Gonzales Draws Strong Criticism of Prosecutors

[cal04]

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys, complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion.

About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Mr. Gonzales in Chicago.

Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Mr. Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department.

(snip)
In Chicago, some prosecutors accused Mr. Gonzales’s subordinates of operating as if the prosecutors were an obstacle to be side-stepped instead of a resource to be tapped in developing departmental policy, one person said.

At least one prosecutor complained that United States attorneys had been excluded from deliberations that led to a change in policy on prosecuting corporate crime, a person familiar with the discussions said. He and others would speak only on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/washington/29gonzales.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1175135311-z/5+G22MXS6bIDeU5H9XxA

[MadMaddie]

1. Did he run away from the prosecutors?

What a coward he is? Even the Cowardly Lion has bigger balls then Gonzalez!! Just sayin..

[spindrifter]

2. Okay, so what is the difference here:

"His former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, is to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. In his prepared testimony, Mr. Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, said the prosecutors were fired not for political reasons, but because they failed to follow the president’s priorities. He is likely to be closely questioned about the extent of Mr. Gonzales’s involvement in planning the firings."

We already have lots of indications that elected and appointed officials were putting pressure on DOJ to get rid of certain USA's who were not doing what THEY thought was priority work.

[DCKit]

3. Party work, not "prioroty work"

[L. Coyote]

4. What a day. Several major NYTimes articles, a zillion DU posts, AND "we lied"

another DOJ dump, tons of articles, more. Catch up if you can at:

Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x523978

=======

I like this tidbit, paraphrasing "We lied."

"On Wednesday, the Justice Department released more than 200 additional pages of e-mail messages and other documents and sent a letter to lawmakers saying that it had given Congress inaccurate information in an earlier letter that asserted that Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, had played no role in the removals."