U.S. Department of Justice 

An Investigation into the Removal 

of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of the Inspector General 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Professional Responsibility 

September 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1

I. Methodology of the Investigation....................................................... 2

II. Organization of this Report ............................................................... 4

CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND.................................................................. 7

I. U.S. Attorneys .................................................................................. 7

II. Selection of U.S. Attorneys................................................................ 8

III. Department Evaluation and Interaction with U.S. Attorneys ............. 9

IV. Backgrounds of Department Officials.............................................. 10

A. Alberto Gonzales ................................................................... 11

B. Kyle Sampson ....................................................................... 11

C. Monica Goodling ................................................................... 11

D. Paul McNulty ........................................................................ 12

E. Michael Elston ...................................................................... 12

F. David Margolis ...................................................................... 13

G. William Mercer ...................................................................... 13

CHAPTER THREE FACTUAL OVERVIEW.................................................. 15

I. Development of U.S. Attorney Removal Lists ................................... 15

A. Genesis of Plan to Remove U.S. Attorneys.............................. 16

B. Process to Identify U.S. Attorneys for Removal....................... 16

C. The First List – March 2, 2005............................................... 18

1. Input from Comey and Margolis ................................... 21

2. Reaction to the List from the Office of the 

White House Counsel................................................... 22

3. Fall 2005 – Further Consultations about the Removal 

of U.S. Attorneys.......................................................... 23

a. Battle ................................................................. 23

b. Mercer................................................................ 23

c. Comey ................................................................ 24

d. Buchanan .......................................................... 24

D. The Second List – January 2006............................................ 25

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1. Sampson’s January 1, 2006, Draft List ........................ 25

2. The January 9, 2006, Memorandum from Sampson 

to the White House ...................................................... 27

3. The First Removal: Todd Graves.................................. 29

E. The Third List – April 14, 2006 .............................................. 30

1. Heffelfinger .................................................................. 31

2. Ryan............................................................................ 32

3. The Plan to Replace Cummins with Griffin ................... 33

a. Miers’s Request Regarding Griffin ....................... 33

b. Battle Tells Cummins to Resign .......................... 34

4. Sampson Suggests that Patrick Fitzgerald Be Removed 34

F. The Fourth List – September 13, 2006................................... 35

1. Sampson’s “Consensus” Process in Compiling the List . 37

2. The Removal Plan Takes Shape.................................... 39

G. Elston’s List – November 1, 2006........................................... 40

H. The Fifth List – November 7, 2006 ......................................... 42

1. Iglesias is Added to the List.......................................... 42

2. The Removal Plan ........................................................ 43

3. Reaction to the November 7 List and Plan .................... 44

I. The Sixth List – November 15, 2006 ...................................... 46

1. The Revised Plan.......................................................... 46

2. Execution of the Plan is Postponed............................... 47

3. The November 27, 2006, Meeting in the 

Attorney General’s Office.............................................. 48

a. Gonzales’s Recollection of the 

November 27 Meeting ......................................... 49

b. McNulty Asks to Add Ryan to the List ................. 49

c. White House Approval of the Removal Plan ......... 50

J. The Seventh and Final List – December 4, 2006 .................... 50

1. The White House Approves the Plan............................. 50

2. The Implementation of the Removal Plan...................... 51

II. The Aftermath of the Removals ....................................................... 52

A. The U.S. Attorneys’ Initial Reactions...................................... 53

B. Concern that the Department Intended to Bypass Senate 

Confirmation for Replacement U.S. Attorneys ........................ 54

C. The Department Begins to Publicly Respond to Concerns 

About the Removals .............................................................. 55

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1. Articles About Cummins’s Removal.............................. 55

2. Senators Express Concern About the Removals............ 57

3. Sampson’s January 2007 Briefing of Senate Judiciary 

Committee Staff ........................................................... 58

D. Elston’s Telephone Calls to Charlton and McKay on 

January 17, 2007.................................................................. 61

1. Telephone Call to McKay.............................................. 62

2. Telephone Call to Charlton........................................... 63

3. Elston’s Description of the Telephone Calls .................. 63

E. Attorney General Gonzales’s January 18, 2007, Testimony 

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee ................................. 64

F. Cummins Seeks Advice from Elston ...................................... 65

G. McNulty’s February 6, 2007, Testimony Before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee ............................................................. 65

1. McNulty’s Use of the Term “Performance-Related” to 

Describe the Removals ................................................. 65

2. Attorney General Gonzales’s Reaction to McNulty’s 

Testimony.................................................................... 67

3. U.S. Attorneys’ Reaction to McNulty’s Testimony.......... 68

H. The February 8 Letter from Several Senators ......................... 68

I. McNulty’s February 14 Closed Briefing for the 

Senate Judiciary Committee.................................................. 69

1. Preparation for the Briefing.......................................... 69

2. McNulty’s Briefing for the Senate Judiciary Committee 71

J. Elston’s Alleged Threat to Cummins ...................................... 73

1. Cummins’s Quote in The Washington Post................... 73

2. Elston’s Telephone Call to Cummins ............................ 74

a. Cummins’s Account of the Telephone Call .......... 74

b. Cummins’s E-mail to Bogden, Charlton, Iglesias, 

Lam, and McKay about the Telephone Call ......... 75

c. Elston’s Account of the Telephone Call ............... 76

K. The Department’s Response to the Senators’ Letter ............... 77

L. Events in March 2007 ........................................................... 78

1. March 3 Washington Post Article ................................. 78

2. House and Senate Hearings ......................................... 78

3. Cummins’s February 20 E-mail Surfaces ..................... 79

4. Moschella’s Testimony Before the House Judiciary 

Subcommittee.............................................................. 82

a. Preparation Sessions .......................................... 82

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b. Discussion in Preparation Sessions About White 

House Involvement ............................................. 82

c. March 5 Meeting at the White House to Discuss 

Moschella’s Testimony ........................................ 84

d. Moschella’s Testimony ........................................ 85

M. Attorney General Gonzales’s March 7 Op-Ed Article............... 87

N. Additional Documents Come to Light..................................... 89

O. Sampson’s Resignation.......................................................... 93

P. The Scudder Memorandum ................................................... 93

Q. Attorney General Gonzales’s March 13 Press Conference ....... 94

R. Attorney General Gonzales Directs an Investigation............... 95

S. Attorney General Gonzales’s Conversation with Goodling....... 95

T. Goodling Resigns from the Department ................................. 97

U. Subsequent Events ............................................................... 97

CHAPTER FOUR TODD GRAVES ............................................................. 99

I. Introduction ................................................................................... 99

A. Graves’s Background............................................................. 99

1. The EARS Evaluation of Graves’s Office.......................100

2. Graves’s Status on the Removal lists...........................100

B. Reasons Proffered for Graves’s Removal................................101

II. Chronology of Events Related to Graves’s Removal........................ 102

A. The Misconduct Allegations ..................................................102

1. Allegations Concerning Graves’s Wife ..........................102

2. Anonymous Allegations Regarding Graves...................104

B. Complaints About Graves.....................................................105

1. Senator Bond’s Congressional Staff Complain About 

Graves to White House Staff........................................105

2. The Department Learns About Bond’s Staff’s 

Complaints .................................................................106

C. Graves is Told to Resign .......................................................108

D. Department Comments About Graves’s Resignation .............110

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 111

CHAPTER FIVE H.E. “BUD” CUMMINS................................................... 115

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I. Introduction ................................................................................. 115

A. Cummins’s Background .......................................................115

B. The EARS Evaluations of Cummins’s Office..........................116

C. Cummins’s Status on the Removal Lists...............................116

D. Reasons Proffered for Cummins’s Removal ...........................116

II. Chronology of Events Related to Cummins’s Removal ................... 117

A. Cummins’s Performance.......................................................117

1. Sampson’s Statements................................................117

2. Department Managers’ Statements..............................118

B. Cummins’s Removal and Griffin’s Appointment ....................119

1. Griffin’s Background...................................................119

2. Griffin Learns Cummins’s Name is on the 

Removal List ...............................................................120

3. Griffin Expresses Interest in the U.S. Attorney 

Position ......................................................................121

4. January 2006 Removal List Identifies Griffin as 

Cummins’s Replacement.............................................124

5. Griffin’s Nomination Process .......................................125

a. Allegation that the Department Intended to 

Bypass the Senate Confirmation Process ...........126

b. The Pre-Nomination Process ..............................127

c. Indefinite Interim Appointment Proposed for 

Griffin ...............................................................128

d. Griffin Returns to Arkansas as a Special 

Assistant U.S. Attorney......................................131

C. Attorney General Gonzales Appoints Griffin Interim U.S. 

Attorney ...............................................................................131

D. Public Concerns About Griffin’s Appointment .......................132

E. The Attorney General’s and the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Testimony ............................................................................135

F. The Department’s Written Response to Congressional 

Concerns About Griffin’s Appointment..................................137

G. Griffin Withdraws.................................................................140

H. Taylor’s Comment Concerning Cummins ..............................141

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 142

A. Cummins’s Removal.............................................................142

B. Misleading Statements about Cummins’s Removal ...............144

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C. Interim Appointment of Griffin..............................................145

CHAPTER SIX DAVID IGLESIAS............................................................. 149

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 149

A. Iglesias’s Background...........................................................149

B. The EARS Evaluations of Iglesias’s Office..............................150

C. Iglesias’s Status on the Removal Lists...................................151

D. Reasons Proffered for Iglesias’s Removal...............................151

E. Investigative Limitations.......................................................153

II. Chronology of Events Related to Iglesias’s Removal ....................... 155

A. Alleged Concerns about Iglesias’s Management.....................155

B. Voter Fraud and Public Corruption Matters..........................158

1. Initial Complaints of Voter Fraud ................................158

2. Representative Wilson’s Complaint Concerning 

Voter Fraud ................................................................159

3. Formation of the Election Fraud Task Force................160

4. Continuing Complaints About Voter Fraud..................161

5. Election Fraud Task Force Review of Complaints.........163

6. Iglesias’s Meeting with Weh Regarding his Handling 

of Voter Fraud Complaints ..........................................164

7. Complaints to the White House Regarding Iglesias’s 

Handling of Voter Fraud Cases....................................165

8. Complaints Concerning Iglesias’s Handling of Public 

Corruption Cases........................................................166

a. The Vigil Case....................................................166

b. The “Courthouse Case”......................................168

9. Senator Domenici’s Calls to Attorney General 

Gonzales Regarding Iglesias ........................................168

10. Complaints to the Department Regarding Voter 

Fraud and Corruption Cases.......................................170

11. Complaints to Senator Domenici.................................172

12. Complaints to Karl Rove about Delays in the 

Courthouse Case ........................................................172

13. Senator Domenici’s Telephone Call to Deputy 

Attorney General McNulty ...........................................174

14. White House Communications with Attorney General 

Gonzales.....................................................................175

15. Iglesias’s Meeting with Rogers .....................................176

16. Representative Wilson’s Telephone Call to Iglesias.......177

17. Senator Domenici’s Telephone Call to Iglesias .............179

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18. Allegation Concerning Representative Wilson’s 

Telephone Call to Harriet Miers...................................181

III. Iglesias’s Removal......................................................................... 182

A. Iglesias is Added to Sampson’s List.......................................182

B. White House Knowledge of the Decision to Remove Iglesias...185

C. Iglesias is Told to Resign ......................................................185

IV. Analysis........................................................................................ 186

A. Iglesias was not Removed Because of Management Issues ....187

B. Complaints about Iglesias’s Handling of Voter Fraud 

and Public Corruption Cases................................................190

C. Additional Issues..................................................................194

D. Unanswered Questions.........................................................197

CHAPTER SEVEN DANIEL BOGDEN...................................................... 201

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 201

A. Bogden’s Background...........................................................201

B. The EARS Evaluation of Bogden’s Office ...............................201

C. Bogden’s Status on the Removal Lists ..................................201

D. Reasons Proffered for Bogden’s Removal...............................202

II. Chronology of Events Related to Bogden’s Removal....................... 204

A. Obscenity Prosecution..........................................................205

1. Obscenity Prosecution Task Force...............................205

2. Task Force Request to Bogden and Complaints 

About His Response ....................................................206

B. Bogden’s Alleged Lack of Energy and Leadership ..................209

C. Patriot Act Criticism .............................................................211

D. McNulty’s Qualms About Removing Bogden..........................212

E. Bogden’s Removal and Gonzales’s Concerns .........................214

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 214

CHAPTER EIGHT PAUL CHARLTON ....................................................... 219

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 219

A. Charlton’s Background.........................................................219

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B. The EARS Evaluation of Charlton’s Office .............................219

C. Charlton’s Status on the Removal Lists ................................219

II. Chronology of Events Related to Charlton’s Removal..................... 220

A. Charlton’s Discussions With Senator Kyl..............................221

B. Tape Recording Interrogations ..............................................223

1. Department Considers Tape Recording Policy..............223

2. Charlton Implements a Taping Policy in His District....224

3. Pilot Project for Charlton’s District ..............................225

C. The Death Penalty Case........................................................227

1. The Department’s Procedure for Death Penalty Cases..227

2. The Death Penalty Decision.........................................227

3. Charlton Seeks Reconsideration of the Decision ..........229

4. Charlton Asks to Speak to Attorney General Gonzales 

About the Decision......................................................231

5. Attorney General Gonzales Denies Charlton’s Request 

to Reconsider ..............................................................233

6. Sampson Places Charlton’s Name on the 

September 2006 Removal List .....................................234

D. Obscenity Prosecutions ........................................................234

1. The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force Requests 

Charlton’s Assistance..................................................235

2. Task Force Complaints About Charlton.......................235

E. Investigation of Congressman Renzi .....................................238

F. Charlton’s Resignation .........................................................240

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 240

A. Renzi Prosecution.................................................................240

B. Obscenity Prosecution..........................................................241

C. Discussion with Senator Kyl About Resources ......................241

D. Tape Recording Policy...........................................................242

E. The Death Penalty Case........................................................244

CHAPTER NINE JOHN MCKAY............................................................... 247

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 247

A. McKay’s Background............................................................247

1. The EARS Evaluations of McKay’s Office .....................247

2. McKay’s Status on the Removal Lists ..........................247

viii 
B. Reasons Proffered for McKay’s Removal ................................248

II. Chronology of Events Related to McKay’s Removal ........................ 248

A. The Wales Murder Investigation............................................248

B. The Northwest LInX Project ..................................................251

C. The Washington State Gubernatorial Election.......................252

1. McKay’s Office Initiates a Preliminary Inquiry .............252

2. Telephone Call to McKay from Congressman 

Hastings’s Chief of Staff ..............................................253

3. Complaints About McKay’s Handling of Voter Fraud 

Allegations ..................................................................255

4. Statements of Department Officials .............................257

D. 2006 LInX Issues .................................................................258

1. Contentious Meeting with McNulty and Mercer ...........259

2. McKay’s Bid for a Judicial Nomination ........................260

3. McKay’s August 30 Letter to McNulty..........................261

4. McNulty’s Response to McKay’s letter..........................262

E. McKay Appears on the September 2006 Removal List ...........263

F. McKay is Told to Resign........................................................264

G. Allegation that McKay was Removed Because His District’s 

Sentencing Statistics Were Out of Line .................................264

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 266

A. Voter Fraud Complaints .......................................................266

B. Wales Murder Investigation ..................................................267

C. Sentencing Statistics............................................................268

D. LInX.....................................................................................269

CHAPTER TEN CAROL LAM ................................................................... 271

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 271

A. Lam’s Background ...............................................................271

B. The EARS Evaluation of Lam’s Office....................................271

C. Lam’s Status on the Removal Lists .......................................272

D. Reasons Proffered for Lam’s Removal....................................272

II. Chronology of Events Related to Lam’s Removal............................ 273

A. Firearms Cases ....................................................................273

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B. Immigration Cases ...............................................................277

C. Lam’s Removal .....................................................................283

D. Public Corruption Investigations...........................................284

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 285

CHAPTER ELEVEN MARGARET CHIARA................................................ 289

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 289

A. Background .........................................................................289

B. The EARS Evaluation of Chiara’s Office ................................289

C. Chiara’s Status on the Removal Lists....................................290

D. Reasons Proffered for Chiara’s Removal................................290

II. Chronology of Events Related to Chiara’s Removal ........................ 292

A. Chiara’s Inclusion on the Removal Lists ...............................292

B. Factual Chronology Relating to Conflict in Western District 

of Michigan U.S. Attorney’s Office.........................................293

1. U.S. Attorney’s Office ..................................................293

2. Senior Management Conflicts in Chiara’s Office ..........293

a. Rumors and Allegations Regarding 

Relationship with AUSA and Favoritism.............293

(1) Chiara’s friend is hired ......................................293

(2) Rumors about their relationship........................295

b. Meyer Confronts Chiara About her 

Relationship with the AUSA...............................299

3. Chiara Requests Assistance from EOUSA....................301

4. Additional Incidents....................................................302

5. The Relationship Rumors Spread ................................303

6. Chiara’s Request for an OPR Investigation...................306

7. Chiara is Given Advance Notice of Her Removal...........308

8. Chiara’s Removal ........................................................309

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 309

CHAPTER TWELVE KEVIN RYAN ........................................................... 313

I. Introduction ................................................................................. 313

A. Background .........................................................................313

B. The EARS Evaluations of Ryan’s Office .................................313

x 
C. Status on the Removal Lists .................................................314

D. Reasons Proffered for Ryan’s Removal ..................................315

II. Chronology of Events Related to Ryan’s Removal........................... 315

A. Concerns About Ryan’s Management....................................315

B. Sampson’s Discussions About Ryan in Early 2005 ...............316

C. Fall 2005 EARS Evaluation is Postponed ..............................317

D. Events in 2006.....................................................................317

1. Ryan is on Sampson’s January 9, 2006, List of U.S. 

Attorneys Recommended for Removal..........................317

2. Controversy Concerning the Methodology of the 

EARS Evaluation ........................................................318

3. The March 2006 EARS Evaluation ..............................318

4. The Special EARS Evaluation......................................319

E. The Removal Lists ................................................................321

III. Analysis........................................................................................ 323

CHAPTER THIRTEEN CONCLUSIONS .................................................... 325

I. Removal Process........................................................................... 326

A. Oversight of the Process .......................................................326

B. Implementation of the Removal Plan.....................................328

C. Reasons for the Removals of Individual U.S. Attorneys .........331

D. Notification to the U.S. Attorneys..........................................336

II. White House Involvement in the Removal Process ......................... 337

III. The Attorney General’s Interim Appointment Authority ................. 338

IV. The Conduct of Senior Department Officials.................................. 339

A. Alberto Gonzales ..................................................................339

1. Gonzales’s Statements at the March 13 Press 

Conference..................................................................341

2. Gonzales’s Conversation with Goodling .......................342

B. Paul McNulty .......................................................................344

C. Kyle Sampson ......................................................................346

1. Misleading Statements to the White House..................347

2. Misleading Statements to Congress.............................348

3. Misleading Department Officials..................................349

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D. Monica Goodling ..................................................................351

E. David Margolis .....................................................................352

F. Michael Elston .....................................................................354

G. William Moschella ................................................................356

V. Conclusion ................................................................................... 356

xii 
 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE 

INTRODUCTION 

On December 7, 2006, at the direction of senior Department of Justice 

(Department) officials, seven U.S. Attorneys were told to resign from their 

positions.1 Two other U.S. Attorneys had been told to resign earlier in 2006.2 

When these removals became public in late 2006 and early 2007, members of 

Congress began to raise questions and concerns about the reasons for the 

removals, including whether they were intended to influence certain 

prosecutions. 

Beginning in March 2007, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and 

the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) conducted this joint investigation 

into the removals of these U.S. Attorneys.3 Our investigation focused on the 

reasons for the removals of the U.S. Attorneys and whether they were removed 

for partisan political purposes, or to influence an investigation or prosecution, 

or to retaliate for their actions in any specific investigation or prosecution. We 

also examined the process by which the U.S. Attorneys were selected for 

removal, and we sought to identify the persons involved in those decisions, 

whether in the Department, the White House, Congress, or elsewhere. In 

addition, we investigated whether the Attorney General or other Department 

officials made any false or misleading statements to Congress or the public 

concerning the removals, and whether they attempted to influence the 

testimony of other witnesses. Finally, we examined whether the Attorney 

General or others intended to bypass the Senate confirmation process in the 

replacement of any removed U.S. Attorney through the use of the Attorney 

General’s appointment power for Interim U.S. Attorneys. 

1 The U.S. Attorneys were Daniel Bogden, Paul Charlton, Margaret Chiara, David 

Iglesias, Carol Lam, John McKay, and Kevin Ryan. 

2 On January 24, 2006, Todd Graves was told to resign; on June 14, 2006, H.E. “Bud” 

Cummins was told to resign. 

3 In addition, we also conducted joint investigations of three other matters related to 

the subject matter of this investigation. We investigated allegations that the Department’s 

former White House Liaison, Monica Goodling, and others in the Office of the Attorney General 

used political considerations to assess candidates for career positions in the Department, and 

on July 28, 2008, we issued a report describing our findings. We also investigated allegations 

that officials overseeing the Department’s Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program 

used political considerations in assessing candidates for those programs, and on June 24, 

2008, we issued a report describing our findings in that investigation. In addition, we 

investigated allegations that former Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General (AAG) 

Bradley Schlozman and others used political considerations in hiring and personnel decisions 

in the Civil Rights Division. We will issue a separate report describing the results of that 

investigation. 

1
 

 

I. Methodology of the Investigation 

During the course of our investigation, we conducted approximately 90 

interviews.4 Among the witnesses we interviewed were former Attorney General 

Alberto Gonzales; former Deputy Attorneys General Paul McNulty, James 

Comey, and Larry Thompson; and numerous current and former employees of 

the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), the Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General (ODAG), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). 

We interviewed eight of the nine U.S. Attorneys who were removed – Daniel 

Bogden, Paul Charlton, Margaret Chiara, Bud Cummins, Todd Graves, David 

Iglesias, John McKay, and Carol Lam. The ninth U.S. Attorney, Kevin Ryan, 

declined our request for an interview. 

We also attempted to interview Monica Goodling, a former counsel to 

Attorney General Gonzales and the Department’s White House Liaison. She 

declined to cooperate with our investigation. However, on May 23, 2007, 

Goodling testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee 

on the Judiciary pursuant to a grant of immunity issued by the United States 

District Court for the District of Columbia, and we reviewed the transcript of 

that hearing. 

We also attempted to interview White House staff who may have played a 

role in the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. We discussed our request with the 

Office of Counsel to the President (White House Counsel’s Office), and that 

office encouraged current and former White House employees to agree to be 

interviewed by us. Several former White House staff members agreed to be 

interviewed, including Deputy White House Counsel David Leitch; Director of 

Political Affairs Sara Taylor; Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings; 

Associate White House Counsel Dabney Friedrich, Christopher Oprison, and 

Grant Dixton; and Paralegal Colin Newman. However, other former White 

House staff, including White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Assistant to the 

President and Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor Karl Rove, Deputy 

White House Counsel William Kelley, and Associate White House Counsel 

Richard Klingler, declined our request to interview them. 

Miers’s attorney told us that although he understood that considerations 

of executive privilege were not an issue between the Department of Justice and 

the White House since both are part of the Executive Branch, an interview with 

us might undermine Miers’s ability to rely on the instructions she received 

from the White House directing her to refuse to appear for Congressional 

testimony. Rove’s attorney advised us after consultation with Rove that he 

4 Some of the people we interviewed were also interviewed in connection with our other 

joint investigations described in footnote 3. 

2
 

declined our request for an interview. We were informed by the White House 

Counsel’s Office that both Kelley and Klingler also declined our request. 

We also interviewed several members of Congress and congressional staff 

regarding the removals. We interviewed Congresswoman Heather Wilson in 

relation to Iglesias’s removal. We interviewed Congressman “Doc” Hastings and 

his former Chief of Staff, Ed Cassidy, in relation to the removal of McKay. We 

requested an interview with Senator Christopher S. “Kit” Bond in relation to 

Graves’s removal, and he provided us with a written statement. 

We also attempted to interview Senator Pete V. Domenici and his Chief of 

Staff, Steven Bell, about the removal of Iglesias and any conversations they had 

with the White House or the Department related to the removal. However, 

Senator Domenici and Bell declined our requests for an interview.5 

In our investigation, we also reviewed several thousand electronic and 

hard copy documents, including documents the Department produced in 

response to Congressional investigations of the U.S. Attorney removals.6 We 

obtained and searched the e-mail accounts of numerous current and former 

Department employees in, among other Department components, the Attorney 

General’s Office, the Deputy Attorney General’s Office, and EOUSA. 

We also requested and received documents from the White House 

showing communications between the White House and outside persons and 

entities, including the Department of Justice, related to the removal of the U.S. 

Attorneys. However, the White House Counsel’s Office declined to provide 

internal e-mails or internal documents related to the U.S. Attorney removals, 

stating that these documents were protected from disclosure because, 

according to the White House Counsel’s Office, such material “implicate[s] 

White House confidentiality interests of a very high order. . . .” The White 

House did not formally assert executive privilege as grounds for withholding 

the material from us, but asserted that its “internal communications . . . are, in 

our judgment, covered by the deliberative process and/or presidential 

communications components of executive privilege in the event of a demand for 

them by Congress.” 

As we discuss in more detail in Chapter Three, in the course of our 

investigation we also learned that in early March 2007 Associate White House 

Counsel Michael Scudder had interviewed Department and White House 

5 Domenici declined to be interviewed, but said he would provide written answers to 

questions through his attorney. We declined this offer because we did not believe it would be a 

reliable or appropriate investigative method under the circumstances. 

6 Some of these documents were produced to Congress in redacted form. However, we 

had access to and reviewed these documents in unredacted form. 

3
 

 

personnel at the request of White House Counsel Fred Fielding in an effort to 

understand the circumstances surrounding the U.S. Attorney removals and be 

in a position to respond to this issue.7 Based on his interviews, Scudder 

created a memorandum for Fielding containing a timeline of events, which was 

provided to the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and to 

the Attorney General. Because the Scudder chronology appeared to contain 

information we had not obtained elsewhere in our investigation, we requested 

that OLC produce a complete copy of the final Scudder memorandum and all 

drafts of the memorandum. OLC declined to produce the document, stating 

that the White House Counsel’s Office directed it not to do so. The White 

House Counsel’s Office agreed to provide us with one paragraph in the 

memorandum related to information about Iglesias’s removal, and two 

paragraphs containing information Rove provided to Scudder. White House 

Counsel notified us that these paragraphs contained information similar to 

previous public statements the White House made in the press. The White 

House Counsel’s Office declined to provide to us a full copy of the 

memorandum, stating that it has a “very strong confidentiality interest” in not 

providing documents that were prepared to advise and assist the President and 

his advisors “in response to a public, ongoing, and significant controversy.”8 

The White House Counsel’s Office eventually provided to us a heavily 

redacted version of the document, but the redactions made the document 

virtually worthless as an investigative tool. We disagree with the White House’s 

rationale for withholding this document, particularly since the document was 

shared with OLC and e-mail records also show that drafts had been provided to 

former Attorney General Gonzales. We also disagree with the White House 

Counsel’s Office decision not to provide us White House internal documents 

related to the U.S. Attorney removals and, as we discuss below, believe it 

hindered our investigation. 

II. Organization of this Report 

In Chapter Two of this report, we provide background information about 

the jurisdiction and duties of U.S. Attorneys, how they are selected and 

evaluated, and their position in the Department’s organizational structure. 

7 We learned about this document from the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. In 

response to our document request, OLC had provided to us its final chronology, deleting all 

references to the Scudder chronology and all information derived from that document. When 

we obtained earlier drafts of the OLC chronology, we saw references to the Scudder 

memorandum as support for certain propositions in the chronology, including alleged 

communications between a member of Congress and the White House regarding Iglesias. 

8 A copy of a letter from Emmet Flood, Special Counsel to the President, describing the 

reasons for the White House’s decision is included in Appendix A. 

4
 

 

In Chapter Three, we describe in detail the background leading to the 

removal of the U.S. Attorneys in 2006, including the genesis of the plan to 

replace them, the various modifications of the plan in 2005 through 2006, and 

the involvement of the White House and Department officials in the 

development of the plan. We then discuss the removals and events following 

the removals, including the initial Congressional and public focus on the 

removals, the Department’s efforts to explain the removals, the public 

statements and testimony of senior Department officials about the reasons for 

the removals, and the Congressional hearings regarding the removals. 

In Chapters Four through Twelve, we discuss in detail the circumstances 

surrounding the removal of each of the nine U.S. Attorneys. We examine the 

reasons the Department offered for each removal, the process by which the 

U.S. Attorneys were selected for removal, the process by which they were 

removed, and our conclusions regarding their removal. 

In Chapter Thirteen, we provide our conclusions about the process by 

which the U.S. Attorneys were selected for removal and removed, the reasons 

proffered for removal, the actions of senior Department leaders in the removal 

process, and whether any Department employee made false or misleading 

statements to Congress or the public related to the removals.9 

9 With the exception of the nine U.S. Attorneys who were removed in 2006, we do not 

discuss in detail all of the U.S. Attorneys Kyle Sampson or others at the Department may have 

considered for removal between 2005 and 2006. However, in describing the removal selection 

process, we identify those U.S. Attorneys Sampson specifically mentioned to the White House 

in removal lists and e-mail correspondence concerning the removals. We also note what 

Department officials told us about why these U.S. Attorneys ultimately were not removed. 

5
[PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]

6
 

 

CHAPTER TWO 

BACKGROUND

In this chapter, we briefly discuss the duties of U.S. Attorneys, how they 

are selected and evaluated, and their position in the Department’s 

organizational hierarchy. 

I. U.S. Attorneys 

There are 93 U.S. Attorneys throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, 

the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana 

Islands. Under the supervision of the Attorney General, who has statutory 

authority over all litigation in which the United States or any of its agencies is a 

party, U.S. Attorneys serve as the federal government’s chief law enforcement 

officers in their districts.10 See U.S. Attorney’s Manual (USAM) § 3-2.100. U.S. 

Attorneys must interpret and implement the policies of the Department in the 

exercise of their prosecutorial discretion. As stated in the Department’s USAM, 

a U.S. Attorney’s “professional abilities and the need for their impartiality in 

administering justice directly affect the public’s perception of federal law 

enforcement.” USAM § 3-2.140. 

U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President with the advice and 

consent of the Senate. See 28 U.S.C. § 541. Because they are Presidential 

appointees and not covered by standard civil service protections, U.S. 

Attorneys are subject to removal at the will of the President.11 U.S. Attorneys 

are appointed for 4-year terms, although upon expiration of their 4-year term 

they typically remain in office until they choose to leave or there is a change in 

Administration. USAM § 3-2.120. 

Prior to March 2006, in the event of a vacancy in a U.S. Attorney’s 

position, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney became the Acting U.S. Attorney, 

pending confirmation of a Presidential appointee, for a maximum 210-day 

period pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1). Alternatively, the Attorney General 

could appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney for that district to serve for a maximum 

of 120 days. 28 U.S.C. § 546(a) and (c). After 120 days, the federal district 

court could either reappoint the Interim U.S. Attorney or make its own 

10 One U.S. Attorney is assigned to each of the judicial districts, with the exception of 

Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands where a single U.S. Attorney 

serves both districts. 

11 Presidential discretion under the statute is broad but not unlimited. The President 

has the discretion to remove a U.S. Attorney when “he regards it for the public good.” See, e.g., 

Parsons v. United States,167 U.S. 324, 343 (1897). Since a removal for an illegal or improper 

purpose would be contrary to the “public good,” it would be impermissible. 

7
 

appointment to serve until the vacancy is filled through Senate confirmation of 

a Presidential appointment. See 28 U.S.C. § 546 (c) and (d). 

At the request of the Department, Congress enacted amendments to the 

USA Patriot Act in March 2006 which eliminated the district court from the 

process, removed the 120-day time limit, and permitted the Interim U.S. 

Attorney appointed by the Attorney General to serve until a Presidentially 

appointed U.S. Attorney was confirmed. See 28 U.S.C. § 546; Pub.L. 109-177, 

§ 502. 

As discussed in Chapter Three, in response to the events described in 

this report, in June 2007 Congress repealed this amendment. Therefore, 

according to 28 U.S.C. § 546, an Interim U.S. Attorney appointed by the 

Attorney General may serve up to 120 days or until the confirmation of a 

Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney. If an Interim U.S. Attorney 

appointment expires before a Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney is 

confirmed, the federal district court for that district appoints an Interim U.S. 

Attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. See 28 U.S.C. § 546; see also 

USAM at § 3-2.160. 

II. Selection of U.S. Attorneys 

To identify candidates for U.S. Attorney positions, the White House 

typically seeks recommendations from political leaders in the various districts 

across the country. During the time period under review in this report, 

Senators from the President’s party normally submitted recommendations for 

U.S. Attorney candidates to the White House Presidential Personnel Office 

(PPO) or to staff in the White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA). If no 

Republican Senator represented a particular district, White House staff 

contacted OPA’s designated “political lead” for that district. After panel 

interviews with Department and White House officials, and Deputy Attorney 

General and Attorney General concurrence, a candidate’s name was 

recommended to the President. 

If the President approved the recommendation, the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (FBI) began a background investigation of the candidate. The 

results of the background investigation were forwarded by EOUSA to the 

Department’s White House Liaison. After review of the background 

investigation, the White House Counsel’s Office would state whether the 

candidate was “cleared.” If the candidate was cleared, the White House 

informed EOUSA, which sent the nomination paperwork to the White House. 

The White House would then publicly announce the President’s “intent to 

nominate” the candidate, and the White House would forward the nomination 

paperwork to the Senate. 

8
While their nominations were before the Senate, U.S. Attorney 

candidates were subject to a “blue slip” process by which their home state 

Senators approved or disapproved of the nomination. The blue slip is a form 

printed on blue paper that the Senate Judiciary Committee uses to allow the 

home state Senators to express their views concerning a presidential nominee. 

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), by Senate tradition if a 

home state Senator indicates disapproval or otherwise fails to note approval on 

the blue slip, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee normally declines to 

take action on the nomination out of deference to the home state Senator. See 

CRS Report for Congress, “U.S. Attorneys Who Have Served Less Than Full 

Four-Year Terms, 1981-2006,” February 22, 2007, p. 1. 

III. Department Evaluation and Interaction with U.S. Attorneys 

Appendix B contains a chart of the Department’s organizational 

structure. 

According to federal regulation, the Attorney General supervises and 

directs the administration and operation of the Department of Justice, 

including the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. See 28 C.F.R. § 0.5. The Deputy 

Attorney General assists the Attorney General in providing overall supervision 

and direction to all organizational units of the Department, including the U.S. 

Attorneys’ Offices. See 28 C.F.R. § 0.15. The Deputy Attorney General is 

authorized to exercise all the power and authority of the Attorney General, 

except where such power or authority is prohibited by law from delegation or 

has been delegated to another official. In the absence of the Attorney General, 

the Deputy Attorney General acts as the Attorney General. See 28 C.F.R. § 

0.15. The Deputy Attorney General oversees the day-to-day operations of the 

Department of Justice and is the direct supervisor of U.S. Attorneys. 

The Executive Office for United States Attorneys performs two primary 

functions with respect to the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices: (1) evaluating the 

performance of the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, making appropriate reports and 

taking corrective action where necessary; and (2) facilitating coordination 

between the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and other organizational units of the 

Department of Justice. See 28 C.F.R. § 0.22 (a)(1) and (2). With respect to the 

first function, periodic performance evaluations of U.S. Attorneys’ Offices are 

conducted by EOUSA’s Evaluation and Review Staff (EARS). 

During EARS reviews, a U.S. Attorney’s Office performance evaluation is 

conducted over a period of 1 week by a team of experienced Assistant U.S. 

Attorneys (AUSAs) and administrative and financial litigation personnel from 

other U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. Each fiscal year, EARS conducts evaluations in 

approximately one fourth of the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. Thus, any given U.S. 

Attorney’s Office should be evaluated every 3 to 4 years. 

9
 

 

 

 

EOUSA’s evaluation program serves various purposes, including 

providing on-site management assistance to U.S. Attorneys and assuring 

compliance with Department policies and programs. The program also serves 

as a mechanism by which evaluators can share ideas and best practices with 

the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. 

According to the Chief of Staff and Deputy Director of EOUSA, the 

evaluation program also provides an opportunity for peers to evaluate peers in 

an objective manner. The evaluators, who are neither auditors nor inspectors, 

also make recommendations for improving the operation of the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office. 

Following the on-site EARS evaluation of a U.S. Attorney’s Office, the 

EARS team leader prepares a document entitled “Draft Significant 

Observations” for the Director of EOUSA, who in turn provides the draft to the 

Deputy Attorney General but not to the U.S. Attorney. A “Follow-up Program” 

includes follow-up visits to the U.S. Attorney’s Office by evaluators other than 

those who participated in the initial evaluation and EOUSA personnel. Followup teams verify corrective actions and provide needed assistance to the offices. 

After completion of the follow-up review, the EARS staff produces a “Final 

Evaluation Report,” consisting of a summary of the legal and administrative 

reports and the U.S. Attorney’s response to those reports. The Director of 

EOUSA provides the Final Evaluation Report to the Deputy Attorney General 

and the U.S. Attorney. 

Allegations of misconduct by U.S. Attorneys are generally investigated by 

either the OIG or OPR, depending on the nature of the alleged misconduct.12 

As presidential appointees, U.S. Attorneys are not subject to discipline or 

removal by the Department without the President’s approval. In cases in which 

the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General conclude that removal 

is warranted, they normally request approval from the White House Counsel to 

ask for the U.S. Attorney’s resignation. If the U.S. Attorney refuses to submit a 

resignation, the President can dismiss the U.S. Attorney. 

IV. Backgrounds of Department Officials 

In this section, we briefly summarize the backgrounds and duties of 

those individuals who had a major role in the removal of the U.S. Attorneys at 

issue in this review and in the Department’s response to those removals. 

12 OPR has jurisdiction to investigate allegations against U.S. Attorneys that involve the 

exercise of their authority “to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice.” The OIG has 

jurisdiction to investigate all other allegations against U.S. Attorneys. See 5 U.S.C. App. 3 § 

8E. 

10
Appendix C identifies the Department’s senior managers at the time of 

the events discussed in this report. 

A. Alberto Gonzales 

Alberto Gonzales graduated from Rice University in 1979 and Harvard 

Law School in 1982. He began his legal career in private practice in 1982 at 

the law firm of Vinson and Elkins, where he became a partner. In 1994, he 

was appointed General Counsel to Governor Bush. In 1997, Gonzales was 

appointed Secretary of State for Texas. Gonzales also served as a Justice of the 

Supreme Court of Texas from 1999 to until 2001, when he became White 

House Counsel to President Bush. Gonzales served as White House Counsel 

until February 2005, when he was confirmed as Attorney General of the United 

States. Gonzales resigned as the Attorney General on August 27, 2007. 

B. Kyle Sampson 

Kyle Sampson graduated from Brigham Young University in 1993 and 

from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996. After law school, he served 

as a federal appellate court clerk, and then worked for 2 years in a private law 

firm in Salt Lake City. In 1999, he became a Majority Counsel to the U.S. 

Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where, among other things, he worked on 

the nominations of candidates for political positions in the Department of 

Justice. In 2001, Sampson moved to the White House as Special Assistant to 

the President and Associate Director for Presidential Personnel where he 

handled, among other duties, presidential appointments at the Department of 

Justice. Later in 2001 and continuing until 2003, Sampson served as 

Associate Counsel to the President. During that time, Sampson worked on 

legislative, policy, and environmental matters. 

In August 2003, Sampson moved to the Department of Justice, where he 

first served as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft. In February 

2005, Sampson became Deputy Chief of Staff to Attorney General Gonzales, 

and in September 2005 he became Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. He 

remained in that position until his resignation from the Department in March 

2007. 

C. Monica Goodling 

Monica Goodling graduated from Messiah College in 1995 and from 

Regent University School of Law in 1999. From 1999 to February 2002, 

Goodling worked at the Republican National Committee as a research analyst, 

senior analyst, and deputy director for research and strategic planning. 

In February 2002, Goodling began work in a political position in the 

Department’s Office of Public Affairs. In September 2004, Goodling was 

detailed for 6 months as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. 

11
Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. In March 2005, Goodling 

was appointed as the political Deputy Director in EOUSA. According to her 

résumé, her responsibilities at EOUSA included oversight of and coordination 

between EOUSA and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country. 

In October 2005, Goodling was appointed as Counselor to Attorney 

General Gonzales. In April 2006 she became the Department’s White House 

Liaison and Senior Counsel to the Attorney General. Goodling’s major 

responsibility as White House Liaison was to interview and process applicants 

for political positions in the Department, including U.S. Attorneys. Goodling 

remained in that position until she resigned in April 2007. 

D. Paul McNulty 

Paul McNulty graduated from Grove City College in 1980 and from 

Capital University School of Law in 1983. He began his legal career as Counsel 

for the House of Representatives’ Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, 

where he served from 1983 to 1985. From 1985 to 1987, McNulty was Director 

of Government Affairs at the Legal Services Corporation. In 1987, he became 

Minority Counsel to the House Subcommittee on Crime. 

McNulty joined the Department of Justice in 1990 as Deputy Director of 

the Office of Policy Development, and in 1991 he became the Director of the 

Department’s Office of Policy and Communications. 

McNulty worked for a private law firm in Washington from 1993 to 1995. 

He returned to work for Congress in 1995 as Chief Counsel to the House 

Subcommittee on Crime. He remained in that position until 1999 when he 

became Chief Counsel and Director of Legislative Operations for the House 

Majority Leader. 

After serving on President Bush’s transition team for the Department of 

Justice, McNulty was appointed Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General in 

January 2001. In September 2001, he was confirmed to be the U.S. Attorney 

for the Eastern District of Virginia. He served as U.S. Attorney until November 

2005, when he became the Acting Deputy Attorney General. McNulty was 

confirmed as the Deputy Attorney General on March 17, 2006. 

As Deputy Attorney General, McNulty was the U.S. Attorneys’ immediate 

supervisor. He served as the Deputy Attorney General until his resignation in 

July 2007. 

E. Michael Elston 

Michael Elston graduated from Drake University in 1991 and Duke 

University School of Law in 1994. Following a 2-year federal appellate court 

clerkship, Elston went into private practice until 1999, when he became an 

12
AUSA in the Northern District of Illinois. Elston subsequently served as an 

AUSA in the Eastern District of Virginia from April 2002 until December 2005, 

when he became Chief of Staff and Counselor to McNulty. Elston remained 

McNulty’s Chief of Staff until his resignation in June 2007. 

