Purged Prosecutors: Now, The House

…it was for reasons related to policy, priorities and management – what has been referred to broadly as “performance-related” reasons – that these U.S. Attorneys were asked to resign. I want to emphasize that the Department – out of respect for the U.S. Attorneys at issue – would have preferred not to talk at all about those reasons, but disclosures in the press and requests for information from Congress altered those best laid plans. In hindsight, perhaps this situation could have been handled better. These U.S. Attorneys could have been informed at the time they were asked to resign about the reasons for the decision. Unfortunately, our failure to provide reasons to these individual U.S. Attorneys has only served to fuel wild and inaccurate speculation about our motives, and that is unfortunate because faith and confidence in our justice system is more important than any one individual.

Update: Moschella went down the list of the deficiences of each of the fired U.S. attorneys:

Of Carol Lam, he said that her gun prosecution numbers “were are the bottom of the list.” And that her border related prosecutions “didn’t stack up.”

Of John McKay, he said that the department didn’t really have a policy difference, but that they were concerned with the manner “in which he went about advocating particular policies,” whatever that means.

Of Cummins, he said that he was not fired for performance reasons. He added that Cummins had indicated that he was not going to finish his term, and that Griffin was “interested in the USA position.”

Of Bogden, he said that “given the importance of [Bogden’s] district,” that the department felt they needed “renewed energy, renewed vigor” in that office in order to “take it to the next level.”

Of Iglesias, he complained that he’d “delegated to his first assistant the running of the office.”

Of Charlton, he said that Charlton had had a policy of “taping FBI confessions,” a policy that had ramifications throughout the government and that was “completely contrary” to the department’s policy.

Update: On the topic of whether the Justice Department had raised concerns with Lam that her office wasn’t prosecuting enough gun or immigration case, Moschella said that former deputy attorney general James Comey had spoken to Lam about her office’s prosecution of gun cases, but wasn’t sure if anyone from the Justice Department had talked to her about her office’s prosecution of border cases.

Update: Well, Moschella just admitted that the prosecutors were not given information about their office’s supposed deficiencies before they were fired. When asked by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) whether that might not have been “a better practice,” Moschella said yes, that “in hindsight,” it would have been.

Update: Some of the USAs got to respond to Moschella’s remarks about why they were asked to step down.

Daniel Bogden said that “it didn’t give him a whole lot of solace” after 16 years with the Justice Department to be asked to move over in order to “put some new blood” in his position.

David Iglesias, responding to Moschella’s comments about his lack of leadership, angrily rattled off statistics showing that his office had actually improved under his leadership. “Improvement does not happen in a vaccum,” he said.

Paul Charlton hit back against Moschella’s comment that he’d been asked to step down because he’d wanted to tape FBI confessions. Charlton had wanted to tape confessions, he said, because of the number of child molestation cases that his office handled, particularly on Indian reservations. In child molestation cases, he said, “the best evidence that you often receive come from the molestser’s mouth,” since there is often little physical evidence. Not having tapes he said, had often led his office to seek lesser penalties in guilty pleas or even to lose cases. So in March of 2006, he sent out a memo asking the FBI to begin using this policy of taping confessions. He got a call from the deputy attorney general’s office tell him they were “displeased” with his request and that he should revoke that policy. He replied that he would resign sooner than revoke the policy. They told him that they didn’t want him to resign, but that he should start a pilot program using that policy and provide examples of cases that would have been pled down to lower offenses or lost because of the lack of a taped confession. He complied, but never heard back from the Justice Department about the program.

John McKay fired back against Moschella’s accusation that his office’s sharing of information had been a problem. On the contrary, he said, his office’s information sharing policy was made the Justice Department’s pilot project, and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty even chose McKay to lead the U.S. Attorneys’ information sharing work.

Update: Now we’re on a break.

Update: And now we’re back.

Update: Former USA for Arizona Paul Charlton just said that after being fired, he called another senior Justice Department official, acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, to seek an explanation. Mercer told him that “this was being done so that other individuals could “touch base” as a United States attorney before the end of the president’s term.” In other words, it would be nice if some other people had a chance to wear that prestigious title before Bush left office.

Update: And Daniel Bogden from Nevada has a similar tale. He says that he too spoke with Mercer. And Mercer told him that “the administration has a very short, two year window of opportunity concerning United States Attorney positions” and that “this would be an opportunity to put others in those positions so they could build their resumes, get experience as a United States Attorney, so that for future opportunities, being a federal judge or another political type position, they would be better enhanced to do so.”

Update: Yikes! Even the prosecutor whom the administration has admitted was dismissed for no reason is hitting them back. Earlier in the hearing, Moschella testified that they’d asked Bud Cummins to leave because Cummins had “indicated” that he was not going to complete his term. Just now, Cummins said that he’d never said that to anyone in the Justice Depatment, and that the only time he was ever quoted saying that was after he’d already been asked to step down. “I was trying to be discrete,” he said. In other words, he was trying to give the administration an alibi.