Update On Investigation Into U.S. Attorneys' Dismissals

 

 

February 21, 2008 (NEW YORK) -- The country hasn’t heard the end of the outcry over the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during President Bush’s second term, said Preet Bharara '93, chief counsel and staff director to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a lunchtime talk at Columbia Law School sponsored by the American Constitution Society.

 

 Bharara, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, encouraged Sen. Schumer to look into the federal attorneys’ sudden firings after the dismissals in December 2006. As the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight in the Courts, Schumer launched an investigation which resulted in Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in April 2007. Gonzales’ poor performance at those hearings may have contributed to his decision to resign a few months later, Bharara said. 

 

The U.S. Justice Department is heading the ongoing investigation. The latest controversy stems of a letter written by Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel, to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, accusing Justice of impeding Bloch’s own investigation by refusing to share documents. Bloch’s agency is charged with protecting federal whistle-blowers from reprisal. The Justice Department wants Bloch to wait until it has completed its own investigation. 

 

While Bharara acknowledged that the U.S. attorneys “serve at the will of the president,” he said that Sen. Schumer believes just because removing U.S. Attorneys is legal, it doesn’t make it ethical or right.

 

“It’s important for people to have confidence and faith in what the Department of Justice does,” Bharara said. “No one there has been able to answer questions as to why they were fired, and no one has acknowledged whose idea it was.”

 

Bharara said Republicans joined with Democrats after the firings occurred to investigate the matter. “No one was harder on Gonzales than Sen. Arlen Specter during the hearings, and he’s a Republican,” he said, adding that Gonzales was unable to answer most of the questions he was asked, including basic ones such as the number of attorneys dismissed.

 

The investigation was stymied by the White House’s refusal to allow officials who worked there to testify, Bharara said.

 

Although the dismissed attorneys have all “landed well” in other positions by now, Bharara said it’s important to find out whether their dismissal was political or an obstruction of justice. These attorneys had excellent performance reviews, so it’s important to find out if their dismissals resulted from refusals to comply with pressure from the Bush administration regarding cases they were prosecuting, he said.