F. David Margolis 

David Margolis is a career Associate Deputy Attorney General and the 

highest-ranking career attorney in the Department. Margolis graduated from 

Brown University in 1961 and Harvard Law School in 1964. He began his 

career with the Department in 1965 as an AUSA in the District of Connecticut. 

Beginning in 1969, he held a series of supervisory positions with the Organized 

Crime Section of the Criminal Division. In 1990, he became Acting Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division. In 1993, he was 

appointed as an Associate Deputy Attorney General and has remained in that 

position since that time. 

Margolis’s informal biography describes his duties as an Associate 

Deputy Attorney General to include acting as the liaison for the Deputy 

Attorney General with the FBI, the Criminal Division, and the U.S. Attorneys. 

Margolis is also normally responsible for recommending the Department’s 

response in cases where the OIG or OPR make misconduct findings against 

high-level Department officials. 

G. William Mercer 

William Mercer graduated from the University of Montana in 1984 and 

received a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of 

Government at Harvard University in 1988. Mercer then was a Presidential 

Management Intern in the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy from 

1988 to 1989. Between 1989 and 1995, Mercer served in the Department of 

Justice as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General and Senior Policy 

Analyst in the Office of Policy Development. 

Mercer received a law degree from George Mason University School of 

Law in 1993. From 1994 to 2001, he worked as an AUSA in the District of 

Montana. He was confirmed as the U.S. Attorney in Montana in 2001. 

Between June 2005 and July 2006, Mercer was the Principal Associate 

Deputy Attorney General while also serving as U.S. Attorney for Montana. In 

September 2006, Mercer was nominated to be Associate Attorney General. He 

served as Acting Associate Attorney General until June 2007, when he 

withdrew from consideration for the nomination. Mercer currently serves as 

the U.S. Attorney in Montana. 

13
H. William Moschella 

William Moschella received an undergraduate degree from the University 

of Virginia in 1990 and a law degree from George Mason University School of 

Law in 1995. During and after law school, Moschella served in a variety of 

congressional staff positions, including Counsel to the House Committee on 

Government Reform, General Counsel to the House Committee on Rules, Chief 

Investigative Counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Chief 

Legislative Counsel and Parliamentarian to the House Committee on the 

Judiciary. 

In May 2003, Moschella was confirmed as the Department of Justice’s 

Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs. In October 

2006, Moschella was appointed Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. 

He resigned from the Department in January 2008. 

14
 

 

CHAPTER THREE 

FACTUAL OVERVIEW 

In this chapter, we provide a detailed chronology leading to the removals 

of the U.S. Attorneys, including the genesis of the plan and what we were able 

to discover about the White House’s involvement in the plan. We discuss the 

selection process, the removal process, the reaction to the removals, and the 

Department’s responses. 

I. Development of U.S. Attorney Removal Lists 

As noted in Chapter Two, from January 2001 until October 2003 Kyle 

Sampson worked at the White House, first as a Special Assistant to the 

President in the Presidential Personnel Office and later as an Associate Counsel 

in the White House Counsel’s Office. In his position in the Presidential 

Personnel Office, Sampson was responsible for, among other things, 

interviewing and recommending candidates for political appointments to 

positions in the Department of Justice. Sampson told us that, in that capacity, 

he participated in interviewing candidates for virtually all the U.S. Attorney 

positions filled during the first 9 months of the Bush Administration. 

After moving to the White House Counsel’s Office in September 2001, 

Sampson continued to be directly involved in the selection of U.S. Attorneys. 

He served on the interviewing panel for U.S. Attorneys and became the White 

House representative for U.S. Attorney appointments.13 As part of his 

responsibilities, Sampson reviewed the résumés and questionnaires of all U.S. 

Attorney applicants and the background investigation files for these nominees. 

In October 2003, Sampson joined the Department as Counselor to 

Attorney General John Ashcroft. In February 2005, when Attorney General 

Gonzales took office, Sampson became his Deputy Chief of Staff and later his 

Chief of Staff. Throughout his tenure in the Department, Sampson remained 

involved in the selection and appointment of U.S. Attorneys through his 

attendance at weekly judicial selection meetings at the White House during 

which U.S. Attorney appointments were decided. 

13 Sampson said the interviewing panel for U.S. Attorneys generally included himself, 

an Associate White House Counsel with responsibility for the particular geographic area the 

potential candidate was being considered for, a person from the Presidential Personnel Office, 

David Margolis, the Director of EOUSA, and the Department’s White House Liaison. 

15
Nov 27, 2006 

Meeting in Gonzales’s conference 

room at which the AG approves the 

removal list and implementation plan 

Dec 4, 2006 

White House approves plan. Sampson 

sends seventh and final list to the White 

U.S. Attorney Removal Overview House with Ryan’s name added

Mar 8, 2007 Jan 12, 2007 

Sampson briefs Senate Judiciary 

counsel about removals and 

leaves impression that removals 

were based on EARS evaluations 

Nov 2004 

After the Presidential election, 

Feb 2005 

Apr 14, 2006 

Sep 13, 2006 

Nov 7, 2006 

Sampson creates 

his fifth removal list 

Nov 15, 2006 

Sampson sends White House 

his sixth removal list 

Sampson retrieves e-mails 

which show that White House 

was involved in U.S. Attorney 

removals more extensively and 

earlier than McNulty and 

Moschella told Congress 

Mar 14, 2007 

Sampson leaves 

the Department 

Harriet Miers asks Kyle Sampson Gonzales becomes Attorney 

whether the President should seek General and endorses 

resignations of all U.S. Attorneys. Sampson’s plan regarding 

Sampson opposes the idea removal of U.S. Attorneys 

Mar 2, 2005 

Sampson sends White House 

his first removal list 

Jan 9, 2006 

Sampson sends White House 

his second removal list 

Jan 18, 2007 

Gonzales testifies 

before Senate 

Judiciary about U.S. 

Attorney removals 

May 14, 2007 

McNulty announces his 

resignation effective the 

end of July 

Aug 27, 2007 

Gonzales announces his 

resignation effective September 17 

Sampson sends White House 

his third removal list 

Sampson sends White House his 

fourth removal list 

Nov 2004 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 Mar 2007 Apr 2007 May 2007 Jun 2007 Jul 2007 Aug 2007 

Jan 2005 Jan 24, 2006 

U.S. Attorney Graves, W.D. Mo., is told 

to resign, announces resignation on 

March 10, leaves office March 24 

White House approves Griffin’s selection 

Jun 2006 

Sampson sends e-mail to White House to replace Cummins as U.S. Attorney for with proposal to replace a subset of the E. D. Ark.; Cummins is told to resign “underperforming” U.S. Attorneys on June 14 

Dec 7, 2006 

Seven U.S. Attorneys 

(Iglesias, Bogden, Charlton, 

McKay, Lam, Chiara, Ryan) 

are instructed to resign 

Dec 2006 

Cummins leaves office Dec 20 and Griffin 

is appointed Interim U.S. Attorney 

Feb 6, 2007 

McNulty testifies before 

Senate Judiciary that 

U.S. Attorneys were 

removed for 

“performance-related” 

reasons, with the 

exception of Cummins Mar 6, 2007 

Moschella testifies before House Judiciary 

about removal of U.S. Attorneys 

Mar 14, 2007 

Gonzales holds press 

conference and makes 

statements about his role 

in removals 

May 23, 2007 

Goodling testifies 

before House Judiciary 

Feb 14, 2007 

McNulty provides reasons for removal 

of each U.S. Attorney in closed 

Senate Judicary briefing 
 

A. Genesis of Plan to Remove U.S. Attorneys 

We determined that the process to remove the U.S. Attorneys originated 

shortly after President Bush’s re-election in November 2004. 

In an e-mail on November 4, 2004, Susan Richmond, then the 

Department of Justice’s White House Liaison, responded to requests from 

various Presidentially appointed personnel in the Department about guidance 

regarding the transition to the Bush Administration’s second term. In the email, which was sent to Department Presidentially appointed officials, 

including U.S. Attorneys, Richmond wrote that “the President has decided that 

he will not ask for letters of resignation.” (Emphasis in original.) Richmond 

reminded the recipients of the e-mail, however, that “each of us serves at the 

pleasure of the President.” 

Although Richmond’s November 4 e-mail notified the U.S. Attorneys that 

wholesale resignations would not be required, the issue of removal of certain 

U.S. Attorneys was being considered by the Administration. According to 

Sampson, sometime after the 2004 election White House Counsel Harriet Miers 

asked him whether the Administration should seek resignations from all 93 

U.S. Attorneys as part of an idea to replace all Administration political 

appointees for the President’s second term. Sampson said he told Miers that 

he thought it was not a good idea and he told other Department officials he 

“beat [it] back.”14 Sampson said he also told Miers he believed that all U.S. 

Attorneys had an expectation that they would at least serve their statutory 4­

year term, and the terms did not begin to expire until fall 2005. 

B. Process to Identify U.S. Attorneys for Removal 

In an e-mail on January 6, 2005, Deputy White House Counsel David 

Leitch forwarded to Sampson an e-mail from Office of White House Counsel 

Paralegal Colin Newman. The e-mail from Newman stated that “Karl Rove 

stopped by “to ask [Leitch] . . . ‘how we planned to proceed regarding US 

Attorneys, whether we are going to allow all to stay, request resignations from 

all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc.’” In his 

forwarding e-mail to Sampson, Leitch proposed that they discuss the matter. 

On January 9, 2005, Sampson replied by e-mail to Leitch stating that 

Sampson and the “Judge” [Gonzales] had discussed the matter a “couple of 

weeks ago.” Sampson then shared with Leitch his “thoughts,” which consisted 

of four points on the subject. First, Sampson pointed out that while U.S. 

14 Miers was named by President Bush in November 2004 to succeed Alberto Gonzales 

as White House Counsel. Before becoming White House Counsel, Miers served in the 

Administration as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary (2001-2003) and as Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Policy (2003-2004). 

16
 

 

Attorneys serve at the “pleasure of the President,” they are appointed to 4-year 

terms. Sampson stated that none of the U.S. Attorneys had yet completed their 

4-year terms, and it would be “weird” to ask them to leave before their terms 

were completed. Second, Sampson noted the “historical” practice of allowing 

U.S. Attorneys to complete their 4-year terms even after a party change in the 

Administration, notwithstanding the fact that the first Clinton and Bush 

Administrations deviated from that historical practice by removing their 

predecessor’s appointees without regard to the completion of their terms. 

Third, Sampson stated in the e-mail: 

as an operational matter, we would like to replace 15-20 percent of 

the current U.S. Attorneys – the underperforming ones. (This is a 

rough guess; we might want to consider doing performance 

evaluations after Judge [Gonzales] comes on board.) The vast 

majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing 

a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc. Due to the history, it 

would certainly send ripples through the U.S. Attorney community 

if we told folks that they got one term only (as a general matter, the 

Reagan U.S. Attorneys appointed in 1981 stayed on through the 

entire Reagan Administration; Bush41 even had to establish that 

Reagan-appointed U.S. Attorneys would not be permitted to 

continue on through the Bush41 Administration – indeed, even 

performance evaluations likely would create ripples, though this 

wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.15 

Fourth, Sampson predicted that “as a political matter. . . I suspect that 

when push comes to shove, home-State Senators likely would resist wholesale 

(or even piecemeal) replacement of U.S. Attorneys they recommended. . .if Karl 

[Rove] thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I.” 

Sampson’s initial proposal to remove a percentage of U.S. Attorneys was 

not acted upon immediately, since both the White House Counsel’s Office and 

the Department of Justice were in transition. We did not find any response 

from Leitch to Sampson’s January 9 e-mail. Leitch told us he had no 

independent recollection of discussing the matter with Sampson, Rove, or 

anyone else before leaving the White House Counsel’s Office around this time. 

However, Sampson’s proposal gained support in late February and early 

March 2005 after Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General and Miers was 

installed as White House Counsel. At that time Sampson was appointed to be 

Gonzales’s Deputy Chief of Staff, and Gonzales authorized Sampson to proceed 

15 Sampson described to us his thinking on this subject as possibly derived from the 

management philosophy of Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, that the bottom 10 

percent of any organization should be changed periodically for the good of the whole. 

17
 

 

with a review for the purpose of identifying U.S. Attorneys for potential 

removal. 

Gonzales told us that he endorsed the concept of evaluating the 

performance of U.S. Attorneys to see “where we could do better.” According to 

Gonzales, he told Sampson to consult with the senior leadership of the 

Department, obtain a consensus recommendation as to which U.S. Attorneys 

should be removed, and coordinate with the White House on the process. 

Gonzales told us that he did not discuss with Sampson how to evaluate U.S. 

Attorneys or what factors to consider when discussing with Department leaders 

which U.S. Attorneys should be removed. 

C. The First List – March 2, 2005 

According to Sampson, sometime in February 2005 White House Counsel 

Miers asked him to provide recommendations in the event the Administration 

decided to ask for resignations from a “subset” of U.S. Attorneys. 

In response, Sampson annotated a chart that listed all Presidentially 

appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys and the date each assumed their 

office.16 On March 2, 2005, Sampson attended a regularly scheduled meeting 

of the judicial selection committee at the White House and gave Miers the 6­

page typewritten chart, entitled “United States Attorneys - Appointment 

Summary (2/24/05).” 

Many of the names on the chart were either crossed-through or 

highlighted in bold. In an e-mail to Miers after the March 2 meeting, Sampson 

explained the meaning of the markings on the chart: 

bold = Recommend retaining; strong U.S. Attorneys who have 

produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and 

Attorney General. 

strikeout = Recommend removing; weak U.S. Attorneys who have 

been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against 

Administration initiatives, etc. 

nothing = No recommendation; have not distinguished themselves 

either positively or negatively. 

16 The chart also listed several other districts in which U.S. Attorneys were going 

through various stages in the nomination process. 

18
US Attorney 

Removal List Timeline

Mar 2, 2005 

List #1 

York 

Cummins 

Lam 

Miller 

Huber 

Chiara 

Heffelfinger 

Greenlee 

Lampton 

Wagoner 

McKay 

Warner 

Biskupic 

Silsby 

Jan 9, 2006 Sep 13, 2006 

List #2 

Cummins 

Lam 

Ryan 

Chiara 

Heffelfinger 

Graves 

O'Meilia 

Silsby 

Leone 

Apr 14, 2006 

List #3 

Chiara 

O'Meilia 

Cummins 

Lam 

Silsby 

List #4 

Cummins 

Charlton 

Lam 

Miller 

Silsby 

Chiara 

Bogden 

Marino 

McKay 

Nov 15, 2006 

List #6 

Charlton 

Lam 

Chiara 

Bogden 

McKay 

Iglesias 

Nov 7, 2006 

List #5 

Charlton 

Lam 

Miller 

Silsby 

Chiara 

Bogden 

Marino 

McKay 

Iglesias 

Dec 4, 2006 

List #7 

Charlton 

Lam 

Ryan 

Chiara 

Bogden 

Iglesias 

McKay

Mar 2005 Apr 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 

Names on lists are in original order Nov 1, 2006 

Elston List 

Christie 

Connelly 

Buchanan 

Brownlee 

Wood 
 

 

On the chart, as indicated by a strikeout of names, Sampson 

recommended removing the following U.S. Attorneys:17 

• David York (S.D. Ala.); 

• H.E. “Bud” Cummins (E.D. Ark.); 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Greg Miller (N.D. Fla.); 

• David Huber (W.D. Ky.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich.); 

• Jim Greenlee (N.D. Miss.); 

• Dunn O. Lampton (S.D. Miss.); 

• Anna Mills Wagoner (M.D. N.C.); 

• John McKay (W.D. Wash.); 

• Kasey Warner (S.D. W.Va.); and 

• Paula Silsby (D. Me.).18 

Later that evening, Sampson e-mailed Miers a revised chart in which he struck 

out two additional names: 

• Thomas B. Heffelfinger (D. Minn.); 

• Steven Biskupic (E.D. Wis.).19 

17 As noted below, Sampson said he came up with these 14 names based on his own 

“quick and dirty” review of U.S. Attorneys and said he intended that the names would be 

subjected to further vetting “down the road.” We did not investigate the circumstances of each 

U.S. Attorney who appeared on Sampson’s initial list, and we believe no conclusions can or 

should be reached about the performance of these U.S. Attorneys based on Sampson’s 

inclusion of their names on his list. 

18 According to Sampson, he did not list Silsby because he considered her a “weak” 

U.S. Attorney but because she had never been nominated by the President and was serving as 

Interim U.S. Attorney through a court appointment. Attorney General Ashcroft had appointed 

her Interim U.S. Attorney in 2001 for a 120-day term, and she was appointed Interim U.S. 

Attorney by the federal district court upon the expiration of the 120-day appointment by the 

Attorney General. Silsby had served as Interim U.S. Attorney since then with the support of 

Maine’s two Republican Senators. However, the White House did not recommend her for the 

permanent position, and Sampson wanted to replace her with a Presidentially nominated and 

confirmed U.S. Attorney. 

19 We discuss Heffelfinger’s resignation below in Section E.1. of this chapter. As to 

Biskupic, as part of our investigation we interviewed him to assess allegations that his 

prosecution of a local Democratic elected official played a role in Sampson’s subsequent 

deletion of his name from the removal list. Biskupic, who still serves as U.S. Attorney for the 

Eastern District of Wisconsin, told us that until the controversy about the removals of the 

(Cont’d.) 

19
 

In the e-mail, Sampson also bolded Matt Orwig, E.D. Texas, 

(recommending retention of this U.S. Attorney) “based on some additional 

information I got tonight.” Sampson told us that he could not recall who 

supplied the new information about Orwig or what the information was. 

All told, Sampson’s chart placed in the “strikeout” category 14 U.S. 

Attorneys, including 4 of the 9 who were ultimately told to resign in 2006: Bud 

Cummins, Carol Lam, Margaret Chiara, and John McKay. On the other hand, 

the chart placed in the “bold” category as “recommend retaining” 26 U.S. 

Attorneys, 2 of whom – David Iglesias and Kevin Ryan – were also among the 7 

who were told to resign on December 7, 2006. The chart placed in the “no 

recommendation” category 39 U.S. Attorneys, 3 of whom – Paul Charlton, Todd 

Graves, and Daniel Bogden – were told to resign in 2006. 

According to Sampson, his assessment of U.S. Attorneys reflected in the 

chart he e-mailed to Miers on March 2, 2005, was based both on judgments he 

formed about these U.S. Attorneys during his work at the White House and the 

Department over the previous 4 years and on input from other officials at the 

Department. Sampson told congressional investigators that in early 2005 he 

had consulted and relied upon several Department officials, including EOUSA 

Director Mary Beth Buchanan, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General 

William Mercer, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and Associate Deputy 

Attorney General David Margolis, for recommendations concerning which U.S. 

Attorneys to remove. However, Sampson told us that he could not specifically 

recall what these individuals said about particular U.S. Attorneys at the time. 

Sampson also said he viewed the initial chart as a “quick and dirty” response 

to Miers’s inquiry, and as a “preliminary list” that would be subject to “further 

vetting . . . down the road” from Department leaders. 

other U.S. Attorneys arose, he had no idea that Sampson had ever characterized him as a 

“weak” U.S. Attorney or had recommended that he be removed. Biskupic told us that he did 

not believe Sampson included him on the first list for reasons related to any public corruption 

cases his office was prosecuting. Biskupic also said he had no contact with anyone at the 

Department about public corruption prosecutions and that his office did not discuss the cases 

with anyone at the Department. Sampson told us he did not know anything about public 

corruption cases in Biskupic’s district until after Sampson resigned from the Department. 

Sampson said he could not recall why he had included Biskupic on the initial list, but said he 

vaguely recalled having a conversation with Deputy Attorney General McNulty much later in 

the process in which McNulty noted that Biskupic should not be recommended for removal 

because the Department did not want to arouse the ire of Wisconsin Congressman James 

Sensenbrenner. However, as we discuss below, we determined that Biskupic’s name was 

removed from the list sometime before January 2006, and McNulty did not become aware of 

the proposal to remove U.S. Attorneys until late October 2006. Accordingly, even if Sampson 

had such a conversation with McNulty, it could not have formed the basis for Sampson taking 

Biskupic’s name off the removal list much earlier in the year. 

20
 

Sampson said he did not share the March 2 chart with Gonzales or any 

other Department officials at the time, but believed he briefed Gonzales about 

it. Gonzales told us he did not recall seeing the chart or being briefed about 

the names on it. 

1. Input from Comey and Margolis 

We interviewed all the officials with whom Sampson said he consulted 

when preparing the March 2 chart. Only Deputy Attorney General Comey and 

Associate Deputy Attorney General Margolis said they recalled discussions with 

Sampson in early 2005 about this issue. 

Comey said he recalled being consulted by Sampson before Sampson 

sent the U.S. Attorney chart to Miers in early March 2005. Based on his 

calendar entries, Comey said he met with Sampson on February 28, 2005, 4 

days before Sampson e-mailed the chart to Miers. Comey told us that 

Sampson had asked for his input on the “weakest” U.S. Attorneys in the event 

an opportunity arose to make changes in the U.S. Attorney ranks. Comey said 

he was confident he named Kevin Ryan and Dunn Lampton as “weak” U.S. 

Attorneys, and he believed he placed Thomas Heffelfinger and David O’Meilia in 

that category as well.20 However, Comey said he was not aware at the time 

that Sampson’s inquiry was part of a “process” to identify U.S. Attorneys for 

removal and was “close to certain” that Sampson did not attribute any role to 

the White House in the matter. Comey also stated that he considered this 

aspect of his February 28 meeting to be a “casual” conversation with Sampson 

that was raised “offhandedly” as a prelude to a different and more important 

subject to be discussed at the meeting – the possible merger of the Attorney 

General’s and Deputy Attorney General’s staffs. 

Margolis told congressional investigators that sometime in late 2004 or 

early 2005 Sampson broached with him the subject of replacing certain U.S. 

Attorneys, although Margolis said he could not recall specifically when he and 

Sampson discussed the matter. According to Margolis, Sampson told him 

about Miers’s idea of replacing all U.S. Attorneys – an idea both he and 

Sampson considered unwise. Margolis said that Sampson believed, however, 

that Miers’s idea could be used as a way to replace some weak U.S. Attorneys 

and thereby make the U.S. Attorney ranks stronger in the second Bush term. 

Margolis said he strongly endorsed the idea of replacing weak or mediocre U.S. 

Attorneys. He said that in the past U.S. Attorneys were generally removed only 

for misconduct or gross incompetence tantamount to misconduct. 

20 Comey said he was concerned about Ryan’s management of his office and had 

concerns about Lampton’s judgment and behavior concerning a case Comey oversaw while he 

was U.S. Attorney. In addition, Comey expressed concern about O’Meilia’s judgment regarding 

certain office expenditures during a time of budget difficulties. Finally, Comey said he was 

concerned that Heffelfinger was overly focused on Indian affairs issues. 

21
 

Margolis said that when he and Sampson first discussed the issue, 

Sampson had a list of all current U.S. Attorneys and asked Margolis for his 

views on who the Department should consider removing. Margolis told us he 

was firm that two U.S. Attorneys should be removed on performance grounds – 

Ryan and Lampton. Margolis told us that he also suggested then (and more 

strongly later) that Chiara should be considered for removal. Margolis said he 

was aware of management concerns about Ryan and Chiara, and he said he 

had serious concerns about Lampton. Margolis also stated that there were 

roughly eight additional U.S. Attorneys who warranted a closer look, either 

because of general performance, specific conduct, or both.21 

2. Reaction to the List from the Office of the White House 

Counsel 

Sampson said he received no immediate reaction from Miers to the 

names he had marked for possible removal on the March 2 chart, and said he 

did not discuss the basis for his individual recommendations with Miers. He 

said the only comment he recalled Miers making about the chart was that she 

was “pleased” to see that Sampson had placed Matt Orwig’s name in bold, 

indicating he should be kept. According to Sampson, Miers knew Orwig from 

Texas and thought highly of him. 

In approximately February or March of 2005, the White House Office of 

Political Affairs was notified about the initiative to remove certain U.S. 

Attorneys. White House Political Affairs Director Sara Taylor told us that 

shortly after she began as Director of Political Affairs in February 2005, she 

became aware that the White House was considering replacing U.S. Attorneys. 

Taylor said that Miers and others in both the White House Counsel’s Office and 

the Department of Justice had discussed the idea that the advent of the 

President’s second term provided an opportunity to replace some of the U.S. 

Attorneys. 

On March 23, 2005, Associate White House Counsel Dabney Friedrich, 

acting at Miers’s request, sent Sampson an e-mail asking him to confirm 

Miers’s understanding that the “plan” for replacing U.S. Attorneys was “to wait 

until each has served a four-year term.” Sampson replied that Gonzales, 

Miers, Friedrich, and he should discuss the issue, but it was his advice to 

replace certain U.S. Attorneys “selectively” (based on the March 2 chart) after 

the expiration of their 4-year terms. Sampson expressed concerns that to do 

otherwise might create turmoil with home state politicians and within the 

Department. Sampson also stressed that these were his views and “should not 

21 Although some of the approximately eight additional names mentioned by Margolis 

appeared on subsequent lists prepared by Sampson, none of them were among the final group 

of nine U.S. Attorneys who were asked to resign in 2006. 

22
be attributed to Judge [Gonzales].” Friedrich replied that she agreed 

“completely” with Sampson’s recommendation and would be surprised to hear 

differently from either Miers or Gonzales. 

After this e-mail exchange between Sampson and Friedrich in late March 

2005, it appears that the U.S. Attorney removal process remained dormant for 

several months. Sampson told us that Gonzales agreed with him that nothing 

should be done until the U.S. Attorneys had served out their 4-year terms. 

Sampson also told us he believed that Miers had adopted his advice to wait 

until the U.S. Attorneys had completed their 4-year terms before taking any 

action. Because the earliest term-expiration date of any U.S. Attorney on his 

chart did not come until November 2005, Sampson said he saw no urgency to 

the matter and put the issue on the back burner. 

3. Fall 2005 – Further Consultations about the Removal of 

U.S. Attorneys 

a. Battle 

In October 2005, Monica Goodling moved from EOUSA to become Senior 

Counsel in the Attorney General’s Office. Around this time, Goodling told 

Michael Battle, who had succeeded Mary Beth Buchanan as EOUSA Director in 

June 2005, that changes could be forthcoming in the U.S. Attorney ranks. 

According to Battle, Goodling told him the Administration wanted to give others 

an opportunity to serve and asked him if he had concerns about any particular 

U.S. Attorneys or “problematic” districts. 

According to Battle, after meeting with Goodling he reviewed a list of U.S. 

Attorneys for possible removal. He said no names “jumped out” at him and he 

put the matter aside, expecting a follow-up call from Goodling that never came. 

Battle said neither Goodling nor Sampson thereafter sought his opinion on 

which U.S. Attorneys should be replaced. Battle said he did not hear from 

either of them on the subject until late January 2006, when Goodling called 

him with specific instructions to ask for the first U.S. Attorney resignation: 

Todd Graves. 

b. Mercer 

According to Mercer, sometime shortly after the 2004 election Sampson 

told him that Miers had proposed replacing all of the U.S. Attorneys, but 

Sampson had dissuaded her. Mercer said that sometime during the fall of 

2005, Sampson asked for Mercer’s views on the performance of a number of 

U.S. Attorneys. Mercer said he did not recall Sampson stating that certain U.S. 

Attorneys would be asked to resign, but it was clear to Mercer that that was 

Sampson’s purpose in asking for his views. 

23
 

Mercer said they did not have a formal meeting about the issue, but in 

the course of the conversation Sampson indicated that changes might be made 

in certain districts with productivity problems or policy compliance issues. 

Mercer said he recalled discussing with Sampson concerns about Lam’s 

immigration record, and Mercer believed they also discussed concerns about 

Ryan’s management. Mercer said he could not recall which other U.S. 

Attorneys he and Sampson discussed. Mercer said he had the sense that 

Sampson was also consulting with others, but he did not know who. According 

to Mercer, he had no further conversations with Sampson about the removal of 

U.S. Attorneys until December 2006 when the removal plan took effect. 

c. Comey 

In addition to the February 2005 discussion between Sampson and 

Comey discussed above, we found e-mail records indicating that Sampson 

broached the subject of removing certain U.S. Attorneys with Comey in August 

2005, shortly before Comey’s resignation.22 On August 11, 2005, Sampson 

sent Comey an e-mail requesting a brief meeting to “get your assessment of our 

current crop of USAs.” In the e-mail, Sampson pointed out that U.S. Attorneys’ 

4-year terms would begin to expire in September, and expressed the view that 

“there will be some sentiment to identify the 5-10 weak sisters, thank them for 

their four years of service, and give someone else the opportunity to serve.” 

According to an e-mail from Comey to two other Department officials the next 

day, Sampson asked him about Chiara, Wagoner, McKay, Sheldon Sperling, 

and James Vines. Comey’s e-mail indicated that he agreed with Sampson that 

Vines was weak but had no strong views on the others, except McKay who, 

Comey told Sampson, had been “great on my information sharing project.” 

d. Buchanan 

Buchanan, who served as Director of EOUSA from May 2004 to June 

2005, told us that Sampson informed her sometime after the 2004 election that 

he was undertaking a review of U.S. Attorneys, that some might be asked to 

leave, and that he might ask for her input. Buchanan said that Sampson was 

“very interested in management” issues and would occasionally ask her opinion 

on the 10 “best” and “worst” U.S. Attorneys, although she said she never 

directly answered his question. She told us, however, that she was familiar 

with the problems Ryan and Lam were having in their districts and discussed 

both of them with Sampson. 

We showed Buchanan Sampson’s March 2005 chart to determine 

whether she could recall discussions with Sampson about any of the U.S. 

Attorneys on the list whom Sampson had categorized as “weak.” Buchanan 

22 Comey left the Department in mid-August 2005. 

24
 

said that of all the names on the list, Lam’s name stood out because by then 

Department officials were concerned about her performance in immigration 

and Project Safe Neighborhoods matters.23 Buchanan also stated that 

sometime in the spring of 2005, she and Margolis discussed sending a Special 

EARS team to investigate complaints about Ryan’s management of the San 

Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office. Buchanan said she also discussed with 

Sampson concerns about Heffelfinger’s focus on Native American issues, but 

she said she did not recall expressing any negative views about any other U.S. 

Attorney’s performance. 

Buchanan said that before she left EOUSA in June 2005 she probably 

discussed with Sampson her concerns about Graves, who first appeared on 

Sampson’s January 2006 list. In the spring of 2005, Buchanan said, she 

talked to Graves about a Missouri newspaper article reporting that Graves’s 

wife was awarded a lucrative non-competitive contract by Missouri Governor 

Matt Blunt to manage a local motor vehicle fee office for the state. According to 

Buchanan, she “probably would have” discussed that matter with Sampson, as 

well as her observation that Graves was not an active member of the Attorney 

General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) during his 2-year stint heading the 

AGAC’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Committee. 

Other than Comey, Margolis, Mercer, Buchanan, and probably Goodling, 

we identified no other Department officials who discussed the performance of 

U.S. Attorneys with Sampson before January 2006. 

D. The Second List – January 2006 

1. Sampson’s January 1, 2006, Draft List 

Sampson drafted a memorandum dated January 1, 2006, to Miers 

stating that he was responding to her inquiry concerning “whether President 

Bush should remove and replace U.S. Attorneys whose 4-year terms have 

expired.” Sampson said he could not remember specifically what prompted 

him to send the e-mail in January, and he speculated that it might have been 

just because it was the new year. 

Sampson recommended in the memorandum that the Department and 

the White House Counsel’s Office “work together to seek the replacement of a 

limited number of U.S. Attorneys.” Similar to his e-mail of January 9, 2005, to 

Deputy White House Counsel Leitch, Sampson’s 3-page draft memorandum to 

Miers in January 2006 cited the statutory authority for U.S. Attorneys’ 

appointments, term of office, and removal. Sampson’s memorandum also 

23 Project Safe Neighborhoods is a Department initiative that involves collaborative 

efforts by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and communities to 

prevent and deter gun violence. 

25
 

pointed out “practical obstacles” to removing and replacing U.S. Attorneys, 

such as the significant disruption a “wholesale removal” would cause to the 

Department’s work, Senator’s opposition to the removal of U.S. Attorneys in 

their home districts, and the time-consuming process of finding suitable 

replacements who would have to undergo the background investigation 

process. 

Sampson’s memorandum proposed that “a limited number of U.S. 

Attorneys could be targeted for removal and replacement, mitigating the shock 

to the system that would result from an across-the-board firing.” Under his 

proposal, EOUSA “could work quietly” with the designated U.S. Attorneys to 

“encourage them to leave government service voluntarily,” thereby giving them 

time to find work in the private sector and allowing them to “save face.” 

Sampson proposed that after the targeted U.S. Attorneys announced their 

resignations, the White House Counsel’s Office could work with the political 

leadership of the affected states to obtain recommendations for permanent 

replacements. Sampson also proposed that the eventual nominee for each 

vacated office could be appointed as an Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney 

General, pending Senate confirmation. In the January 1, 2006, memorandum 

to Miers, Sampson identified nine U.S. Attorneys with expiring terms who 

should be considered for removal: 

• H.E. “Bud” Cummins (E.D. Ark.); 

• Kevin V. Ryan (N.D. Cal.); 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich.); 

• Thomas B. Heffelfinger (D. Minn.); 

• Dunn O. Lampton (S.D. Miss.); 

• Todd P. Graves (W.D. Mo.); 

• Anna Mills S. Wagoner (M.D. N.C.)24; and 

• David O’Meilia (N.D. Okla.) 

Sampson also recommended the removal and replacement of two U.S. 

Attorneys who were serving in an “acting” capacity: Paula Silsby (D. Me.) and 

William Leone (D. Colo.).25 

24 We were unable to determine why Sampson listed Wagoner other than that he 

believed she was a weak U.S. Attorney. 

26
 

 

 

For the first nine named U.S. Attorneys, Sampson noted the term 

expiration date and the names of the home-state Senators. For six of the nine, 

Sampson also suggested replacement candidates, including Tim Griffin for the 

Eastern District of Arkansas, who we discuss in Chapter Five.26 

Sampson shared his draft memorandum with Goodling, who suggested 

some changes. She disagreed with two of Sampson’s recommendations, 

Wagoner and Lampton. Goodling wrote on the draft that she “would keep” 

Lampton based on his performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As 

to Wagoner, Goodling noted that she “would not put her on this list” based on 

Wagoner’s performance in Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) and her cooperation 

on “Patriot [Act matters] + AG visits, etc.” 

Goodling also noted two other categories: (1) “other problem districts,” 

under which she named Paul Charlton (D. Ariz.); and (2) “Quiet/not sure 

about,” under which she named Daniel Bogden (D. Nev.) and Tom Marino (M.D. 

Pa.), all of whom appeared on subsequent lists. Shortly thereafter, Sampson 

also created a draft of a 3-tier list containing 14 names, including Charlton 

(Tier 1), Bogden (Tier 2), and Marino (Tier 3). 

We found no one else who said they saw the January 1, 2006, draft 

before it was revised and sent by e-mail to Miers. Attorney General Gonzales 

told us he did not see it at the time and did not recall discussing it with 

Sampson or Goodling. 

2. The January 9, 2006, Memorandum from Sampson to 

the White House 

On January 9, 2006, Sampson sent Miers an e-mail which essentially 

incorporated his draft memorandum with Goodling’s suggested modifications. 

Based on Goodling’s recommendations, Sampson removed Wagoner’s and 

Lampton’s names from the list, thereby reducing to nine, including Silsby and 

Leone, the number of U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal. The nine U.S. 

Attorneys on the January 9 list were: 

• H.E. “Bud” Cummins (E.D. Ark.); 

25 Leone became the First Assistant U.S. Attorney in Colorado in 2001 and was 

appointed Interim U.S. Attorney in December 2004. He served as Interim U.S. Attorney until 

the confirmation of Troy Eid in August 2006. We found no evidence that Leone’s replacement 

by a Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney was unusual or improper. 

26 Most of the replacement candidates for the other five districts were current or former 

political appointees in the Department. Other than Griffin, only one suggested replacement on 

this list, John Wood, currently the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, was 

ultimately nominated and confirmed. 

27
• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Kevin V. Ryan (N.D. Cal.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich.); 

• Thomas B. Heffelfinger (D. Minn.); 

• Todd P. Graves (W.D. Mo.); 

• David O’Meilia (N.D. Okla.); 

• Paula Silsby (D. Me.); and 

• William Leone (D. Colo.). 

In his e-mail to Miers, Sampson proposed a 2-step removal process. He 

wrote that first, there needed to be agreement on the “target list” of U.S. 

Attorneys, and second, EOUSA needed to explore with the designated U.S. 

Attorneys their “intentions” and to indicate to them that they “might want to 

consider looking for other employment.” 

After naming the nine U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal, 

Sampson described the basis on which he arrived at his recommendations: “I 

list these folks based on my review of the evaluations of their offices conducted 

by EOUSA and my interviews with officials in the Office of the Attorney 

General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and the Criminal Division.” 

Sampson’s mention of “evaluations conducted by EOUSA” referred to 

EARS evaluations, the periodic evaluations of U.S. Attorneys’ Offices conducted 

by EOUSA. These reviews, which are typically conducted by a team of 

supervisory AUSAs selected from other districts, are described in more detail in 

Chapter Two of this report. 

Notwithstanding Sampson’s representation in his e-mail to Miers, his 

recommendations were not based on his review of the pertinent EARS 

evaluations. Sampson admitted to us that he did not personally review EARS 

evaluations. Instead, Sampson told us that he had talked to Margolis 

“generally” about how various U.S. Attorneys were doing, and he “understood” 

that Margolis had reviewed EARS evaluations. Margolis confirmed that he 

reviews all EARS reports, but told us that the vast majority are favorable. 

According to Margolis, EARS evaluations are designed to help a U.S. Attorney 

manage his or her office, not to “help me decide who to fire.” Margolis said that 

he would only give serious weight and consideration to an EARS evaluation in 

the rare instance it was negative. In such an instance, Margolis told us, he 

would deliver a copy of the EARS report to the Principal Associate Deputy 

Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General’s Chief of Staff (not the 

28
 

 

Attorney General’s Chief of Staff) with a note that there was a serious problem 

in the district. 

With one exception, Margolis told us that he recalled no such problem in 

any of the districts where Sampson recommended a change in leadership. The 

lone exception was the Northern District of California, where Kevin Ryan was 

the U.S. Attorney.27 Moreover, as discussed in the chapters describing the 

reasons proffered for removal of the individual U.S. Attorneys, we found that 

EARS evaluations did not support most of the recommendations that Sampson 

made. 

Sampson acknowledged to us that the representation in his e-mail to 

Miers that his recommendations were premised on his review of EARS 

evaluations was not accurate. Sampson said that it would have been better if 

he had said that it was based on his understanding of somebody else’s 

understanding of the reviews of the offices. 

With respect to his reference to “interviews” of Department officials, 

Sampson testified to Congress that he had spoken with Goodling (from the 

Attorney General’s Office), and Margolis (from the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Office). However, contrary to the statement in his January 9 e-mail, he 

testified that he did not believe he had spoken to anyone in the Criminal 

Division except “in the most general terms.” In addition, Sampson testified 

that he spoke with Buchanan and Comey. Sampson acknowledged that he did 

not conduct formal interviews with anyone, but rather said he “was aggregating 

views from different people” and did so by sounding people out in an informal 

setting in order to get their “frank assessments” of U.S. Attorneys. Sampson 

said he may have been clearer with some than with others as to the purpose for 

which he was gathering their views. 

3. The First Removal: Todd Graves 

After sending his January 9, 2006, e-mail to Miers, Sampson did not 

receive an immediate response to his proposal, and no action was taken on his 

overall proposal for several months. Nevertheless, shortly after Sampson’s 

January 9 proposal, action was taken to seek the resignation of Todd Graves, 

the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. 

On January 19, 2006, Sampson sent an e-mail to EOUSA Director Battle 

asking him to call when he had a few minutes to discuss Graves. Several days 

later (apparently before Battle spoke to Sampson), Goodling called Battle and 

27 A Special EARS evaluation was commissioned by EOUSA in the fall of 2006 (at 

Margolis’s urging) based on the results of the regular EARS evaluation in March 2006 and on 

numerous complaints made about Ryan’s performance as U.S. Attorney. The special 

evaluation was intended to be an evaluation not only of the USAO but also of Ryan. 

29
told him to call Graves to request his resignation. Goodling instructed Battle to 

tell Graves only that the Administration had decided to make a change, that 

his service was appreciated, and that the request was not based on any 

misconduct by Graves but simply to give someone else a chance to serve. 

Shortly thereafter, on January 24, 2006, Battle called Graves and 

communicated the message as instructed by Goodling. Graves said he was 

“stunned” and “shocked” by the call, and said Battle would not explain why his 

resignation was sought. Graves subsequently complied with the instruction 

and on March 10, 2006, announced his resignation, effective March 24. 

Although Graves was not originally identified in the 2007 congressional 

hearings as one of the U.S. Attorneys who was asked to resign in 2006 as a 

result of the “process” initiated by Sampson, we considered him part of that 

group. He was targeted for removal on Sampson’s January 9, 2006, list, and 

the script Battle followed in seeking Graves’s resignation was identical to the 

one he followed in conversations with the other eight U.S. Attorneys who were 

later told to resign. 

However, as we discuss in greater detail in Chapter Four of this report, 

no Department employee involved in the process could explain why Graves was 

told to resign. Battle, who placed the call at Goodling’s direction, said he was 

not given the reasons. Goodling, who directed Battle to call Graves, stated in 

her congressional testimony that she would have done so only on instruction 

from Sampson. Sampson told congressional investigators that he had no 

recollection of the matter, believed that Goodling had handled it, and assumed 

that it was based on a finding of misconduct by Margolis. Margolis told us that 

there was no misconduct finding against Graves and expressly denied playing 

any role in Graves’s removal. Gonzales told us that he had no recollection 

about being consulted about Graves’s removal. 

We also found no documentation within the Department describing the 

reasons that Graves was told to resign. However, we found that the White 

House Counsel’s Office played a role in his resignation. Although Sampson 

told congressional investigators that he had no recollection as to why he placed 

Graves’s name on the January 9 removal list and disclaimed any involvement 

in the January 24 resignation request to Graves, Sampson acknowledged to us 

that he discussed with the White House Counsel’s Office that the staff of 

Missouri’s Republican Senator Christopher Bond was urging the White House 

Counsel’s Office to remove Graves. We describe this issue, and the White 

House’s role in the removal of Graves, in more detail in Chapter Four. 

