Gonzales acknowledges mistakes in firings

updated 4:26 p.m. ET March 13, 2007

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged that mistakes were made and accepted responsibility Tuesday for the way eight federal prosecutors were fired.

At a news conference Tuesday, Gonzales said he would find out what went wrong but said he would not resign. "I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility," Gonzales said amid growing calls for his own termination.

Democrats in Congress have charged that the eight dismissals announced last December were politically motivated and some of those fired have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.

Justice Department officials, led by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told lawmakers under oath that the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys in December was made solely by the Justice Department and said the decision was based on performance, not politics.

E-mails released Tuesday, however, revealed that the firings were considered and discussed for two years by Justice Department and White House officials.

‘I stand by that decision’
"Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information — incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress," Gonzales said. "I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress, it is accurate and it is complete. And I very dismayed that that may not have occurred here."

“I stand by that decision and I think it was the right decision. Thank you very much,” he said at the end of the news conference, turned and briskly walked away.

The top White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of President Bush’s second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have now generated a political firestorm.

The long-simmering feud erupted with the new revelations, causing Gonzales to cancel a planned trip Tuesday to Syracuse, N.Y., amid calls from Congress for his ouster.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers raised with an aide to Gonzales the prospect of asking all chief federal district prosecutors to resign in 2004 as a logical way to start a new term with a new slate of U.S. attorneys.

Perino also acknowledged Monday that complaints about the job performance of prosecutors occasionally came to the White House and were passed on to the Justice Department, perhaps including some informally from President Bush to Gonzales.

At the pleasure of the president
The U.S. attorneys, the chief federal law enforcement officials in their various districts, typically are appointed to four-year terms by the president on the recommendation of state political leaders, but serve at the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time — like the attorney general and other Cabinet officers.

Democrats in Congress have charged that the eight dismissals announced last December were politically motivated and some of those fired have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.

Perino said Kyle Sampson, the aide Miers contacted, objected that a wholesale change of prosecutors would be disruptive. She also said deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, the president’s top political adviser, vaguely recalls telling Miers that he also thought firing all 93 was ill-advised.

Sampson resigned Monday after acknowledging that he did not tell other Justice officials who testified to Congress about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information in their testimony, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Sampson has not announced his departure.

Perrino said the Justice Department was working internally on a short list of firings, and submitted that list to the White House in late 2006.

“At no time were names added or subtracted by the White House,” Perino said. “We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within administration’s discretion. We stand by the Department of Justice’s assertion that they were removed for performance and managerial reasons.”

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