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More Frustration on Capitol Hill Over US Attorneys

March 13, 2007 1:57 PM

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf Reports: Another layer to the outrage on Capitol Hill over the mass firing of US attorneys. Immediately after Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn left a press conference in the Senate Studio, up strode Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign to complain about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

But not for potentially politically motivated firings. Quite the opposite.

Ensign is frustrated that Gonzales did not contact him before firing Las Vegas US Attorney Dan Bogden. Ensign said he would have told Gonzales not to fire Bogden. Not only that, nobody from the Department of Justice spoke with Bogden before firing Bogden, said Ensign.

And Republican Senator Ensign is piping mad.

"I am not a person who raises his voice very often. My staff can testify to my frustration when I learned that McNulty had not spoken with Dan," he said.

Bogden was fired, according to Gonzales, because he was not being aggressive enough in prosecuting obscenity and terrorism cases (there was an amusing moment during the House hearing last week when a Congressman, in asking Bogden why he was fired, asked what exactly qualified as "obscenity" in Las Vegas).

Bogden testified under subpoena last week before the House Judiciary Committee. But Ensign argued today that the US Attorney office in Las Vegas, even though it is the fastest growing city in the country and a "magnet" for terrorists, received less funding in recent years and has not been able to hire new attorneys, going from 77 in 2003 to 71 now.

These things were not "taken into account" when Bogden was fired, said Ensign. Bogden told the committee last week that William Mercer, who was then nominated to be Deputy Attorney General told him he was fired because, "This would be an opportunity to put others into those positions so they could build their résumés and get experience so that for future possibilities of becoming federal judges or other political type positions, they could better handle it."

The system by which US Attorneys are let go is broken, said Ensign, who met with Gonzales in Ensign's Capitol Hill office on Friday and has spoken with him since. Ensign said Gonzales has promised him that the system is being reevaluated and fixed.

So Ensign is not calling for Gonzales to resign and he does not think the firings were politically motivated. Otherwise, Ensign said, he would have been contacted.

"I think it's perfectly appropriate for the President to be involved," said Ensign, "if he thinks his US Attorneys are not prosecuting the types of cases." "As long as they take the steps they have said, I will be satisfied."

In addition to revamping the system by which US Attorneys are replaced, Ensign said he wants the President and Attorney General to "restore the reputation" of Bogden. I do believe the Democrats will continue to make partisan hay about this," Ensign later added. "That's not what I'm about. I'm trying to right a wrong . . . They need to reestablish this gentleman's reputation."

Ensign said Bogden is the type of man his US Senator should stand up for and that's why he called the press conference today.

March 13, 2007 in Vote 2008: Democrats | Permalink | User Comments (4)

User Comments

Posted by: Linh Nguyen | Mar 13, 2007 5:29:54 PM

Posted by: zoek | Dec 8, 2007 3:56:49 AM

Posted by: zoek | Dec 10, 2007 6:50:08 AM

Posted by: zoek | Dec 12, 2007 12:10:29 AM

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