E. The Third List – April 14, 2006 

The proposal advanced by Sampson in his January 9 e-mail to Miers was 

not implemented at that time. As Sampson described it, the process was in a 

30
“long thinking phase that bumped along and really didn’t have any traction to 

it” until the fall of 2006. According to Sampson, either Miers or Deputy White 

House Counsel William Kelley raised the issue from time to time, prompting 

Sampson to prepare another list, but then nothing happened, causing 

Sampson to question whether the removal proposal would ever be 

implemented. 

We found that on April 14, 2006, 4 months after his January 9 e-mail, 

Sampson sent an e-mail to Associate White House Counsel Dabney Friedrich 

revising the list he had proposed in his January e-mail to Miers. Sampson 

recommended in the e-mail that the “White House consider removing and 

replacing the following U.S. Attorneys upon the expiration of their 4-year 

terms”: 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich.); 

• David O’Meilia (N.D. Okla.); 

• H.E. “Bud” Cummins (E.D. Ark.); and 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.). 

Sampson also proposed the removal and replacement of Paula Silsby, the 

Interim U.S. Attorney for Maine, and suggested that he could add another three 

to five names “[i]f you pushed me.” Three names that were on Sampson’s 

January 9 list were omitted from this updated list: Graves, Heffelfinger, and 

Ryan. 

1. Heffelfinger 

In an e-mail to Friedrich immediately after he sent her the new list on 

April 14, 2006, Sampson pointed out that Graves and Heffelfinger, two of the 

names on his January 9 list, “already have left office.” As discussed above, 

Graves had been told in late January to resign and he left office on March 24, 

2006. Heffelfinger had also resigned from the Department, effective March 1, 

2006. 

Unlike Graves, Heffelfinger told us he resigned without prompting from 

anyone at the Department. Heffelfinger said that he began thinking about 

leaving in the fall of 2005, and made the final decision on January 20, 2006, 

after learning he was eligible for early retirement. Heffelfinger said that he met 

with Deputy Attorney General McNulty on that day to inform him of his 

intentions, and Heffelfinger announced his resignation during the week of 

31
 

 

 

February 13. His resignation took effect on March 1, 2006. Heffelfinger said at 

that time he had no idea that Sampson had ever proposed his removal.28 

2. Ryan 

Of the nine names recommended for removal on Sampson’s January 9 

list, only one still serving U.S. Attorney, Kevin Ryan, was omitted from the April 

14 e-mail to Friedrich. At this time Ryan’s performance as U.S. Attorney for 

the Northern District of California had been subjected to sharp criticism from 

former prosecutors in the office, and in March 2006 an AUSA then serving in 

the office wrote a letter to the Department blaming Ryan for a mass exodus of 

experienced AUSAs during his tenure. That letter became the subject of a San 

Francisco newspaper article in early March recounting considerable discord 

within the USAO. 

As discussed in footnote 27, an EARS evaluation of Ryan’s office took 

place during the week of March 27, 2006. After the EARS evaluation, the team 

leader prepared a “Draft Significant Observations” memorandum for the 

Director of EOUSA highlighting his observations concerning high turnover and 

low morale, which line AUSAs attributed to Ryan’s poor management style and 

practices. A draft report was completed in late May 2006 and provided to Ryan 

for review and comment. In July 2006, Ryan wrote a lengthy response taking 

exception to the draft report’s conclusions concerning his management of the 

office. 

According to Margolis, based on the results of the March evaluation, a 

special EARS team was commissioned to conduct a follow-up evaluation of the 

office. That evaluation occurred in late October 2006. A draft report was 

delivered to Margolis and Battle on November 22, 2006. Like the first one, this 

special evaluation concluded that the U.S. Attorney’s Office suffered from 

serious morale problems attributable in large part to Ryan’s management style. 

Sampson told us he deleted Ryan’s name from the April 14 list because 

he was aware of the negative EARS evaluation and felt that it would be “unfair 

and inappropriate” to remove Ryan in the midst of an ongoing evaluation. 

Sampson also expressed the view that while a U.S. Attorney can be removed 

“for any reason or no reason” once the evaluation process has been initiated, 

28 Before leaving office, Heffelfinger prepared a management plan that called for 

elevating an experienced AUSA within the office to the position of Acting U.S. Attorney. His 

plan was rejected in favor of appointing Rachel Paulose, a former Minnesota AUSA and then 

Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, to be Interim U.S. Attorney. Paulose was later 

nominated as U.S. Attorney and confirmed by the Senate on December 9, 2006. After 

significant controversy arose regarding her management of the office, she was transferred back 

to a position at Main Justice in November 2007. 

32
 

 

 

 

“as a matter of policy” the U.S. Attorney should be given the benefit of the full 

evaluation before being removed.29 

3. The Plan to Replace Cummins with Griffin 

On May 11, 2006, in response to an inquiry from Deputy White House 

Counsel William Kelley after a meeting the previous day at the White House, 

Sampson forwarded to Kelley his April 14 e-mail to Friedrich. In the e-mail, 

Sampson asked Kelley to call him to discuss having Rachel Brand (then head of 

the Department’s Office of Legal Policy) replace Chiara as the U.S. Attorney in 

the Western District of Michigan and Tim Griffin replace Bud Cummins in the 

Eastern District of Arkansas. Sampson also stated in the e-mail to Kelley that 

he wanted to discuss the “real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that 

leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 

11/18, the day her 4-year term expires.” 

As discussed below, in response to this e-mail to Kelley no decision was 

made on Sampson’s overall proposal to remove the U.S. Attorneys. However, a 

decision was made to remove Bud Cummins and replace him with Tim 

Griffin.30 

a. Miers’s Request Regarding Griffin 

Sampson told Congressional investigators that Miers asked him in the 

spring of 2006 whether a place could be found for Griffin in the U.S. Attorney 

ranks.31 Sampson said he examined his list and determined that since 

Cummins was already identified on the January 9 list as one of the prospective 

U.S. Attorneys to be removed, he felt he could accommodate Miers’s request.32 

29 As we discuss later in this report, Ryan was the only U.S. Attorney of the nine to be 

evaluated by a Special EARS team. No other U.S. Attorney removed as a result of the process 

initiated by Sampson was accorded such treatment before being recommended for removal. 

30 Brand told us that she and Sampson did not seriously discuss whether Brand 

wanted to become U.S. Attorney until sometime in the fall of 2006. Brand said that she is from 

Michigan, but she was not interested in moving at the time, and she was not lobbying to 

become U.S. Attorney. According to Sampson, he and Deputy White House Counsel Kelley 

discussed Brand’s appointment in May 2006, but Brand did not show much interest at the 

time, and by the time the removal plan was underway Brand indicated she was not interested 

in becoming U.S. Attorney in Michigan for personal reasons. 

31 As more fully described in Chapter Five of this report, Griffin had worked for the 

Republican National Committee through the 2004 election, and then became Deputy Director 

of the Office of Political Affairs in the White House. In 2004, he was one of the candidates 

considered for the U.S. Attorney position in the Western District of Arkansas for which Robert 

Balfe was ultimately chosen. 

32 We also found evidence that the White House asked about replacing Debra Yang, the 

U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of California. According to Sampson, Miers had asked him 

whether Yang should be replaced because she had rejected an overture to serve on the Ninth 

(Cont’d.) 

33
 

Sampson said that after consulting with a “few’’ people at the Department, he 

informed Miers that he thought it could be done. Sampson said that other 

than Goodling and the Attorney General, he could not recall whom he 

consulted about the Griffin matter. Gonzales told us he did not recall having 

any discussions with Sampson about Cummins or Griffin at the time. 

According to e-mail records, in early June the White House formally 

approved Griffin’s selection for the U.S. Attorney position. On June 13, 

Goodling informed Sampson that the pre-nomination paperwork on Griffin had 

been completed. She also told Sampson that she would talk to EOUSA 

Director Battle the next morning, June 14, and also inform the Office of the 

Deputy Attorney General that “we are now executing this plan.” 

b. Battle Tells Cummins to Resign 

On June 14, 2006, Battle, acting on instructions from Goodling, called 

Cummins to ask for his resignation. In delivering the message, Battle followed 

the same talking points he had received from Goodling for the call to Graves in 

January. Battle thanked Cummins for his service, stated that the 

Administration wanted to give someone else the opportunity to serve as U.S. 

Attorney, and asked how much time Cummins needed to make arrangements 

to leave office. 

Battle told us that he considered Cummins to be a good U.S. Attorney. 

Battle also said he was not told why Cummins was asked to resign or who 

would replace him. He said Cummins told him that he suspected the change 

was being made so Griffin could become U.S. Attorney.33 

4. Sampson Suggests that Patrick Fitzgerald Be Removed 

During the summer of 2006, no further action was taken on the plan to 

remove additional U.S. Attorneys. However, during this time, Sampson met at 

least once with Miers and Deputy White House Counsel Kelley to discuss the 

proposal. According to Sampson, sometime during the summer he met 

informally with Miers and Kelley after a judicial selection meeting at the White 

House. At this meeting they discussed the plan to remove U.S. Attorneys, and 

Sampson broached the subject of including Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. 

Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, on the removal list. 

Circuit. Sampson testified that he had informed Miers that Yang was a “strong” U.S. Attorney 

who should remain in place. Sampson said that Miers accepted his explanation and did not 

raise the subject again. Yang resigned of her own volition in 2006 to take a job with a private 

law firm. 

33 On December 15, 2006, Cummins announced his resignation and left office on 

December 20, 2006. 

34
 

Sampson testified to Congress that although Fitzgerald was widely 

viewed as a strong U.S. Attorney, Sampson had placed Fitzgerald in the 

“undistinguished” category on the initial list he sent to the White House in 

March 2005 because he knew that Fitzgerald was handling a very sensitive 

case and Sampson did not want to rate Fitzgerald one way or the other. At that 

time, Fitzgerald was serving as the Special Counsel investigating the leak of 

information relating to Central Intelligence Agency employee Valerie Plame, 

which ultimately resulted in the conviction of the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, 

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for perjury and making false statements. 

Sampson testified that when he brought up Fitzgerald’s name as a U.S. 

Attorney who could be added to the removal list, Miers and Kelley “said nothing 

– they just looked at me.” Sampson testified that as soon as he said it, he 

knew it was the wrong thing to do. He said he was not sure why he said it but 

thought that maybe he was “trying to get a reaction from [Miers and Kelley].” 

He said he “immediately regretted it” and retracted the suggestion. Sampson 

later told congressional investigators that it was “immature and flippant” of 

him to have even raised such a sensitive issue. Sampson also testified that he 

never seriously considered putting Fitzgerald on the list, and we found no 

evidence that Sampson ever discussed removing Fitzgerald with anyone at the 

Department. 

F. The Fourth List – September 13, 2006 

On September 13, 2006, Miers sent an e-mail to Sampson asking for his 

“current thinking on holdover U.S. Attorneys.” In a reply e-mail later that day, 

Sampson conveyed to Miers his current breakdown of “the U.S. Attorney 

ranks.” 

After noting current and anticipated vacancies for U.S. Attorney 

positions, Sampson listed the following U.S. Attorneys under the heading 

“USAs We Now Should Consider Pushing Out:”34 

• Paul Charlton (D. Ariz.); 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Greg Miller (N.D. Fla.); 

• Paula Silsby (D. Me.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich); 

34 Sampson addressed Cummins’s situation in a separate section of his e-mail under 

the heading “USAs in the Process of Being Pushed Out.” 

35
 

• Daniel Bogden (D. Nev.); 

• Thomas Marino (M.D. Pa.); and 

• John McKay (W.D. Wash.). 

In a summary section of the e-mail, Sampson emphasized that he was 

“only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are 

ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get 

them appointed – it will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push 

USAs out and then don’t have replacements ready to roll.” 

In his e-mail, Sampson also “strongly” recommended that the 

Administration “utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to 

make USA appointments.” As described in Chapter Two, before March 2006 

the Attorney General could only appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney for a 120-day 

term, and upon expiration of the appointment the federal district court could 

make an indefinite appointment until the vacancy was filled by a confirmed 

presidential appointee. At the request of the Department, however, a provision 

had been included in amendments to the Patriot Act in March 2006 giving the 

Attorney General the authority to appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney until the 

vacancy was filled by a confirmed presidential appointee.35 

In his e-mail, Sampson explained his recommendation to use the new 

interim appointment power as follows: 

We can continue to do selection in JSC [White House Judicial 

Selection Committee], but then should have DOJ take over entirely 

the vet and appointment. By not going the PAS route, we can give 

far less deference to home-State Senators and thereby get (1) our 

preferred person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more 

efficiently, at less political cost to the White House. 

Before sending this e-mail to Miers, Sampson had sent a draft of the email to Goodling and asked her for any “corrections.” He did not send the draft 

to anyone else in the Department. The draft he sent Goodling was identical to 

the final e-mail he sent Miers with one exception: Anna Mills Wagoner of the 

Middle District of North Carolina was among the U.S. Attorneys listed in 

Sampson’s draft to be “pushed out,” but was not included in the final e-mail he 

35 As also noted in Chapter Two, in June 2007 in the wake of the controversy 

surrounding the U.S. Attorney removals and allegations that the Attorney General’s Interim 

appointment power was being used to circumvent the Senate confirmation process, legislation 

was enacted repealing the March 2006 amendment and restoring the previous provision 

granting the local federal district court authority over Interim U.S. Attorney appointments upon 

the expiration of the 120-day appointment by the Attorney General. 

36
 

 

sent to Miers. We determined that about 20 minutes after receiving Sampson’s 

draft e-mail, Goodling replied that Wagoner’s name should be removed because 

“there are plenty of others there to start with and I don’t think she merits being 

included in that group at this time.”36 Sampson then removed Wagoner from 

the list before sending the e-mail to Miers. 

1. Sampson’s “Consensus” Process in Compiling the List 

The list of U.S. Attorneys for removal that Sampson e-mailed to Miers on 

September 13 differed substantially from his April 14 list. One name, O’Meilia, 

came off the list while five others were added: McKay, Charlton, Bogden, 

Marino, and Miller. 

Sampson told us that he placed McKay, Charlton, Bogden, Marino, and 

Miller’s names on the September 13 list based on information he had learned 

about them from a variety of sources.37 He acknowledged, however, that these 

sources were not necessarily aware of Sampson’s intended use of the 

information. Sampson also said he could not recall who specifically provided 

the information that resulted in each name being added to the list. 

In his congressional testimony, Sampson repeatedly described the 

process by which names were placed on the U.S. Attorney removal list as one of 

“consensus” among Department leaders. For example, in his Senate Judiciary 

Committee testimony on March 29, 2007, and his subsequent interviews by 

joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee staff, Sampson described himself 

as the “aggregator” of names and as the manager of the “process.” He testified 

before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “[i]t wasn’t that I wanted names on 

the list” and that, while he had his own views, there was no one specific U.S. 

Attorney that he “personally” thought should be on the list. Sampson also 

testified at his Senate Judiciary Committee appearance that he had “done no 

independent research” before removing any U.S. Attorney and had relied on 

Margolis, McNulty, and Mercer to make recommendations. He said he had 

“consulted with the Deputy Attorney General and others who would have 

reason to make an informed judgment about the U.S. Attorneys.” 

However, we found that contrary to his testimony, Sampson did not add 

McKay, Charlton, Bogden, Marino, and Miller to the September 13 removal list 

as a result of discussions with Department leaders geared toward arriving at a 

consensus list of U.S. Attorneys to be recommended for removal. Aside from 

36 As noted above, Goodling had previously recommended to Sampson in January 2006 

that Wagoner’s name be taken off his list of proposed U.S. Attorney removals. Sampson did so 

then at Goodling’s request and did so again in September 2006. 

37 In his interview with us, Sampson said he could not recall why O’Meilia’s name came 

off the list. 

37
Goodling and possibly Gonzales, no other senior Department official was aware 

at that time that Sampson had sent to Miers the September 13 proposal, much 

less the two previous proposals recommending the removal of specific U.S. 

Attorneys. As previously noted, Battle told us that neither Goodling nor 

Sampson ever asked him about which U.S. Attorneys should be replaced. 

McNulty said he did not even become aware of the effort to remove U.S. 

Attorneys until late October 2006. Mercer said he had no conversations with 

Sampson about U.S. Attorneys, aside from his discussions about Lam in the 

fall of 2005. Margolis told us that aside from his discussions with Sampson in 

2005, he did not recall having conversations with Sampson about removing 

U.S. Attorneys until sometime in November 2006. 

Sampson told us he placed the additional names on the September 13 

list based on “problems” he learned about over the summer, not because he 

“went and asked the Deputy Attorney General” or anyone else whether these 

particular U.S. Attorneys (or others) should be designated for removal. In 

response to our questions, Sampson stated that the “problems” he learned 

about between April and September with respect to McKay and Charlton 

involved specific conduct rather than overall performance. According to 

Sampson, McKay had “crossed swords” with the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Office over McKay’s endorsement of an information-sharing program, an issue 

we discuss in more detail in the chapter on McKay’s removal. In Charlton’s 

case, Sampson said he knew from his experience in the Attorney General’s 

Office, as well as from talking to McNulty and Elston, that Charlton had policy 

conflicts with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office over a death penalty case 

and the tape recording of FBI interrogations. Sampson said that in both of 

these matters Charlton was viewed as a maverick attempting to impose his will 

on significant issues that had national implications. We discuss in greater 

detail the reasons proffered for the removal of Charlton and McKay in Chapters 

Eight and Nine of this report, and our analysis of Sampson’s stated reasons. 

With regard to Miller, Sampson told us he did not recall why he placed 

Miller’s name on the list, but said he had a general sense that Miller was 

mediocre. He described Bogden in the same way but offered no specifics to 

support his assessment of Bogden’s performance. Sampson said he placed 

Marino on the list because he perceived that Marino was not leading his office. 

Sampson told us that the process of compiling the list of U.S. Attorneys 

for removal was neither “scientific” nor “formal.” Sampson said that when he 

discussed U.S. Attorneys with Department officials over time, he had a current 

chart listing all the names of the U.S. Attorneys on which he made notes. 

Sampson said he would keep the annotated chart until it became “dog-eared” 

and then he would throw it away and start over. Sampson said he “sometimes” 

made notes during his conversations with other Department officials, and at 

other times he either made no notes or made them “after the fact.” Sampson 

also told us that a lot of the information he gleaned from others he “just 

38
 

remembered.” Sampson described the discussions he had with Department 

officials about U.S. Attorneys as “largely an oral exercise” with “some really 

rough tracking.” 

2. The Removal Plan Takes Shape 

On September 17, 2006, Miers replied to Sampson’s September 13 e-mail 

by stating, “I have not forgotten I need to follow up.” Sampson told us that 

sometime in late September 2006, he discussed with Gonzales the status of his 

proposal to remove several U.S. Attorneys. At that time, according to both 

Gonzales and Sampson, Gonzales directed Sampson to coordinate with 

Department leadership, particularly McNulty, to make sure there was 

consensus on the recommendations. 

Between September 13 and mid-November 2006, Sampson confined his 

discussions about the removal list to a small group: Goodling, Gonzales, 

McNulty, and Elston. According to Sampson, he did not discuss the 

September 13 list with Margolis or consult with him on later drafts of the list, 

even though Sampson described Margolis to congressional investigators as a 

“repository” of knowledge on U.S. Attorneys’ performance, and even though 

Sampson had sought Margolis’s views in the early stages of the process. 

Sampson stated that he “assumed” that McNulty would consult Margolis and 

that Sampson “relied” on McNulty and Elston to do so. However, neither 

McNulty nor Elston did, and Sampson never sought to verify his assumption or 

contact Margolis directly about the removal list.38 

In late September or early October 2006, Sampson told Elston that the 

U.S. Attorney removal plan was moving forward. According to Elston, 

Sampson asked him to consult with McNulty and put together a list of U.S. 

Attorneys they would recommend for removal. Elston said he mentioned the 

concept to McNulty, and, according to Elston, McNulty was not “wild about it.” 

Elston said he took no other action on Sampson’s request because of the press 

of other business, as well as his and McNulty’s lack of enthusiasm for the plan. 

On October 17, Sampson, having heard nothing from the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office, sent Elston an e-mail in which he forwarded his email exchanges with Miers from September 13 and 17, including Sampson’s 

proposal for “pushing out” certain U.S. Attorneys. In his e-mail to Elston, 

Sampson referred him to “my list of U.S. Attorneys we should consider 

replacing” and asked if his list “match[ed] up” with Elston’s list. Although 

Elston told us that he had created no such list, Elston replied by e-mail to 

38 McNulty told us that he did not recall discussing the removal issue with Margolis but 

said he “believed” at the time that Margolis was “aware” of the issue, and McNulty said he 

made the “assumption” that Sampson had consulted him. 

39
Sampson’s question about whether their lists matched: “Very much so – I may 

have a few additions when I get back to my desk.” 

After receiving the October 17 e-mail from Sampson, Elston discussed 

Sampson’s September 13 U.S. Attorney removal list with McNulty. According 

to Elston, McNulty’s instinct from the “get-go” was that this was a “bad idea” 

and McNulty asked Elston, “Are we really doing this[?].” 

McNulty told congressional investigators that even though he was aware 

of concerns about each of the U.S. Attorneys targeted for removal, he was “a 

softie” when it came to addressing such concerns with the U.S. Attorneys 

directly, and said the removal plan was contrary to the way he would have 

addressed such concerns. However, McNulty said he did not express his 

reservations about the removal plan to Sampson or the Attorney General. 

McNulty told us that when he heard from Elston about the removal plan 

at this point, he was surprised because he had no inkling about such a 

removal plan. However, he did not object to the plan. McNulty said that the 

way Elston presented the plan to him was along the lines of “here is the idea, 

and here are the names of individuals identified [for removal].” McNulty said 

he understood from Elston that he was supposed to object if he did not agree 

that certain names belonged on the list. 

When we asked McNulty why he did not object to the plan, he told us 

that he was “predominantly deferential” because he viewed Sampson and the 

White House as “the personnel people [who] . . . decide who comes and who 

goes.” He also said he thought the removals were going to be handled in a way 

that would not harm the U.S. Attorneys who were being asked to resign. 

Elston told us that he informed Sampson a few days after the October 17 

e-mail that he had no additions to the list. 

G. Elston’s List – November 1, 2006 

However, we found that on November 1, 2006, Elston sent a short e-mail 

to Sampson with the subject line “Other Possibilities”: 

These have been suggested to me by others: 

• Chris Christie [D. N.J.]; 

• Colm Connelly [D. Del.]; 

• Mary Beth Buchanan [W.D. Pa.]; 

• John Brownlee [W.D. Va.]; 

40
• Max Wood [M.D. Ga.]. 

The e-mail named no sources and offered no reasons or explanations for the 

U.S. Attorneys on Elston’s list. 

Elston told us that his November 1 e-mail was not a response to 

Sampson’s earlier request that he and McNulty prepare a list of U.S. Attorneys 

they recommended for removal. Rather, according to Elston, shortly after 

Elston told Sampson that he and McNulty had no additions for Sampson’s 

October 17 list, Sampson asked him to check with others in the Department to 

see if there were other U.S. Attorney “problems.” The idea, as Elston said he 

understood it from Sampson, was that there were only 2 years left in the 

Administration and if changes in the U.S. Attorney ranks were to be made, this 

was the time to do it. Elston said that in keeping with that premise, Sampson 

wanted to ensure that all U.S. Attorney issues had been identified so a decision 

on all U.S. Attorney removals could be made at one time. 

Elston said that after receiving Sampson’s request, he spoke with four or 

five Department officials, primarily in the Tax and Criminal Divisions (including 

Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher and her Chief of Staff 

Matthew Friedrich), to ascertain whether there were any issues with U.S. 

Attorneys that needed to be explored. Elston said the names on his November 

1 e-mail were the product of his “casual inquiries” on Sampson’s behalf. 

Elston also told us that his November 1 list did not constitute his 

recommendation that the named individuals be removed from office. He 

maintained in his interview with us that he did not believe any of the five U.S. 

Attorneys warranted removal. Elston said that he also expressed that view to 

Sampson when they discussed his November 1 list. He said that Sampson 

concurred that the five should not be added to the list. When we asked Elston 

why he furnished the names to Sampson if he did not endorse their removal, 

he said that he was simply doing what Sampson asked him to do: find out if 

other Department managers had issues with any U.S. Attorneys and report 

back on the results. According to Elston, his November 1 e-mail was not 

intended or taken as a recommendation for action. 

Sampson recalled things differently. According to Sampson, he had 

asked Elston to “vet” the October 17 list with McNulty to see if any names 

should be added to or removed from the list. Sampson told us he did not know 

where Elston had obtained the additional names, but he understood Elston’s 

list to be names that McNulty and Elston, and maybe Margolis, wanted to add 

to the list. Sampson said he believed that he and Elston discussed the basis 

for including the five additional names, and Sampson said he did not agree 

that any of the names on Elston’s list should be included on the removal list. 

Sampson said that the process was that if one person thought that someone 

41
should not be on the list, that name would not be included. Consequently, 

none of the names on Elston’s list were added to Sampson’s removal list. 

Both McNulty and Margolis told us that Elston did not consult with them 

about the names on his November 1 list, and both said they did not know how 

Elston obtained the names. 

H. The Fifth List – November 7, 2006 

From September 13 until November 7, no changes appeared on 

Sampson’s proposed U.S. Attorney removal list. On the evening of November 7, 

Sampson sent an e-mail to Elston (with a copy to McNulty) asking him to 

review the “Plan for Replacing Certain United States Attorneys” proposed in the 

e-mail and to provide comments as soon as possible so that he could forward 

the plan to Miers that evening. The e-mail included a list of nine U.S. 

Attorneys proposed for removal. The first eight names on Sampson’s November 

7 list were identical to the names on his September 13 and October 17 lists: 

• Paul Charlton (D. Ariz.); 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Greg Miller (N.D. Fla.); 

• Paula Silsby (D. Me.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich); 

• Daniel Bogden (D. Nev.); 

• Thomas Marino (M.D. Pa.); and 

• John McKay (W.D. Wash.). 

One additional name was added that had not appeared on any previous 

list prepared by Sampson: David Iglesias (D. N.M.). 

1. Iglesias is Added to the List 

The removal of David Iglesias as U.S. Attorney in the District of New 

Mexico was perhaps the most controversial removal of all the U.S. Attorneys. 

As discussed in more detail in Chapter Six, it appears that Sampson put 

Iglesias on the removal list sometime after October 17 based largely on 

complaints about Iglesias’s handling of certain voter fraud and public 

corruption investigations in New Mexico. Sampson said he knew that New 

Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici had called Attorney General 

Gonzales on three separate occasions in 2005 and 2006 to register complaints 

42
about Iglesias’s performance. Sampson said that in October 2006 he also 

learned from either Elston or McNulty that Senator Domenici had also called 

McNulty to complain that Iglesias was “not up to the job.” 

According to McNulty, Senator Domenici had criticized Iglesias’s 

handling of public corruption cases and said that Iglesias was “in over his 

head.” McNulty told us that Domenici’s assertiveness and tone during the 

conversation were “striking.” McNulty said that his conversation with 

Domenici was the type he would have discussed with Gonzales and Sampson, 

but he said he could not specifically recall doing so. 

When we asked if the October 2006 complaint from Senator Domenici to 

McNulty was the most important factor in putting Iglesias’s name on the list, 

Sampson said: “I don’t remember putting his name on a list. I did it . . . but I 

don’t remember doing it and I don’t remember there being a specific reason for 

doing it . . . I knew these things generally about Mr. Iglesias and I apparently 

put his name on the list.” 

As we discuss in detail in Chapter Six, Iglesias revealed in early March 

2007 that Senator Domenici had called him in late October 2006 and asked 

whether a specific public corruption case involving Democrats would be 

indicted before the upcoming November election. Iglesias later expressed 

publicly his belief that his removal was precipitated by Senator Domenici’s 

disappointment with the negative answer Iglesias gave him. At the same time, 

Iglesias revealed that New Mexico Representative Heather Wilson had also 

called him in October to inquire about the status of public corruption cases. 

We also learned that officials and party activists of the New Mexico Republican 

Party complained to White House and Department officials about Iglesias 

beginning in 2004. The complaints centered around Iglesias’s handling of voter 

fraud allegations and politically sensitive public corruption cases. 

2. The Removal Plan 

In his November 7 e-mail, Sampson included a written plan for removing 

the nine U.S. Attorneys that contained four steps to be carried out over several 

days: 

Step 1 – Battle was to call each of the named U.S. Attorneys and 

follow a prepared script seeking their resignations based on the 

Administration’s desire to “give someone else the opportunity to 

serve” as U.S. Attorney for the remaining 2 years of the 

Administration. 

Step 2 – While Battle was calling the designated U.S. Attorneys, 

Deputy White House Counsel Kelley (or the appropriate Associate 

Counsel) would call the senior Republican Senators from the 

affected states to inform them of the Administration’s decision “to 

43
 

 

give someone else the opportunity to serve” as U.S. Attorney for 

what remained of the President’s second term. Sampson stated 

parenthetically that, if pushed, Kelley would explain that “the 

determination is based on a thorough review of the U.S. Attorney’s 

performance.” The senators would also be told that they would be 

looked to for recommendations for the new U.S. Attorney. 

Step 3 – During November and December 2006, the Department, 

working with the White House Counsel, would evaluate and select 

candidates for either appointment as Interim U.S. Attorneys 

pursuant to the Attorney General’s new statutory authority to 

confer indefinite appointments, or as Acting U.S. Attorneys (for a 

210-day period) under a separate statutory provision.39 

Step 4 – The Department and White House Counsel would proceed 

on an expedited basis to identify, evaluate, and recommend 

candidates for the permanent U.S. Attorney position (Presidentially 

appointed, Senate-confirmed) in each district. 

Step 3 in the plan called for the Department and the White House to 

identify Interim U.S. Attorney candidates. According to Sampson, however, at 

the time the plan was activated there were no replacement candidates “in the 

queue.” We found no evidence that as of November 7, Sampson or other 

Department officials had identified any candidates to replace the U.S. Attorneys 

who were to be removed. Nevertheless, the Department and the White House 

decided to proceed with the plan to remove the listed U.S. Attorneys. 

3. Reaction to the November 7 List and Plan 

On the evening of November 7, Elston replied to Sampson’s e-mail, 

stating: 

This looks fine to me – trying to get Paul’s [McNulty] input as well. 

The only concern I have is that Paul just visited NDFla and asked 

that Greg Miller not be on the list. He does seem to be running 

things well (if somewhat independent of DOJ). 

Sampson in turn responded that he would “wait for the DAG’s input (but no 

later than tomorrow).” 

Sometime between November 7 and November 15, Sampson said he took 

Miller’s name off the list. He said he did so because “the Deputy [Attorney 

General] asked that it be taken off.” 

39 The statutory provision, 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1), allows the President to appoint the 

First Assistant United States Attorney as Acting U.S. Attorney for a 210-day period or until a 

nominee is confirmed, whichever is sooner. 

44
 

McNulty told us that at the time he had recently visited Miller’s district 

and did not perceive any problems with Miller’s performance. 

Following the dissemination of the November 7 list, Sampson deleted two 

other names – Silsby and Marino – from the list, but not because anyone 

disagreed with the removal recommendation. According to Sampson, Silsby’s 

and Marino’s names were removed because both were believed to have the 

political support of their home-state Senators and the judgment was made not 

to risk a fight with the Senators over the proposed removals. According to 

Sampson, McNulty said that Marino had been recommended by Senator Arlen 

Specter from Pennsylvania. Sampson told us that they did not ask for Marino’s 

resignation because of the risk of a “brush fire” with the Senator. McNulty 

stated that he had no recollection of any such conversation with Sampson 

about Marino and doubted that the conversation took place. 

With respect to Silsby, Sampson told us that the Maine Senators (Collins 

and Snowe) supported Silsby and the judgment was made “not to fight the 

Senators on that.” The other U.S. Attorneys on Sampson’s November 7 list, 

including Iglesias, remained on the list. 

According to McNulty and Elston, discussions with Sampson concerning 

the remaining names on the November 7 removal list – Charlton, Lam, Chiara, 

Bogden, McKay, and Iglesias – focused on whether there was a good reason to 

take them off rather than on the reason they were on the list in the first place. 

McNulty said that the U.S. Attorney removal process was an initiative of the 

Office of the Attorney General related to a “personnel matter” that was within 

the province of the Attorney General, and that he therefore deferred to the 

Office of the Attorney General in the matter. McNulty also told us that 

Sampson did not ask for his permission to engage in the removal effort or seek 

his approval. McNulty said the only role he was asked to play was to review 

the list for the purpose of removing any name with which he disagreed. 

McNulty said his reaction to the November 7 plan was a mixture of surprise 

that it was being implemented and deference to the personnel prerogatives of 

the Attorney General’s Office. However, he also said he felt that the plan was 

reasonable in that each U.S. Attorney would be given ample time to make the 

transition to private life. 

Both McNulty and Elston said they were familiar with the issues 

surrounding Lam, Chiara, Charlton, and McKay, and neither argued in favor of 

taking any of those four off the list. With respect to Bogden, McNulty said that 

he knew little about Bogden’s performance but was told by Sampson that he 

was on the list because he was not an effective or dynamic leader in an 

important district with “special challenges.”40 McNulty told us that he 

40 In the Department’s after-the-fact justifications for Bogden’s removal, which we 

discuss below, Las Vegas was characterized as an important district with special challenges 

(Cont’d.) 

45
 

 

accepted Sampson’s explanation without looking into Bogden’s record because 

of his “deferential approach” toward the Attorney General’s Office in this 

matter. 

Later, however, after the final removal decisions had been made on 

November 27, McNulty told Sampson he was “skittish” about Bogden’s removal 

because, as a career federal prosecutor, Bogden’s transition to the private 

sector might pose financial hardships on his family. McNulty said that after 

Sampson told him that Bogden was single, he dropped the issue. 

McNulty also did not object to Iglesias’s inclusion on the removal list. As 

we discuss in more detail in Chapter Six, McNulty said he was unaware of any 

problems with Iglesias until he received a telephone call on October 4 from 

Senator Domenici complaining about Iglesias’s handling of public corruption 

cases and said that he was “in over his head.” McNulty told us that when he 

saw Iglesias’s name on the list, he associated it with Senator Domenici’s 

complaint and viewed the decision to remove Iglesias as falling in the “category 

of personnel,” meaning something that was outside his “bailiwick.” 

Elston said he did not object to the removal of either Bogden or Iglesias 

because he viewed both as “mediocre” U.S. Attorneys. He also said he believed 

at the time that Iglesias’s name was placed on the list because of Senator 

Domenici’s call to McNulty in October 2006. He said he was not given any 

other reason at the time for Iglesias’s name being added at such a late date. 

He stated that “everybody” deemed the Senator’s call to McNulty as significant. 

I. The Sixth List – November 15, 2006 

1. The Revised Plan 

On November 15, Sampson sent an e-mail to Miers and Kelley attaching 

a revised list of U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal. The list of U.S. 

Attorneys proposed for removal in the revised list had been pared to six: 

• Paul Charlton (D. Ariz.); 

• Carol C. Lam (S.D. Cal.); 

• Margaret M. Chiara (W.D. Mich.); 

• Daniel Bogden (D. Nev.); 

because it was a target for terrorism and had significant levels of violent crime and organized 

crime. 

46 
• John McKay (W.D. Wash.); and 

• David Iglesias (D. N.M.). 

The names of Miller, Marino, and Silsby were deleted from the list. 

Sampson’s November 15 e-mail also contained an implementation plan 

that was similar to, but more elaborate than, the draft that accompanied 

Sampson’s November 7 e-mail to Elston. In particular, the second step, that 

Kelley would call home state “political leads,” no longer contained the language 

that, if pushed, Kelley should explain that the determination was based on a 

“thorough review” of the U.S. Attorney’s performance. Instead, a new Step 3 

was added entitled “Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval,” which addressed 

the subject of resisting pressure from U.S. Attorneys and their political allies to 

keep their jobs. According to this new Step 3, the response to any such 

appeals would be that the Administration had decided to seek the resignations 

in order to give someone else a chance to serve. 

Sampson’s redrafted plan still had EOUSA Director Battle making the 

calls to the U.S. Attorneys using talking points Sampson provided. The plan 

also still called for the Department and White House Counsel’s Office to 

evaluate and select interim candidates and to carry out the selection, 

nomination, and appointment of U.S. Attorneys pursuant to the regular 

nomination and Senate confirmation process. 

In his e-mail to Miers and Kelley on November 15, Sampson stated that 

he had consulted with the Deputy Attorney General but had not yet informed 

others “who would need to be brought into the loop,” including Acting Associate 

Attorney General Mercer, Battle, and the Chair of the Attorney General’s 

Advisory Committee, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Johnny 

Sutton. Sampson also stated in the e-mail that everyone must be “steeled to 

withstand any political upheaval that might result” and that if the White House 

and the Department were to “start caving to complaining U.S. Attorneys or 

Senators, then we shouldn’t do it – it’ll be more trouble than it is worth.” 

Sampson’s plan called for implementation of the removals that same 

week, although he informed Miers and Kelley that he would wait for the “green 

light” from them. He also proposed to “circulate” the plan within the 

Department and asked that Miers and Kelley circulate it to “Karl’s [Rove] shop.” 

Once that was done, according to Sampson’s e-mail, Kelley would make the 

“political lead calls” and Battle would call the U.S. Attorneys slated for removal. 

2. Execution of the Plan is Postponed 

For logistical reasons, the plan could not be carried out on the schedule 

Sampson suggested. After receiving Sampson’s November 15 e-mail, Miers 

responded that she would have to determine if the plan required the President’s 

attention. She stated that the President had left town the night before and she 

47
 

would not be able to get his approval “for some time.” Sampson responded by 

asking Miers who would determine if the President needed to be apprised of the 

removal plan. Sampson told us that he never received an answer to that 

question, and the documents provided to us by the White House do not 

mention this issue. As stated previously, Miers and Kelley from the White 

House Counsel’s Office refused our requests for interviews. 

According to Margolis, in approximately mid-November Sampson either 

showed him a list, or read from a list, of six U.S. Attorneys that Sampson 

indicated were to be removed. Margolis told us that he was struck more by the 

names Sampson did not mention than the ones he did. In their discussions of 

the topic of underperforming U.S. Attorneys, Margolis had consistently named 

Ryan and Lampton, but neither name was mentioned by Sampson on this 

occasion. Margolis told us that he asked Sampson why Ryan and Lampton 

were not on the list and Sampson responded that he would look into it. 

Margolis told us that he did not think to question Sampson about five of the six 

U.S. Attorneys who were on Sampson’s list and did not know why they were on 

the list. He told us he was more focused on the names that were omitted and 

assumed Sampson had valid reasons for five of the six he named. 

3. The November 27, 2006, Meeting in the Attorney 

General’s Office 

In the meantime, Sampson scheduled a meeting for November 27 to 

discuss the U.S. Attorney removal plan with Department officials. On the 

morning of November 27, a meeting was held in the Attorney General’s 

conference room attended by Gonzales, Sampson, McNulty, Goodling, Principal 

Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella, and Battle. Elston was 

unavailable and Margolis was not invited. 

Of those in attendance, Moschella was the only one who had not 

previously been involved in some aspect of the removal plan. Moschella had 

been appointed the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General in early 

October 2006 after serving for several years as the Assistant Attorney General 

for the Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs. He told us that at the time of 

the meeting he was generally aware of a matter involving removal of some U.S. 

Attorneys, but had not been involved in the details. 

The 3-page document discussed in Sampson’s November 15 e-mail 

containing the list of six U.S. Attorneys proposed for removal and the steps to 

be taken to implement the plan was distributed to the attendees at the 

meeting. By all accounts, there was little discussion about the reasons the 

named U.S. Attorneys had been designated for removal or whether anyone 

objected to the plan as a whole or as it applied to any particular U.S. Attorney. 

For example, Battle told us it was clear to him that the decision to remove the 

48
named U.S. Attorneys had already been made, and the discussion at the 

November 27 meeting focused on implementing the plan. 

a. Gonzales’s Recollection of the November 27 

Meeting 

In our interview of him, Gonzales told us he did not recall the November 

27 meeting at which he approved the plan to request the resignations of six 

U.S. Attorneys. However, everyone else in attendance at the meeting stated 

that Gonzales was present, that he received a copy of the 3-page 

implementation plan, and that he gave his approval to proceed. 

While Gonzales told us he had no independent recollection of the 

November 27 meeting, he described the process and his role in it. In contrast 

to Sampson’s description of himself as the “aggregator,” Gonzales described 

himself as a delegator. He said he had given broad instructions to Sampson to 

evaluate the current ranks of U.S. Attorneys to determine, in concert with 

senior Department officials and the White House, where improvements could 

be made. Gonzales told us that it was not in his “nature to micromanage.” He 

said he surrounded himself with “good people” to whom he delegated 

responsibility with the “expectation that they’re going to do their jobs.” 

According to Gonzales, while Sampson had provided him “periodic” and 

“very brief updates” about the U.S. Attorney removal plan over time, they had 

no discussion of “substance” in terms of the reasons underlying the removals, 

and Gonzales said he did not know who was “going on and off the list” until 

November 27 at the earliest. Gonzales also stated that while it was his decision 

to approve the removals, he made it based on the recommendation of Sampson 

and the consensus of Department leaders. However, he said that he never 

asked Sampson or anyone else how they arrived at their recommendations or 

why each U.S. Attorney warranted removal. Instead, he said he “assumed” 

that Sampson engaged in an evaluation process, that the recommendations 

were based on performance issues, and that they reflected the consensus of 

senior management in the Department. 

b. McNulty Asks to Add Ryan to the List 

According to McNulty, the November 27 meeting was “much shorter than 

an hour,” and during the session the group discussed the logistics of the 

removal plan. In her congressional testimony, Goodling said that at the 

meeting the group discussed whether the U.S. Attorneys should be told in 

person that they were being removed, but the concern was that the U.S. 

Attorneys would then want to “litigate the reasons” for their removal. Goodling 

said that someone pointed out that because the U.S. Attorneys served at the 

pleasure of the President it was not necessary to tell them the reasons why 

they were being removed. 

