Sampson said.

But Sampson defended the firings as both performance-based and political by their very nature because, he said, the U.S. attorneys who were selected for dismissal were not fulfilling the priorities of the president and the Justice Department. He cited a failure to devote enough resources to an initiative aimed at increasing illegal gun prosecutions and a failure to prosecute enough immigration cases as examples.

“U.S. attorneys are political appointees and I think the distinction between political and performance-related reasons for removing a U.S attorney are artificial,” he said.

In response to a question by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sampson said he was “not aware of anyone being asked to resign [who was] prosecuting corruption cases.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has said she believes Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney in San Diego, Calif., was dismissed because her investigation and conviction of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) had expanded to other targets, including Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Dusty Foggo, a former top official at the CIA.

A day after Lam issued search warrants against Foggo and businessman Brent Wilkes, Sampson sent an e-mail to a deputy in the White House counsel’s office citing the “real problem” they had “right now” with Lam.

Under questioning from Feinstein, Sampson said that “real problem” was Lam’s inability to bring “sufficient” immigration prosecutions.

“There had been robust discussions within the department that the department had been criticized that we were not doing enough to enforce the border by House Republicans,” he said. “The deputy attorney general was scheduled to meet with House Republicans that were critical of Carol Lam May 11.”

Sampson also acknowledged suggesting that DoJ officials use a new provision in the Patriot Act to circumvent Senate confirmation of new U.S. attorneys, an idea he said was rejected by Gonzales.

“I was the chief of staff and I did recommend that at one point, but it was never adopted by the attorney general. It was rejected by the attorney general. He thought it was a bad idea and he was right.”

DoJ officials acknowledged Wednesday that they provided inaccurate information about the firings and White House adviser Karl Rove’s role in pursuing a U.S. attorney position for one of his former aides, Tim Griffin. Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said statements in a Feb. 23 letter to Democratic senators and members of Congress wrongly asserted that DoJ was unaware of any role Rove played in Griffin’s selection to replace U.S. Attorney H.E. “Bud” Cummins in Arkansas. He wrote that recently released documents contradict those statements.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Schumer questioned Sampson about a December e-mail in which he said he knew that Griffin’s appointment was “important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” They asked Sampson how he could reconcile that e-mail with the Feb. 23 letter in which he wrote that DOJ was unaware of any role Rove played in Griffin’s appointment.

Sampson said he didn’t know first-hand that Rove was involved in Griffin’s selection. He was basing the e-mail that it was important to Rove on conversations he had with Rove’s aides because they were expressing interest in Griffin’s appointment.

At the time he drafted the letter, Sampson said he thought about it and decided he was not really aware that Rove was interested in Griffin’s appointment.

“I knew that his people who worked for him were interested, but I wasn’t sure, so I drafted the letter that way then I circulated it widely to make sure others thought it was accurate,” he said.

Schumer also asked Sampson about a report that at one point he had suggested that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who led the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name to the press, be added to the list of U.S. attorneys to be fired.

Sampson admitted making the suggestion but said it was not serious and he “regretted it the moment he said it.”

“I said immediately: I withdraw that. That was inappropriate.”