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A grand jury in Washington, D.C. has issued subpoenas related to a special counsel's investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006, people familiar with the probe said.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Nora Dannehy, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, special counsel in September following an internal Justice Department probe into the attorney firings.
Dannehy faced a Nov. 30 deadline to turn over a preliminary report to Mukasey on her investigation. She is looking into the possibility that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, former Gonzales Chief of Staff and others committed perjury, obstructed justice when they testified before Congress about the firings last year, and perhaps broke other federal laws. Gonzales, Sampson and McNulty resigned in disgrace last year. It is believed that the subpoenas are for documents and e-mails, including an unredacted copy of a memo about the U.S. attorney firings drafted in March 2007 by White House Associate Counsel Michael Scudder, and to compel testimony from former White House officials who played a role in the firings and have refused to cooperate voluntarily. A joint report issued by the Department of Justice's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concluded that partisan politics played a primary role in the firings of several federal prosecutors.
However, Inspector General Glenn Fine and OPR's H. Marshall Jarrett said former Bush administration officials who refused to be interviewed thwarted their investigation. Fine and Jarrett did not have subpoena power and therefore could not compel testimony from any individual who may have played a role in the dismissals. They recommended "that a counsel specially appointed by the Attorney General work with us to further examine ...whether criminal laws were violated." Jarrettt and Fine said in a joint statement that their "report did not conclude that the evidence we have uncovered thus far establishes that a violation of any criminal statute has occurred. However, we believe that the evidence collected in this investigation is not complete and that serious allegations have not been fully investigated or resolved." Former White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers are believed to have played a major role in the U.S. Attorney firings, but they have refused to cooperate with any investigation about the White House's involvement in the matter. It is unknown whether they were the recipients of the subpoenas that were issued by the grand jury.
Fine and Jarrett's 356-page report "found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several of the U.S. Attorneys."
They added that they were unable to fully investigate the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys "because of the refusal by several former key White House officials, including Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, to cooperate with our investigation." Thomas Carson, a spokesman for Dannehy, said in an e-mail exchange two weeks ago that Dannehy's investigation is "ongoing" and that he could not offer additional comment. Late last month, Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, also said the probe was "ongoing" but declined to comment further.
Gonzales and Sampson cooperated with Fine and Jarrett's 18-month investigation. But Gonzales's attorney, George Terwilliger, criticized the decision to appoint a special counsel to further probe his client when Dannehy was appointed special counsel in September. The Justice Department, or rather taxpayers, are paying as much as $24,000 a month for Gonzales's attorney related to a lawsuit over the politicization of another DOJ office.
David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico who was one of the nine federal prosecutors fired, said he expects to be interviewed by Dannehy, but has not met with her yet.
In an interview, Iglesias said the Justice Department would not be able to restore integrity to the agency unless lingering questions, such as finding out the individuals who put together the list of federal prosecutors to fire, are answered and the individuals responsible must be held accountable.
"The basic questions haven't been answered," Iglesias said. "What are the real reasons the nine of us were forced out? I believe that information will be contained in the testimony of Karl Rove and [former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and it is my hope that Congress will continue to pursue their testimonies so we can have answers. It's been two years and we still don't know."
The inspector general's report concluded that Iglesias's firing was the most "controversial" and that his dismissal was "engineered" by New Mexico GOP lawmakers Sen. Pete Domenici, former Congresswoman Heather Wilson and former White House political adviser Karl Rove over complaints about Iglesias's refusal to secure indictments in voter fraud cases and in a public corruption case.
"The White House would not provide us any internal documents and e-mails relating to the removals of Iglesias or the other U.S. Attorneys," according to the report. "Our investigation was also hindered by the refusal of Senator Domenici and his Chief of Staff to agree to an interview by us. In addition, we were not able to interview [former Justice Department White House liaison] Monica Goodling, who also declined to cooperate with our investigation "As a result, important gaps remain in the facts regarding Iglesias's removal as U.S. Attorney." Additionally, the report says Sampson, Goznales's chief of staff, gave "misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the list" of U.S. Attorney chosen for dismissal.
We "question whether Sampson provided us the full story about Iglesias's placement on the list, as well as the reasons for other U.S. Attorney removals," the report says. A report on the U.S. Attorney firings released late last month by the Senate Judiciary Committee said Karl Rove was responsible for helping the Justice Department compile a list of federal prosecutors to fire and that he and Gonzales engaged in a "cover-up" when he offered up reasons to explain the dismissals.
"The evidence shows senior officials were focused on the political impact of Federal prosecutions and whether Federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and corruption cases," said the 60-page Judiciary Committee report released by chairman Patrick Leahy. "It is now apparent that the reasons given for these firings, including those reasons provided in sworn testimony by the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, were contrived as part of a cover-up."
"The evidence...shows that the list for firings was compiled with participation from the highest political ranks in the White House, including former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove," the report said.
The White House and the Justice Department have previously denied that senior Bush administration officials were involved in the firings.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's report is an attempt to establish the justification for holding Rove and other White House officials in contempt for failing to testify before the committee about the firings when the 111th Congress is seated in January. Leahy's committee approved contempt resolutions against Rove and Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in December 2007 for refusing to turn over documents or testify about their role in the firings.
President Bush asserted executive privilege to block Rove, Miers, and Bolten from testifying about the scandal and White House officials repeatedly stonewalled Leahy's efforts to obtain documents that may have shed some light on internal deliberations about the matter.
"This administration has repeatedly rejected the constitutional oversight role of Congress. The Bush administration's days may be numbered, but the next Attorney General and the next Congress have much work to do to restore accountability and independence to the United States Department of Justice."
In October, a Republican-dominated federal Appeals Court panel has blocked the enforcement of the congressional subpoena that sought documents from Bolten and testimony from Miers, effectively guaranteeing that George W. Bush will leave the White House without his senior aides having to explain the prosecutor firings.
The panel also refused to expedite consideration of a White House appeal challenging a District Court ruling that had ordered Miers and Bolten to comply. In other words, the stay either ends the case or forces the next Congress to renew the subpoenas in 2009 after Bush leaves. According to people familiar with Dannehy's work, the Connecticut prosecutor has met with defense attorneys for former White House officials and is aggressively pursuing the case.
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