49
According to Sampson, although the original plan called for Battle to call 

the U.S. Attorneys who were being removed, the group also discussed whether 

McNulty should notify the U.S. Attorneys in person while they were in 

Washington, D.C., for a Project Safe Childhood conference. Sampson told us 

that McNulty said he did not want to make the calls because it would have 

made him uncomfortable to do so. McNulty told us that it would have been 

unpleasant to tell the U.S. Attorneys they were being removed, but he said he 

did not recall “being asked to [notify the U.S. Attorneys], or that being part of 

any plan.” McNulty said that having Battle make the calls was consistent with 

the notion of keeping the removals in a “lower key.” 

Sampson said the group ultimately decided that Battle would make the 

calls, and they would execute the plan after December 6, when the U.S. 

Attorneys would be back in their districts after attending the conference. 

Sampson said that shortly after the meeting adjourned, McNulty told him 

that Ryan should be included on the list based on the results of the recently 

concluded Special EARS review. Sampson said he did not recall doing so, but 

said he would have spoken to Gonzales soon after the meeting and received his 

approval to add Ryan’s name to the list, bringing the total number of U.S. 

Attorneys designated for removal to seven. 

c. White House Approval of the Removal Plan 

In the week following the November 27 meeting, Sampson awaited word 

from the White House Counsel’s Office on whether the Department was 

authorized to proceed with the removal plan. Sampson told us that around 

this time he gave Deputy White House Counsel Kelley a “thumbnail” sketch of 

the reasons each U.S. Attorney was placed on the list. Sampson stated that 

Kelley raised no objection. 

According to Sampson, the White House “was deferential to the 

Department of Justice’s view on who should be on this list” throughout the 

process. Sampson claimed that aside from Miers’s question about U.S. 

Attorney Yang and her request to find a spot for Griffin, no one at the White 

House had asked that a name be placed on or taken off the list at any time. 

J. The Seventh and Final List – December 4, 2006 

1. The White House Approves the Plan 

On Monday, December 4, 2006, Kelley sent an e-mail to Sampson (with a 

copy to Miers) stating: “We’re a go for the US Atty plan. WH leg, political, and 

communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be 

committed to following through once the pressure comes.” 

50
Sampson responded: “Great. We would like to execute this on 

Thursday, December 7 (all the U.S. Attorneys are in town for our Project Safe 

Childhood conference until Wednesday; we want to wait until they are back 

home and dispersed, to reduce chatter).” Sampson also reiterated who had 

responsibility for making the political calls: the Attorney General was to call 

Senator Kyl of Arizona regarding Charlton; either Miers or Kelley was to call 

Senator Ensign of Nevada regarding Bogden and Senator Domenici of New 

Mexico regarding Iglesias; and the White House Office of Political Affairs was to 

call the political “leads” for California (regarding Lam and Ryan), Michigan 

(regarding Chiara), and Washington (regarding McKay), all of which had no 

Republican Senator. 

Later during the evening of December 4, Sampson e-mailed to Kelley and 

Miers a revised removal plan that included Ryan’s name. Minutes later, 

Sampson e-mailed the revised plan to McNulty, Battle, Goodling, Moschella, 

and Elston, together with the e-mail string containing Kelley’s authorization to 

proceed. In his forwarding e-mail to the Department officials, Sampson 

suggested that AGAC Chair Sutton and Acting Associate Attorney General 

Mercer be notified. The e-mail also suggested noon on Thursday, December 7 

for Battle to begin making his calls to the seven U.S. Attorneys who would be 

removed. That evening, Sampson also sent an e-mail to Scott Jennings and 

Jane Cherry, who worked in the White House Office of Political Affairs, with a 

list of current U.S. Attorney vacancies and a list of “vacancies expected shortly” 

– a list that included the seven U.S. Attorneys who would be called on 

December 7. Sampson wrote that the purpose of the e-mail was to notify the 

White House that “we need to get some names generated pronto.” 

The next day, December 5, Sampson e-mailed the revised plan to Mercer 

so that he would be prepared in the event he received calls from “the field.” 

From the context of the e-mail, it is clear that Mercer had not been involved in 

the process until then. Sampson informed Mercer that the “Administration has 

decided to ask some underperforming USAs to move on (you’ll remember I beat 

back a much broader – like across the board – plan that [the White House 

Counsel’s Office] was pushing after 2004.).” 

2. The Implementation of the Removal Plan 

On the morning of December 7, 2006, the plan was executed. Gonzales 

and Sampson called Senator Kyl regarding Charlton’s removal. The Senators 

and political leads for the other U.S. Attorneys were also notified in accordance 

with the plan’s instructions. 

During the afternoon of December 7, Battle called each of the seven U.S. 

Attorneys on the removal list and essentially followed the script from 

51
 

 

 

 

 

 

Sampson’s plan in asking each to resign.41 Battle said he told each U.S. 

Attorney that the Administration thanked them for their service but was 

looking to move in another direction and give somebody else a chance to serve 

and was therefore asking them to submit their resignation by the end of 

January 2007. According to Battle, some of the U.S. Attorneys asked why, and 

some asked for more time. Battle said that none of the U.S. Attorneys got 

upset with him, but he had the sense for some that, given their strong 

personalities, there would be some “push back.” However, Battle said that all 

agreed to comply with the request to resign. 

As we discuss below, as well as in the chapters assessing the reasons 

proffered for the removal of each U.S. Attorney, the U.S. Attorneys said they 

were surprised and stunned at the calls asking them to resign. They told us, 

and e-mails and other documents drafted in the aftermath of Battle’s December 

7 calls confirm, that they were confused about why they were asked to resign 

and upset that they were given so little notice before the deadline for their 

resignations. 

II. The Aftermath of the Removals 

In the months following the December 7, 2006, calls to the U.S. 

Attorneys, various concerns arose relating to their removals, including how the 

process of selecting U.S. Attorneys for removal was conducted, whether the 

removals of specific U.S. Attorneys were sought for an improper political 

purpose, and whether the Department intended to bypass Senate confirmation 

by using the Attorney General’s authority to make indefinite Interim U.S. 

Attorney appointments of their replacements. 

41 Step 2 of the plan provided talking points for Battle to use when informing the U.S. 

Attorneys that they were expected to resign: 

• What are your plans with regard to continued service as U.S. Attorney? 

• The Administration is grateful for your service as U.S. Attorney but has 

determined to give someone else the opportunity to serve as U.S. Attorney in 

your district for the final two years of the Administration. 

• We will work with you to make sure there is a smooth transition, but intend to 

have a new Acting or Interim U.S. Attorney in place by January 31, 2007. 

Step 3 provided that if the U.S. Attorneys questioned the decision and wanted to know 

who decided, Battle’s response was to be: “The Administration made the determination to seek 

the resignations (not any specific person at the White House or the Department of Justice.)” If 

asked “why me,” the response was: “The Administration is grateful for your service, but wants 

to give someone else a chance to serve in your district.” If the U.S. Attorney said that s/he 

needed more time, the response was to be: “The decision is to have a new Acting or Interim 

U.S. Attorney in place by January 31, 2007 (granting “extensions” will hinder the process of 

getting a new U.S. Attorney in place and giving that person the opportunity to serve for a full 

two years.)” 

52
The subsequent revelation that seven U.S. Attorneys had been asked to 

resign on the same day prompted congressional inquiries into the removals. 

On January 16, 2007, Senator Dianne Feinstein stated on the Senate floor that 

seven U.S. Attorneys had been removed without cause. Media reports also 

disclosed that two of the U.S. Attorneys had recently investigated high-profile 

public corruption investigations at the time of their removals – Lam had 

successfully prosecuted California Republican Congressman Duke 

Cunningham, and Charlton was engaged in an ongoing investigation of Arizona 

Republican Congressman Rick Renzi. In addition, the media reported 

allegations that McKay was removed for failing to pursue voter fraud 

complaints following the closely contested Washington State gubernatorial 

election in November 2004. 

In a press conference on February 28, 2007, Iglesias disclosed that he 

had received telephone calls in October 2006 from two unidentified members of 

Congress who pressured him to indict a public corruption case in New Mexico 

before the November 2006 election. In his congressional appearance on 

March 6, Iglesias stated that the two members of Congress who allegedly 

pressured him were New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici and Representative 

Heather Wilson. Iglesias testified that he believed he was removed as U.S. 

Attorney because he failed to respond to their desire to rush public corruption 

prosecutions. 

We discuss in the following sections the immediate reaction to the 

removals, the Department’s response, and the events that followed. 

A. The U.S. Attorneys’ Initial Reactions 

After receiving the calls from Battle on December 7, Lam, Bogden, 

Iglesias, and Chiara contacted McNulty. Lam, Bogden, and Iglesias sought 

more time before submitting their resignations while Chiara sought McNulty’s 

assistance in finding her a new position. McNulty did not immediately respond 

to these requests. 

Lam also contacted Margolis to inquire whether she had been asked to 

resign because she was the subject of any misconduct investigation. Margolis 

told us that he first became aware that the removal plan had actually been 

implemented when he received the call from Lam. He said that when the plan 

had not been carried out by mid-November 2006, he assumed it was not going 

to go forward. Margolis told Lam that her removal was not because of any 

misconduct issue. 

According to e-mail records, Ryan complained to his contacts at the 

White House about his treatment. Charlton and Bogden contacted Mercer and 

asked why they were being removed. However, consistent with Sampson’s 

plan, the U.S. Attorneys were given no explanation for the firings other than 

53
that the Administration wanted to give someone else a chance to serve. Most of 

the U.S. Attorneys also sought more time before they had to resign. 

On December 14, McKay sent an e-mail to all U.S. Attorneys announcing 

that he planned to resign the following month. On December 15, Cummins 

sent an e-mail to all U.S. Attorneys announcing that he would resign the 

following week. 

B. Concern that the Department Intended to Bypass Senate 

Confirmation for Replacement U.S. Attorneys 

On December 15, 2006, Attorney General Gonzales and Arkansas 

Senator Mark Pryor discussed Gonzales’s intention to appoint Tim Griffin as 

the Interim U.S. Attorney to replace Cummins. Gonzales informed Senator 

Pryor that he intended to appoint Griffin to be Interim U.S. Attorney, and 

Gonzales expressed his hope that Senator Pryor would be able to support 

Griffin for the nomination after he had had a chance to serve. According to 

Gonzales, Senator Pryor said he would not commit to supporting Griffin’s 

nomination at that time. 

In an e-mail dated December 19, 2006, Sampson drafted talking points 

to respond to inquiries about the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment. The 

talking points included the statements that when a U.S. Attorney vacancy 

arises, someone needs to be appointed, even if on an interim basis to fill the 

vacancy, that Griffin was appointed Interim U.S. Attorney because of the timing 

of Cummins’s resignation, and that the Department “hoped that there would be 

a U.S. Attorney who had been nominated and confirmed in every district.” 

Sampson sent a copy of this e-mail to Associate White House Counsel Chris 

Oprison. 

In response, Oprison told Sampson he had discussed with Miers the 

Department’s response to press inquiries about the circumstances of Griffin’s 

appointment. Oprison expressed concern to Sampson about problems with 

Griffin’s nomination, noting that it seemed that the Arkansas Senators would 

neither commit to supporting Griffin nor say they would not support him. 

Oprison also stated that since the Attorney General’s appointment of Griffin 

was of unlimited duration pursuant to the Patriot Act amendment, the talking 

points used to respond to press inquires about Griffin should “avoid referring 

to [Griffin] as ‘interim.’” 

Sampson immediately responded in an e-mail, “I think we should gum 

this to death . . . .” Sampson suggested in his e-mail that because Griffin’s 

interim appointment would be technically of unlimited duration, if either of the 

Democratic Senators from Arkansas would not agree to support Griffin’s 

nomination once he was nominated and after he had served as Interim for a 

period of time, the Department could “run out the clock” to the end of the Bush 

54
 

 

Administration while appearing to act in good faith by asking the Senators for 

recommendations, interviewing other candidates, and pledging to “desire” a 

Senate confirmed U.S. Attorney. Sampson also stated in the e-mail, “our guy is 

in there so the status quo is good for us.” Sampson added, “I’m not 100 

percent sure that Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but 

know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” 

When confronted with this e-mail during his congressional testimony, 

Sampson characterized his discussion of using the interim appointment 

authority to bypass Senate confirmation as a “bad idea at the staff level.” He 

told us that the idea was confined to Griffin. Sampson also said Attorney 

General Gonzales never seriously considered it.42 Gonzales told us he could 

not recall whether he discussed this issue with Sampson at that time, but said 

he thought it was a “dumb idea.” 

C. The Department Begins to Publicly Respond to Concerns 

About the Removals 

Shortly after McKay and Cummins announced their resignations, most of 

the U.S. Attorneys began discussing their removals among themselves. By 

December 17, several of the U.S. Attorneys speculated among themselves that 

the Department had asked 10 to 12 U.S. Attorneys to resign. 

In mid-to-late December 2006, the news media began to report on the 

removals. For example, on December 19, in an online story entitled U.S. 

Attorney Ousted, a New Mexico television station reported that Iglesias had 

been asked to resign. During the same period, other news outlets began 

asking the Department for comment on the removals of U.S. Attorneys. 

1. Articles About Cummins’s Removal 

In late December 2006, various articles began appearing in the Arkansas 

media regarding Cummins’s resignation, Griffin’s appointment as Interim U.S. 

Attorney, and the concerns of Arkansas Senators Pryor and Blanche Lincoln 

that the Department intended to circumvent the confirmation process by 

appointing Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney. 

On December 27, 2006, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette published an 

interview with Griffin discussing the Senators’ concerns. The article included a 

statement from Department of Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse that 

Griffin’s appointment was meant to be temporary until Griffin could go through 

the formal nomination and confirmation process, and that the Department had 

asked Senator Pryor to meet with Griffin. According to the article, Roehrkasse 

42 This matter is discussed in detail in Chapter Five. 

55
stated, “often, the first assistant U.S. Attorney in the affected district will serve 

as the acting U.S. Attorney until the formal nomination process begins for a 

replacement,” but added “the first assistant is on maternity leave.” Roehrkasse 

also stated, “Tim was chosen because of his significant experience working as a 

federal prosecutor in both Arkansas and in the Justice Department in 

Washington, D.C.” 

Cummins told us that when he read the article he began to have doubts 

about the Department’s credibility. Cummins said that Griffin had been 

working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office since September 2006, and Cummins had 

known since June of that year that Griffin was going to take his place. 

Cummins also said that the maternity leave status of his First Assistant was 

not a reason for Griffin’s appointment as the Interim U.S. Attorney because the 

Department and the White House had always intended that Griffin would 

replace Cummins as either Interim or permanent U.S. Attorney, or both. 

We found no indication that anyone ever considered at the time 

appointing the office’s First Assistant as Interim U.S. Attorney. The First 

Assistant (now the U.S. Attorney) told us that she had no discussions with 

anyone at the Department about the possibility of serving as Interim U.S. 

Attorney when Cummins resigned. In addition, our review of e-mails between 

Sampson and Goodling demonstrates that as early as August 2006 they 

discussed using the Attorney General’s appointment authority to appoint 

Griffin Interim U.S. Attorney because it was unclear whether Senator Pryor 

would support Griffin’s nomination. 

We sought to determine where Roehrkasse obtained the information that 

implied that the First Assistant’s maternity leave was a reason for Griffin’s 

appointment as the Interim U.S. Attorney. When we interviewed Roehrkasse, 

he told us that he thought he had received the information from Goodling and 

Sampson. Roehrkasse said he recalled receiving a question from a reporter 

concerning the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment, and either Sampson, 

Goodling, or both gave Roehrkasse three talking points: (1) Griffin was chosen 

because he had significant experience; (2) the President might nominate him to 

be the permanent U.S. Attorney; and (3) the First Assistant was not available 

because she was either going on maternity leave or was on maternity leave. 

Sampson told us that the information about the First Assistant’s 

maternity leave did not come from him but likely came from Goodling. 

Sampson said he recalled being present when Goodling briefed the Attorney 

General before his December 15 telephone conversation with Pryor, and that 

Goodling mentioned to Gonzales, in response to one of Gonzales’s questions 

during the briefing about what was happening in the district, that the First 

Assistant was on maternity leave. Sampson acknowledged that Griffin was 

slated to be appointed Interim U.S. Attorney all along. However, he told us he 

56
 

 

 

did not consider correcting any misimpression that Goodling had created 

because he did not believe the circumstances called for him to do so.43 

We asked Roehrkasse whether he thought the statements he made 

concerning the First Assistant being unable to serve because she was on 

maternity leave were misleading. Roehrkasse said that he saw no problem with 

the statements. He said the quote about the First Assistant being on maternity 

leave was a fact and that it was not as if he had said “[the first assistant] was 

passed over [for consideration as Interim U.S. Attorney] because she was on 

maternity leave.” Roehrkasse also said that when he spoke with the reporter 

he believed, based on what Goodling and Sampson had told him, that one of 

the reasons the First Assistant was not chosen to be Interim U.S. Attorney was 

that she was on maternity leave. 

Roehrkasse said he did not learn that the article may have contained 

inaccuracies until after the controversy over the U.S. Attorney removals 

erupted. However, we found no evidence that the Department attempted to 

correct Roehrkasse’s misleading information at the time. 

2. Senators Express Concern About the Removals 

By early January 2007, other news articles reported that several U.S. 

Attorneys across the country had been asked to resign. On January 9, 2007, 

Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein wrote Attorney General Gonzales 

a letter expressing concern that the Department had removed the U.S. 

Attorneys without cause and intended to “appoint interim replacements and 

potentially avoid the Senate confirmation process.” The two Senators 

requested information “regarding all instances in which you have exercised the 

authority to appoint an interim United States Attorney.” The Senators also 

requested information “on whether any efforts have been made to ask or 

encourage the former or current U.S. Attorneys to resign their position.” 

On January 11, Senator Pryor sent Attorney General Gonzales a letter 

expressing concern that the Administration had forced Cummins to resign in 

order to appoint Griffin. Pryor stated that he was “astonished” that the 

Department’s liaison had told his staff and the media that the First Assistant 

was not chosen to be the Interim U.S. Attorney because she was on maternity 

leave, and he expressed concern that Griffin’s appointment was intended to 

bypass the Senate confirmation process.44 The same day, Senators Feinstein, 

43 As noted above, Goodling refused to be interviewed by us. 

44 In a January 31, 2007, letter responding to Senator Pryor signed by Richard 

Hertling, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs, the Department 

wrote that it was committed to having a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. 

Attorney in every district. The Department denied that the Administration sought to avoid the 

Senate confirmation process, and said that Griffin was chosen to serve as Interim U.S. Attorney 

(Cont’d.) 

57
 

 

 

Leahy, and Pryor introduced legislation designed to restore the authority of 

federal district courts to appoint Interim U.S. Attorneys when 120 days had 

passed without a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. 

As noted previously, we found no evidence that the Department had 

candidates waiting to be nominated to replace the U.S. Attorneys at the time of 

their removals. McNulty told us that in late December to mid-January, when 

the individual U.S. Attorneys had begun announcing their resignations, 

Sampson consulted with him about possible replacements. McNulty said 

Sampson assured him that the replacement process was being conducted “by 

the book,” and that the Department was initially attempting to select the First 

Assistants to act as Interim U.S. Attorneys. 

McNulty said Sampson also told him that the Department was working 

with the Senators or state commissions to obtain the names of individuals who 

would go through the nomination process. Our review of e-mail records and 

other documents confirmed that the Department was in fact working with state 

congressional delegations and others to obtain the names of individuals to 

undergo the nomination and confirmation process for U.S. Attorneys. 

3. Sampson’s January 2007 Briefing of Senate Judiciary 

Committee Staff 

In response to the January 9, 2007, letter from Senators Feinstein and 

Leahy alleging that the Department had asked several U.S. Attorneys to resign 

“without cause” and that the plan was to appoint “interim replacements” and 

avoid the Senate confirmation process, Sampson called Senator Feinstein’s 

chief counsel, Jennifer Duck, to set up a meeting with her and Senator Leahy’s 

chief counsel, Bruce Cohen. The purpose of the meeting, according to 

Sampson, was to “mollify” the Senators that the Department’s actions were not 

sinister. 

We found that Sampson’s representations at the meeting with Senate 

staff exacerbated rather than mollified the skepticism concerning the U.S. 

Attorney removals. On January 12, 2007, Sampson and Richard Hertling, who 

had recently assumed the position of Acting Assistant Attorney General for the 

Office of Legislative Affairs, met with Duck and Cohen in Cohen’s office. 

According to Hertling, who said he knew little about the controversy at the 

time, Sampson attempted to impress upon Duck and Cohen that the removals 

were the result of a process the Department had been engaged in for some time 

of identifying the U.S. Attorneys who were the “weakest performers,” and that 

because of his qualifications, not because the First Assistant was on maternity leave. The 

Department’s letter did not address Senator Pryor’s assertion that the Administration had 

forced Cummins to resign so that Griffin could be appointed. 

58 
the process included a review of EARS evaluations. Hertling told us that one of 

the things that stuck in his mind about the meeting was Sampson’s “specific 

reference” to EARS evaluations as a basis for the selection of these particular 

U.S. Attorneys for termination. Hertling said he left the meeting with the 

“distinct impression” that EARS evaluations were central to the process 

Sampson had described. 

We also interviewed Duck and Cohen. According to Duck, Sampson said 

all the U.S. Attorneys who were removed were “underperformers.” When Duck 

asked how they were evaluated, Sampson first said the decisions were based 

on EARS evaluations, but later said that while some were based on EARS 

evaluations, some were based on other factors such as caseload, 

responsiveness to policy initiatives, resource allocation, and the like. 

Cohen similarly stated that Sampson stressed that the Department 

decided to remove certain “underperforming” U.S. Attorneys and that the 

removals were based on periodic performance reviews – EARS evaluations. 

According to Cohen, Sampson initially spoke of the value of EARS reports in 

determining which U.S. Attorneys fell into the “underperforming” category, but 

he backtracked when Duck pressed him for copies of the EARS reports for each 

removed U.S. Attorney. 

Cohen and Duck also told us that Sampson emphasized that all the 

affected U.S. Attorneys were removed on the basis of performance, including 

Cummins, whose replacement by Griffin had triggered the Senate’s interest in 

the first place. According to Duck, Sampson said that Cummins was 

considered an “underperforming” U.S. Attorney, and the Attorney General had 

appointed Griffin Interim U.S. Attorney upon Cummins’s resignation because 

the First Assistant was on maternity leave and not available to accept the 

appointment. 

Sampson told us that he mentioned EARS evaluations only in the context 

of explaining Ryan’s removal, which he considered of particular interest to 

Senator Feinstein. Sampson said he doubted that he would have suggested 

that the other removals were based on EARS evaluations because “that 

wouldn’t have been accurate.” In addition, Sampson said that he could not 

recall whether he told Duck and Cohen that Cummins was removed based on 

performance issues like the other seven. Sampson acknowledged, however, 

that he viewed Cummins’s removal as performance-based at the time. When 

we asked Sampson if he distinguished Cummins from the other removed U.S. 

Attorneys, as McNulty did later, on the ground that someone in the 

59
 

 

 

 

Administration (Miers) had asked that Griffin be given the opportunity to serve, 

Sampson replied: “I don’t remember what I said.”45 

Sampson’s meeting with Duck and Cohen did not satisfy the Senate 

Judiciary Committee members that the U.S. Attorneys were removed for 

legitimate reasons. On January 16, Senator Feinstein criticized the removals 

in a statement on the Senate floor, asserting that several U.S. Attorneys were 

forced to resign so that the Attorney General could appoint interim 

replacements pursuant to the Patriot Act amendment and thereby avoid Senate 

confirmation. Feinstein noted that she had learned that seven U.S. Attorneys 

had been forced to resign without cause, including two from California, “as well 

as U.S. Attorneys from New Mexico, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Washington, and 

Arizona.”46 

On January 25, Senator Charles Schumer issued a notice scheduling a 

hearing for early February 2007 on whether the Department was “politicizing” 

the “hiring and firing” of U.S. Attorneys. The previous day, Hertling had 

contacted Preet Bharara, Senator Schumer’s Chief Counsel on the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, and arranged a meeting on January 26 for Sampson and 

Hertling to brief Bharara on the U.S. Attorney issue. 

According to Bharara, Sampson’s theme at the briefing on January 26 

was that Senator Feinstein’s denunciation of the removals on the Senate floor 

on January 16 was misguided. Bharara told us that Sampson maintained that 

none of the U.S. Attorneys were removed in order to stymie any investigation. 

Bharara said that Sampson stressed that, to the contrary, there were 

performance reasons for each removal, and while Sampson declined to go into 

specifics at this meeting, he assured Bharara that if he knew all the details he 

would agree with the Department’s decisions. Although Bharara told us he did 

not have a specific recollection of what Sampson said about the role EARS 

evaluations played in the removal decisions, Bharara recalled that he was eager 

to obtain the EARS reports after hearing what Sampson said. Bharara also 

said he was surprised when he later heard McNulty say at a closed briefing 

with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and staff on February 14 that 

EARS evaluations did not reflect problems with most of the U.S. Attorneys who 

were forced to resign. 

45 Sampson said that Cohen pressed him on the total number of U.S. Attorneys who 

were removed. Sampson assured him that the number was seven, plus Cummins. It was 

revealed during subsequent congressional hearings that Todd Graves was also asked to resign 

in January 2006 under circumstances similar to the other eight U.S. Attorneys. 

46 Feinstein included Texas by mistake. 

60
D. Elston’s Telephone Calls to Charlton and McKay on 

January 17, 2007 

Attorney General Gonzales was scheduled to testify at an oversight 

hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18, 2007. During 

January 2007, senior Department staff participated in several sessions to 

prepare the Attorney General for his upcoming congressional testimony. 

Elston told us that during one session held on January 17, 2007, the day 

before Gonzales’s congressional testimony, the group discussed how Gonzales 

would handle questions about the U.S. Attorney removals. As noted above, by 

mid-January the media was raising questions about the resignations of 

Cummins, McKay, Iglesias, Lam, Bogden, Ryan, and Charlton. 

Elston said that after the January 17 preparation session, McNulty 

expressed concern for the U.S. Attorneys about whom members of Congress 

and the media were speculating, but who had not publicly confirmed they had 

been asked to resign. Elston told us that, at the time, the Department’s goal 

was to allow the U.S. Attorneys to leave on their own terms and announce their 

resignations in accordance with their own sense of appropriate timing. 

According to Elston, McNulty was concerned that the U.S. Attorneys 

might be worried about what the Attorney General was going to say about them 

in his testimony at the January 18 hearing. Elston said the concern was that 

they might publicly announce that the Department had sought their 

resignations, in anticipation that the Attorney General would say they had 

been removed. Elston said that on January 17 McNulty asked him to call 

McKay, Charlton, and Ryan to let them know that the Attorney General was 

not going to testify about who had been removed or about the basis for the 

removals. 

We were unable to determine why Elston was chosen to call only McKay, 

Charlton, and Ryan. Elston said he believed that someone else was assigned to 

call the others. However, we did not find any indication that anyone else in the 

Department was asked to place calls to the other U.S. Attorneys prior to the 

Attorney General’s testimony. 

On January 17, Elston called McKay at 5:30 p.m., and an e-mail reflects 

that Elston called Charlton shortly afterwards. Elston said he did not speak to 

Ryan, but instead spoke to Ryan’s First Assistant. Elston said he gave McKay, 

Charlton, and Ryan’s First Assistant the same message: that when the 

61
 

 

 

 

Attorney General testified, he would not name the U.S. Attorneys or discuss the 

reasons for their removal.47 

1. Telephone Call to McKay 

According to McKay, Elston began the telephone conversation by saying 

that people in the Department were surprised they had not seen any 

“‘incendiary comments’” from McKay in the press. McKay said that Elston then 

stated that the Attorney General would make only general statements in his 

Senate testimony about the resignations, would not state that the U.S. 

Attorneys had been fired, and would not disclose the reasons for their removal. 

McKay told us that because Elston began the conversation by saying that 

the Department had noticed McKay had not discussed his removal in the 

press, and then said that the Attorney General also would not discuss why 

McKay had resigned, McKay believed that Elston was offering him a quid pro 

quo: “You keep quiet, we won’t say anything.” 

According to McKay, Elston then asked if he had any response. McKay 

said he replied that he would stay quiet not because the Attorney General 

would not disclose why he had been fired, but rather because he believed it 

was his duty to do so. McKay said he acknowledged to Elston that he served at 

the pleasure of the President and said he would not say anything that reflected 

poorly on the President or on the Department. 

McKay’s contemporaneous notes of this conversation indicate that he 

also told Elston that his reputation in Seattle was secure and would not be 

tarnished by anything the Department said about him. McKay’s notes further 

state: “I wasn’t given an explanation and I never asked why.” McKay’s notes 

also state that Elston was clearly trying to do “damage control” in the wake of 

media reports about the removals. 

When McKay later testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 

March 6, he did not discuss his conversation with Elston. However, in 

subsequent written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and during 

our interview, McKay said he felt that Elston was attempting to threaten him 

into remaining silent about his removal.48 

47 Elston’s conversation with Ryan’s First Assistant is reflected in a January 18, 2007, 

e-mail Elston sent to Sampson, Moschella, Goodling, Mercer, and McNulty. In that e-mail, 

Elston stated that he gave the First Assistant his “talkers for McKay and Charlton and asked 

her to convey them to Kevin [Ryan].” Elston also stated that the First Assistant told him that 

Ryan was not returning phone calls and was trying to “stay out of this.” 

48 In their written statements to the House Judiciary Subcommittee following their 

testimony on March 6, 2007, both Charlton and McKay stated that they felt that Elston was 

attempting to persuade them to remain silent about their dismissal. 

62
2. Telephone Call to Charlton 

Charlton told us that he viewed Elston’s phone call to him as a veiled 

threat. Charlton said that Elston told him that the Department’s senior 

management had noticed that he had not been commenting in the media, and 

he wanted Charlton to know that the Attorney General was not going to 

comment on why Charlton had been asked to resign. 

Charlton said he had not been told the reasons for his resignation but 

thought it was because of his disagreement with Department leaders 

concerning a death penalty case. He told us that he thought at the time of 

Elston’s call that he did not care if the Attorney General disclosed to Congress 

that he resigned over a disagreement about the death penalty. Charlton said 

he interpreted Elston’s call as a warning that the Attorney General would make 

comments about Charlton unless he remained quiet. 

Charlton said he spoke to McKay shortly after his conversation with 

Elston, and after the two compared notes Charlton concluded that at the very 

least Elston was trying to intimidate them. 

3. Elston’s Description of the Telephone Calls 

When we interviewed Elston, he denied calling McKay and Charlton in an 

attempt to threaten them to remain silent, and denied offering them a quid pro 

quo in exchange for their silence. Elston noted that he made the calls at the 

close of business on the day before the Attorney General’s testimony, and that 

he did not see the Attorney General prior to his testimony. Elston also said 

that no one asked him to report back as to whether Charlton and McKay were 

going to continue to remain silent about their removals and he did not do so. 

During our interview, we showed Elston the notes McKay took shortly 

after their telephone conversation. Elston said he did not recall McKay making 

several of the statements contained in his notes, and Elston said he believed 

that some statements in the notes were “a fabrication.” Elston stated that if 

the conversation had gone the way it was described in McKay’s notes, it would 

have caused him such alarm that he would have reported to McNulty that 

there was a problem with McKay. 

We found no evidence that Elston discussed with anyone his 

conversations with McKay and Charlton until March 2007, when Cummins 

testified before Congress about a similar conversation, discussed below, that 

Cummins had with Elston on February 20, 2007. 

63
E. Attorney General Gonzales’s January 18, 2007, Testimony 

Before the Senate Judiciary Committee 

On January 18, 2007, Attorney General Gonzales testified before the 

Senate Judiciary Committee. In response to questioning from Senator 

Feinstein concerning why several U.S. Attorneys were asked to resign, Gonzales 

stated: 

[S]ome people should view [the resignations] as a sign of good 

management. What we do is we make an evaluation about the 

performance of individuals. And I have a responsibility to the 

people in your district that we have the best possible people in 

these positions. 

And that’s the reason why changes sometimes have to be made, 

although there are a number of reasons why changes get made and 

why people leave on their own. 

Gonzales also testified, “I am fully committed, as the Administration’s 

fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States Attorney 

position in this country, we will have a Presidentially appointed, Senateconfirmed United States Attorney.” At the hearing, Gonzales declined to 

disclose publicly the number of U.S. Attorneys who had been removed or the 

reasons for their removal, stating that he did not want to get into a public 

discussion of personnel decisions. Gonzales asserted that he would never 

make a change in a U.S. Attorney position for political reasons, or if it would 

jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. 

One week later, the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a hearing for 

February 6, 2007, on “Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the 

Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?” 

Sampson and Hertling recommended that McNulty testify at the hearing 

because the Department needed someone senior to validate the removal 

decisions and McNulty was perceived to have a good relationship with Senator 

Schumer, who was scheduled to chair the hearing. 

McNulty told us that even though he was not responsible for initiating 

the removals of the U.S. Attorneys, he agreed to testify as a favor to Sampson 

because he recognized the need for a top-level Department official to respond to 

the Senate’s concerns. McNulty told us that the Department believed that in 

addition to the U.S. Attorney removals, the Senate was concerned about the 

Attorney General’s authority to make indefinite Interim U.S. Attorney 

appointments. 

64
 

 

F. Cummins Seeks Advice from Elston 

In early February, Cummins notified Elston that members of Senator 

Pryor’s and Senator Schumer’s staffs had asked Cummins to testify at the 

upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Elston informed Sampson that 

Cummins had declined the invitation but told Elston that if the Department 

wanted him to testify he would explain the circumstances of his resignation 

and would also strongly support the Attorney General’s authority to appoint 

Interim U.S. Attorneys for an indefinite period. 

Sampson responded that he did not think Cummins should testify 

because he would have to provide truthful answers to questions such as 

whether he had resigned voluntarily, whether he was asked to resign because 

he was underperforming, and whether Griffin had discussed becoming U.S. 

Attorney and avoiding Senate confirmation. According to Elston and 

Cummins, Elston told Cummins that the Department would take no position 

on whether he should testify. 

G. McNulty’s February 6, 2007, Testimony Before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee 

1. McNulty’s Use of the Term “Performance-Related” to 

Describe the Removals 

By the time McNulty testified on February 6, the media had reported that 

Lam, Ryan, McKay, Iglesias, Bogden, and Charlton had been told to resign on 

the same day. 

At the hearing, McNulty stated that with the exception of Cummins, the 

resignations of the U.S. Attorneys were requested for “performance-related” 

reasons. With respect to Cummins, McNulty testified that he was removed in 

order to give Griffin a chance to serve as U.S. Attorney. 

McNulty used the term “performance-related” at least five times in his 

testimony to describe why the U.S. Attorneys (other than Cummins) were 

removed. In response to a question about whether the White House was 

involved in the removals, McNulty testified that he was “sure [that the White 

House] was consulted before [the Department made] the phone calls” to the 

U.S. Attorneys because the U.S. Attorneys were presidential appointees. 

During his testimony, McNulty declined to publicly disclose how many U.S. 

Attorneys were asked to resign or their identities. Instead, he agreed to 

privately brief members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the removals, 

and this closed briefing was scheduled for February 14, 2007.49 

49 McNulty’s written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee focused on 

reassuring the Committee that the Department did not intend to bypass the Senate 

confirmation process when it appointed Interim U.S. Attorneys under 28 U.S.C. § 546. The 

(Cont’d.) 

65
 

 

 

 

According to McNulty, he had two preparation sessions before his 

February 6 testimony with a group of senior Department employees. According 

to calendar entries, the group consisted of Sampson, Goodling, Moschella, 

Elston, Battle, Office of Public Affairs Director Tasia Scolinos, Roehrkasse, 

EOUSA Principal Deputy Director John Nowacki, Hertling, and two other 

employees from the Office of Legislative Affairs. Moschella told us that he and 

Goodling were present only for a short time at one of the sessions because they 

were involved with the rollout of the Department’s budget on one of those days. 

McNulty said that the group decided that he would generally say no more 

than what the Attorney General had said in his January 18 testimony, which 

was that the Department had considered the U.S. Attorneys’ performance 

before deciding to remove them. McNulty said the group unanimously agreed 

that McNulty would say that the removals were “performance-related,” but 

would not get into specifics about the U.S. Attorneys’ performance. McNulty 

said that the group did not discuss the specific reasons for each U.S. Attorney’s 

removal during the preparation sessions. 

When we asked McNulty whether the Department officials at the 

preparation sessions discussed how McNulty’s using the word “performance” to 

describe the U.S. Attorneys might be received, he said they did not consider it. 

McNulty told us that the term “performance-related” did not sound as negative 

during the preparation sessions as the U.S. Attorneys who were removed later 

perceived it.50 McNulty said, “[i]n the end I chose that word because I ran it by 

everybody, and folks felt like that was the best way to deal with it and so I went 

forward using it.” 

McNulty said that the group also discussed what McNulty would say 

about Cummins’s removal, because of the controversy arising out of the 

Attorney General’s appointment of Griffin to be Interim U.S. Attorney. McNulty 

said he told the group in his preparation sessions that he would say that 

during the summer of 2006 Cummins had been asked to move on to make a 

place for Griffin.51 

written statement also touched on the removals, noting that U.S. Attorneys serve at the 

pleasure of the President and can be removed “for any reason or for no reason.” The statement 

declared that the Department was committed to having “the best possible person” installed as 

U.S. Attorney in every district. The statement also stressed that U.S. Attorneys were never 

removed or encouraged to resign in an effort to retaliate for, or to interfere with or influence, a 

particular investigation, criminal prosecution, or civil case. 

50 In an e-mail exchange dated March 26, 2007, between McNulty and Scolinos 

describing his February 6 testimony and the preparation sessions that preceded it, McNulty 

wrote, “Kyle was in full agreement with my answers . . . we all thought performance was a safe 

word.” 

51 According to both McNulty and Goodling, sometime during the summer of 2006, 

Goodling had briefed him about Griffin replacing Cummins as U.S. Attorney. 

66
 

 

McNulty told us that he did not connect Cummins with the other 

removals, and that when Goodling told him they were making an opportunity 

for Griffin in the summer of 2006, the stated justification was that Cummins 

had indicated he was going to move on, not that the White House wanted to 

replace him with Griffin. McNulty said he also made the distinction between 

Cummins’s removal and the other U.S. Attorney removals during his 

preparation sessions and that no one, including Sampson, disagreed with him 

or objected to his drawing that distinction. 

Handwritten notes McNulty made for his February 6 testimony reflect 

that the issue of White House involvement was discussed during his 

preparation sessions. His notes state: “WH personnel and counsel consulted – 

POTUS appointments.” However, we found no indication that there was any 

discussion of the exact timing and level of the White House’s involvement 

during these preparation sessions. 

2. Attorney General Gonzales’s Reaction to McNulty’s 

Testimony 

Several witnesses told us that Attorney General Gonzales, who was 

traveling in Buenos Aires at the time of McNulty’s February 6 hearing, was 

extremely unhappy after learning through press accounts about McNulty’s 

testimony. According to Roehrkasse, who was traveling with the Attorney 

General, Gonzales was unhappy because he thought McNulty’s testimony that 

Cummins was not removed for performance-related reasons was inaccurate. 

Roehrkasse also said Gonzales expressed dismay that McNulty testified that 

the other U.S. Attorneys were removed for performance-related reasons. 

Sampson told us that he spoke to the Attorney General about McNulty’s 

testimony and that Gonzales was upset because of the way McNulty had 

characterized Cummins’s departure. 

When we asked Gonzales about McNulty’s testimony, he told us that he 

was upset because he was confused, believing up to that point that Cummins 

was removed because of poor performance. Gonzales said that he later 

learned, likely from Sampson, that Cummins was removed to put Griffin into 

the U.S. Attorney position.52 We asked Gonzales how he could reconcile that 

with the fact that he had since become aware that Sampson said he put 

Cummins on the list in March 2005 and January 2006 because he thought 

Cummins was an underperformer. Gonzales told us that he wondered about 

that as well, but said he did not have an answer for us. 

52 Sampson’s and Gonzales’s statements on this point are inconsistent, however. 

When we asked Gonzales about Cummins, he told us that he believed Sampson had corrected 

his original impression and told him that Cummins was not removed for performance reasons. 

However, as we note in Chapter Five, Sampson was the source for the notion that Cummins 

was removed because he was an underperformer. 

67
 

 

Gonzales told us that he was also unhappy because he felt that by 

testifying that the U.S. Attorneys were removed for performance-related 

reasons, McNulty had opened the door to a public examination of the reasons 

for the removals. 

Tasia Scolinos, the Director of the Department’s Office of Public Affairs, 

was present for both Gonzales’s and McNulty’s preparation sessions prior to 

their Congressional testimony. She told us that Gonzales had been 

consistently adamant about not wanting to say publicly that the U.S. Attorneys 

were removed because of their performance, even though he implied as much 

during his January testimony. Scolinos said that she understood that 

Gonzales was upset about McNulty’s testimony both because of Gonzales’s 

concern for the reputations of the former U.S. Attorneys, and because Gonzales 

thought McNulty’s testimony about Cummins was inaccurate. 

According to McNulty, however, he and Gonzales never discussed the 

matter. Gonzales said he did not recall discussing the issue with McNulty. 

3. U.S. Attorneys’ Reaction to McNulty’s Testimony 

Several of the U.S. Attorneys who had been removed were angered by 

McNulty’s February 6 testimony. They were upset in part because McNulty’s 

testimony was the first time they heard they had been removed for reasons 

related to their performance. For example, Bogden stated in an e-mail at the 

time, “It would have been one thing if performance had been the reason and 

they told us as much, however, I was told differently by Battle, Mercer, and 

McNulty.”53 In an e-mail on February 7, Iglesias forwarded to Charlton and 

McKay a news article describing McNulty’s testimony with a notation “Gloves 

will be coming off.” 

Shortly after McNulty’s February 6 testimony, the House Judiciary 

Subcommittee contacted several of the U.S. Attorneys to invite them to testify 

at an upcoming hearing into the U.S. Attorney removals, which eventually was 

scheduled for March 6. 

H. The February 8 Letter from Several Senators 

On February 8, 2007, Senators Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Richard 

Durbin, and Patty Murray sent Attorney General Gonzales a letter noting that 

53 As we discuss in Chapter Seven, Bogden said that Battle told him on December 7 

only that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and it was time to step down; 

Mercer told him on December 8 that the Republicans had a short, 2-year window and wanted 

to take advantage of it by getting future Republican Party candidates on board as U.S. 

