Senate panel tackles interim U.S. attorney appointments

By ArkansasOnline Press Services

Tim Griffin (left) and Bud Cummins. Cummins was replaced by Griffin as a U.S. prosecutor, but now Griffin has said he no longer wants the job permanantly. The assistant attorney general has said that Cummins was not replaced for performance-related issues, but other prosecutors were. ADG file photos 2007-02-08 20:29:00

The Senate Judiciary Committee, concerned about a recent spate of prosecutor firings, moved to strip the Justice Department of some of its power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys.

By a 13-6 vote, the panel sent legislation to the full Senate that would limit the attorney general’s appointment of an interim U.S. attorney to 120 days. After that, a federal judge would have to appoint the prosecutor. The Senate may vote on the measure as early as next week.

The bill revokes a provision in last year’s USA PATRIOT Act renewal that gave the sole authority for naming interim U.S. attorneys to the attorney general. Committee members of both parties said they were concerned that it let Attorney General Alberto Gonzales circumvent the need to have top prosecutors confirmed by a Senate vote.

The 93 U.S. attorneys are political appointees and serve at the president’s discretion.

Those dismissed included Carol Lam of San Diego, who oversaw the bribery prosecution of ex-Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham, and San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, who supervised a federal task force probing the backdating of stock option grants to executives.

While the agency said most of the prosecutors were dismissed for unspecified performance problems, it acknowledged that H.E. “Bud” Cummins of Arkansas was fired without cause. He was replaced by Timothy Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The legislation passed in the panel Thursday would apply to Griffin’s appointment as well as the other prosecutors who were installed an interim basis.

“Going back to the old rule, I think, will restore public confidence,” said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s top Republican and a sponsor of the bill along with Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dianne Feinstein of California.

Performance problems?

The Justice Department this week confirmed it had recently asked at least seven U.S. attorneys to resign. Officials said the dismissals weren’t politically motivated and were generally based on job performance.

The recently fired U.S. attorney in Seattle said Thursday that he was told of no performance problems when he was asked to resign, and he called critical remarks by a top Justice Department official “unfair” and inaccurate.

Former U.S. attorney John McKay said in an interview that his Seattle office received glowing reviews as recently as last fall, when an intensive Justice Department audit heaped praise on McKay and his staff.

McKay challenged testimony this week by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who told the Senate judiciary panel that McKay and five other Republican U.S. attorneys were forced to resign for “performance-related” reasons.

“That is unfair,” McKay said. “That reflects on my former colleagues in the office and the good work that we did, and I know that’s not true.”

Justice reaction

Reacting to the panel’s vote, Justice Department spokesman Tasia Scolinos said the Patriot Act’s revision was “good government and constitutionally sound” and shouldn’t be changed.

“We are disappointed by congressional efforts to restrict our ability to appoint our own employees for temporary periods of time while a permanent nominee is selected,” she said.

After the committee vote where three Republicans joined Democrats in passing the measure, Senate Democratic leaders said they will send a letter to Gonzales protesting the firings and requesting more information. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, called the dismissals “Cronygate” and suggested they cleared the way for naming prosecutors with closer ties to the Bush administration and the Republican Party.

None of the senators on the Judiciary Committee were aware that the change was inserted into the Patriot Act at the Justice Department’s request, Feinstein said.

Committee chairman Leahy said the provision “slipped into” the legislation “reeks of political maneuvering.”

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Schmidt of Bloomberg News and Dan Eggen of The Washington Post.