In the matter of 7 US attorneys

David Johnston, Eric Lipton, and William Yardley, all of the New York Times, add something to our understanding of the messy dismissals of US attorneys around the country, evidently for political reasons.

One point they make rings a loud bell with me:  Paul McNulty, who was the Justice Department officials who implemented the firings, was the replacement for James Comey.  I well remember that many dreaded what he might do, in contrast to former deputy attorney general Comey, and that Patrick Fitzgerald might be one of the victims.  McNulty came out of Dick Armey's staff on the Hill.  He was considered to be more "politically attuned." 

David Iglesias, one of the dismissed 7, has been interviewed all over the place in the past several days.  His view is that the firings are political in one sense:  the Republicans wanted to move new prosecutors into place before the next election, giving new US attorneys a track record that would help put them in line for bigger jobs in the future.   That's quite common.  What's unusual is that they were fired and fired all at once after good job evaluations.

Here's what Johnston, Lipton, and Yardley write, in part:

The motivations for the dismissals appear more complicated, according to interviews with several of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials, lawmakers and others. Like Mr. Bogden, some believe they were forced out for replacements who could gild résumés; several prosecutors heard that favored candidates had been identified.

Other prosecutors may have been vulnerable because they had had run-ins with Washington, not over corruption cases against Republicans, but on less visible issues. Paul Charlton in Arizona, for example, annoyed F.B.I. officials by pushing for confessions to be tape recorded, while John McKay in Seattle had championed a computerized law enforcement information-sharing system that Justice Department officials did not want. Carol C. Lam of San Diego, who successfully prosecuted former Representative Randy Cunningham, had drawn complaints that she was not sufficiently aggressive on immigration cases.

Justice Department officials deny that the dismissals were politically motivated or that the action resulted from White House pressure. Brian Roehrkasse, an agency spokesman, said, “These decisions were based on the individual concerns about each U.S. attorney’s overall performance. This included performance concerns about ineffectively prosecuting departmental priority areas, failure to follow departmental guidelines, or just overall concerns about an ability to lead and effectively manage a U.S. attorney’s office.”

United States attorneys have four-year terms but can be removed at any time, and for almost any reason. But across the country, legal and public officials have expressed dismay over the firings. In Western Michigan, for example, lawyers and a federal judge came to the defense of Margaret M. Chiara, the United States attorney there, saying she was well regarded...

...Discussions began in October at the Justice Department about removing prosecutors who were considered flawed or deficient in carrying out administration policy by law enforcement officials, lawmakers and others, several officials said. The White House eventually approved the list and helped notify Republican lawmakers before the Dec. 7 dismissals, officials said. While Justice Department officials expected that top assistant prosecutors in each office would probably fill the jobs initially, the officials said they had not chosen permanent successors. However, officials knew that if the replacements were to have a substantial tenure before Mr. Bush left office, they needed to be named quickly...

...The list of prosecutors who were targets was approved by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, the day-to-day manager of the Justice Department since he was appointed in the fall of 2005. Under Mr. Gonzales, Mr. McNulty has become a powerful deputy with a wide-ranging portfolio. He was a United States attorney in Virginia, but as a Congressional staff member for former Representative Dick Armey of Texas, he is regarded in legal circles as more attuned to policy and politics than his predecessor, James B. Comey, a former career prosecutor in New York.