Attorneys; and McNulty told him that neither his performance nor the performance of his office 

entered into the equation. 

68
McNulty’s testimony intensified their concerns about politicization of the hiring 

and firing of U.S. Attorneys. The Senators characterized as “stunning” 

McNulty’s testimony that Cummins was removed for no other reason than to 

make way for Griffin. The Senators requested information regarding the timing 

of the decision to appoint Griffin to replace Cummins, the identity of 

individuals who lobbied on behalf of Griffin’s appointment, the disparity 

between Cummins being asked to resign in June 2006 when the other U.S. 

Attorneys were asked to resign in December 2006, and the role Karl Rove 

played in the decision to appoint Griffin. Sampson immediately began drafting 

a response that was sent on February 23, which we discuss in Section K below. 

I. McNulty’s February 14 Closed Briefing for the Senate 

Judiciary Committee 

1. Preparation for the Briefing 

During his February 6 testimony, McNulty had agreed to privately brief 

the Senate Judiciary Committee about the basis for each U.S. Attorney’s 

removal. The briefing was scheduled for February 14. McNulty told us that he 

did not need much help preparing for the closed briefing because he believed 

he was familiar with the reasons for each dismissal. McNulty said his own 

thoughts about the fired U.S. Attorneys seemed to be a significant piece of 

what would justify the removals. 

However, McNulty met with senior Department leaders sometime during 

the week between February 6 and February 13 to discuss the upcoming 

briefing. It is unclear who was present or exactly when they met, but e-mails 

and witness testimony indicate that McNulty discussed the issues in a meeting 

with Sampson, Elston, Margolis, Goodling, and Moschella prior to his February 

14 briefing. 

According to McNulty, he did not ask the group what he should say 

about the White House’s involvement. McNulty said he also did not ask about 

the timing of the White House’s involvement in the removal of U.S. Attorneys 

because he thought he knew when the process began, based on when he was 

first notified about it in the fall of 2006. 

Margolis said he recalled that the topic of the White House’s involvement 

came up during the preparation session. Margolis said McNulty stated that if 

asked, he would say that the Department came up with a list of U.S. Attorneys 

to remove and the White House was involved only to sign off on the proposal. 

He said no one at the session corrected McNulty or disclosed the level of the 

White House’s involvement in the removals. During our interview, Margolis 

said that in hindsight he could have pointed out that the White House had 

proposed firing all the U.S. Attorneys early on in the President’s second term. 

However, Margolis told us that he did not believe that McNulty’s statement was 

69
 

 

 

 

inaccurate because he knew that the Department had assembled the list. 

Margolis said he also mistakenly assumed that McNulty knew as much as he 

did about the White House’s involvement. 

Sampson said that during McNulty’s preparation session they did not 

specifically discuss anything about the White House’s role beyond Cummins’s 

replacement with Griffin. Sampson said the focus of the preparation session 

was on other subjects, such as why each of the U.S. Attorneys had been 

replaced and how to respond to concerns that the Department intended to use 

the interim appointment authority to evade the Senate confirmation process. 

McNulty asked Goodling for information for the briefing and gave her 

guidance on the type of information he needed, such as what the various 

issues were for each removed U.S. Attorney, facts about the district and the 

U.S. Attorney’s term, and information about the EARS evaluations for each 

district. According to witnesses and documents, Goodling made handwritten 

notes of what the participants said during the preparation session concerning 

the basis for each of the removals, and she and Nowacki put that information 

into a typed chart for McNulty to use during the congressional briefing.54 

Goodling’s notes indicate that the group discussed what McNulty should 

say about each removed U.S. Attorney. In a category entitled “Leadership 

Assessment” on the chart Goodling created, she listed parts of what the group 

discussed that ostensibly served as justification for each U.S. Attorney’s 

removal. The notes and the chart, which was drafted on February 12, 2007, 

appear to be the first time that the Department actually listed the specific 

reasons alleged to be the basis for each removal. 

54 Goodling, the only person other than Sampson involved in the preparation session 

who knew the extent and the history of the White House’s involvement in the U.S. Attorney 

removals initiative, did not discuss the issue in her immunized testimony before the House 

Judiciary Committee beyond her opening statement that she became aware of the initiative in 

2005. Goodling also stated in her testimony that she believed McNulty had greater knowledge 

than he expressed in his testimony about the history of the White House’s involvement because 

she had briefed him about Griffin during the summer of 2006. However, on June 21, 2007, in 

testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Judiciary, McNulty said that while he was 

aware in the summer of 2006 that Griffin was going to replace Cummins, he was not aware 

that Griffin came to the Department’s attention through the White House. McNulty stated that 

while he had known for months that “Cummins was asked to move over so that Mr. Griffin 

would have a chance . . . ” he did not know exactly how Griffin came to the Department’s 

attention, and he also noted that in Goodling’s testimony before Congress, she said she was 

not particularly aware of how Griffin came to the Department’s attention. McNulty said, “I just 

didn’t know the specifics of how he came to be recommended to us. We later learned that Ms. 

Miers contacted Kyle Sampson, and that’s the – the way.” As previously noted, Goodling 

declined our request for an interview, so we were not able to question her concerning McNulty’s 

statement about his knowledge of the White House’s involvement in the removal of the U.S. 

Attorneys. 

70
2. McNulty’s Briefing for the Senate Judiciary Committee 

On February 14, 2007, McNulty briefed members of the Senate Judiciary 

Committee in a closed session concerning the reasons for the removals. 

Moschella, Hertling, and Nancy Scott-Finan of the Department’s Office of 

Legislative Affairs were also present from the Department. Goodling was also 

supposed to attend the briefing, but in her Congressional testimony, she said 

McNulty instructed her to remain outside the room in order to discourage the 

Senators from asking questions about the White House’s role in the removals. 

McNulty said he did not recall instructing Goodling to remain outside, but he 

said he was concerned that Goodling’s presence would make the removal 

process seem more “political” given the fact that Goodling’s position at the 

Department was uniquely associated with the Department’s political 

appointments. 

The briefing was not transcribed, although Scott-Finan took notes. 

According to those notes, McNulty began the briefing by stating that the U.S. 

Attorneys had not been told the reasons for their removal, and he requested 

that the briefing remain confidential. McNulty also said that some of the issues 

with certain U.S. Attorneys predated his time at the Department. McNulty 

stressed at the briefing that the Department did not have candidates outside of 

the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices waiting to be appointed Interim U.S. Attorneys. 

According to Hertling, Senator Schumer asked McNulty if the 

Department would share the EARS evaluations with the Judiciary Committee 

because Sampson had referenced them as something that the Department’s 

senior management had considered as part of the review process. ScottFinan’s notes indicate that McNulty said that the EARS evaluations were 

mostly positive, there were no misconduct issues underlying the removals, and 

that the EARS evaluations were designed to review office management rather 

than how the U.S. Attorneys dealt with Main Justice. 

According to Scott-Finan’s notes, McNulty stated that he had been 

consulted about the process of identifying U.S. Attorneys about whom the 

Department had serious questions and was considering the possibility of 

asking them to resign. McNulty stated that the process began within the 

Department in September or October 2006. McNulty also stated that the 

Department had sent the removal list to the White House Counsel’s Office in 

October 2006 and asked if they had any objection to the names, and they 

voiced no objections. McNulty then described the specific reasons for each U.S. 

Attorney’s removal. 

With respect to the reasons for individual removals, Scott-Finan’s notes 

indicate that McNulty said the following about the U.S. Attorneys at the closed 

briefing: 

71
 

 

 

• Bogden lacked energy and leadership, and was “good on guns but 

not good on obscenity cases.” 

• McKay was “enthusiastic but temperamental,” had made promises 

that the Department could not support regarding information 

sharing, and was resistant to Department leadership. 

• Lam’s statistics for gun prosecutions placed her close to the 

bottom of all the U.S. Attorneys’ offices, and the Department had 

also discussed with Lam her poor record on immigration cases. 

McNulty acknowledged that no one followed up to see if she had 

changed her handling of gun and immigration cases before she 

was asked to resign. 

• Ryan’s office was the subject of a special EARS evaluation because 

the Department was concerned about his failures as a manager. 

• Charlton was asked to resign because of his insubordination in 

resisting the Department’s “way of doing business” in a death 

penalty case and his poor judgment in attempting to establish a 

rule that the FBI should tape-record interrogations. 

• Iglesias was underperforming, was an absentee landlord who was 

“physically away a fair amount,” and the Department had received 

congressional complaints about him.55 

• Another U.S. Attorney [Chiara] was removed because of serious 

morale issues in the office and a loss of confidence in her 

leadership.56 

• Cummins was not removed for performance reasons, and the 

Department had always intended to send Griffin through the 

nomination process. 

Scott-Finan’s notes reflect that McNulty was asked several follow-up 

questions regarding Cummins. In response to a question concerning why the 

First Assistant, who was on maternity leave, was passed over for the Interim 

U.S. Attorney position, McNulty said that she was not passed over and that 

“Griffin was our guy all along.” McNulty said that Griffin’s name came up in 

the spring of 2006 as a replacement for Cummins, who had said publicly that 

he was thinking of moving on. Senator Schumer asked how it happened that 

55 As discussed in more detail in Chapter Six of this report concerning Iglesias’s 

removal, McNulty told us he purposely did not mention specific complaints from Senator 

Domenici during the briefing because he did not want to put the Senator “in a bad light or a 

difficult position.” 

56 E-mail records show that McNulty did not mention Chiara by name because she had 

not yet announced her resignation publicly and he was trying to find a position for her in the 

Department. 

72
 

Griffin was recommended to replace Cummins, and McNulty responded that 

Harriet Miers had called Sampson to determine whether the Department could 

find a place for Griffin. Senator Schumer asked McNulty whether Karl Rove 

was the instigator of Griffin’s replacement of Cummins. McNulty responded 

that he “wouldn’t put it that way” and said that it was rare for the White House 

to make U.S. Attorney recommendations without getting the names from home 

state members of Congress or other elected political officials. 

McNulty’s statement during the closed briefing that Miers intervened on 

behalf of Griffin’s appointment appeared in a New York Times article on 

February 15, the day after the briefing. That same day, Associate White House 

Counsel Oprison sent an e-mail to Goodling asking her about the statement 

attributed to McNulty. Oprison told us that he sent the e-mail because he did 

not know that Miers had asked Sampson if the Department could find a place 

for Griffin. Oprison said he could not recall whether Goodling was able to 

supply any information about Miers’s involvement in finding a position for 

Griffin. 

Oprison said that when he discussed the New York Times article with 

Deputy White House Counsel Kelley later that morning, Kelley seemed as 

surprised as Oprison, and Oprison said Kelley’s reaction led him to believe that 

the statement about Miers’s involvement was inaccurate. However, Oprison 

said he did not recall any further discussion about Miers’s involvement in the 

appointment of Griffin. 

J. Elston’s Alleged Threat to Cummins 

1. Cummins’s Quote in The Washington Post 

According to Cummins, several of the removed U.S. Attorneys learned 

about the content of McNulty’s closed briefing from various Senate staffers 

shortly after the briefing. 

On February 18, 2007, a Washington Post article stated that the removed 

U.S. Attorneys were enraged by McNulty’s hearing testimony and comments at 

the closed briefing, and felt betrayed because they had stayed silent about their 

removals. The article also noted that nearly all of the removed U.S. Attorneys 

had positive job evaluations, contrary to McNulty’s public statements that they 

were dismissed for “poor performance.” Cummins was quoted in the 

newspaper article as stating that Justice Department officials had “crossed a 

line” by publicly criticizing the performance of the U.S. Attorneys. The article 

quoted Cummins: 

They’re entitled to make these changes for any reason or for no 

reason or even for an idiotic reason, but if they are trying to 

suggest that people have inferior performance to hide whatever 

73
their true agenda is, that is wrong. They should retract those 

statements. 

In an e-mail on February 18, Bradley Schlozman, at the time the Interim 

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, forwarded a copy of the 

Washington Post article to Elston. Schlozman’s e-mail stated, “Does Cummins 

really feel it’s in his interest to bash the AG like that?! . . . His public criticisms 

do not surprise me in the least. But it’s no less offensive. . . .” Later that 

evening, Elston responded, “This is going to get ugly, I’m afraid.” 

2. Elston’s Telephone Call to Cummins 

a. Cummins’s Account of the Telephone Call 

On February 20, 2007, Elston telephoned Cummins to discuss the 

Washington Post article in which Cummins was quoted. Elston said he made 

that call on his own initiative because he was upset at what Cummins was 

quoted as saying in the article and thought it was inconsistent with the tone of 

his and Cummins’s previous conversations. According to both Cummins and 

Elston, during January and February they had had several cordial 

conversations about whether Cummins should accept congressional invitations 

to testify and whether Cummins would publicly support Griffin’s nomination. 

Cummins said that because McNulty had testified that Cummins was not 

removed for performance-related reasons but rather to give Griffin a chance to 

serve, Cummins initially felt he had no problems with the Department. 

Cummins told us that initially he was hoping the Department would see 

he was still “on the team” in the event a judgeship opened up in the Eastern 

District of Arkansas. Cummins said that most of the removed U.S. Attorneys 

had a conference call to discuss congressional invitations to testify and to 

compare notes concerning their removals in light of McNulty’s testimony and 

his comments at the closed briefing. Cummins said that after learning the 

circumstances of their removals, he began to have concerns because he felt 

that Department management had not treated the U.S. Attorneys fairly. 

Cummins said that Elston began their February 20 telephone 

conversation by questioning Cummins about the quote attributed to him in the 

February 18 Washington Post article. Cummins said Elston “came on strong” 

at the beginning of the conversation, but when Cummins asked Elston if 

Cummins’s quote was untrue, Elston backed down. According to Cummins, 

Elston expressed concern that Cummins’s remarks were inconsistent with 

Cummins’s previous expression of support for the Department. 

Cummins said that during their discussion, Elston described himself as 

being part of a group that felt the Department had been too restrained and 

should publicly explain why the U.S. Attorneys were removed. According to 

Cummins, Elston said something to the effect that if the U.S. Attorneys kept 

74
 

 

commenting to the media about their removals, the Department would have no 

choice but to publicly disclose the reasons for their removals. Cummins said 

Elston implied that there was a body of information that no one had access to 

concerning the U.S. Attorneys that justified their removals. Cummins told us 

that Elston might have made that comment out of concern for the U.S. 

Attorneys as a prediction of how the dynamics would play out. However, 

Cummins said he thought Elston was clearly implying that if the U.S. 

Attorneys kept causing trouble, the Department would have to reveal 

embarrassing information about them to defend itself. 

Cummins told us that he believed Elston knew Cummins would pass the 

message along to the other U.S. Attorneys. Cummins said he did not believe 

Elston was trying to stop the U.S. Attorneys from making public comments, 

but was relaying the message that if they kept talking to the media it was likely 

that the Department might have to publicly reveal information concerning why 

the U.S. Attorneys were removed. 

b. Cummins’s E-mail to Bogden, Charlton, Iglesias, 

Lam, and McKay about the Telephone Call 

Shortly after his conversation with Elston on February 20, Cummins 

sent an e-mail to Bogden, Charlton, Iglesias, Lam, and McKay describing his 

conversation with Elston. Cummins informed them that the essence of 

Elston’s message was that the Department believed it was taking “unnecessary 

flak to avoid trashing” the U.S. Attorneys. Cummins wrote that Elston implied 

that if the U.S. Attorneys continued to talk to the media or to organize behindthe-scenes congressional pressure, the Department would be forced to offer 

public criticisms of the U.S. Attorneys in order to defend its actions more fully. 

Cummins wrote in the e-mail: “I was tempted to challenge him and say 

something movie-like such as ‘are you threatening ME???’ but instead I kind of 

shrugged it off.” 

Cummins also wrote in the e-mail that he had made it a point to tell 

Elston that the U.S. Attorneys had turned down multiple invitations to testify 

before Congress, and that Elston had responded that the Department would 

see such testimony as a major escalation of the conflict “meriting some 

unspecified retaliation.” Cummins wrote that it sounded like a threat that the 

Department would make public McNulty’s closed presentation to the Senate 

Judiciary Committee. Cummins noted that he did not want to overstate the 

threatening undercurrent in his conversation with Elston, “but the message 

was clearly there and you should be aware before you speak to the press again 

if you choose to do that.”57 

57 At a subsequent congressional hearing, Cummins testified that this conversation 

was a congenial phone call and he did not directly characterize Elston’s remarks as a threat. 

(Cont’d.) 

75
 

c. Elston’s Account of the Telephone Call 

Elston told congressional investigators that he had called Cummins on 

February 20 to discuss the statement attributed to Cummins in the 

Washington Post article that the Department had crossed a line by publicly 

criticizing the performance of the U.S. Attorneys who had been removed. 

Elston said Cummins denied telling the reporter that the Department had 

crossed a line, noting that the phrase was not in quotes, and Elston said he 

took Cummins at his word. Elston said he believed he and Cummins had 

developed a good rapport and the statement attributed to Cummins in the 

newspaper article seemed out of character with their previous conversations, 

during which Cummins had expressed his gratitude for McNulty’s public 

testimony distinguishing Cummins from the other U.S. Attorneys. 

Elston said he believed the Department had made a major effort not to 

publicly disclose the reasons for asking for the U.S. Attorneys’ resignations, but 

the reasons had been leaked to the media within days of McNulty’s closed 

briefing. Elston said that by the time he spoke with Cummins, he realized that 

it would likely be necessary for the Department to disclose publicly the reasons 

for the removals. Elston said he believed Cummins misinterpreted his 

remarks, which he said were more along the lines of saying that it was a shame 

that the reasons for the U.S. Attorneys’ removals were being discussed in the 

media because it was tarnishing the Department as well as the reputations of 

the individual U.S. Attorneys. Elston also asserted that it did not make sense 

that he threatened Cummins when McNulty had already stated that Cummins 

was in a different position than the other U.S. Attorneys. According to Elston, 

the Department had no derogatory information with which to threaten 

Cummins. 

Elston said he did not recall the issue of congressional testimony arising 

during his February 20 conversation with Cummins. Elston said that if he and 

Cummins had discussed the issue, he would have reiterated that the 

Department would take no position on whether or not the U.S. Attorneys 

should testify. 

Elston said he never intended to send Cummins or anybody else a 

message. Elston stated that he had no reason to believe Cummins was in 

contact with the other U.S. Attorneys, and he said he did not know that shortly 

thereafter Cummins sent an e-mail to the other U.S. Attorneys describing their 

conversation. 

Rather, he said “[i]t might have been a threat, it might have been a warning; it might have been 

an observation, a prediction . . . [or] friendly advice.” 

76 
 

 

 

K. The Department’s Response to the Senators’ Letter 

As previously noted, on February 8, 2007, the Department received a 

letter from Senators Reid, Schumer, Durbin, and Murray requesting 

information concerning Cummins’s removal and Griffin’s appointment as his 

replacement. Sampson drafted the Department’s response for Acting OLA 

Assistant Attorney General Hertling’s signature, and Sampson circulated the 

draft to others in the Department and the White House for comment.58 The 

letter was reviewed and edited by Associate White House Counsel Oprison and 

returned to Sampson, who had the final sign-off on the language.59 

On February 23, the Department sent its response to the Senators, 

signed by Hertling. The response stated that none of the U.S. Attorneys were 

removed in an attempt to influence an ongoing investigation. The letter 

described why the replacement of Cummins with Griffin was appropriate, and 

stated that “it was well-known, as early as December 2004, that Mr. Cummins 

intended to leave the office and seek employment in the private sector.” The 

letter also stated that the decision to replace Cummins with Griffin was “first 

contemplated in the spring or summer of 2006, [and] the final decision to 

appoint Griffin as interim U.S. Attorney was made on or about December 15, 

2006, after Attorney General Gonzales had spoken to Senator Pryor.” The 

letter also asserted that “The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any 

role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.” 

We found these statements to be misleading. As we fully describe in 

Chapter Five of this report concerning Cummins’s removal, the statement that 

it was “well known” in December 2004 that Cummins intended to leave office 

was misleading. The statement concerning the timing of Griffin’s appointment 

and the statement disclaiming Rove’s involvement in Griffin’s appointment 

were also misleading and they did not accurately portray what Sampson knew 

about those issues.60 

58 Department officials who received a draft of the letter for review included McNulty, 

Elston, Goodling, Hertling, Moschella, and Scolinos. Sampson asked Goodling to verify certain 

factual assertions he had made concerning Griffin’s appointment. 

59 At the time, Oprison had been an Associate White House Counsel for 4 months and 

lacked first-hand knowledge of the events at issue. In an e-mail to Sampson on February 23, 

2007, Oprison attached the letter with “slight revisions,” along with the message that “Fred 

[Fielding], as I, want to ensure that it is absolutely consistent with the facts and that it does 

not add to the controversy surrounding this issue.” 

60 On March 28, 2007, the Department wrote another letter informing Senators Leahy 

and Schumer that its review of documents revealed that representations in Hertling’s 

February 23 letter were inaccurate. 

77
L. Events in March 2007 

1. March 3 Washington Post Article 

On March 3, 2007, the Washington Post published an article about the 

U.S. Attorney removals that included information provided by Brian 

Roehrkasse from the Department’s Office of Public Affairs and McNulty. The 

article contained several misstatements: “the list of prosecutors was 

assembled last fall;” the White House “did not encourage the dismissals;” and 

“the seven fired prosecutors were first identified by the Department’s senior 

leadership shortly before the November elections.” 

According to the article, the Department had backed away from arguing 

that the decision to remove the U.S. Attorneys was “performance-related.” The 

article stated that Department officials acknowledged that the removals were 

undertaken primarily because the Administration was unhappy with the 

prosecutors’ policy decisions. 

Later that same day, Sampson e-mailed Roehrkasse about the article and 

wrote: “Great work Brian. Kudos to you and the DAG.” 

McNulty acknowledged that he talked to the two reporters who wrote the 

article and said he provided the information as he knew it at the time. During 

his interview with congressional investigators, McNulty stated that he did not 

know for certain that the statement that the White House “did not encourage 

the dismissals” was inaccurate, because the word “encourage” was a general 

term. In addition, McNulty said he could not say that the statements 

concerning when the list was assembled and when the Department’s “senior 

leadership” identified the U.S. Attorneys who would be removed were incorrect 

because that was when he first learned about the list of U.S. Attorneys to be 

removed. 

Sampson also told congressional investigators that he did not think the 

statements in the article were inaccurate because, in his mind, the action 

phase of the project did take place in the fall of 2006. He characterized the 

earlier lists as “a highly deliberative sort of thinking process.” Sampson 

admitted that there was encouragement from the White House to come up with 

a list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired, but he described the White House’s 

involvement as “episodic.” 

2. House and Senate Hearings 

In early February 2007, the Commercial and Administrative Law 

Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee contacted the Department to 

request that McNulty testify at an upcoming hearing concerning the Attorney 

General’s authority to make interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys. McNulty 

directed that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Moschella appear as 

78
the Department’s witness at the hearing and at a staff briefing to be held prior 

to the hearing. 

The hearing was scheduled for March 6, 2007, and the closed staff 

briefing was scheduled for March 1. On February 28, 2007, Cummins sent an 

e-mail to EOUSA Director Battle informing him that the House Subcommittee 

intended to subpoena Cummins and several of the other dismissed U.S. 

Attorneys to testify at the March 6 hearing. Later that day, Hertling informed 

Sampson, Goodling, Moschella, and Elston that the Subcommittee would 

subpoena Lam, McKay, and Iglesias. 

3. Cummins’s February 20 E-mail Surfaces 

Both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary 

Subcommittee had scheduled hearings for March 6 on the removals of U.S. 

Attorneys. Cummins, Lam, Iglesias, and McKay were scheduled to testify 

before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the morning and before the House 

Subcommittee in the afternoon. Moschella was scheduled to testify before the 

House Subcommittee in the afternoon. 

McKay told us he was so offended by Elston’s February 20 “warning” to 

Cummins that the U.S. Attorneys should not testify that he related the incident 

to Senate staff when they interviewed him prior to his appearance before the 

Judiciary Committee. McKay’s remarks made their way to a reporter, who 

called the Department for comment before the hearing. 

E-mails show that on Sunday, March 4, Roehrkasse told Elston he 

needed to speak with him about calls Elston had made in late February to 

some of the U.S. Attorneys. Roehrkasse told us that Elston informed him he 

did not call any of the U.S. Attorneys in February, with the exception of Chiara. 

Elston noted that he had talked to McKay and Charlton prior to the Attorney 

General’s congressional hearing in January to inform them that the Attorney 

General was not going to mention their names or discuss their offices. 

Roehrkasse said that when he asked Elston if he had any other 

conversations with any of the removed U.S. Attorneys, Elston said he had 

talked to Cummins in February when Cummins asked him if the Department 

had any position on whether he should accept congressional invitations to 

testify. Roehrkasse said Elston denied telling Cummins he should or should 

not testify, and Elston denied threatening Cummins. Roehrkasse said that 

because he did not understand what the reporter was referring to, both he and 

Elston called the reporter. 

According to Roehrkasse, the conversation with the reporter was very 

hostile, and the reporter continued to insist that Elston had threatened 

retaliation if the U.S. Attorneys kept talking publicly about their dismissals. 

Roehrkasse said that the reporter refused to identify her source, and Elston 

79
 

 

insisted that he had no conversation with any U.S. Attorney in which he 

discussed what should or should not be said about their removals. Elston also 

stated to the reporter that he had talked to Cummins, but only in the context 

of telling him that the Department had no opinion on whether or not he should 

testify. 

Roehrkasse said that when the reporter said she was still going to write 

the story, he questioned how she could do so when an official from the 

Department had contradicted on the record an anonymous source’s vague 

allegation of a threatening telephone conversation. Roehrkasse said he was so 

upset that he called the reporter’s editor to complain, and the editor agreed to 

hold the story. 

Cummins told us that a reporter contacted him on March 5 and told him 

that a source had given her information about Cummins’s conversation with 

Elston, and the reporter was going to write a story about it for the following 

day. Cummins said that the reporter told him she had contacted the 

Department earlier to ask for comment, and Roehrkasse had flatly denied that 

the call between Cummins and Elston took place. According to Cummins, the 

reporter told him that Roehrkasse pressured the reporter to kill the story, 

calling the reporting “irresponsible.” 

Cummins said that the reporter also told him that she had talked to 

Elston, who denied that the call took place. According to Cummins, the 

reporter told him that Elston said Cummins was a liar and tended to 

exaggerate. Cummins told us that “that did not sit well with me.” He told the 

reporter about the February 20 e-mail to McKay, Lam, Iglesias, Bogden, and 

Charlton describing his conversation with Elston. 

According to e-mails, toward the end of the day on March 5 the reporter 

informed Roehrkasse that she was going to write the story, and Roehrkasse 

told Elston he wanted to talk with him “about February 20.” Elston again 

denied that he had spoken with any of the U.S. Attorneys around February 20, 

with the exception of Chiara.61 Elston wrote Roehrkasse, “All of my calls 

occurred before the USA announced his/her resignation. Once the person 

announced, I had no further conversations with them.” 

Roehrkasse said at that point he was unaware of Cummins’s 

February 20 e-mail to the U.S. Attorneys describing his conversation with 

Elston. Accordingly, Roehrkasse said he provided the reporter with the 

following quote: “It is unfortunate that the press would choose to run an 

61 According to Elston, he had “many” conversations with Chiara in January and 

February because she was seeking additional time before she resigned. 

80
 

allegation from an anonymous source from a conversation that never took 

place.” 

The reporter’s story appeared on Tuesday, March 6 and cited interviews 

with two unnamed former U.S. Attorneys.62 The story stated that Roehrkasse 

had criticized the publication for running the story. The story also noted that 

while the U.S. Attorney who received the call said he regarded the tone of the 

conversation as congenial and not intimidating, he had informed the other 

removed U.S. Attorneys about the call and one of them had told the reporter he 

considered Elston’s remarks to be a threat. 

Cummins, McKay, Lam, and Iglesias testified before the Senate Judiciary 

Committee on the morning of March 6. During the testimony, Senator 

Schumer asked McKay whether he had received any communication from the 

Department designed to dissuade him from testifying or making public 

comments. McKay referred Schumer to Cummins, who produced his 

February 20 e-mail and related the story of his conversation with Elston, 

adding that he did not necessarily consider Elston’s remarks to be a threat. A 

Department official attending the hearing immediately faxed a copy of the email to Moschella and Elston, noting that the e-mail would likely be raised 

during Moschella’s hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee that 

afternoon. 

The Department issued a public statement that day which described 

Elston’s February 20 conversation with Cummins as “private and collegial” and 

stated that it was “somehow being twisted into a perceived threat by former 

disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress . . . .” The statement 

also denied that Elston told any U.S. Attorneys what they should and should 

not say about their dismissals. The statement further noted that “any 

suggestion that such a conversation took place is ridiculous and not based on 

fact.” 

When we asked Roehrkasse about the Department’s public statement 

describing as “ridiculous and not based on fact” that such a conversation took 

place, he told us that he still believed it was accurate. However, he said he 

regretted saying that the U.S. Attorneys were “grandstanding before Congress.” 

He said he could have used a different phrase than “disgruntled employees,” 

but he said that at the time he thought that Cummins had taken liberties 

describing his conversation with Elston. Roehrkasse said that even after he 

reviewed Cummins’s e-mail he did not question Elston’s account of events 

because Cummins had conceded during his Senate testimony that he did not 

perceive the conversation as a threat. 

62 See Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers, U.S. Attorney Worried ‘Gloves Would 

Come Off’ Over Criticism of Ouster, March 6, 2007. 

81
 

After learning about Cummins’s statements at the hearing, Elston 

immediately drafted a letter to Senator Schumer in which he noted that he was 

“shocked and baffled” by Cummins’s February 20 e-mail. Elston wrote that he 

did not understand how anything he told Cummins could have been construed 

as a threat. Elston wrote that he never tried to suggest to Cummins what he or 

the other U.S. Attorneys should or should not say about their resignations. 

As discussed above, Elston denied to us making any remarks to 

Cummins that could have been construed as a threat. Elston also said it was 

inconsistent for Cummins to imply that Elston’s remarks conveyed a threat, 

since Cummins had consistently said how grateful he was that McNulty had 

separated Cummins from the other U.S. Attorneys when McNulty testified 

about the removals. 

4. Moschella’s Testimony Before the House Judiciary 

Subcommittee 

a. Preparation Sessions 

Moschella had two preparation sessions prior to his closed congressional 

briefing on March 1 and his testimony on March 6 before the House Judiciary 

Subcommittee. The sessions were attended by Sampson, Goodling, Nowacki, 

and Roehrkasse.63 According to Moschella, the focus of the sessions was 

primarily on the various issues surrounding the Attorney General’s interim 

appointment authority, which Congress was seeking to repeal at the time. 

Moschella, who had not been involved in the process leading to the 

removal of the U.S. Attorneys, said he first became familiar with the reasons 

underlying the U.S. Attorney removals by attending McNulty’s closed 

congressional briefing. Moschella said he prepared for his testimony with the 

same materials McNulty had used for his briefing.64 

b. Discussion in Preparation Sessions About White 

House Involvement 

Moschella told us that during one of his preparation sessions someone 

asked what he would say if he was asked when the White House became 

involved in the removals. Moschella said he answered the same way he had 

heard McNulty answer the question in McNulty’s February 14 briefing before 

the Senate Judiciary Committee: the White House became involved in the fall 

63 According to Elston, he was invited but did not attend these preparation sessions. 

64 Moschella asked Goodling to re-format the chart she had developed for McNulty 

detailing the reasons for each U.S. Attorney’s removal to make it more user-friendly. 

82
 

of 2006, primarily to sign off on the proposal. Moschella said he could not 

recall who asked the question. 

The group that prepared Moschella for his Congressional testimony 

included Sampson, Goodling, Hertling, Nowacki, Scott-Finan, and 

Roehrkasse.65 He told us that although neither Sampson nor Goodling ever 

affirmatively represented that the White House’s involvement with the U.S. 

Attorney removals began in the fall of 2006, they should have explained that 

the White House had been involved in the matter earlier. Moschella said no 

one corrected his misunderstanding concerning the timing or level of the White 

House’s involvement in the removals during his preparation sessions. 

Moschella also said that the timing of the origin of the removal process 

was not discussed in his preparation sessions. He said he had heard McNulty 

say that the process of removing U.S. Attorneys began during the fall of 2006, 

and Moschella believed that to be the case until he learned differently a few 

days after his testimony. 

Roehrkasse confirmed to us that the issue of the White House’s 

involvement in the U.S. Attorney removals was discussed during the 

preparation sessions for Moschella’s testimony. Although he said he could not 

recall specifically what was said, Roehrkasse told us that Sampson and 

Goodling led him and Moschella to believe that the White House’s involvement 

was much less than it actually was. According to Roehrkasse, Sampson 

advised Moschella about what to say about this issue, although the advice 

focused on the level of the White House’s involvement rather than the timing of 

its involvement. Roehrkasse said he recalled Sampson mentioning that the 

White House had clearly signed off on the proposal at the end of the process. 

Sampson told us he believed that questions concerning the specific 

timing of the removal process and the nature of the White House’s involvement 

did not arise in the preparation sessions. He said that he was not focused on 

the historical background of the process at the time. Sampson said that his 

perception at the time of the preparation sessions was that the “action phase” 

of the process took place in the fall of 2006. Sampson said that the 

preparation sessions were focused on the salient questions at the time, which 

were whether the U.S. Attorneys were removed in order to interfere with a 

particular prosecution and whether the administration intended to bypass the 

Senate confirmation process. 

65 Of that group, only Sampson and Goodling had full knowledge at the time 

concerning the removals and the White House’s involvement in the process. 

83
c. March 5 Meeting at the White House to Discuss 

Moschella’s Testimony 

At this time, e-mails between Sampson and White House officials show 

that the White House was concerned that the Department had not adequately 

explained why the U.S. Attorney removals were justified. Until the day of 

Moschella’s public testimony, which occurred on March 6, the Department had 

not publicly described its reason for requesting the resignation of each U.S. 

Attorney. 

On March 5, Deputy White House Counsel Kelley called a meeting with 

Sampson, McNulty, Moschella, Elston, Hertling, Scolinos, Roehrkasse, and 

Battle. White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Associate White House Counsel 

Michael Scudder, and Karl Rove also attended the meeting. Kelley’s e-mail 

stated that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Administration’s 

position on all aspects of the U.S. Attorney removals issue, including what the 

Department would say about the removals and the Attorney General’s interim 

appointment authority. 

According to several witnesses, Rove came in to the meeting for only a 

few minutes and then left. Battle said Rove spoke at the meeting but he could 

not recall what he said. McNulty said that he could not specifically recall 

either, but thought Rove said something to the effect that Moschella’s 

testimony should explain why the U.S. Attorneys were removed. None of the 

witnesses said they could recall specifically what Rove said at the meeting, 

although all agree that the discussion generally centered on what Moschella 

should say about the reasons for each U.S. Attorney’s removal. 

According to Moschella, there was significant discussion at the meeting 

about whether to publicly discuss the specific reasons for the removals. 

Moschella said that Attorney General Gonzales had expressed concern about 

damaging the reputations of the U.S. Attorneys, and no one at the meeting 

wanted to say anything derogatory about them. Moschella told us that, 

nevertheless, the consensus in the meeting was that he should publicly state 

the reasons for each U.S. Attorney’s removal. McNulty said the primary 

concern White House officials expressed at the meeting was that because the 

U.S. Attorneys were going to testify and might suggest that they were removed 

for improper reasons, Moschella should specify the Department’s justification 

for each U.S. Attorney’s removal. 

Sampson said that in addition to discussing what Moschella should say 

in his testimony about the removals, the group discussed what Moschella 

would say about the pending legislation to repeal the Attorney General’s 

interim appointment authority. According to Sampson, the Department had 

submitted written testimony to the White House for clearance through the 

84
 

 

 

Office of Management and Budget which said that the Administration opposed 

the repeal. 

Hertling told us that the purpose of the White House meeting was to 

discuss the proposed legislation as well as what Moschella would say about the 

removals. Hertling said that the White House Communications Office wanted 

to know what Moschella would say about the removals in order to prepare for 

press inquiries resulting from his testimony. Hertling said it was not a meeting 

to prepare Moschella for his testimony but was instead a briefing for the White 

House about what Moschella planned to say. 

Sampson and Moschella said that the White House and the Department 

also decided at the meeting that the Administration should not oppose the 

repeal of the Attorney General’s authority to appoint Interim U.S. Attorneys. 

According to Moschella, although the White House was “sympathetic” from a 

policy standpoint to the Department’s belief that the Attorney General’s power 

to appoint Interim U.S. Attorneys was justified, the White House was of the 

opinion, given the bad press and the political atmosphere, that the 

Administration should not oppose the repeal. 

d. Moschella’s Testimony 

Moschella testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the 

afternoon of March 6, just prior to the testimony of former U.S. Attorneys Lam, 

McKay, Iglesias, Cummins, Charlton, and Bogden, who were present when 

Moschella testified.66 Moschella began his testimony by stating that each of 

the U.S. Attorneys was removed “for reasons related to policy, priorities and 

management – what has been broadly referred to as ‘performance-related 

reasons.’” Moschella then briefly discussed the justifications for the removals. 

Moschella did not mention Chiara and Ryan by name because they were 

not present at the hearing and had not publicly acknowledged that the 

Department had asked them to resign along with the others. Moschella instead 

stated that two unnamed U.S. Attorneys were removed because they had 

problems managing their districts. 

Moschella testified that Lam was removed because her gun prosecution 

numbers were “at the bottom of the list” and her immigration prosecution 

numbers “didn’t stack up.” Moschella stated that the Department “had policy 

differences” with McKay and was “concerned with the manner in which he went 

66 Several days prior to his hearing, Moschella provided a closed, more detailed briefing 

for members and staff of the House Subcommittee, similar to the briefing McNulty had given 

the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to Moschella, the briefing concluded before he had 

discussed all of the U.S. Attorneys, and he finished the briefing by telephone shortly before his 

public testimony. 

85
about advocating particular policies,” including McKay’s “advoca[cy] for a 

particular [information sharing] system.” 

Moschella testified that Cummins was removed not for performancerelated reasons but to give Griffin a chance to serve. Citing the importance of 

Bogden’s district of Las Vegas, Moschella said that “there was no particular 

deficiency,” but there was an interest in “seeing renewed energy and renewed 

vigor in that office, really taking it to the next level.” Moschella said that the 

Department had the general sense that Iglesias’s district was “in need of 

greater leadership,” and that Iglesias “had delegated to his first assistant the 

overall running of the office.” Moschella stated that Charlton had instituted a 

policy in his district, without first obtaining Department approval, that 

required the FBI to tape-record interrogations, and he had refused to abide by 

the Attorney General’s decision to seek the death penalty in a particular case. 

Moschella’s testimony was the first time the U.S. Attorneys heard from 

the Department the alleged reasons for their removals. 

Moschella testified incorrectly that the process to remove the U.S. 

Attorneys had begun in early October 2006. Moschella stated that the White 

House eventually became involved in the removals, but he mistakenly implied 

that it was only to sign off on the proposal because the U.S. Attorneys were 

Presidential appointees. Moschella told us he based his testimony on what he 

had heard McNulty say in his public testimony and during his closed briefing 

before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Lam, Iglesias, McKay, Charlton, Cummins, and Bogden testified 

immediately following Moschella. Among other things, Iglesias challenged 

Moschella’s assertion that he was dismissed because the office “lacked 

leadership,” and he cited statistics showing improvement in the number and 

types of prosecutions and convictions in his office. Bogden said that he 

resented Moschella’s implication that he was asked to step down “so new blood 

could be put in” to the position. Bogden noted that he was very proud of what 

his staff had accomplished during his tenure as U.S. Attorney. Charlton 

testified about the irony of Moschella’s statement that he was removed because 

he had implemented the taping policy in his district in February 2006, because 

he had offered to resign at the time rather than to rescind the policy. 

Cummins testified that the Department “horribly mismanaged” the U.S. 

Attorney removals. Cummins stated that Moschella had suggested that the 

U.S. Attorneys had done something wrong but the Department had not told the 

U.S. Attorneys why they were removed. McKay disputed Moschella’s assertion 

that he was removed because of the way he advocated the information sharing 

system, and said that all of his work on the program had been authorized by 

former Deputy Attorney General Comey. Lam responded to Moschella’s 

statement regarding her immigration and gun prosecution statistics by stating 

86
that her emphasis in immigration cases was on tackling larger cases, and that 

gun prosecutions were being handled “extremely responsibly” by the local 

District Attorney’s Office. 

Iglesias testified that he believed he was forced out as U.S. Attorney for 

the District of New Mexico because he failed to respond to political pressure to 

indict a public corruption case against a Democratic official before the 

November 2006 election. In his testimony, Iglesias revealed that New Mexico 

Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Domenici separately 

telephoned him in October 2006 to ask about the status of a pending public 

corruption matter. Iglesias said that in both calls he believed he was being 

pressured to bring an indictment before the November election. 

M. Attorney General Gonzales’s March 7 Op-Ed Article 

Moschella’s testimony increased concerns about the reasons why the 

U.S. Attorneys were removed. Sometime during the first week of March 2007, 

a USA Today reporter told the Department’s Office of Public Affairs that the 

newspaper would soon editorialize on the U.S. Attorney removals, and offered 

the Department the opportunity to provide an “opposing view essay.” Public 

Affairs Director Scolinos recommended to McNulty, Sampson, Goodling, and 

Moschella that the Department submit an editorial under Gonzales’s name so 

that it would “pack some punch.” Sampson agreed with Scolinos’s 

recommendation. 

On March 7, 2007, USA Today published an editorial under Attorney 

General Gonzales’s name entitled, “They lost my confidence.” The editorial 

contained two statements that further exacerbated the controversy: “While I 

am grateful for the public service of these seven U.S. Attorneys, they simply 

lost my confidence”; and “I hope that this episode ultimately will be recognized 

for what it is: an overblown personnel matter.” Gonzales told us that he did 

not authorize either statement to be contained in the editorial. We therefore 

investigated how the editorial was developed. 

Roehrkasse told us that he wrote the first draft of the editorial. His draft, 

which we reviewed, expressed the Department’s regret regarding the manner in 

which the removals were handled. A sentence at the end of the draft stated 

that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and that “[i]f they are 

not executing their responsibilities in a manner that furthers the management 

and policy goals of departmental leadership, it is appropriate that they be 

replaced with other individuals.” Roehrkasse sent the draft to one of the 

Attorney General’s speechwriters, asking her to edit and “polish” the essay. 

