Documents show Gonzales approved firings
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire
several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents
released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely
involved in the dismissals. The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney
general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated,
focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors,
Justice Department officials said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of
staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week amid a political firestorm
surrounding the firings.
The five-step plan involved notifying Republican home-state senators of the
impending dismissals, preparing for potential political upheaval and naming
replacements and submitting them to the Senate for confirmation.

The documents indicated that the hour-long morning discussion, held in the
attorney general's conference room, was the only time Gonzales met with top
aides who decided which prosecutors to fire and how to do it.

Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said it was not immediately clear whether
Gonzales gave his final approval to begin the firings at that meeting.
Scolinos also said Gonzales was not involved in the process of selecting
which prosecutors would be asked to resign.

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware
that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in
them.

"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who
were the weak performers - where were the districts around the country where
we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew,"
Gonzales said last week. "But that is in essence what I knew about the
process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any
discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the
attorney general."

Later, he added: "I accept responsibility for everything that happens here
within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the
department, obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of
in real time. Many decisions are delegated."

The documents were released Friday night, a few hours after Sampson agreed
to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight U.S.
attorneys last year.

Asked to explain the difference between Gonzales' comments and his schedule,
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse largely sidestepped the question by
saying the attorney general had relied on Sampson to draw up the plans on
the firings.

"The attorney general has made clear that he charged Mr. Sampson with
directing a plan to replace U.S. attorneys where for one reason or another
the department believed that we could do better," Roehrkasse said. "He was
not, however, involved at the levels of selecting the particular U.S.
attorneys who would be replaced."

Gonzales this week directed the Justice Department's Office of Professional
Responsibility to investigate the circumstances of the firings, officials
said. The department's inspector general also will participate in that
investigation.

Nonetheless Democrats pounced late Friday.

"If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about
the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as
Attorney General," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is heading the
Senate's investigation into the firings.


"This puts the Attorney General front and center in these matters, contrary
to information that had previously been provided to the public and
Congress."

Presidential spokesman Trey Bohn referred questions to the Justice
Department, saying White House officials had not seen the documents.

The developments were not what Republicans, skittish about new revelations,
had hoped.

Earlier Friday, a staunch White House ally, Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio,
voting record), summoned White House counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill
and told him he wanted "no surprises."

"I told him, 'Everything you can release, please release. We need to know
what the facts are,'" Cornyn said.

Sampson will appear Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
his attorney said. His appearance will mark the first congressional
testimony by a Justice Department aide since the release of thousands of
documents that show the firings were orchestrated, in part, by the White
House.

Sampson "looks forward to answering the committee's questions," wrote his
attorney, Brad Berenson, in a two-paragraph letter to Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., and the panel's top
Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania.

"We trust that his decision to do so will satisfy the need of the Congress
to obtain information from him concerning the requested resignations of the
United States attorneys," Berenson wrote.

E-mails between the White House and the Justice Department, dating back to
the weeks immediately after the 2004 presidential election, show Sampson was
heavily engaged in deciding how many prosecutors would be replaced, and
which ones. The Bush administration maintains the dismissals of the eight
political appointees were proper.

Democrats, however, question whether the eight were selected because they
were not seen as, in Sampson's words, "loyal Bushies."

"He was right at the center of things," Schumer said earlier of Sampson. "He
has said publicly that what others have said is not how it happened. ... He
contradicts DOJ."

Schumer said he hoped Sampson would provide more detail about who initiated
the firings and whether they were politically motivated.