Attorney Firings Began in White House

As early as the opening months of 2005 the White House legal counsel, Harriet Miers (yes that one), was inquiring about firing all 93 US Attorneys. The compromise, reached almost two years later, was to fire 8 of them.

White House Involved in Firings

Monday, Kyle Sampson, the Chief of Staff of Attorney General Gonzalez, resigned.

Sampson left his post after acknowledging that he did not tell others in the department about the extent of his communication with the White House on the firings, leading them to give incomplete information to Congress.
Sampson played a key role in putting together the list of eight U.S. Attorneys who were fired last year.

Resignation of Native Son

By the way, “In 2002 Mr. Sampson, a Mormon, told the Brigham Young University news service that he admired Mr. Bush because the president recognized that politics and religious beliefs could not be separated.”

Senator Schumer is on CNN calling again, and more heatedly, for the resignation of Gonzales — who either didn’t know what his Chief of Staff was doing, or because he did.

“I had not idea how high it went… there has been unprecedented breech of trust, abuse of power and misuse of the Justice Department.”

The NY Times lead editorial yesterday referred to Gonzales as “consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency,” and called for his replacement.