The speechwriter changed the tone of the essay to stress that the 

removals were essentially a personnel matter. The edited version began by 

noting that “the handling of personnel matters is one of the toughest 

87
 

 

challenges employers face,” and concluded with a sentence characterizing the 

controversy about the removals as a “tragically overblown personnel matter.” 

Our review of documents and e-mails shows that most of that new phrase 

remained in every draft version thereafter, and appeared in the published 

version as an “overblown personnel matter.” 

Scolinos received a copy of the draft essay at 4 p.m. on March 6 and 

made only a few edits before forwarding it to Sampson for further review and 

for the Attorney General’s approval. Scolinos told us that USA Today’s 6:30 

p.m. deadline was rapidly approaching when Sampson called to tell her he had 

made some edits to the essay but could not e-mail them to her because the 

Department’s computers had crashed. 

Scolinos said that the essay was past due when Sampson and Attorney 

General Gonzales brought it to her office. Because the computers were still 

down and because Scolinos was on a call with another reporter, Sampson read 

the editorial to a USA Today reporter over the telephone in another office while 

Gonzales waited in Scolinos’s office. 

Scolinos said that when Sampson read the editorial to the USA Today 

reporter, he inserted into the essay the line, “While I am grateful for the public 

service of these seven U.S. Attorneys, they simply lost my confidence.” 

Scolinos said when Gonzales later heard what Sampson had read to USA 

Today, he told her he was unhappy because he had told Sampson to remove 

the line containing the phrase “tragically overblown personnel matter,” but 

Sampson left part of the phrase in, and he added the line “they simply lost my 

confidence” without Gonzales’s knowledge. Scolinos said that Gonzales told 

her that he would not have said that, and that Sampson nevertheless tried to 

defend the statement. 

According to Scolinos, Gonzales asked if they could retract the essay. 

Scolinos advised against it, given the fact that the Attorney General’s Chief of 

Staff had just called in an editorial purporting to be from the Attorney General. 

Sampson told us that he added the phrase “they lost my confidence” 

because he had to make a quick judgment while dictating the essay over the 

telephone, and he believed the language the Attorney General wanted to use in 

its place was “bad grammar.”67 Sampson acknowledged that he had added the 

phrase without the Attorney General’s approval. 

Gonzales told us that the phrase was “a terrible thing to say about 

somebody,” and the essay did not reflect what he wanted to say. However, 

67 Sampson told congressional investigators that the language the Attorney General 

wanted to use was something to the effect of “we thought we could do better,” or “we thought a 

change could improve the office.” 

88
when we asked Gonzales how his Chief of Staff could inaccurately represent to 

a national newspaper that the words of the essay were the Attorney General’s, 

Gonzales said, “I don’t have an answer for that.” Gonzales told us that he had 

stopped reading newspapers by the time the essay was published on March 7, 

and that he never talked directly with Sampson about the essay after it 

appeared. 

N. Additional Documents Come to Light 

Over the next several days, the controversy about the removal of the U.S. 

Attorneys intensified further. On March 7, the Senate Judiciary Committee 

asked the Attorney General to make certain Department staff, including 

Sampson and Goodling, available for interviews or public testimony about the 

removals. On March 8, the House Judiciary Subcommittee requested 

documents and other information related to the removals. 

Also on March 8, Gonzales met with Senators Leahy, Schumer, 

Feinstein, and Specter to discuss their request to interview Department staff 

and to obtain documents concerning the removals. At the end of the meeting, 

Gonzales agreed to produce the documents. He also agreed to discuss making 

Goodling and Sampson available for interviews. 

According to Roehrkasse, in an attempt to present a clearer picture of the 

Department’s involvement in the U.S. Attorney removals, Scolinos and 

Roehrkasse had planned to brief reporters from The Washington Post and The 

New York Times on Friday, March 9 about the chronology of the removal plan 

so that the reporters could write stories to appear over the weekend. According 

to Roehrkasse, the stories were supposed to follow up on Moschella’s testimony 

about the specific reasons for the removals by providing an explanation of how 

the removals came about. 

On the evening of March 7, Roehrkasse informed Sampson that he 

needed documents and other information about the removals to provide 

background information to the reporters, and Roehrkasse arranged to meet 

with Sampson the following day. Sampson prepared for his meeting with 

Roehrkasse by printing out documents and e-mails from his computer 

concerning the removals. 

Roehrkasse said that when he met with Sampson on March 8, Sampson 

discussed how he had met with Comey, Mercer, and McNulty and developed 

the removal list after “picking their brains” about which U.S. Attorneys they 

would recommend for replacement. Roehrkasse said Sampson also told him 

that the removals had been in the works with the White House Counsel’s Office 

for a long time. Roehrkasse said that Sampson showed him an e-mail to 

Harriet Miers dated January 6, 2006, containing a list of U.S. Attorneys he 

recommended for removal, which showed that the White House had been 

89
 

 

involved much earlier than the fall of 2006. Roehrkasse said that Sampson 

also told him that he had had conversations with the White House dating back 

to the beginning of 2005 about removing U.S. Attorneys. 

Roehrkasse said that he took copies of the documents Sampson had 

printed out, and that shortly after his meeting with Sampson he realized while 

reviewing the documents that Moschella’s congressional testimony was 

inconsistent with what the documents showed. Roehrkasse said he discussed 

his concerns with Scolinos, and together they discussed the problem with 

officials in the White House Communications Office. According to Roehrkasse, 

it was the first time White House communications officials became aware of the 

origin of the plan to remove the U.S. Attorneys, and of the White House’s 

greater level of involvement in the removals. 

According to Gonzales, during the afternoon of March 8 Scolinos called to 

inform him of the discovery of the documents. Gonzales then discussed the 

matter with McNulty, who Gonzales said was very unhappy that he was not 

correctly informed about the timing and substance of the White House’s 

involvement in the removals. Gonzales said he instructed Scolinos to discuss 

the matter with Sampson to address the problem. 

Moschella told us that in the late afternoon of March 8 he saw Goodling 

in the hallway and she looked very distraught and upset. According to 

Moschella, when he asked what was wrong Goodling was evasive but said there 

was something going on in the Office of Public Affairs concerning the U.S. 

Attorney matter.68 

Moschella said that after he spoke with Goodling, he went to see 

McNulty, who was on his way out of the office. Moschella said he asked 

McNulty if he thought he knew the whole story concerning the U.S. Attorney 

removals. Moschella said McNulty told him that there was more to the story, 

but he did not have time to discuss it at that point. Moschella said McNulty 

told him that Sampson had found some documents that shed light on the 

removals. Moschella said that when he discussed the matter with Sampson 

later that evening, Sampson showed him the e-mails indicating far earlier, 

more active White House involvement in the U.S. Attorney removals than 

Moschella had testified about. 

Moschella said he was “flabbergasted” when he saw these documents. 

Moschella said he immediately told Sampson that the Department’s Office of 

Legal Counsel would have to become involved in light of this new information 

68 According to Margolis, Goodling came into his office late on March 8 extremely 

distraught over the revelation of Sampson’s documents, and asked whether Margolis had 

spoken to Sampson. Margolis also said that Goodling implied that her career in the 

Department was over, but she did not state specifically what she had done. 

90
 

and would need to oversee the Department’s response to congressional 

document requests. Moschella told us he was very angry with Sampson and 

expressed that anger in no uncertain terms. 

Sampson told us that when he initially retrieved the documents and emails he was not focused on the issue of what the Department had represented 

to Congress about the timing and nature of the White House’s involvement in 

the removals. Sampson also said he had not focused on that issue during the 

preparation sessions for McNulty’s and Moschella’s testimony. 

Sampson said that when he initially located the e-mails, he felt that they 

proved that the Department was always planning to work with the Senate to 

find replacements for the U.S. Attorneys and that there were no politically 

connected candidates slated to replace the U.S. Attorneys.69 Sampson also 

said that the documents proved that the Department and the White House had 

been discussing the removal of U.S. Attorneys for a long time, which he said 

refuted the claim that U.S. Attorneys were removed to interfere with, or in 

retaliation for, any prosecution. 

Sampson said he did not realize the documents presented a problem 

until he showed them to Moschella, who expressed concern that Congress 

would believe he had testified falsely. Sampson said he told Moschella his fear 

was unjustified. Sampson said that both Moschella and McNulty seemed upset 

with him, but Sampson did not believe he had misled them into testifying 

inaccurately. Sampson said that when he read the documents to Margolis later 

and asked what he thought, Margolis said, “I think you’re going to be testifying 

[before Congress].” 

Sampson said that until March 8, there had been no discussion of the 

Department making documents or additional Department staff available to 

Congress. However, Sampson said he knew that subpoenas were on 

Congress’s agenda, and he thought there would be a battle with Congress over 

executive privilege regarding the documents. Sampson stated that when 

Attorney General Gonzales met with the Senators on the afternoon of March 8, 

the Attorney General “caved” and agreed to make all staff and all the 

documents available. Sampson said he recognized that this meant the 

documents he had just discovered would be produced to Congress. 

McNulty told us that at some point during the afternoon of March 8, he 

went to Sampson’s office and Sampson showed him the documents indicating 

earlier, more substantive White House involvement in the removals. McNulty 

69 It is unclear how the earlier e-mails would have helped prove this point because the 

Attorney General’s appointment authority was not signed into law until March 2006. 

Moreover, the January 6, 2006, e-mail already listed potential replacements for several of the 

U.S. Attorneys. 

91
said that when Sampson showed him the e-mails, Sampson said something to 

the effect of “here is a new issue we are going to have to address.” McNulty 

said he did not study the documents closely but saw that there were references 

to compiling names prior to the October 2006 timeframe that McNulty had 

discussed in his closed briefing with the Senate Judiciary Committee. McNulty 

said that what he saw of Sampson’s documents was sufficient to call into 

question the accuracy of his and Moschella’s congressional testimony. 

McNulty said Sampson did not seem excessively troubled when he showed 

McNulty the documents, although Sampson appeared to realize it was a major 

development. 

Early the next morning, Friday, March 9, Sampson offered the Attorney 

General his resignation. Sampson told us that it had been “a tough week,” and 

Gonzales was not happy with him after the USA Today editorial appeared on 

March 7. Sampson said that after the documents came to light on March 8, he 

believed the Department needed someone to manage its response to Congress, 

but given his role in creating the predicament he did not think he was the right 

person to do so. He said that when he offered Gonzales his resignation, he told 

Gonzales that he was sorry for his role in creating a “political scandal.” 

Sampson later testified to Congress he believed that as Chief of Staff he could 

have, and should have, helped to prevent the Department from making 

incorrect representations about the U.S. Attorney removals. Sampson said 

that he felt “honor bound” to accept his share of the blame for the problem and 

to hold himself accountable. 

Gonzales did not accept Sampson’s resignation immediately. During the 

morning of March 9, McNulty, Moschella, Sampson, and Hertling met with 

Steve Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal 

Counsel, to discuss how to proceed. According to Moschella, Sampson did not 

apologize or explain why he did not tell McNulty or Moschella about his 

contacts with the White House Counsel’s Office before the fall of 2006. 

Later that day, employees from the Department’s Office of Information 

and Privacy began conducting searches on the Department’s senior staff’s 

computers and in files for documents relevant to the removals to produce 

documents requested by Congress. The searches continued over the weekend 

and for several days thereafter. On March 13, the Department began 

producing documents to Congress. 

According to McNulty, Gonzales asked him to formulate a plan to 

address how the Department should handle the problems the controversy had 

brought to light concerning the removals and how they were accomplished. 

McNulty said Gonzales expressed some ideas to him over the telephone, and on 

Saturday, March 10, McNulty drafted a memorandum entitled “United States 

Attorneys Reforms and Remedies.” Among the suggestions in the 

memorandum were developing a systemic performance review process for U.S. 

92
Attorneys; reviewing the U.S. Attorney’s Manual reporting requirements for 

contacts between political officials and U.S. Attorneys; establishing a protocol 

to ensure that the discipline or removal of a U.S. Attorney is not 

inappropriately connected to a public corruption case; directing the 

Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to conduct an investigation 

into the removals of the U.S. Attorneys; assisting Bogden, Iglesias, and Chiara 

with future employment, perhaps in the Department; and communicating the 

Attorney General’s regret regarding the handling of the removals directly to the 

U.S. Attorneys. 

O. Sampson’s Resignation 

On Monday, March 12, the Attorney General accepted Sampson’s 

resignation. Gonzales said when he accepted the resignation he told Sampson 

that the USA Today editorial had really hurt Gonzales. 

Sampson told us that when Gonzales accepted his resignation, Sampson 

told Gonzales he thought accepting the resignation was a mistake, but 

Gonzales was adamant that Sampson needed to resign. Sampson said he told 

Gonzales it was his prerogative, but said he had offered his resignation earlier 

only because he thought it was the honorable thing to do. 

After offering his resignation as Chief of Staff, Sampson attempted to 

arrange another political appointment in the Department as a Counselor to the 

Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division 

(ENRD). Sampson told us he was concerned about not having a job lined up, 

and he asked Gonzales to reassign him elsewhere in the Department while he 

considered what to do next. Sampson said his reassignment to ENRD did not 

occur, because after the Attorney General’s press conference on March 13 and 

the subsequent media coverage Sampson thought he needed legal 

representation. Sampson resigned and left the Department effective March 14, 

2007. 

P. The Scudder Memorandum 

During our investigation, we also learned that in early March 2007 White 

House Associate Counsel Michael Scudder (a former Department attorney) was 

directed by the White House Counsel to prepare a chronology of events related 

to the U.S. Attorney removals. According to the White House Counsel’s Office, 

the chronology was developed so that the White House could respond to 

inquiries about the matter. To accomplish that task quickly, Scudder 

interviewed several people in the Department and within the White House, 

including Karl Rove. As a result of his interviews and review of documents, in 

March 2007 Scudder produced at least two drafts of a memorandum setting 

out a chronology of events related to the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. 

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Scudder also provided these drafts to the Department’s Office of Legal 

Counsel (OLC). When OLC prepared its own more extensive chronology of 

events, it used Scudder’s draft memoranda to supplement its efforts. 

According to e-mail records, around March 20, 2007, as part of Attorney 

General Gonzales’s effort to understand the circumstances surrounding the 

removals, OLC provided Scudder’s memorandum to Gonzales. However, 

Gonzales told us he did not recall seeing Scudder’s chronology. 

We asked OLC for a copy of the memorandum and all the drafts, but 

OLC declined, stating that the White House Counsel’s Office had directed OLC 

not to provide them to us. We thereafter engaged in discussions with the White 

House Counsel’s Office during this investigation in an attempt to obtain the 

Scudder memorandum. The White House Counsel’s Office agreed to read one 

paragraph of the memorandum to us, and provided us with two paragraphs of 

information concerning Rove that had already been reported publicly, but 

declined to provide any further information from the memorandum. 

Eventually, the White House Counsel’s Office provided us with a heavily 

redacted version of the document. We believe the refusal to provide us with an 

unredacted copy of this document hampered our investigation. 

Q. Attorney General Gonzales’s March 13 Press Conference 

On Tuesday, March 13, Attorney General Gonzales held a brief press 

conference concerning the U.S. Attorney removals. According to Roehrkasse, 

the purpose of the press conference was to show that the Department was in 

control of the situation now that it had become clear that there was a greater 

level of White House involvement than Department officials had previously 

portrayed, and to respond to the perception that the Department was 

withholding information. 

Gonzales began the press conference by stating that all political 

appointees serve at the pleasure of the President. He stated that he would in 

no way support an effort to circumvent the Senate’s advice and consent role 

with respect to the appointment of U.S. Attorneys. He acknowledged that the 

Department had made mistakes, said he accepted responsibility for them and 

pledged to find out what had gone wrong. Gonzales also said that incomplete 

information had been given to Department officials, who then communicated 

that information to Congress. Gonzales then stated that “all political 

appointees can be removed by the President of the United States for any 

reason” and that he stood by the decision to remove the U.S. Attorneys. 

During the press conference, Gonzales made several statements about 

his own role in the removal process that were inaccurate. Gonzales specifically 

stated that he “was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any 

discussions about what was going on.” Later in the press conference, Gonzales 

94
reiterated, “I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where 

things stood.” 

Gonzales later testified to Congress that he should have been more 

careful about his public statements and that he had not reviewed relevant 

documents or his calendar before the press conference. Gonzales said that 

once the documents contradicting the Department’s prior public statements 

came to light, he had felt it necessary to quickly and publicly defend the 

Department from accusations about improper conduct. 

R. Attorney General Gonzales Directs an Investigation 

In accordance with the plan Gonzales and McNulty had discussed during 

the weekend, on March 12 Gonzales, McNulty, and Elston discussed having the 

Department undertake an internal investigation of the removals. An e-mail 

dated March 13, from Elston to Marshall Jarrett, Counsel of the Office of 

Professional Responsibility (OPR), stated that the Attorney General had 

directed OPR to investigate the basis for the removals. Elston wrote in the email to Jarrett: 

As we discussed last night . . . The Office of Professional 

Responsibility (OPR) has been directed to undertake an expedited 

investigation of whether any of the removals of the USAs on 

December 7, 2006, were intended to interfere with or in retaliation 

for a public integrity investigation. OPR has also been directed to 

make recommendations on how best to avoid or effectively respond 

to such alleged appearances in the future. 

On March 14, OPR delivered a preservation of records memorandum to 

the Attorney General’s office. 

A few days later, the Inspector General learned about the assignment of 

the investigation to OPR and objected, stating that he believed the Office of the 

Inspector General (OIG) had jurisdiction to investigate these issues. OPR 

disagreed. Eventually, the OIG and OPR agreed to conduct this investigation 

jointly, and the scope of the resulting investigation was much broader than 

suggested by Elston’s e-mail. 

S. Attorney General Gonzales’s Conversation with Goodling 

On Thursday, March 15, Goodling met with Attorney General Gonzales to 

request a transfer. According to Gonzales, Goodling came into his office in an 

extremely distraught state, and sat down in a slouched position with her head 

bowed holding her hands together. Gonzales told us that Goodling said she 

was paralyzed and could not do her work. Gonzales asked her why and she 

said something about having had the same information that Sampson had. 

Gonzales told us he had the impression that Goodling was feeling guilty or 

95
confused or frightened. Gonzales said he told her, “No one intentionally has 

done anything wrong.” He said he wanted to reassure her and began to tell her 

what he knew about what had happened with regard to the U.S. Attorney 

removals. However, Gonzales told us he did not remember specifically what he 

told her about the removals. 

Gonzales told us that, in the meeting, Goodling sought a transfer either 

to another component in the Department or to the Eastern District of Virginia 

as an Assistant United States Attorney. Gonzales also recounted for us a 

detailed and very personal story he said Goodling told him during their 

conversation concerning why she went to law school and wanted to become a 

prosecutor. According to Gonzales, he told Goodling he would consider her 

request for a transfer and assured her that they would get through the current 

situation. Gonzales said it seemed that Goodling felt better and left his office. 

In her testimony about this incident before the House Judiciary 

Committee, Goodling said the conversation with Gonzales made her 

uncomfortable because she was concerned they might have to testify about the 

U.S. Attorney removals at some point. Goodling confirmed in her testimony 

that she was distraught and was seeking a transfer, and that Gonzales told her 

he would need to think about it. Goodling said that after that part of the 

conversation, Gonzales was “just trying to chat” and said “‘let me tell you what 

I can remember.’” According to Goodling, Gonzales laid out his general 

recollection of some of the events concerning the removals, and then asked her 

if she had any reaction to what he said. Goodling said that Gonzales 

mentioned that he thought that everybody who was on the removal list was 

there for a performance-related reason, and he had been upset with McNulty 

because he thought McNulty wrongly testified that Cummins was removed only 

to give Griffin a chance to serve. In her congressional testimony, Goodling said 

there was more to her discussion with Gonzales, but she said she could not 

recall anything further at that time. 

Goodling said she remembered thinking that it was not appropriate for 

them to be discussing these issues at that point because they both might have 

to testify later, and so she did not respond. Goodling said that before the 

conversation took place the Attorney General had informed her that the 

Department was negotiating whether she would be interviewed or would testify 

before Congress. In her congressional testimony, Goodling said she did not 

believe that Gonzales was trying to shape her recollection. 

When we asked Gonzales about his conversation with Goodling, he said 

that he did not see how anyone could attempt to shape Goodling’s testimony 

because she was normally such a “very confident, strong-willed young woman.” 

Gonzales said he did not recall talking to Goodling about Cummins or about 

being upset with McNulty. When we asked Gonzales why he had such a 

detailed memory of other aspects of their conversation, such as her demeanor 

96
and the story about why she went to law school and wanted to be a prosecutor, 

but could not recall if they discussed Cummins and McNulty, Gonzales 

conceded, “it may very well be. I’m not saying that I didn’t talk about Bud 

Cummins or didn’t talk about McNulty.” When we asked Gonzales whether he 

considered that it might have been inappropriate for him to discuss his 

recollections with Goodling, he told us that he did not give it any thought at the 

time because he was just trying to help her. 

T. Goodling Resigns from the Department 

On March 15, Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, agreed to serve as the Attorney General’s interim Chief of 

Staff after Sampson resigned. Rosenberg recalled that on March 16 Goodling 

came into his office at Main Justice extremely distraught, stating that her life 

was ruined. Rosenberg said she mentioned wanting to transfer to the Eastern 

District of Virginia to become an AUSA. Rosenberg told Goodling that he 

wanted to talk to her but was unable to do so at the time. 

Rosenberg said that when Goodling left his office, he expressed his 

concern about her well-being to Gonzales, who told him that Goodling had 

been to see him earlier in a similar emotional state. Rosenberg said he and 

Gonzales did not discuss the substance of Gonzales’s conversation with 

Goodling, only her emotional state. Rosenberg said he learned only after 

Goodling testified before Congress that Gonzales may have discussed issues 

with Goodling concerning the removals. 

After Rosenberg spoke to Gonzales about Goodling, Rosenberg enlisted 

the assistance of Courtney Elwood, who was then the Attorney General’s 

Deputy Chief of Staff, to help Goodling. According to Elwood, Goodling was 

visibly shaking, crying, and in extreme distress. Elwood said that Goodling 

said that after Gonzales’s press conference on March 13, she felt she had been 

accused of misleading McNulty in the representations he made to Congress 

about the removals. Elwood urged Goodling to take some time off to take care 

of herself. 

On March 19, Goodling scheduled annual leave through the end of 

March. Goodling never returned to work at the Department, and she resigned 

from the Department, effective April 7, 2007. 

U. Subsequent Events 

According to Rosenberg, by late March or early April 2007 Gonzales was 

seeking ways to reach out to the U.S. Attorneys who had been removed in 

December 2006. Rosenberg said that Gonzales discussed writing a personal 

note to each of the U.S. Attorneys and enclosing an Op-Ed piece he would write 

that contained his personal apology to them. Rosenberg said that Gonzales 

drafted notes for an essay admitting that the U.S. Attorneys had not been 

97
treated well and that they were excellent public servants, even though they had 

been asked to leave. However, the essay was never sent for publication. 

Instead, according to documents we reviewed, the Attorney General’s written 

testimony for his April 19 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee 

contained an apologetic tone for the way the removals were handled. 

In his written remarks prior to his April 19 testimony, Gonzales stated 

that the U.S. Attorneys “deserved better – they deserved better from me and 

from the Department of Justice which they served selflessly for many years.” 

Gonzales stated that “Each is a fine lawyer and dedicated professional. I regret 

how they were treated, and I apologize to them and to their families for allowing 

this matter to become an unfortunate and undignified public spectacle. I 

accept full responsibility for this.” 

Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19 and 

the House Judiciary Committee on May 10, 2007. In response to questions 

concerning the circumstances of the removals, Gonzales stated that he had not 

spoken to Sampson or to others who were involved in the removals once he 

became aware the matter was being investigated. Gonzales also stated that he 

had not discussed the removals with other fact witnesses in order to protect 

the integrity of the OIG-OPR investigation. 

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 

2007, Gonzales acknowledged he had had a conversation with Goodling on 

March 15 during which he discussed his recollection of some of the facts 

regarding the removals. However, Gonzales said he did so only in the context 

of trying to console and reassure Goodling that she had done nothing wrong. 

On May 14, McNulty announced that he would resign as Deputy 

Attorney General and he left the Department at the end of July 2007. 

On August 27, Gonzales announced his resignation as Attorney General, 

effective September 17. 

In the next nine chapters, we examine in detail the circumstances 

surrounding each U.S. Attorney’s removal and our analysis of the reasons the 

Department proffered for each removal. 

98
Oct 2001

Oct 2001

Todd Graves Timeline

Jan 9, 2006 Feb 2005 - Dec 2005 

Graves’s name appears 

for the first time on 

Sampson’s removal list 

Senator Bond’s legal counsel, Jack 

Bartling, calls the White House Counsel's 

Office several times to request Graves’s 

removal 

Mar 10, 2006 

Graves announces 

his resignation 

Mar 24, 2006 

Graves leaves office 

May 9, 2007 

Graves confirms publicly 

that he was asked to resign 

Jan 19, 2006 

Sampson e-mails Battle 

asking him to call concerning 

Graves; shortly thereafter, 

Goodling instructs Battle to 

seek Graves's resignation 

Apr 8, 2005 

Margolis determines there is no conflict 

of interest related to Graves's wife’s state 

contract at this time 

Oct 11, 2001 

Graves is confirmed by the Senate 

as the U.S. Attorney, Western 

District of Missouri 

Graves Events and 

Actions 

Oct 2001 Nov 2001 Oct 2004 Nov 2004 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 

Feb 2005 

Graves’s wife awarded 

a state contract 

Nov 2005 Dec 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 

Jan 24, 2006 

Battle calls Graves and 

tells him to resign 

May 2007 

Nov 2005 

Oct 2004 - Dec 2004 

In the Fall of 2004, a member of Senator Bond’s 

staff calls Graves and insists that Graves persuade 

his brother, Representative Sam Graves, to fire his 

Chief of Staff 

DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 

OIG opens an investigation on 

anonymous allegations against 

Graves; some allegations are 

referred to OPR 

May 2006 

OPR closes its inquiry into the 

allegations against Graves and finds 

no misconduct 

Mar 2, 2005 

On Sampson's first removal list Graves is 

included in the category, "No recommendation; 

have not distinguished themselves either 

positively or negatively" 

Dec 22, 2005 

Bartling calls Elston, and thereafter talks 

to him, regarding a “sensitive issue” 

relating to the request from Senator 

Bond’s office to the White House 

Counsel's Office to remove Graves 

Mar 8, 2006 

OIG issues a report finding no misconduct 

by Graves with respect to the anonymous 

allegations 
CHAPTER FOUR

TODD GRAVES 

I. Introduction 

Before and during the congressional hearings that followed the 

December 7, 2006, removals of U.S. Attorneys, the Department represented to 

Congress that seven U.S. Attorneys, plus Bud Cummins, were the only U.S. 

Attorneys removed as a result of the process Kyle Sampson initiated in 2005 to 

identify and remove “underperforming” U.S. Attorneys. In his January 12, 

2007, briefing on Capitol Hill, Sampson assured staff for Senate Judiciary 

Committee members Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein that those 

eight were the only U.S. Attorneys told to resign in 2006. Until May 2007, 

Department witnesses who appeared before Congress on the matter testified 

about the group of eight, and no one mentioned that Todd Graves of the 

Western District of Missouri had been told to resign in January 2006. 

On May 9, 2007, however, Graves publicly confirmed that he had been 

told to resign in January 2006. Although the Department did not initially 

identify Graves as one of the U.S. Attorneys who was told to resign as a result 

of the process Sampson initiated in 2005, we concluded that Graves should be 

considered part of that group. Graves was targeted for removal on Sampson’s 

second list, issued on January 9, 2006, and the script Battle followed in asking 

Graves to resign was identical to the one Battle followed with the other eight 

U.S. Attorneys. 

In our investigation into the circumstances of Graves’s removal, we were 

hampered by several factors: Sampson’s and Goodling’s stated failures of 

recollection as to the reason for Graves’s removal; Goodling’s refusal to 

cooperate with our investigation; the lack of cooperation by former White House 

Counsel Harriet Miers and members of her staff, especially former Associate 

White House Counsel Richard Klingler; and the absence of any documentation 

memorializing the reasons for Graves’s removal. Despite these impediments, 

we were able to reconstruct much of the circumstances underlying Graves’s 

removal, which we discuss below. In this chapter, we also analyze the 

Department’s stated reasons for requiring Graves’s resignation. 

A. Graves’s Background 

Graves graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991 

with a J.D. and a Master’s degree in Public Administration. He began his legal 

career in 1991 as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri. 

Between 1992 and 1994, Graves worked for a law firm in Missouri. In 1994 he 

99
was elected Platte County Prosecuting Attorney and was reelected in 1998. He 

served in that position until he became U.S. Attorney. 

Graves’s nomination as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of 

Missouri was sponsored by Missouri Senator Christopher S. “Kit” Bond. On 

July 30, 2001, the White House announced its intent to nominate Graves. 

While the nomination was pending Senate approval, Graves was appointed as 

Interim U.S. Attorney on September 17, 2001. On October 11, he was 

confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney. 

In December 2001, Graves was appointed co-chair of the Child 

Exploitation Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. His 

4-year term as U.S. Attorney expired on October 11, 2005. 

1. The EARS Evaluation of Graves’s Office 

Graves’s office underwent an Evaluation and Review Staff (EARS) 

evaluation in early March 2002, a few months into his tenure. The 2002 report 

noted that Graves was well regarded and respected by community leaders, 

agency personnel, and a majority of the federal judges in the district. The 

report stated that “the perception of the USAO staff as to his performance is 

positive, even in this early stage of his tenure.” The office was not scheduled 

for another EARS evaluation until September 2006, which was several months 

after Graves was removed. 

2. Graves’s Status on the Removal lists 

On the first list of U.S. Attorneys Sampson sent to the White House on 

March 2, 2005, Graves was one of many U.S. Attorneys included by Sampson 

in the category of those who had not distinguished themselves either positively 

or negatively. However, on the second list Sampson sent to Miers on 

January 9, 2006, Graves was one of seven U.S. Attorneys Sampson suggested 

for removal. 

As discussed in Chapter Three, less than 2 weeks later, on January 19, 

Sampson e-mailed Battle, asking him to call when he had a few minutes to 

discuss Graves. Shortly thereafter, Goodling called Battle with instructions to 

call Graves and seek his resignation. Battle was instructed to tell Graves only 

that the Administration had decided to make a change, that his service was 

appreciated, and that the request was not based on any misconduct by Graves 

but simply to give someone else a chance to serve. 

Battle placed the call on January 24. Graves said that when he received 

the call, he was stunned and shocked. Graves complied with the direction to 

resign, and on March 10, 2006, publicly announced his resignation, effective 

March 24. 

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B. Reasons Proffered for Graves’s Removal 

In her immunized testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on 

May 23, 2007, Goodling stated that she had “conflicting memories” about the 

circumstances that led to the request for Graves’s resignation. Goodling said 

she thought that Graves’s resignation was related to the “fact that he was 

under investigation by the Inspector General” at the time. Similarly, Sampson 

stated to congressional investigators, and initially to us, that there was “some 

controversy around Graves” that Sampson said he associated with an OPR or 

OIG investigation. However, Sampson told us that he could not “really 

remember” why Graves was placed on the January 9 list or why he was asked 

to resign 2 weeks later. Sampson also said he did not recall playing any role in 

asking for Graves’s resignation. Even after reviewing his January 19 e-mail 

asking Battle to call him about Graves, Sampson said that all he remembered 

about Graves’s resignation was Goodling coming into his office and saying, 

“Graves has to go.” Sampson stated that, based on what Goodling said, his 

“perception” was that Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis had 

made that determination as a result of an OPR or OIG investigation.70 

Margolis told us, however, that he was not consulted about Graves’s 

removal, and he did not make any determination or recommendation to remove 

Graves. Moreover, as discussed below, we determined that Graves was not 

asked to resign based on any misconduct allegations. Rather, Graves faced 

opposition from the staff of his home-state Senator, Senator Bond, which we 

concluded likely led to his removal.71 We describe and analyze these issues 

below. 

70 Sampson did not discuss Graves during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary 

Committee on March 29, 2006. On July 10, 2006, during his third day of interviews with 

congressional staff, Sampson was asked about Graves and, as he did later in his interview with 

us, claimed a failure of recollection on the subject. He stated that he did not have a specific 

recollection of placing Graves’s name on the January 9, 2006, removal list, but said he knew 

that Graves was not part of the process that resulted in the resignations of the eight U.S. 

Attorneys who were the subject of the congressional investigation. Sampson said he believed 

that Graves’s resignation was handled by Margolis, and said he did not recall the January 19, 

2006, e-mail he sent to Battle asking him to call to discuss Graves. 

71 We asked Senator Bond for an interview regarding the circumstances surrounding 

Graves's removal and any communications between his office and officials in the Department 

and the White House. In a letter responding to our request, Senator Bond declined to be 

interviewed. He added in the letter that, to the best of his recollection, he did not communicate 

with anyone in the Administration concerning Graves's performance at any time during 

Graves’s tenure as U.S. Attorney and that he did not believe he personally had any additional 

information to contribute. 

101
II. Chronology of Events Related to Graves’s Removal 

A. The Misconduct Allegations 

In 2005, two allegations of misconduct were made against Graves. The 

first, in March 2005 from the Executive Director of the Missouri Democratic 

Party, related to Graves’s wife. The second, in October 2005 from an 

anonymous source, related to various actions by Graves. Both complaints 

were investigated, and neither resulted in a misconduct finding against Graves. 

1. Allegations Concerning Graves’s Wife 

In February 2005, newly elected Missouri Governor Matt Blunt’s 

Administration awarded a no-bid contract to Graves’s wife to manage a motor 

vehicle license office in a heavily populated area near Kansas City. In Missouri, 

license agents are independent contractors who, under contract with the state’s 

Department of Revenue, receive a portion of the fees collected by the license 

office. 

In a letter dated March 1, 2005, Cory Dillon, the Executive Director of 

the Missouri Democratic Party, urged Attorney General Gonzales to remove 

Graves from office based on his wife’s acceptance of the no-bid contract. The 

letter alleged that in addition to Graves’s wife, her brother and two staff 

members of U.S. Congressman Sam Graves (U.S. Attorney Graves’s brother) 

were awarded similar license fee office contracts. 

On March 2, 2005, the Kansas City Star reported on Dillon’s letter to 

Gonzales. The next day, the newspaper ran an editorial criticizing the contract 

and opining that U.S. Attorney Graves now had a “clear conflict of interest” if 

any investigation of the Governor’s Administration should arise. 

After receiving an inquiry from the White House about this issue, 

Sampson referred the matter to Chuck Rosenberg, who at the time was the 

Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General. According to Sampson’s 

March 16, 2005, e-mail to Rosenberg, the White House had asked “(1) whether 

we have looked into the allegations made against Graves . . . and (2) what our 

conclusion is, i.e., whether we are comfortable that he doesn’t have any legal or 

ethical issues.” 

The matter was thereafter referred by Associate Deputy Attorney General 

Margolis to the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), which in turn 

referred the matter to the OIG. After reviewing the matter and discussing the 

issue with Margolis, the OIG decided not to open an investigation based on the 

absence of any pending investigations that presented an actual or apparent 

conflict of interest for Graves. 

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In a letter dated April 8, 2005, Margolis informed Graves that “[a]fter 

reviewing the substance of Mr. Dillon’s letter, consulting with OIG, and 

considering additional information, I have determined that there is no existing 

conflict of interest that requires further action at this time.” Margolis further 

advised Graves that he should be mindful of the Department’s “procedures by 

which you should seek recusal from any existing or future matter in which a 

conflict of interest exists.” Margolis pointed out that “[l]ike all United States 

Attorneys, you are expected to adhere to all legal and ethical obligations in 

carrying out your duties.” 

In his interview, Graves told us that he had brought the Dillon complaint 

to the attention of EOUSA Director Mary Beth Buchanan after he learned about 

it on the Internet. According to Graves, he called EOUSA because he believed 

he had done nothing wrong and wanted to respond publicly to what he viewed 

as Dillon’s false allegations that he had a conflict of interest. Graves also told 

us that he later used Margolis’s letter in his public responses to demonstrate 

that he had not engaged in any impropriety in connection with his wife’s 

contract. 

Graves stated that at no time did any Department official raise any 

question concerning the propriety of his wife’s contract or suggest that his 

wife’s contract placed his position as U.S. Attorney in jeopardy. Moreover, 

Graves said that no Department or Administration official ever raised with him 

any concerns about the quality of his performance as U.S. Attorney. 

However, William Mercer, the Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney 

General at the time, told us that he recalled Sampson voicing at some point 

“real concerns” about Graves’s wife’s contract because it did not reflect well on 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Margolis told us that he would not have been 

surprised if the license fee contract issue “played a huge role” in Sampson’s 

decision to place Graves on the U.S. Attorney removal list. As Margolis recalled 

it, Sampson was “really hot about it” because Sampson thought the 

arrangement made the Department and the Administration “look bad,” despite 

Margolis’s finding that Graves did not commit any misconduct.72 However, 

Margolis could only speculate as to Sampson’s thinking because he was never 

consulted on the decision to remove Graves and was not even aware of the 

resignation request until it was made public in May 2007. 

We found no expression of concern in Sampson’s March 17 e-mail to 

Rosenberg referring the Graves matter to him. When congressional 

72 In a March 17, 2005, e-mail to Rosenberg, Margolis stated: “[I]t strikes me that this 

is more an indictment of the system out there than of the conduct of Graves, but I must admit 

that it looks like the days of boss tweed or the pendergrast machine.” In an e-mail to Elston 

and Mercer on December 19, 2005, Margolis called the conflict allegation “flimsy” and “not 

substantiated.” 

103
investigators asked Sampson about Graves’s removal, he said he had no 

specific recollection of being involved in Graves’s removal. Sampson also said 

he could not recall discussing Graves’s removal with Gonzales, McNulty, or 

Margolis, who generally handled the removal of U.S. Attorneys who had 

committed misconduct. Sampson also did not express any consternation 

about the license fee contract matter to us during his interview, and he 

essentially disclaimed any responsibility for requesting Graves’s resignation. 

2. Anonymous Allegations Regarding Graves 

In the fall of 2005, the OIG received an anonymous letter containing 

allegations that Graves had committed various acts of misconduct. Graves told 

us that he believed the source of the anonymous complaint was an employee 

that his office was seeking to terminate. 

In late November 2005, the OIG opened an investigation into two of the 

allegations contained in the letter: (1) that Graves had attended a political 

fundraiser, an activity that would be prohibited by the Hatch Act and by 

Department policy, and (2) that Graves was driven to the fundraiser in a 

government car by a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The OIG referred 

the remaining allegations to EOUSA and to Margolis to determine whether 

further investigation was warranted by the Department or OPR. 

In response, in early December 2005 OPR informed EOUSA that it would 

investigate an allegation in the anonymous letter that Graves had shared 

confidential information about an impending indictment with his brother, a 

private attorney, to assist him in advertising for potential class action victims of 

a defendant in a federal criminal case. In an e-mail dated December 19, 2005, 

Margolis informed Michael Elston, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney 

General, and Mercer of the allegations the anonymous source had made 

against Graves, and noted that he intended to defer further investigation of the 

remaining allegations in the letter pending the conclusion of the OIG and OPR 

investigations. 

As noted above, Graves’s name first appeared on Sampson’s January 9, 

2006, list of U.S. Attorneys that the White House should consider replacing. 

On January 24, Graves was asked to resign, and on March 10, 2006, he 

announced his resignation, effective March 24. 

However, at the time Graves was told to resign both the OIG and OPR 

investigations were ongoing, and both were eventually resolved in his favor, 

albeit after he had announced his resignation. In a report dated March 8, 

2006, 6 weeks after Graves was told to resign, the OIG concluded that Graves 

did not commit misconduct. The OIG investigation found that Graves did not 

in fact attend a political fundraiser; rather, his appearance at the building 

where the fundraiser was held was confined to having his photograph taken 

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with the Vice President after the event – a permissible activity for a U.S. 

Attorney.73 In May 2006, OPR closed its investigation after determining that 

Graves did not have a brother who was engaged in the private practice of law. 

B. Complaints About Graves 

As described above, in their congressional testimony neither Sampson 

nor Goodling offered an explanation for why Graves was placed on Sampson’s 

January 9, 2006, removal list other than their vague recollection that the 

internal Department investigations involving Graves may have been the basis 

for his removal. Battle told us that he understood from Goodling that Graves’s 

removal was not related to any allegation of misconduct, but rather in order to 

make a change in the office. 

During the course of our investigation, we found another factor that was 

most likely the reason for Graves’s removal. 

1. Senator Bond’s Congressional Staff Complain About 

Graves to White House Staff 

In 2001, Missouri Senator Bond had sponsored Graves for the U.S. 

Attorney position, but we learned that support for Graves in Senator Bond’s 

office had waned by 2005. On at least two occasions in 2005, Jack Bartling, 

Senator Bond’s legal counsel, contacted the White House Counsel’s Office to 

request a change of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. 

According to Bartling, he called Associate White House Counsel Grant 

Dixton several times to seek Graves’s removal. Bartling said his calls were not 

prompted by Senator Bond and described the matter as a “staff issue” handled 

by himself and Bond’s Chief of Staff. Bartling said that he did not discuss 

Graves’s situation or his calls to Dixton with Senator Bond. Bartling stated 

that Bond was the undisputed leader of the Republican congressional 

delegation in Missouri and it would have been beneath Bond to be involved in 

Graves’s removal. 

Bartling told us that his calls to Dixton at the White House seeking 

Graves’s removal were instead prompted by discord between the in-state staffs 

of Senator Bond and U.S. Representative Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican 

congressman who was Todd Graves’s brother. According to Bartling, 

73 The OIG report also found that Graves’s use of the government vehicle was not 

improper, although it did question the appropriateness of Graves asking a paralegal, whose 

duties did not include driving the U.S. Attorney, to drive him to the event. However, the report 

noted that the paralegal did not object, and the OIG did not find Graves’s actions to be 

misconduct. Rather, the report recommended that in the future Graves should avoid making 

such requests. 

105
Congressman Graves’s operation “did not run business” the way the Bond 

operation tried to run business. Bartling said that Bond’s staff also wanted 

Todd Graves to try to rein in his brother, but Todd Graves did not do so. 

Bartling said that at some point, possibly in a third call to the White 

House Counsel’s Office, he also raised the issue of Graves’s wife accepting a 

no-bid contract from Governor Blunt that paid considerably more than what 

the highest-paid state employees made. Bartling told us that he viewed that 

appointment as posing a conflict of interest for Graves as the chief federal law 

enforcement officer in the western part of the state, who might be called upon 

to investigate allegations against the Blunt Administration. 

Dixton was the only person from the White House Counsel’s Office 

involved in the Graves matter who agreed to be interviewed by us, and he 

confirmed that Bartling called him about Graves. Dixton told us that Bartling 

called him in the spring of 2005 and expressed interest in changing the U.S. 

Attorney for the Western District of Missouri when Graves’s 4-year term 

expired in October 2005. Dixton stated that while he had no distinct 

recollection of doing so, he probably brought Bartling’s request to the attention 

of Sampson and Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley. However, Dixton 

said he recalled having only one conversation with Bartling, and he did not 

recall discussing the issue of Graves’s wife’s no-bid contract during that 

conversation. 

In approximately August 2005, the responsibility in the White House 

Counsel’s Office for legal issues in the Eighth Circuit (which includes Missouri) 

was assumed by Associate White House Counsel Richard Klingler. We 

determined that based on the timing of the calls from Bartling, it is likely that 

at least Bartling’s final call raising the issue of Graves’s wife’s state contract to 

the White House Counsel’s Office was taken by Klingler rather than Dixton. 

Klingler, who now works at a private law firm, informed us through the White 

House Counsel’s Office that he declined to be interviewed in our investigation. 

2. The Department Learns About Bond’s Staff’s Complaints 

According to Bartling, by the summer of 2005 the concerns he expressed 

about Graves to the White House Counsel’s Office made their way to the 

Department. Bartling told us it was clear to him from his conversations with 

the White House Counsel’s Office that the matter had been “kicked over” to the 

Department of Justice. In addition, Bartling said that he had an interview with 

the Department in the fall of 2005 for a position in the Office of the Deputy 

Attorney General, and at some point during the interviewing process Elston 

asked Bartling if Senator Bond was still interested in changing the U.S. 

106
 

 

Attorney for the Western District.74 When we questioned Elston about this 

issue, he told us that he first learned that Graves had lost Bond’s support from 

Bond’s staff, not from someone in the Department. 

Elston also told us he did not recall discussing with Bartling the reasons 

why Bond wanted to make a change in the U.S. Attorney position, but Elston 

said he had his own assumptions based on his familiarity with the discord 

between Bond Republicans and Graves Republicans in Missouri. Elston said 

he did not discuss his conversation with Bartling with McNulty or others in the 

Department because it did not occur to him to do so. 

As previously noted, on December 19, 2005, Margolis had informed 

Elston and Mercer about the anonymous allegations made against Graves. We 

determined that in late December 2005, Bartling exchanged e-mails and phone 

calls with Elston concerning Graves. On December 22, 2005, Bartling 

informed Elston by e-mail that he had accepted a position with the Treasury 

Department starting in late January 2006. Bartling also suggested that the 

two talk after the first of the year about a “sensitive issue” involving Graves 

“that has to be handled the right way.” In reply, Elston asked Bartling if he 

was aware of the “most recent allegations” involving Graves, and Elston invited 

Bartling to call him “sooner rather than later.” According to Bartling, when he 

and Elston spoke later by telephone, Elston told him only that there were 

“ethics allegations” against Graves, but Elston did not go into specifics.75 

When we asked Elston about this conversation with Bartling, he said 

that Bartling had told him previously that Senator Bond’s office had asked the 

White House to discreetly “make a change” in the Western District of Missouri, 

and Bartling called him in December 2005 to ask him to “keep his ear to the 

ground” to ensure that the Senator’s role in requesting White House action on 

Graves was not being disseminated within the Department. Elston stated that 

Bartling was not asking him to find out whether Graves was going to be 

removed. Elston said that, to the contrary, Bartling “was telling me that it was 

74 Elston had lived and worked in Missouri for 5 years after he graduated from law 

school in 1994. According to Bartling, he and Elston met for the first time in 2005 at a lunch 

arranged by a mutual friend at the Department. 

75 Elston told us he was referring to the anonymous letter containing multiple 

allegations, some of which were referred to the OIG and OPR. Elston said his conversation 

with Bartling on the subject was brief and that he would not have gone into the details of the 

allegations themselves. When we raised with Elston our concern that he disclosed confidential 

information about misconduct allegations against Graves, he told us that “the gist” of what he 

was conveying to Bartling was not the substance or merits of the allegations, but rather that 

the investigation of those allegations would “delay the request to the White House to have 

[Graves] moved on.” Although we found no evidence that Elston disclosed the substance of the 

allegations to Bartling, the fact that an allegation was lodged with the Department was itself 

confidential information that Elston should not have disclosed. 

107
 

going to happen.” According to Elston, the “sensitive issue” mentioned in 

Bartling’s December 22 e-mail was Senator Bond’s role (through Bartling) in 

seeking Graves’s removal, and Bartling wanted Elston’s assistance to keep the 

Senator’s name from being linked to Graves’s anticipated ouster.76 

According to Elston, he was not involved in the decision to seek Graves’s 

resignation. Elston stated that he did not discuss his communications with 

Bartling with Sampson, McNulty, or anyone else in the Department, or 

otherwise attempt to accelerate Graves’s removal. Elston said that any effort to 

expedite the matter “would have undermined [Bartling’s] principal purpose, 

which was for me to make sure that Senator Bond’s contact with the White 

House was kept confidential.” 

During our interview with Graves, he confirmed the existence of “friction” 

between Senator Bond’s staff and the staff of Congressman Graves, but Graves 

stated that he was not party to it and did not want to be involved in it. Graves 

told us that in the fall of 2004 a member of Senator Bond’s staff called him and 

angrily insisted that Graves use his influence to persuade his brother to fire his 

brother’s Chief of Staff. According to Graves, when he declined to get involved, 

the Bond staffer informed him that “they could no longer protect [his] job.” 

Graves told us that he never discussed this call with his brother and did not 

report it to anyone in the Department. Graves told us that “if something like 

this could cost me a prosecutor’s job, they could have it.” 

C. Graves is Told to Resign 

As described above, on January 24, 2006, EOUSA Director Battle, acting 

on instructions from Goodling, called Graves and told him to resign. Battle 

said he told Graves that the Administration had decided to give someone else a 

chance to serve; that his service was appreciated; that the decision was not 

based on any misconduct by him; and that he had served admirably and done 

a good job. 

Graves told us that when Battle called him, Graves suspected that the 

decision was related to the call he had received from Bond’s staffer more than a 

year earlier. He said he asked Battle if he had a “senator problem.” In their 

first conversation, according to Graves, Battle “sort of acknowledged that 

maybe that was it,” but in a subsequent conversation Battle informed him that 

Senator Bond had “nothing to do with it.” Graves told us that he was ready to 

move on to the private sector at the time anyway, but he wanted to stay long 

enough to try a particular case and to have his federal retirement vest. He told 

76 Elston stated that he assumed the sensitivity of the matter had to do with the fact 

that Graves’s brother was a congressman from Missouri. 

108
 

 

 

 

us that the Department denied his request to remain as U.S. Attorney long 

enough to accomplish these objectives. 

Graves told us he called Senator Bond’s Chief of Staff in Washington, 

who was fairly new at that job and was an old friend of Graves. According to 

Graves, the purpose of the call was two-fold: to find out if his removal was 

related to the in-state Chief of Staff’s call to him 18 months before and to 

request more time to try a pending murder case. Graves said the Washington 

Chief of Staff told him that the Department was claiming that Graves was 

removed because of poor performance. Graves said he responded that the 

Department had told him the “exact opposite” when he was told to resign and 

that he believed his removal was caused by Senator Bond’s in-state Chief of 

Staff. The Washington Chief of Staff said he would look into it. Graves said 

that when the Washington Chief of Staff called him back, he told Graves that 

Bond “went to bat” for him to extend his stay as U.S. Attorney, but the 

Department refused. 

On January 24, 2006, Bartling, who by then had started his new job at 

Treasury, e-mailed Elston to inform him that Graves had called Senator Bond’s 

Washington Chief of Staff to say that he was told that Bond’s office wanted him 

out “because Bond wanted new blood in the post.” In the e-mail, Bartling 

asked who called Graves and “what happened to Plan B.” Both Bartling and 

Elston told us that they did not recall what Bartling’s reference to “Plan B” 

meant. Bartling said that it was his “guess” that Plan B referred to using the 

recent ethics allegations lodged against Graves as the basis for the 

Department’s removing Graves on its own initiative rather than attributing his 

removal to Senator Bond’s request that Graves be removed. 

Elston told us he was never able to confirm that Graves was told that 

Bond wanted him removed, and Elston suspected, based on information he 

said he gleaned from Goodling and Klingler, that Graves “was just making a 

right-on guess” and had called the Senator’s office to try to confirm his 

suspicions that Bond was behind the request for his resignation.77 

77 Elston told us he checked with Goodling and Klingler only to learn what Graves had 

been told by Battle. Elston said he did not ask them the real reason for Graves’s removal 

because he thought he knew the answer. Elston said that he engaged in only limited efforts to 

ascertain what Graves was told because at the time he was being courted by Bond’s staff to 

replace Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. Elston said he ultimately 

withdrew his name from consideration for the U.S. Attorney position because he had only 

recently become the Deputy Attorney General’s Chief of Staff and thought it too soon to leave 

the post. 

109
D. Department Comments About Graves’s Resignation 

Aside from Sampson’s January 9, 2006, e-mail to Miers recommending 

that Graves and several other U.S. Attorneys be removed, we found no 

documentation memorializing the request for Graves’s resignation or the 

reasons for it. Sampson initially told us that he could not “really remember” 

why Graves was placed on the January 9 list or why he was asked to resign 2 

weeks later. He said he did not recall playing any role in asking for Graves’s 

resignation. Even after reviewing his January 19 e-mail asking Battle to call 

him about Graves, Sampson said that all he remembered about Graves’s 

resignation was Goodling coming into his office and saying, “Graves has to go.” 

Sampson stated that, based on what Goodling said, his perception was that 

Margolis had made the determination that Graves should resign as a result of 

an OPR or OIG investigation 

In Goodling’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 

2007, she denied Sampson’s assertion that she handled the request for 

Graves’s resignation without Sampson’s guidance. Goodling said she recalled 

seeing Graves’s name on Sampson’s January 2006 removal list. She said she 

thought that Graves was one of nine U.S. Attorneys who had been asked to 

resign in 2006 until she heard Sampson refer to only eight U.S. Attorneys 

during a meeting with the Attorney General in January 2007. Moreover, 

Goodling stated that she did not recall instructing Battle to ask for Graves’s 

resignation. However, she said that if she had directed Battle to call Graves to 

request his resignation, “it would have been at Mr. Sampson’s request. I 

wouldn’t have had that kind of authority.” 

Margolis also disputed Sampson’s supposition about Margolis’s role in 

Graves’s removal. Margolis is the career Department official responsible for the 

referral (typically to the OIG or OPR) of misconduct allegations lodged against 

U.S. Attorneys and other senior Department officials. Margolis told us that 

Graves was not the subject of a misconduct finding by either the OIG or OPR at 

the time and that he did not initiate a request for Graves’s resignation. 

Moreover, Margolis told us that neither Sampson nor Goodling consulted him 

on Graves’s removal and he knew nothing about it until after the 

circumstances surrounding Graves’s resignation were made public in the 

spring of 2007. 

According to Margolis, when the Department has sought the resignation 

of a U.S. Attorney based on misconduct (usually upon completion of an OIG or 

OPR investigation resulting in a misconduct finding), the practice has been for 

Margolis to brief Sampson; for Sampson to inform the Attorney General and to 

call the White House Counsel’s Office to explain the contemplated action in 

order to ensure that the White House would be prepared to fire the U.S. 

Attorney in the event he declined to resign voluntarily; and then for Margolis to 

call the U.S. Attorney and request his resignation. Sampson testified that it 

110
was his “perception” that this process was followed in Graves’s case. However, 

Margolis was not involved in the process and neither briefed Sampson (or 

Goodling) on any alleged misconduct by Graves nor called Graves to request 

his resignation. Moreover, unlike the other Department requests for U.S. 

Attorney resignations during Sampson’s tenure – each of which Sampson 

recalled discussing with the White House Counsel’s Office – Sampson said he 

had no recollection of discussing the Graves matter with the White House 

Counsel’s Office. Instead, he surmised that the appropriate White House 

contacts were handled by Goodling. 

McNulty, who was Acting Deputy Attorney General at the time, testified 

before the House Judiciary Subcommittee that he was not consulted about 

Graves’s removal. Former Attorney General Gonzales said that he would have 

expected a Department request for the resignation of a U.S. Attorney to have 

been cleared with him. Gonzales told us he “can’t imagine it didn’t happen.” 

He said, “I’m sure I was told and I don’t remember.” However, he stated that 

he had no recollection of being consulted about Graves’s removal. 

During his congressional testimony, Sampson maintained that he had 

almost no memory of why he placed Graves on the January 9 list or why 

Graves was asked to resign 2 weeks later. When congressional investigators 

asked if Associate White House Counsel Klingler would have approved the 

dismissal of Graves, Sampson replied: “I don’t remember. I don’t remember 

specifically. The general practice would have been to check with the counsel, 

not an associate counsel.” 

However, 5 months later, when we asked Sampson whether Klingler 

played a role in Graves’s removal, Sampson told us, “And that’s another thing 

that I do remember is that Klingler was the person that was responsible for this 

in the White House Counsel’s Office and that he was speaking with Senator 

Bond’s people.” Sampson also told us he understood that Senator Bond “was 

not happy with Graves and wanted him out.” This was the first time Sampson 

acknowledged the existence of pressure by Bond’s office playing any role in 

Graves’s resignation. 

III. Analysis 

At the outset, we note that our analysis of Graves’s removal was hindered 

because we were unable to interview Associate White House Counsel Klingler, 

who our investigation revealed was closely involved with Senator Bond’s staff 

concerning Graves’s removal, and Goodling, who instructed Battle to call 

Graves after she had told Sampson “Graves has got to go.” In addition, the 

White House declined to provide any internal documents relating to the 

removal of the U.S. Attorneys, including Graves. 

111
We found no evidence to support the claim that Graves was asked to 

resign because of OIG and OPR investigations into the allegations made against 

him. In fact, at the time Graves was asked to resign, the internal investigations 

of Graves were ongoing and no misconduct findings had been made. Moreover, 

neither McNulty nor Margolis – the two senior Department officials who 

normally would have been involved in a decision to remove a U.S. Attorney for 

misconduct – were consulted about Graves’s removal. Margolis said he was 

neither aware of the resignation request to Graves nor involved in the decision 

to seek it. 

In addition, in his interview with us Sampson acknowledged that as a 

“general philosophy” he would await the completion of an OPR or OIG 

investigation before recommending the removal of a U.S. Attorney. Yet, the 

OIG and OPR investigations were ongoing at the time Battle was instructed to 

seek Graves’s resignation, and no misconduct had been substantiated. In fact, 

neither the OIG nor OPR ultimately concluded that Graves had committed 

misconduct. Moreover, if Sampson had recommended to the White House that 

Graves be removed based on the mere existence of the OIG and OPR 

investigations, such action would have been contrary to existing Department 

practice and his claimed “general philosophy.” 

We do not believe, however, that the ongoing OPR and OIG investigations 

were the reason for Graves’s removal. Rather, the evidence indicates that 

Graves was instructed to resign because of complaints to the White House 

Counsel’s Office by Senator Bond’s staff. Although Sampson initially professed 

not to recall why Graves was removed, he eventually told us that Associate 

White House Counsel Klingler was “speaking with Senator Bond’s people,” and 

that “Bond was not happy with Graves and wanted him out.” Moreover, the 

decision to remove Graves came within a month after overtures from Bartling, 

Senator Bond’s legal counsel, to Elston to keep Senator Bond’s staff’s interest 

in removing Graves a secret. E-mail records also show that the day Battle 

called Graves and directed him to resign, Bartling expressed concern that 

Graves had learned from someone at the Department that Bond was 

responsible for his removal. 

It remains unclear whether Sampson or Goodling was the conduit for 

pressure from Senator Bond’s staff or the White House for Graves’s removal. 

Sampson claimed little recollection about the matter, other than mentioning 

some controversy surrounding Graves and Goodling’s pronouncement that 

“Graves has to go.” Sampson suggested that Goodling essentially handled 

Graves’s resignation on her own initiative without his guidance or approval. 

However, we find it difficult to credit that assertion in light of the fact 

that Sampson included Graves on the January 9, 2006, list of U.S. Attorneys to 

be removed that he sent to Miers, and that Sampson sent an e-mail to Battle 

on January 19 asking to discuss Graves. Shortly thereafter, on January 24, 

112
Battle called Graves and asked for his resignation. Moreover, in her 

appearance before Congress, Goodling disputed Sampson’s testimony about 

her role in forcing Graves to resign. Goodling testified that she would only 

have instructed Battle to request Graves’s resignation if Sampson had told her 

to do so. Goodling also claimed little recollection of Graves’s removal other 

than that there were misconduct investigations of him ongoing at the time. 

Goodling was not asked about the role the White House played in Graves’s 

removal, however, and we were not able to question Goodling about this (or any 

other) subject because she refused to be interviewed by us. 

Regardless of whether Sampson or Goodling was responsible for Battle’s 

call to Graves, we believe the evidence indicates that the friction between 

Senator Bond’s staff and the staff of Graves’s brother, a Republican 

congressman from Missouri, precipitated Graves’s removal. Both Graves and 

Bartling told us that a member of Bond’s staff was irate that Graves refused to 

become involved in a dispute between his brother’s staff and Bond’s staff. We 

find it extremely troubling that the impetus for Graves’s removal as U.S. 

Attorney appears to have stemmed from U.S. Attorney Graves’s decision not to 

respond to a Bond staff member’s demand to get involved in personnel 

decisions in Representative Sam Graves’s congressional office. 

We also believe that Sampson should have more closely scrutinized what 

Associate White House Counsel Klingler told him about why the White House 

decided to remove Graves. At the very least, Sampson should have discussed 

the basis for Graves’s removal with McNulty and Gonzales. We found no 

evidence that he did so. He also did not discuss the decision to remove Graves 

with Margolis, notwithstanding Sampson’s later claim that it was his 

“perception” that Margolis had made the determination that Graves should be 

removed as a result of an OPR or OIG investigation. In fact, that was not true. 

In addition, at the time Sampson should have at the very least 

determined the reasons for directing Graves to resign to ensure that Graves’s 

removal was not based on improper political reasons. Moreover, no one 

discussed with Graves Senator Bond’s alleged concerns about him. It also 

appears that no one considered whether Graves was an effective U.S. Attorney 

before seeking his removal. 

We believe the way the Department handled Graves’s removal was 

inappropriate. Although U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, 

it is the Department’s responsibility to protect its independence, and the 

independence of federal prosecutors, by ensuring that otherwise effective U.S. 

Attorneys are not removed for improper political reasons. The fact that the 

impetus for Graves’s removal appears to have stemmed from his decision not to 

intervene in a personnel dispute between Senator Bond’s staff and staff in 

Representative Sam Graves’s office is a disturbing commentary on the 

Department of Justice’s support for U.S. Attorneys. 

113
We also believe that the process that resulted in Graves’s forced 

resignation was troubling. As noted above, although Sampson claimed that the 

pending OIG and OPR investigations may have played a role in the decision to 

remove Graves, no one consulted with Margolis, the Department official 

knowledgeable about the allegations and the investigations, to determine the 

status of those investigations. 

Moreover, even after the removal no one in the Department accepted 

responsibility for the decision to remove Graves, with each senior official 

claiming that others must have made the decision. Just as troubling, 

according to Sampson’s and Gonzales’s recollection, it does not appear that 

anyone consulted with the Attorney General about the decision to tell a U.S. 

Attorney to resign. If true, that is a stunning example of lack of oversight or 

knowledge by the Attorney General about important personnel matters 

regarding a high-level Department official. 

In sum, we believe the manner in which the Department handled 

Graves’s removal was inappropriate. Although U.S. Attorneys serve at the 

pleasure of the President and can be removed for no reason, the Department 

should ensure that otherwise effective U.S. Attorneys are not removed because 

of an improper reason. The evidence indicates that the likely reason for 

Graves’s removal was pressure from the office of Senator Bond. While U.S. 

Attorneys are often sponsored by their state Senators, when they take office 

they must make decisions without regard to partisan political ramifications. To 

allow members of Congress or their staff to obtain the removal of U.S. 

Attorneys for political reasons, as apparently occurred here, severely 

undermines the independence and non-partisan tradition of the Department of 

Justice. 

114
Jun 2002

Jun 2002

H.E. "Bud" Cummins Timeline

Cummins Events 

and Actions 

Mar 2, 2005 

Cummins is included on Sampson's 

first removal list 

Dec 2001 Jan 2002 Jun 2002 Jul 2002 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 

Dec 20, 2001 

Cummins is confirmed by the Senate as the 

U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Arkansas 

Dec 30, 2004 

An item in an Arkansas tabloid states that 

Cummins said that “it would not be shocking” 

for him to leave before the end of President 

Bush’s second term 

Mar 5, 2005 - Mar 20, 2005 

Griffin learns from White House 

Political Affairs Director Taylor that 

Cummins may be removed 

Griffin is listed as a 

potential replacement for 

Cummins on the second 

removal list Sampson 

sends to the White House 

Jan 9, 2006 

Griffin Events and 

Other DOJ Actions Mar 30, 2005 

Griffin accepts a job as White House 

Deputy Director of Political Affairs 

Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 Jun 2007 

Mar 22, 2005 

Rove suggests to Miers that 

Griffin replace Cummins 

Mar 2006 - May 2006 

Miers asks Sampson to find 

a place for Griffin 

Jun 14, 2006 

Battle tells Cummins to resign 

Aug 16, 2006 

The Department learns that 

both Arkansas Senators might 

oppose Griffin’s nomination 

Sep 28, 2006 

Griffin begins detail as Special AUSA in 

the Eastern District of Arkansas 

Dec 20, 2006 

Feb 15, 2007 

Gonzales asks Senator Pryor 

to submit other names for 

nomination as U.S. Attorney 

Feb 15, 2007 

Griffin announces he will not seek 

nomination for U.S. Attorney 

Jun 1, 2007 

Griffin leaves office 

Cummins leaves office; Griffin 

is sworn in as Interim U.S. 

Attorney for the Eastern 

District of Arkansas 

Jun 13, 2006 

The White House requests Griffin’s 

pre-nomination paperwork 

Sep 13, 2006 

Sampson proposes to Miers using the 

AG’s interim appointment authority to 

bypass Senate confirmation 

Dec 19, 2006 

Sampson again proposes using the AG’s interim 

appointment authority to bypass Senate confirmation 

Dec 13, 2006 - Dec 15, 2006 

Gonzales and Senator Pryor discuss 

Griffin's appointment 
 

 

CHAPTER FIVE 

H.E. “BUD” CUMMINS 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of H.E. “Bud” Cummins III, the 

former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and his 

replacement by Timothy Griffin in December 2006.78 We also discuss the 

Department’s response to congressional concerns about Griffin’s appointment, 

including the representations made about the reasons for Cummins’s removal, 

and whether the Department intended to bypass the normal Senate 

confirmation process by appointing Griffin as the Interim U.S. Attorney after 

Cummins’s removal. 

A. Cummins’s Background 

Cummins graduated from the University of Arkansas Law School in Little 

Rock in 1989. He served as a law clerk in the Eastern District of Arkansas, 

first for U.S. Magistrate Judge John Forster, Jr. from 1989 to 1991, and then 

for U.S. District Judge Stephen M. Reasoner in 1991. Following his clerkships, 

Cummins started a private law practice in Little Rock in 1992, where he 

remained until 1995. He unsuccessfully ran for an Arkansas seat in the U.S. 

House of Representatives during 1995 and 1996. Between 1997 and 1998, 

Cummins was the Chief Legal Counsel to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. 

In 1998, he returned to the private sector to resume a private law and lobbying 

practice. In 2000, Cummins served as a counsel to the Bush-Cheney 

campaign. 

Cummins said that early in the 2000 Bush campaign he worked closely 

with Arkansas Senator Tim Hutchinson and made it known that if Governor 

Bush won the election he would seek Hutchinson’s support for the U.S. 

Attorney nomination for the Eastern District of Arkansas. In early 2001, 

Hutchinson forwarded Cummins’s name to the White House recommending 

him for that position. 

On November 30, 2001, Cummins was nominated by the President to be 

the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. He was confirmed by 

the Senate and took office on December 20, 2001. 

78 As we discuss in more detail below, Griffin served as a political appointee in the 

Department’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2002, and he was detailed for 9 months as a 

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney to Cummins’s District. Griffin also served as Research Director 

for the Republican National Committee before the 2004 election, and in March 2005 began 

working at the White House as Deputy Director of the Office of Political Affairs. 

115
B. The EARS Evaluations of Cummins’s Office 

In 2002 and 2006, EARS teams conducted evaluations of Cummins’s 

office. Both evaluations described Cummins as highly regarded by the 

judiciary, law enforcement, civil client agencies, and office personnel. The 

2006 evaluation reported that the senior management team, led by Cummins, 

“effectively managed the office’s operations and personnel.” The report also 

stated that the office had “established strategic goals that were appropriate to 

meet the priorities of the Department and the needs of the District.” The 

evaluators found that Cummins was involved in the day-to-day management of 

the office and was active in Department of Justice matters, serving on various 

Attorney General Advisory Committee subcommittees. Cummins also received 

high marks in the EARS evaluation for the office’s anti-terrorism, anti-drug, 

and reduction of gun violence programs. 

C. Cummins’s Status on the Removal Lists 

Cummins was 1 of 14 U.S. Attorneys whom Sampson identified for 

removal on the first list he supplied to the White House on March 2, 2005. As 

noted in Chapter Three, that list characterized those identified for removal as 

“weak U.S. Attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, 

chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.” Cummins’s name remained on 

every removal list until his resignation in December 2006. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Cummins’s Removal 

We found that Department officials proffered conflicting reasons for 

Cummins’s removal. 

Sampson told congressional investigators and us that Cummins’s name 

appeared on the March 2005 list because he believed that Cummins was an 

underperforming U.S. Attorney. 

However, in McNulty’s February 6, 2007, testimony before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, McNulty stated that Cummins was not removed for 

performance reasons but was removed because the White House wanted to give 

Griffin a chance to serve as U.S. Attorney. The chart that Goodling prepared 

for McNulty’s closed Senate briefing stated that because Cummins had 

completed his 4-year term as U.S. Attorney and had indicated he would not 

serve out his entire second 4-year term, the Department worked on developing 

a replacement plan. In McNulty’s closed briefing to members of the Senate 

Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2007, he stated that Cummins had said 

publicly that he was thinking of moving on, and McNulty added that it seemed 

appropriate to give Griffin a chance to serve as U.S. Attorney. 

In March 2007, however, in response to congressional document 

requests concerning the U.S. Attorney removals, the Department publicly 

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released e-mail between Sampson and White House Political Affairs Director 

Sara Taylor in which Taylor wrote that Cummins was removed because he was 

“lazy.” 

When Cummins announced his resignation in December 2006, Arkansas 

Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln publicly expressed concern that 

Cummins was improperly removed to make way for Griffin and that the 

Administration intended Griffin’s appointment to bypass the Senate 

confirmation process. In the remainder of this chapter, we discuss Cummins’s 

performance, the reasons for his removal, and Griffin’s appointment. We then 

address whether the appointment of Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney was 

intended to bypass the normal Senate confirmation process. 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Cummins’s Removal 

A. Cummins’s Performance 

1. Sampson’s Statements 

Sampson told us that he could not recall whether he learned anything 

specific about Cummins’s performance as U.S. Attorney between 2001 and 

2005 that caused him to indicate that Cummins was a “weak U.S. Attorney” on 

the March 2, 2005, list of U.S. Attorneys Sampson sent to White House 

Counsel Miers. 

Sampson told us that he did not perceive Cummins in a positive light 

even at the time of Cummins’s nomination as U.S. Attorney. Before coming to 

the Department, Sampson had served in the White House Office of Presidential 

Personnel and in the White House Counsel’s Office. Sampson said that he had 

reviewed Cummins’s résumé in 2001 when Cummins was going through the 

nomination process. He thought Cummins was not particularly distinguished 

and was unsuitable for nomination as U.S. Attorney. Sampson also stated that 

because presidential nominations are subject to the political process and 

home-state politicians exercised a lot of power over nominations, the strongest 

candidate was not always selected. 

Sampson acknowledged that the information he gained from Cummins’s 

nomination process colored his view of Cummins even after he became the U.S. 

Attorney. Sampson said he perceived Cummins to be mediocre and said he did 

not think he was alone in that perception, commenting that he thought 

Department leadership also perceived Cummins to be mediocre. However, as 

described below, we were unable to find any evidence that Sampson discussed 

Cummins’s performance with any Department officials prior to identifying him 

for potential removal in March 2005. 

117
2. Department Managers’ Statements 

None of the Department leaders we interviewed said they recalled 

discussing Cummins’s performance with Sampson. Former Deputy Attorney 

General Comey told us that he did not think Cummins ever “crossed his radar 

screen” while he was Deputy Attorney General. Associate Deputy Attorney 

General David Margolis said that he did not believe he had any contact with 

Cummins after he interviewed Cummins prior to his nomination. Margolis 

stated that during the subsequent 4 years he had never heard anything bad 

about Cummins, either directly or indirectly. 

Paul McNulty, who succeeded Comey as Deputy Attorney General in 

November 2005, told us that he did not know Cummins very well and did not 

have an opinion about his performance. McNulty also stated during his Senate 

Judiciary Committee hearing that nothing stood out in his mind concerning 

any issues with Cummins’s performance as U.S. Attorney. McNulty also 

testified that he did not consider Cummins to be in the same category as the 

other U.S. Attorneys removed in December 2006 in that the others were 

removed for performance-related reasons while Cummins was told to resign so 

that another candidate, Tim Griffin, could serve as the U.S. Attorney. 

McNulty’s Chief of Staff Michael Elston also told us he was unaware of any 

concerns about Cummins’s performance as U.S. Attorney. 

Former EOUSA Director Mary Beth Buchanan, who also served as the 

Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee from 2003 to 2004, told us 

that she could not assess Cummins’s performance because Cummins had a 

low profile. She said she did not have any negative information about 

Cummins, but also did not know of anything exceptional about Cummins’s 

work in his district either. Buchanan said, however, that it was difficult for 

certain U.S. Attorneys to stand out when their districts did not have the same 

type of crime as larger districts. 

EOUSA Director Michael Battle, who became Director of EOUSA in June 

2005, told us that he was not aware of any problems or dissatisfaction within 

the Department concerning Cummins’s performance. Rather, Battle stated 

that he and EOUSA Acting Deputy Director Natalie Voris considered Cummins 

to be one of the top five U.S. Attorneys. Battle said that Cummins was one of 

the easiest U.S. Attorneys to work with, and Voris told us that Cummins was “a 

charismatic guy who cared about his district.” 

Attorney General Gonzales told us that he visited Cummins’s district in 

the fall of 2005 and thought Cummins was “a nice guy.” Gonzales said he 

could not recall being aware of any concerns about Cummins. 

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B. Cummins’s Removal and Griffin’s Appointment 

1. Griffin’s Background 

J. Timothy “Tim” Griffin graduated from Tulane University Law School in 

1994 and began his legal career at a private law firm in New Orleans. Between 

1995 and 2000, he worked at a series of legal jobs in Arkansas and in 

Washington, D.C. Griffin was a local prosecutor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas; an 

Associate Independent Counsel in the investigation of former Housing and 

Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros; and a Senior Investigative 

Counsel on the Campaign Finance Investigation run by the House Committee 

on Government Reform. Griffin also joined the U.S. Army Reserve Judge 

Advocate General Corps in 1996 as a First Lieutenant and was subsequently 

promoted to the rank of Major. In 1999, Griffin became Deputy Research 

Director at the Republican National Committee (RNC) for the 2000 presidential 

campaign. 

Griffin told us that in 2001 he had expressed interest in becoming U.S. 

Attorney in the Western District of Arkansas, but Senator Hutchinson decided 

to recommend Thomas Gean for that position. 

In March 2001, Griffin obtained a political appointment as a Special 

Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. Griffin 

was detailed from the Department of Justice Criminal Division to the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Arkansas as a Special Assistant 

United States Attorney (SAUSA) from September 2001 to June 2002. Griffin 

was a SAUSA in the Eastern District when Cummins became the U.S. Attorney 

there in December 2001. After finishing his SAUSA detail in June 2002, Griffin 

returned to the Republican National Committee as Research Director and 

Deputy Communications Director. 

In early 2004 while working at the Republican National Committee, 

Griffin again sought the nomination for U.S. Attorney in the Western District of 

Arkansas.79 Griffin said that Congressman John Boozman, who was the senior 

Republican in Arkansas’s congressional delegation, submitted Griffin’s name to 

the White House along with three other candidates for this position. 

In February 2004, a panel of Department of Justice and White House 

officials, including Sampson, Margolis, White House Liaison David Higbee, and 

Associate White House Counsel Grant Dixton interviewed Griffin. Sampson 

told us that Griffin was the panel’s first choice, but Griffin withdrew from 

consideration and the panel chose Robert Balfe.80 Griffin told us that he 

79 The U.S. Attorney in this district, Thomas Gean, had resigned in February 2004. 

80 On June 1, 2004, the White House nominated Balfe to be the U.S. Attorney, and he 

was confirmed on November 21, 2004. 

119
 

 

 

 

withdrew his name from consideration after his interview because he knew that 

Karl Rove and other Republican Party officials wanted him to continue to work 

on the 2004 presidential campaign. Griffin said he also agreed to withdraw 

because he knew his nomination was unlikely to move forward since it was an 

election year.81 

2. Griffin Learns Cummins’s Name is on the Removal List 

According to both Cummins and Griffin, the two were on friendly terms 

after Griffin completed his detail in the Eastern District of Arkansas U.S. 

Attorney’s Office in 2002. Cummins told us that as a SAUSA Griffin had done 

a good job as the office’s Project Safe Neighborhoods coordinator. In August 

2002, shortly after Griffin left the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cummins wrote Griffin 

a laudatory letter thanking him for his service. Cummins said that after Griffin 

left the office, he was very good about staying in touch, and a review of 

Cummins’s e-mail traffic shows numerous friendly e-mails between Griffin and 

Cummins throughout 2004 into 2005. 

Cummins told us that by December 2004 he had begun to consider the 

possibility of resigning as U.S. Attorney if the right opportunity presented itself, 

but he had no firm plans to leave at that time and he was not actively seeking 

other employment. On December 30, 2004, the Arkansas Times, a weekly free 

paper self-described as “Arkansas’s Newspaper of Politics and Culture,” carried 

a small item in its “Insider” section noting that Cummins had told a reporter 

that with four children to put through college, it would not be shocking for him 

to leave before the end of President Bush’s second term. 

In December 2004, Griffin left the Republican National Committee and in 

January 2005 began work under a 3-month consulting contract. Griffin said 

he spent the 3 months planning his upcoming April 2005 wedding and trying 

to figure out what his next job would be. Griffin said that although he really 

wanted to work at the White House, he also explored the possibility of 

obtaining a political appointment to the Department of Justice in which he 

would then be detailed to lead a Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative in 

southwestern Arkansas, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for 

the Western District of Arkansas and recently confirmed U.S. Attorney Balfe. 

Such an arrangement would have permitted Griffin to be a Department 

employee and to remain in Arkansas. 

In February 2005, Sara Taylor became the Director of Political Affairs at 

the White House, reporting directly to Karl Rove. Taylor began looking for 

81 Associate White House Counsel Dixton, who was on the panel that interviewed 

Griffin, told us that although Griffin did extremely well during the interview, Congressman 

Boozman did not support Griffin because Boozman felt strongly that Balfe was the better 

candidate based on his extensive prosecutorial experience in Arkansas. 

120
 

 

 

someone to become her deputy, and Taylor and Griffin knew each other from 

the presidential campaign. According to Griffin, in March 2005 he began 

discussing with Taylor the possibility of becoming Deputy Director of Political 

Affairs at the White House. 

On March 2, 2005, Sampson provided to White House Counsel Harriet 

Miers his first list of U.S. Attorneys to be removed. Sampson described 14 U.S. 

Attorneys on the list as “weak, ineffectual” or as having “chafed against 

administration initiatives.” Cummins was 1 of the 14. 

Taylor told us that shortly after she began serving as White House 

Director of Political Affairs, she became aware that the White House was 

considering replacing U.S. Attorneys. Taylor said that Miers and others in both 

the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice had discussed 

the idea that the beginning of the President’s second term provided an 

opportunity to replace some of the U.S. Attorneys. 

Griffin told us that in mid-March 2005 he learned from Taylor that 

Cummins was on a list of U.S. Attorneys the White House was considering 

replacing. Griffin said that even prior to formally being hired by the White 

House as Deputy Political Director and placed on the White House payroll, he 

attended the “Directors” meetings at the White House. After one of these 

meetings, Taylor showed him a list of U.S. Attorneys who were going to be 

asked to resign.82 According to Griffin, Cummins’s name was on the list. 

Griffin stated that Taylor told him she did not know why Cummins was on the 

list, but Griffin said he speculated to Taylor that it was because Cummins had 

lost his sponsor when Senator Tim Hutchinson lost his re-election bid in 2002. 

3. Griffin Expresses Interest in the U.S. Attorney Position 

Griffin said that in addition to the possibility of becoming White House 

Deputy Director of Political Affairs, he was also interested in becoming an 

Associate White House Counsel. Griffin told us that he met with Miers 

sometime in March 2005 to discuss working in the White House Counsel’s 

Office. However, according to Griffin, he did not think he had the credentials 

to be considered for an Associate White House Counsel position. 

82 It is unclear why Griffin was attending these meetings. According to Griffin, Taylor 

had offered him the Deputy Director of Political Affairs position in February 2005, but he told 

her he could not begin until after his wedding in Arkansas in early April. Taylor insisted she 

needed him to begin immediately, so as a compromise Griffin said he volunteered a few days a 

week acting as Taylor’s Deputy when he was in Washington. Griffin said that the Directors 

meetings were regular morning meetings called by Rove and attended by the Directors and 

Deputies of the White House offices under Rove’s supervision, such as the Office of Political 

Affairs and the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. 

121
 

 

Griffin said that he also knew before he met with Miers that the White 

House wanted to replace Cummins. In the course of their conversation, Miers 

asked him what he wanted to do with his career, and she told him that the 

position of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas might become 

vacant. She asked him if that was something he would be interested in. 

Griffin told Miers that his goal at the time was to work in the White House, but 

he also said that he wanted to be U.S. Attorney in the future. Griffin said that 

Miers expressed the concern to him that he might have difficulty becoming a 

U.S. Attorney after having worked for the White House Office of Political Affairs. 

A review of the limited e-mail traffic that the White House provided to us 

during this investigation shows that Miers, Rove, and Taylor discussed 

employment options for Griffin in late March 2005. In an e-mail exchange 

dated March 22, 2005, Miers informed Rove that among the options she had 

discussed with the White House Presidential Personnel Office was to place 

Griffin in a political slot in one of the two Arkansas U.S. Attorney’s Offices, or 

to have Griffin replace the Deputy Director of the Office of Legal Policy at the 

Department of Justice. Rove responded, “What about him for the U.S. Attorney 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas?” Miers replied to Rove that it was 

“definitely a possibility” because the U.S. Attorney there was going to be 

replaced. In the March 2005 e-mail, Miers also wrote that she and Griffin had 

discussed Griffin’s desire to someday become U.S. Attorney, but Griffin told her 

he wanted to work at the White House in the immediate future. Miers wrote 

that Griffin told her that he knew the U.S. Attorney position required Senate 

confirmation and could take time, and Griffin was seeking more immediate 

employment because he was going to be married soon. 

Rove forwarded his e-mail exchange with Miers to Taylor. Taylor 

responded, “My fear is they end up putting him [Griffin] at Justice (which he 

does not want to do); it’s a year before he’s made U.S. Attorney, if ever.” In 

another e-mail dated March 24, 2005, Taylor wrote to Rove that Griffin “would 

love to be U.S. Attorney – he’d love to come here in the meantime.” 

At the end of March 2005, Griffin decided to accept the offer to become 

Deputy Director of Political Affairs at the White House.83 Griffin said that 

Taylor made it clear to him when he took the job that he had to commit to 

staying at the White House until after the November 2006 election unless the 

Arkansas U.S. Attorney position opened up before then. Griffin began working 

at the White House on April 14, 2005. 

83 Griffin said that as Deputy Director of Political Affairs he primarily focused on hiring 

political appointees throughout the Executive Branch, with the exception of the appointment of 

U.S. Attorneys, which was handled by the White House Counsel’s Office. 

122
Cummins said that throughout 2005 he and Griffin had numerous 

conversations about Griffin becoming U.S. Attorney when Cummins left, 

although Cummins said he had always assumed that the decision to resign 

would be his to make. Cummins told us that he just assumed Griffin would 

get the job because he was so well connected politically. 

Griffin told us that even though he had such conversations with 

Cummins, he did not take action to push Cummins to move on. Rather, Griffin 

said, “I was laying low.” Griffin also said that under no circumstances would 

he have told Cummins that his name was on a list of U.S. Attorneys the White 

House was seeking to replace. Griffin said that to him, Cummins being 

removed and his becoming U.S. Attorney were on two separate tracks. Griffin 

said, “I didn’t know why he was being fired, but I knew that if he was going to 

be fired, then I wanted to be considered for that job.” 

In August 2005, while still working at the White House, Griffin was 

notified that his Army Reserve unit was going to be mobilized to Fort Campbell, 

Kentucky. Griffin left the White House for Fort Campbell in September 2005. 

Griffin said that before he left he discussed with Miers his concern that 

someone else would be appointed U.S. Attorney before Griffin’s tour of duty 

ended. Griffin said he had a distinct recollection that in either August or 

September 2005 Rove told him that he and Miers had discussed Griffin’s desire 

to become U.S. Attorney, and Rove indicated to Griffin something to the effect 

that “it may work out.” 

Griffin said that while he was on Army Reserve duty during the fall of 

2005, he was in frequent contact with Scott Jennings (who had replaced Griffin 

as the White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs) and others in both the 

White House and the Department of Justice. Jennings told us he did not know 

why Cummins was removed. Jennings also said he believed Cummins had 

publicly stated that he was looking for another job. Jennings said that while it 

was the White House’s intention that Griffin would eventually become U.S. 

Attorney in Arkansas, he did not believe that Cummins would be removed in 

order to make that happen. 

As noted previously in this report, the initiative to replace U.S. Attorneys 

lay dormant for several months after Sampson sent Miers his March 2005 list. 

Cummins told us that although he had thought he might begin job hunting by 

the end of 2005, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney in his office took early 

retirement and Cummins felt it was not a good time to be out of the office 

actively seeking employment. 

123
4. January 2006 Removal List Identifies Griffin as 

Cummins’s Replacement 

On January 9, 2006, after consulting with Goodling, Sampson sent an email to Miers and Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley discussing “the 

remov[al] and replace[ment] of U.S. Attorneys whose four year terms have 

expired.” Sampson provided the names of nine U.S. Attorneys he 

recommended removing, along with potential replacement candidates for five of 

them. As one of the five replacements, Sampson recommended that Griffin 

replace Cummins in the Eastern District of Arkansas. 

During the fall of 2005 and spring of 2006, while on Army Reserve duty, 

Griffin had stayed in contact with Jennings and others in the White House, and 

with Sampson at the Department. Sampson told congressional investigators 

that sometime in the spring of 2006 Miers asked him about the possibility of 

Griffin becoming U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Sampson 

said that since Cummins was on the list of U.S. Attorneys who might be 

removed, Sampson began to move the process forward. Sampson told us that 

he believes, however, that the White House would have deferred to the 

Department if it had indicated reluctance to remove Cummins. 

We were unable to find any documentation reflecting Miers’s inquiry to 

Sampson in the spring of 2006 about Griffin replacing Cummins. We found 

one e-mail dated April 10, 2006, in which Griffin informed Sampson that he 

was going to be sent to Iraq the following month and asked Sampson, “Is 

everything still on track?” Griffin forwarded his résumé to Sampson on 

April 26, 2006, and wrote, “Thank you for all your help. I greatly appreciate it.” 

In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson asked Deputy White House 

Counsel Kelley to call to discuss Griffin’s nomination for U.S. Attorney in the 

Eastern District of Arkansas. In early June 2006, Griffin sent by e-mail his 

résumé and military biography to Associate White House Counsel Richard 

Klingler, who was assigned to work on U.S. Attorney and judicial nominations 

in the Eighth Circuit, which included Arkansas. 

Griffin told us that while he was in Iraq he communicated with Jennings 

and Rove about becoming U.S. Attorney when he returned to the United States. 

According to Griffin, no one promised him he would be U.S. Attorney when he 

returned, although Rove assured him that the White House was at a minimum 

obliged to bring him back to the White House because he had been on military 

leave. 

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5. Griffin’s Nomination Process 

On June 13, 2006, an administrative assistant to Miers called EOUSA 

Acting Deputy Director Natalie Voris to request pre-nomination paperwork for 

Griffin for the position of U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas.84 

Voris told us that she thought there was a mistake because there was no 

vacancy in Arkansas at the time. According to Voris, the routine procedure 

was to forward the pre-nomination paperwork after candidates had been 

interviewed by the Department’s selection panel, and after the White House 

Judicial Selection Committee had made its decision about who to recommend 

to the President. Voris said the June 13 request from the White House “raised 

a lot of red flags in [her] mind” because she had never heard anyone say that 

Cummins was leaving, and there had been no panel interviews for the Eastern 

District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney position. Voris said she talked to Goodling, 

who confirmed that the pre-nomination paperwork should be filled out for 

Griffin because Cummins was being asked to resign so Griffin could take his 

place. 

As requested, Voris transmitted Griffin’s pre-nomination paperwork to 

the White House on June 13, 2006. Later that evening, Goodling sent 

Sampson an e-mail informing him that the White House had received Griffin’s 

pre-nomination paperwork. Goodling informed Sampson that she would direct 

EOUSA Director Battle to call Cummins the following day to tell him to resign. 

E-mail records show that Goodling kept Sampson informed about the 

status of Cummins’s resignation and Griffin’s upcoming nomination. Sampson 

said that once the President had approved Griffin to be the nominee on 

June 21, 2006, all that was left for the Department to do was to “make it 

happen.” 

In her congressional testimony, Goodling said she advised McNulty in the 

early spring of 2006 that Griffin would be replacing Cummins at some point, 

and a June 13 e-mail to Sampson from Goodling states that she had advised 

the Office of the Deputy Attorney General that “this was likely coming several 

months ago.” McNulty told us that he was aware sometime during the summer 

of 2006 that Cummins had been asked to move on to make a place for Griffin, 

but he said he did not know at the time how Griffin had come to the 

Department’s attention. 

Gonzales told us that he recalled that “the White House was interested in 

seeing if we could find a way to get Griffin in,” and that Griffin was “well 

84 Voris said that the pre-nomination paperwork consists of the candidate’s résumé, a 

photograph, a White House data information sheet containing the personal data of the 

candidate, and a transmittal memorandum from the Attorney General to the White House 

Counsel recommending the candidate for possible presidential nomination. 

125
qualified,” although Gonzales said he could not recall how he learned that 

information. Gonzales approved the pre-nomination paperwork forwarding 

Griffin’s name to the President on June 13, 2006. 

Battle told us that Goodling instructed him to call Cummins, thank him 

for his service, and tell him that the Administration wanted to give someone 

else the opportunity to serve. Battle said that Goodling also asked him to 

determine how much time Cummins would need to move on and to report back 

to her his reaction. According to Battle, Goodling did not tell him who was 

going to replace Cummins. Battle said he was upset about having to make the 

call to Cummins, especially because he had visited Cummins’s district a few 

months earlier and had had a great visit. Battle said he had spent 2 days in 

the district meeting with Cummins’s management staff, and said he believed 

the office was performing at a high level. However, Battle did not raise any 

objections or discuss his concerns with any Department leaders. He made the 

call to Cummins, as instructed, on June 14, 2006. 

Battle said that when he called Cummins, Cummins asked whether he 

had done something wrong. Battle responded that he had been asked to make 

the call but was not aware of anything and was not in a position to discuss the 

matter. Battle said he told Cummins something along the lines of “U.S. 

Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and sometimes the 

Administration wants to go in a different direction and give someone else the 

opportunity to serve.” Battle said that Cummins said he knew he was going to 

be asked to move on, and was aware that Griffin would likely replace him. 

Cummins said Battle told him he would likely have 60 to 90 days to 

resign. Cummins told us that although he had had a few conversations with 

friends and colleagues about leaving, he had not done much to seek other 

employment. Cummins said that he “had no plan to leave without a plan, and 

I didn’t have a plan the day they called me.” Cummins said he assumed that 

Griffin or someone else had become impatient after Cummins had indicated to 

Griffin that he would resign but had not done so. Cummins said that after the 

call from Battle, he began looking for a job in the private sector. 

a. Allegation that the Department Intended to Bypass 

the Senate Confirmation Process 

One of the allegations concerning Griffin’s appointment to replace 

Cummins was that the Administration intended to bypass the traditional 

Senate confirmation process by installing Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546. As described previously in this report, prior to its 

amendment in March 2006 the statute allowed an Interim U.S. Attorney 

appointed by the Attorney General to temporarily serve for 120 days, after 

which the federal district court could appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney to serve 

until a new U.S. Attorney was confirmed by the Senate. The amendment 

126
 

 

provided that the Attorney General could appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney to 

serve indefinitely, or until the Senate confirmed a new U.S. Attorney. In the 

next section, we discuss the facts leading to Attorney General Gonzales’s 

December 2006 decision to appoint Griffin to be the Interim U.S. Attorney. 

b. The Pre-Nomination Process 

On June 20, 2006, Goodling informed Sampson that Battle had 

instructed Cummins to resign. On June 21, the White House’s Judicial 

Selection Committee voted in favor of Griffin’s nomination, and the President 

signed the intent to nominate Griffin for the upcoming vacancy. 

According to e-mails exchanged between Goodling and Griffin in late 

June and early July 2006, Goodling notified Griffin that the Department would 

begin his background investigation during the week of June 28. However, on 

July 5, 2006, Goodling informed Griffin that the investigation had been delayed 

because the White House had neglected to contact the Arkansas Senators to 

inform them of the intent to nominate Griffin, which was the standard 

procedure.85 Griffin responded that “both chiefs of staff [to the Senators] are 

my very good friends . . . it could potentially be a mistake if they were not the 

first people in each office to hear my name and learn of movement on my 

front.” Goodling replied that she had discussed the matter with Associate 

White House Counsel Klingler, who told Goodling that he would make the calls 

and would reach out to Griffin if they needed his assistance. 

According to both Griffin and Cummins, in early July Klingler called 

Arkansas Congressman Boozman, the Republican leader of Arkansas’s 

congressional delegation, and told him that the White House had decided to 

remove Cummins as U.S. Attorney and replace him with Griffin. According to 

Cummins, when Boozman’s staff informed the Democratic Senators’ staffs, the 

news apparently was not well received. 

Cummins said that Bob Russell, Senator Pryor’s Chief of Staff, called him 

to confirm what they had heard from Boozman’s staff – that Griffin was going 

to replace Cummins as U.S. Attorney. Cummins said he explained to Russell 

that he had been thinking about leaving, and he told Russell he did not believe 

it was in his best interest for Senator Pryor to raise concerns about his 

removal. Cummins said he was not embarrassed that he was being removed 

85 Goodling’s e-mail informed Griffin that the standard procedure was for the White 

House to wait to ask the Department of Justice to send the pre-nomination paperwork until 

after the home-state Senators had been consulted, and she acknowledged that the White 

House had called the Department “a little too soon.” According to Sampson, the normal 

procedure for nominating U.S. Attorneys was to have a vacancy and then to solicit candidate’s 

names from the home-state Senators or from the lead congressional delegation member in the 

President’s party. 

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because he did not have any questions about his performance as U.S. Attorney. 

However, he thought it would be enormously embarrassing to the Department 

to have to explain that the White House wanted to remove him merely to let 

Griffin serve as the U.S. Attorney. 

In early August 2006, while Griffin was still in Iraq, the White House 

arranged for him to speak to Senator Pryor about his proposed nomination. 

According to Griffin, the telephone call did not go well. Griffin said that both 

Pryor and his Chief of Staff told Griffin they had concerns about his 

qualifications to be U.S. Attorney. 

Griffin said that although he was filling out the paperwork in preparation 

for the nomination process at that time, he was discouraged by the 

conversation with Senator Pryor and thought that if worse came to worst the 

President might give him a recess appointment as U.S. Attorney.86 In midAugust, Griffin returned to the United States. 

c. Indefinite Interim Appointment Proposed for 

Griffin 

Griffin told us that in August 2006, sometime after he had spoken to 

Senator Pryor, he learned that an appointment under the Patriot Act 

amendment would allow him to serve as Interim U.S. Attorney indefinitely. 

Griffin said he had the sense that was a definite possibility in the face of 

Pryor’s opposition, although he said he did not want to have to use that 

avenue. 

In August 2006, Sampson, Goodling, and Jennings discussed how to 

proceed with Griffin’s nomination in view of Senator Pryor’s opposition. 

Another concern was that Griffin was still considered a White House employee 

when he returned from Iraq, although Griffin said the White House had no 

position open for him at the time. 

In an e-mail to Sampson on August 18, Goodling proposed that the 

Department hire Griffin as a political appointee and then detail him to the 

Eastern District of Arkansas as Interim U.S. Attorney. Goodling said that 

because Cummins had not yet resigned, however, she would give him a target 

date for his resignation, “particularly if we go this route since it’s a lot faster 

than the nom/conf route, obviously.” In the August 18 e-mail exchange, 

Sampson and Goodling discussed whether to appoint Griffin to the Criminal 

Division or the Deputy Attorney General’s Office, and Sampson wrote that he 

86 Griffin said that at this point he was not aware of the March 2006 change in the law 

which permitted the Attorney General to appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney for an indefinite 

period of time. 

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did not “think it should really matter where we park him here, as AG will 

appoint him forthwith to be [U.S. Attorney].” 

Scott Jennings told us that he learned from the White House Office of 

Legislative Affairs that the Arkansas Senators had reservations about Griffin, 

which Jennings characterized as “political concerns.” Jennings said that the 

problem with the Senators did not change his thinking about having Griffin go 

through the Senate confirmation process; rather, he said he was wondering 

what extra measures would have to be taken to make sure that Griffin’s 

nomination was ultimately successful. Sampson and Jennings both told us 

that the intent at this time was to have Griffin go through the confirmation 

process, but first be appointed Interim U.S. Attorney and, as Jennings put it, 

“show the Democratic senators [in Arkansas] he’s up for the job.” Jennings 

said they reasoned that if they could get Griffin into the office he could bolster 

his credentials and that would demonstrate to the Senators that he was 

capable and should therefore be confirmed. 

Cummins said that by August 2006 he knew that Griffin would not be 

back in Arkansas until the end of September. Cummins said he told Griffin 

that if Griffin abruptly arrived as Interim U.S. Attorney just after Cummins 

resigned without having another job, it would be obvious that the White House 

had forced Cummins out, which could pose difficulties for Griffin. Cummins 

said he proposed to Griffin that a cleaner transition would be for Griffin to 

return to the Eastern District of Arkansas as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney 

while Cummins finalized his plans to return to the private sector. On 

August 24, 2006, Griffin contacted Jennings about Cummins’s proposal, and 

Jennings e-mailed Sampson asking for his opinion about the proposal. 

Sampson replied, “I think it’s a great idea and endorse it wholeheartedly.” 

On August 24, 2006, the Arkansas Times printed an editorial stating 

that Cummins would likely be stepping down in the near future. The editorial 

speculated that Griffin would be Cummins’s successor.87 The editorial also 

implied Griffin may have participated in voter caging in past elections, noting:88 

He’d likely have to endure some questioning about his role in 

massive Republican projects in Florida and elsewhere by which 

87 Cummins said he had initiated a conversation about his upcoming resignation with 

a reporter for the Arkansas Times, in part because he did not want his resignation to appear to 

be shocking and in part because he was trying to get the word out that he was available for 

employment in the private sector. However, Cummins said that he was not the source of the 

remainder of the information in the editorial. 

88 Voter caging refers to the practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, 

compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or 

challenge voters’ registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at 

their registered addresses. 

129
Republicans challenged tens of thousands of absentee votes. 

Coincidentally, many of those challenged votes were concentrated 

in black precincts. 

Goodling forwarded the article to Sampson and Jennings. We found no 

indication that the article raised concerns about Griffin at the Department or at 

the White House. 

By the end of August, the Department stopped preparing the paperwork 

for Griffin to go through the formal presidential nomination and Senate 

confirmation process. In an e-mail dated August 30, 2006, Griffin informed an 

EOUSA staff member that he had spoken with Jennings and “[H]e doesn’t see 

any reason to proceed with the senate paperwork since the appointment will 

occur the other way.” Jennings told us that while he did not recall discussing 

the issue with Griffin, by August 30 the White House was aware it would not be 

nominating Griffin at that time. Jennings said that instead Griffin would be 

given a political appointment in the Department so that he could then be 

detailed to Little Rock “to wait out Bud Cummins.” 

In an e-mail dated September 13, 2006, Miers asked Sampson for the 

“current thinking on holdover U.S. Attorneys . . . .” Later that day, Sampson 

provided Miers with another removal list that included districts where the U.S. 

Attorney position was vacant, soon to be vacant, and rumored soon to be 

vacant. In his e-mail to Miers, Sampson described Cummins as a “USA in the 

Process of Being Pushed Out,” and he described eight other U.S. Attorneys as 

“USAs We Now Should Consider Pushing Out.” Sampson noted, “I strongly 

recommend that, as a matter of Administration policy, we utilize the new 

statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments.” 

Sampson wrote that by bypassing the Senate confirmation process, “we can 

give far less deference to home-state Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred 

person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less political 

cost to the White House.” 

Sampson told congressional investigators that his recommendation to 

use the Attorney General’s appointment authority in this manner never got any 

“traction” for any district other than the Eastern District of Arkansas. 

Sampson said he did not recall discussing the recommendation with Attorney 

General Gonzales at the time. 

Gonzales told us that he had no specific recollection of discussing with 

Sampson at this time the idea of using his interim appointment authority to 

bypass Senate confirmation, and Gonzales said he would not have supported 

it. 

130
d. Griffin Returns to Arkansas as a Special Assistant 

U.S. Attorney 

Griffin’s military leave ended on September 26, 2006, and he returned to 

the White House for 1 day. On September 28, 2006, he was appointed to a 

political position as a Counselor to the Criminal Division Assistant Attorney 

General and was immediately detailed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Little 

Rock as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

Griffin told us that because he considered Cummins to be a friend, he 

did not want to push him out without having another job. Griffin said that 

when Cummins still did not have another job by October 2006, Griffin asked 

Cummins to stay until after the election in November 2006, because Griffin 

was concerned that if Cummins left before the election Griffin would be the 

subject of political attacks. 

Cummins said that he had made up his mind to leave sometime in 

November, but Griffin asked him to stay until Griffin returned in midDecember from a long-planned vacation. 

In mid-October 2006, Sampson forwarded to Elston, the Deputy Attorney 

General’s Chief of Staff, the e-mail Sampson had sent to Miers on 

September 13 listing the status of certain U.S. Attorneys recommended for 

replacement and noting that Cummins was “in the process of being pushed 

out.” In an e-mail dated October 17, 2006, Elston responded that he agreed 

with Sampson’s recommendations. Elston told us that he did not question 

Cummins’s inclusion on the list because he understood that Cummins had 

indicated he was going to resign and the Administration had chosen Griffin to 

take his place. 

C. Attorney General Gonzales Appoints Griffin Interim U.S. 

Attorney 

In an e-mail on December 1, 2006, Griffin notified Goodling that 

Cummins intended to resign on December 20, 2006. 

On December 8, a panel composed of Battle, Margolis, and Goodling 

interviewed Griffin for the position of Interim U.S. Attorney. Later that day, 

Goodling sent an e-mail to Griffin informing him that the Attorney General 

intended to appoint him Interim U.S. Attorney, and she asked Griffin to “keep 

this information close hold . . . until we notify the Chief Judge and the 

Senators of the Attorney General’s action.” Griffin said that after his interview 

with the panel, Goodling informed him that he would be appointed pursuant to 

the Patriot Act amendment, which would allow him to serve indefinitely. 

On December 13 and 15, 2006, Attorney General Gonzales and Senator 

Pryor discussed Gonzales’s intention to appoint Griffin Interim U.S. Attorney. 

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According to Sampson, Pryor had contacted the Attorney General on 

December 13 after he learned that Cummins planned to resign on 

December 20. 

Gonzales told us that during their conversation on December 15, he 

informed Senator Pryor that he was going to appoint Griffin to be Interim U.S. 

Attorney to replace Cummins, and he sought to determine whether Pryor would 

eventually support Griffin’s nomination. Gonzales said he conveyed his hope 

that Senator Pryor would do so, and asked Pryor to meet with Griffin. 

Gonzales said that when he informed Senator Pryor that Griffin was going to 

serve as Interim U.S. Attorney, he also told Pryor that he wanted to see how 

Griffin would perform and that Griffin’s interim appointment would also give 

Pryor the opportunity to see how Griffin would do. According to Gonzales, 

Pryor agreed to meet with Griffin sometime after the upcoming holidays.89 

D. Public Concerns About Griffin’s Appointment 

On December 16, 2006, Griffin forwarded to Goodling an article that 

appeared on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette stating that 

Senator Pryor was “irked” by the “surprise notice that ex-Rove aide [was] 

named U.S. Attorney.” Goodling responded that the important thing was that 

Pryor’s position concerning Griffin was somewhat open and Griffin had a real 

opportunity as Interim U.S. Attorney to win Pryor’s support. On December 18, 

Goodling forwarded the article to Oprison at the White House. 

In an e-mail on December 19, Sampson directed the Department’s Office 

of Public Affairs to use talking points he wrote in responding to press inquiries 

about the circumstances of Griffin’s interim appointment. The talking points 

stated that when a U.S. Attorney vacancy arises, someone needs to be 

appointed even if on an interim basis to fill the vacancy, that Griffin was 

appointed as the Interim U.S. Attorney because of the timing of Cummins’s 

resignation, and that the Department “hoped that there would be a U.S. 

Attorney who had been nominated and confirmed in every district.” 

Oprison e-mailed Sampson on December 19 that he believed the term 

“Interim U.S. Attorney” was problematic because the Arkansas Senators could 

use Griffin’s interim status to press for their own nominee rather than 

supporting Griffin’s nomination. Oprison also expressed concern that the 

89 Sampson also spoke with Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln’s Chief of Staff about 

Griffin. In an e-mail dated December 15, 2006, to Goodling and Associate White House 

Counsel Chris Oprison, Sampson wrote: 

“Chris, I think the White House (you) needs to continue the dialogue with the Senators 

re our desire to have the President nominate, and the Senate confirm, Griffin. They think they 

smell a rat, i.e., that we are doing an end around of their advice and consent authority by 

exercising the new, unlimited AG appointment authority.” 

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Arkansas Senators were “taking steps to back [the Department and the White 

House] into a corner” by refusing to commit to considering Griffin’s 

nomination. 

Sampson responded to Oprison in an e-mail on the same day, “I think we 

should gum this to death . . . .” Sampson suggested that because Griffin’s 

interim appointment was technically of unlimited duration, the Department 

could ask the Senators to give Griffin a chance and if they still opposed Griffin 

after a period of time, the Department could “run out the clock” while 

appearing to be acting in “good faith” by asking the Senators for 

recommendations, interviewing other candidates, and pledging to desire a 

Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. Sampson wrote, “our guy is in there so the 

status quo is good for us.” Sampson also noted that there was a risk that 

Congress would repeal the Attorney General’s appointment authority for 

Interim U.S. Attorneys. Finally, Sampson wrote, “I’m not 100 percent sure that 

Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting 

him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” 

Sampson, who later testified that using the interim appointment 

authority to bypass Senate confirmation was a “bad idea at the staff level,” told 

us that the idea of using this new authority was confined to Griffin and not any 

other U.S. Attorney positions. He admitted that he had advocated for more 

widespread use of the authority in September 2006, but said he did not really 

believe it was practical and Attorney General Gonzales never seriously 

considered it. Sampson told us that he was not sure that the Attorney General 

would have genuinely considered using the authority even in Griffin’s case. 

Sampson said that at the time the Department was experiencing some pressure 

from White House Political Affairs Director Taylor and others at the White 

House to use the appointment authority for Griffin in the face of Senator 

Pryor’s reluctance to commit to supporting his nomination. Sampson stated 

that he believed Attorney General Gonzales was far too cautious and careful 

and would not support the idea of bypassing Senate confirmation. Sampson 

said that at the time he believed that Gonzales was hopeful that he could 

persuade Senator Pryor to support Griffin’s nomination. 

Sampson said that by late December 2006 or early January 2007, 

Gonzales had specifically rejected the idea of using the interim appointment 

authority to install Griffin indefinitely as U.S. Attorney, although Sampson said 

he could not remember exactly when he and Gonzales discussed the issue. 

Gonzales told us that he could not recall a specific discussion with 

Sampson about use of the interim authority to bypass the Senate confirmation 

process. However, Gonzales said he recalled that Sampson raised the 

possibility of using the authority to appoint Griffin and Gonzales opposed it, 

thinking it was “a dumb idea.” 

133
Oprison told us that he did not think Sampson was speaking for the 

Department when he sent the December 19 e-mail suggesting that “we should 

gum this death.” Oprison said he did not think there was a plan to avoid 

sending Griffin’s nomination to the Senate for confirmation, although he 

described it as a very fluid situation. Oprison said he recalled discussions at 

the White House about whether they should seek other candidates or stick 

with Griffin, but the ultimate decision was to stick with Griffin. 

However, several individuals, including Cummins, told us that Griffin 

stated openly and repeatedly that he would be in the office for 2 years, with or 

without Senator Pryor’s approval, pursuant to the Attorney General’s interim 

appointment authority. Balfe, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of 

Arkansas, told us that when he asked Griffin how he could stay on as U.S. 

Attorney without Pryor’s approval of his nomination, Griffin said he was 

promised he would be U.S. Attorney for 2 years, whether Pryor approved or not. 

Balfe said he could not recall whether Griffin told him about the Patriot Act 

provision at that time or if he already knew about it from press accounts, but 

he said he understood that Griffin meant he would be in office for more than 

120 days. U.S. Attorney Jane Duke, who was the First Assistant U.S. Attorney 

in the Eastern District of Arkansas at the time, told us that when Senator Pryor 

began to question Griffin’s credentials, Griffin told her that Pryor did not have 

to approve his nomination because Griffin was going to be placed in office 

under a little-known provision in the Patriot Act and his appointment would 

not expire. Griffin acknowledged to us that he discussed his potentially 

indefinite appointment openly and he “probably” said that he would be U.S. 

Attorney for 2 years with or without Pryor’s support. 

Cummins also told us that around this time he ran into Bob Russell, 

Senator Pryor’s Chief of Staff, who asked Cummins if it was true that the 

Department intended to keep Griffin in office without Pryor’s approval. 

Cummins said he did not confirm Russell’s speculation, but he did not deny it 

either because he did not want to lie. 

On December 20, 2006, Cummins officially resigned as U.S. Attorney 

and Griffin was sworn in as the Interim U.S. Attorney. 

On January 9, 2007, Griffin, accompanied by Nancy Scott-Finan of the 

Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, met separately with Arkansas 

Senators Pryor and Lincoln. Scott-Finan told us that both Senators were upset 

that Griffin had been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney in anticipation that he 

would be nominated for the permanent position without any prior consultation 

with them. 

Scott-Finan said that Senator Pryor also asked Griffin about allegations 

that he had participated in voter caging. Scott-Finan said Griffin “explained [it] 

away” by putting it in the context of a “direct mail marketing” process, and he 

134
characterized what the Republican National Committee had done as checking 

for bad addresses rather than challenging voters. In response to Senator 

Pryor’s statement that by checking for bad addresses Griffin was laying the 

groundwork for challenging voters, Griffin told Pryor that in the end votes were 

not challenged. In addition, Griffin said that any decisions to challenge votes 

were made above his level. Scott-Finan said that she had the sense that 

Senator Pryor was not open to considering Griffin’s nomination. 

Cummins told us that by January 2007 he had begun to be concerned 

that the story he told publicly – that he had been planning to leave but had 

agreed to help Griffin transition into the role of U.S. Attorney – was being 

questioned in light of the numerous articles that were published concerning 

the U.S. Attorney removals in general and articles about Griffin’s appointment 

in particular. Cummins, who characterized his previous responses to such 

questions as “evasive”, said he did not want to lie if he was asked directly 

whether he was fired. 

On January 13, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette ran a story quoting 

Cummins as saying that the Director of EOUSA had asked him to step down 

and had assured Cummins that his removal was not because of his job 

performance, but rather because the Administration wanted to give someone 

else the opportunity to be the U.S. Attorney. 

On January 17, Gonzales spoke again with Senator Pryor about whether 

Pryor would support Griffin’s nomination and confirmation. According to 

Gonzales, Pryor expressed his concern that the Attorney General was using his 

appointment authority to avoid the Senate confirmation process. Gonzales 

said he pointed out to Pryor that he could have appointed Griffin for 120 days 

under the old law governing the Attorney General’s appointment authority. 

Gonzales said he told Pryor that if Pryor decided he could not support Griffin, 

then the Administration would solicit other candidates. 

E. The Attorney General’s and the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Testimony 

On January 18, the day after Gonzales spoke to Senator Pryor, the 

Attorney General testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the 

Department had asked certain U.S. Attorneys to resign after evaluating their 

performance, and these changes were made pursuant to his responsibility to 

ensure that the Department had “the best possible person” in each district. 

Gonzales also testified that the Administration was fully committed to having a 

Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in each district. 

Cummins told us that he grew concerned when he learned about the 

Attorney General’s testimony because it implied that the dismissals were 

undertaken in order to improve the management in each office, and he said he 

135
 

 

 

“knew damn well that wasn’t why they were changing out the U.S. Attorney in 

Little Rock.” Cummins said that since he had now admitted publicly he had 

been asked to leave, he believed the Attorney General’s testimony lumping him 

together with the other U.S. Attorneys who had been asked to resign put 

Cummins in an embarrassing position. Cummins therefore called McNulty to 

express his concerns, and Elston, McNulty’s Chief of Staff, returned 

Cummins’s call. 

This began a series of telephone calls and e-mail exchanges between 

Cummins and Elston. Cummins said he expressed concern to Elston about 

the accuracy of the Department’s public statements and the unfairness of the 

Attorney General’s Senate testimony regarding the need to improve 

management in each district, which did not apply to Cummins. Cummins said 

he told Elston he was also concerned about the Attorney General’s statement 

that the Department was going to nominate and confirm a U.S. Attorney in 

every district because Griffin had indicated to Cummins more than once that 

he would stay on as Interim U.S. Attorney with or without Senator Pryor’s 

support. Cummins said that Elston indicated to him that there were serious 

performance-related reasons for the removal of the other U.S. Attorneys, 

although they did not discuss specific U.S. Attorneys. Cummins also said that 

Elston told him that Griffin would have to go through the nomination process 

or resign because the Department would not agree to let him serve indefinitely 

as Interim U.S. Attorney. 

Elston told us that because he had no reason to believe that performance 

was an issue with Cummins, he was sympathetic to Cummins’s concerns 

about being categorized as having been removed to improve management in his 

district.90 McNulty told us he was also sympathetic to Cummins because his 

sense of the situation was not that Cummins was underperforming, but that 

the Administration wanted to give Griffin the opportunity to serve as U.S. 

Attorney. 

McNulty said that he discussed Cummins with Sampson and others 

during the preparation sessions for his upcoming congressional testimony, and 

no one told McNulty there were performance concerns with Cummins. 

Therefore, on February 6 when McNulty testified before the Senate Judiciary 

Committee, he publicly stated that Cummins was in a separate category from 

the other U.S. Attorneys because he was asked to step aside not for 

performance reasons but to make way for Griffin.91 

90 Elston also said that when he learned about the Department’s effort to identify weak 

U.S. Attorneys and ask them to move on, he distinguished Cummins from the others because 

Elston understood that Cummins had said he was planning to leave but had not yet left. 

91 In addition, McNulty later told congressional investigators that Sampson did not tell 

him during the preparation for his Senate testimony that Cummins was put on the list or 

(Cont’d.) 

136
 

F. The Department’s Written Response to Congressional 

Concerns About Griffin’s Appointment 

In light of McNulty’s testimony regarding Cummins and Griffin, on 

February 8 Senators Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Richard Durbin, and Patty 

Murray wrote to Attorney General Gonzales to express concern about the 

circumstances of Cummins’s removal and Griffin’s appointment. The Senators 

requested information concerning issues such as the timing of the decision to 

appoint Griffin to replace Cummins and the role Karl Rove played in the 

decision to appoint Griffin. 

The Department responded to the Senators’ letter on February 23, 2007. 

Sampson drafted the response, which was signed by Richard Hertling, the 

Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs. Sampson 

circulated the draft response to Goodling, McNulty, Elston, Moschella, Hertling, 

and Scolinos. The letter was reviewed and edited by Associate White House 

Counsel Oprison and returned to Sampson, who had the final sign-off on the 

language. 

The Department’s response made three affirmative statements: (1) “It 

was well known as early as December 2004, that Mr. Cummins intended to 

leave”; (2) “the decision to have Mr. Griffin replace Mr. Cummins was first 

contemplated in the spring or summer of 2006 [and] the final decision to 

appoint Mr. Griffin . . . was made on or about December 15”; and (3) “The 

Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to 

appoint Mr. Griffin.” 

All three of these statements were misleading. On March 28, 2007, the 

Department informed Senators Leahy and Schumer that its review of 

documents collected in response to congressional requests revealed that the 

representations made in the Department’s February 23 response were 

inaccurate. The Department did not specify the inaccuracies in Hertling’s 

letter, but simply noted that the documents the Department had produced 

contradicted certain statements in the February 23 letter. 

With respect to the first misleading statement - that the Department 

knew in December 2004 that Cummins intended to leave - Cummins had not 

announced in December 2004 that he intended to leave. The only indication 

removed for any performance-related reasons. Further, Elston told us that Sampson was “in 

the room” during McNulty’s preparation session when the group discussed what McNulty 

would say, and no one said there were performance issues related to Cummins’s removal. In 

an e-mail after McNulty’s testimony, which contained Sampson’s proposed draft response to 

congressional concerns about Cummins’s removal, Sampson endorsed McNulty’s testimony 

that Cummins’s removal was not connected to his performance “but more related to the 

opportunity to provide a fresh start with a new person in that position.” 

137
 

 

we found relating to Cummins’s intent to leave his position at some point in the 

future was his statement in the small news item in the December 30, 2004, 

edition of the Arkansas Times, a free weekly Arkansas paper. As previously 

mentioned, the article stated that with four children to put through college, 

Cummins said he would likely begin exploring other career options, and that “it 

wouldn’t be ‘shocking’ . . . for there to be a change in his office before the end 

of Bush’s second term.” 

We asked Cummins whether it was true that in December 2004 he had 

made it known that he planned to leave office. He told us that he had only 

discussed the issue in general terms, as indicated in the article in the Arkansas 

Times. Cummins said he did not recall discussing his leaving office with 

anyone at the Department at the time, and he characterized as “ludicrous” the 

idea that senior managers at the Department made personnel decisions based 

on an article about Arkansas politics appearing in a free weekly tabloid.92 

The second misleading statement in the letter – that Griffin’s 

appointment was first contemplated in the spring of 2006 – is directly 

contradicted by the January 9, 2006, e-mail Sampson sent to Miers, discussed 

above, in which Griffin is listed as a replacement for Cummins. The statement 

that the final decision to appoint Griffin was made around December 15, 2006, 

following Gonzales’s discussion with Senator Pryor, is also misleading. As 

noted previously in this chapter, Sampson informed Goodling on August 18, 

2006, that the Attorney General would appoint Griffin U.S. Attorney 

“forthwith.” 

The third misleading statement in the Department’s letter was the 

statement that the Department was not aware of Karl Rove being involved in 

the decision to appoint Griffin. However, in a December 19 e-mail to Oprison 

at the White House, Sampson stated that he knew Griffin’s appointment “was 

important to Harriet [and] Karl.” 

Oprison, who reviewed and edited the Department’s draft response to the 

Senators, told us that when he reviewed the draft he did not remember 

Sampson’s December 19 e-mail. In an e-mail to Sampson on February 23, 

2007, Oprison attached the letter with “slight revisions,” along with the 

message that “Fred [Fielding], as I, want to ensure that it is absolutely 

consistent with the facts and that it does not add to the controversy 

surrounding this issue.” Oprison told us that he had not been employed at the 

White House when the issue of Griffin’s appointment first arose. He also stated 

92 We found evidence that Deputy White House Liaison Angela Williamson forwarded 

the 2004 Arkansas Times article to Goodling on February 5, 2007. Sampson forwarded the 

article to Kelley at the White House on February 21, 2007, with the notation: “Addendum to 

the Cummins tick tock.” However, we found no evidence that anyone at the Department was 

aware of the article prior to February 5, 2007. 

138
that it was likely he was asked to review the response because Deputy White 

House Counsel Kelley was not in the office and there was a short turn around 

time for the response. Oprison stated that because the response was from the 

Department, he did not feel it was his role to “exercise due diligence” to confirm 

the factual assertions contained in the letter, even though the letter contained 

representations concerning White House personnel. 

Sampson testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he “widely 

circulated” the draft response to the letter and that no one disagreed with the 

statement claiming no knowledge that Rove played any role in Griffin’s 

appointment. Sampson also said that at the time he drafted the response, he 

was unaware of whether Rove actually was interested in Griffin’s appointment. 

When Sampson was asked about the contradiction between this response and 

his December 19 e-mail in which he asserted that he knew that Griffin’s 

appointment was “important to Harriet and Karl,” Sampson said the 

December 19 e-mail was based on an assumption on his part. Sampson said 

he knew firsthand that Griffin’s appointment was important to Sara Taylor and 

Scott Jennings at the White House, and he assumed that since they reported to 

Rove, Griffin’s appointment was also important to Rove. Sampson said that 

when he was drafting the February 23 response, he thought to himself that he 

did not know whether Rove was actually interested in Griffin’s appointment. 

Sampson also said he did not recall ever discussing the matter with Rove. 

Moreover, Sampson told us that he believed the other statements in the 

letter were accurate. With respect to the statements that Griffin’s appointment 

was first contemplated in the spring of 2006 and the final decision to appoint 

him was made on December 15, Sampson testified that when he drafted the 

response he was focused on when the Attorney General independently decided 

to appoint Griffin, which Sampson stated was after Gonzales had discussed the 

matter with Senator Pryor in mid-December 2006. Sampson said the response 

he drafted reflected this timing, and said he circulated it to make sure others 

thought it was accurate. 

We also determined that in the initial draft of the Department’s 

February 23 response, Sampson proposed to Goodling, McNulty, Elston, 

Moschella, Hertling, and Scolinos that the letter state up front that “in the 

spring of 2006, White House Counsel Miers asked the Department if Mr. Griffin 

could be considered for appointment as U.S. Attorney upon his return from 

Iraq.” Sampson told us that the wording was changed in the final version of 

the letter to delete any mention of Miers and to make the White House’s role in 

Griffin’s appointment seem more passive. When we asked Sampson why that 

change was made, he said he had the general sense after the back-and-forth 

with the White House concerning the letter that Miers’s name was deleted so as 

not to “feed red meat up to these guys.” 

139
 

During our interview, Sampson described the incoming letter as “pretty 

accusatory,” and he said he tried to draft a response that was accurate, 

responsive, and agreeable to the White House. Sampson said he believed the 

Department’s response was accurate, although he did not personally check the 

factual assertions in the letter. 

Richard Hertling, who became Acting Assistant Attorney General for the 

Office of Legislative Affairs on January 9, 2007, after serving 4 years in the 

Department’s Office of Legal Policy, told us that the responses were too “cute.” 

Hertling acknowledged that the Department’s response misstated the timing of 

the decision to appoint Griffin and whether Rove was involved in Griffin’s 

appointment. Hertling said that at the time he signed the response he was 

unaware that the facts as stated in the letter were not accurate. Hertling said 

he did not even become aware that the U.S. Attorneys had been removed until 

sometime in mid-January 2007, after he became Acting Assistant Attorney 

General. Hertling said that Sampson prepared the response to the specific 

questions about Griffin.93 Hertling said he assumed that the response was 

truthful, accurate, and complete, and said he had no basis to question the 

representations contained in the letter. 

With respect to the statement that Rove did not play a role in the 

decision to appoint Griffin, Hertling told us that he had a vague recollection of 

asking Sampson whether Rove was involved in Griffin’s nomination. According 

to Hertling, Sampson responded that he did not talk to Rove about Griffin and 

he did not think Gonzales did either. Hertling said he did not press the issue 

because the way the statement was worded seemed accurate. 

G. Griffin Withdraws 

On February 15, 2007, Attorney General Gonzales and Senator Pryor 

again discussed whether Pryor would support Griffin’s nomination as U.S. 

Attorney. Gonzales told us that during their conversation Pryor indicated he 

would not support Griffin’s nomination. Gonzales said he then told Pryor that 

he would confer with the Arkansas congressional delegation for names of other 

individuals to consider for the U.S. Attorney position, as he had previously 

agreed to do. 

Griffin told us that Goodling called him immediately after Gonzales’s 

conversation with Pryor to tell him about the discussion. Later that evening, 

Griffin announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for 

the permanent U.S. Attorney position. 

93 Sampson prepared the initial draft response and asked Goodling to verify the specific 

dates concerning Griffin’s appointment. 

140
 

During our interview, Gonzales said he was reluctant to discuss with us 

conversations he had with the White House concerning his commitment to 

Senator Pryor to find other candidates. Gonzales said, however, that the White 

House was “unhappy that I had honored my commitment” to Pryor. 

Griffin told us that Rove informed him that individuals in the White 

House were unhappy with Gonzales when they learned that he told Pryor that 

he would not recommend Griffin’s nomination to the White House because 

Pryor would not support Griffin. 

Shortly after Griffin withdrew his name from consideration, Gonzales told 

Griffin that the process of identifying alternate candidates, vetting them, and 

preparing a nomination would take several months and that Gonzales was 

happy to have Griffin serve as Interim U.S. Attorney while the process moved 

forward. Griffin did so for several months and resigned on June 1, 2007. 

H. Taylor’s Comment Concerning Cummins 

On February 16, 2007, after Griffin had announced he was withdrawing 

his name from the nomination process, White House Political Affairs Director 

Sara Taylor sent Sampson an e-mail expressing anger at the manner in which 

the Department had “forced” Griffin to withdraw. Taylor also stated in the email that, “McNulty refuses to say Bud is lazy – which is why we got rid of him 

in the first place.” 

When we asked Taylor why she had the impression Cummins was “lazy,” 

she said she did not personally know Cummins and she did not recall 

specifically where she first heard that Cummins was lazy.94 Taylor told us that 

she had the general impression that lawyers in Arkansas did not think highly 

of Cummins, but also said she did not recall how she received that impression. 

Taylor said it was possible that she received a negative impression of Cummins 

from Griffin, but she said she did not believe that he was her only source. She 

stated that because Griffin was on her staff, she talked to “tons of Arkansans” 

who visited the White House whenever they were in Washington. Taylor said 

she likely gained her impression of Cummins through a combination of 

information from Griffin and from other Arkansas attorneys. 

Griffin told us he did not remember ever telling Taylor that Cummins was 

lazy. Griffin said he did not personally believe Cummins was lazy. However, 

he said that he had heard similar comments about Cummins from other people 

and was sure he had passed on the comments. Griffin admitted that in 2005 

and 2006 he might have made negative comments about Cummins to 

94 In her Senate testimony, Taylor stated that she wanted to apologize to Cummins for 

her “unkind and unnecessary comment.” 

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Sampson, Taylor, and others along the lines of complaining about Cummins’s 

failure to get another job. 

We asked former White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs 

Jennings whether he was aware of any criticism concerning Cummins’s 

performance as U.S. Attorney. Jennings told us that he had heard both Griffin 

and Taylor criticize Cummins. Jennings said “the knock on [Cummins] 

specifically from Mr. Griffin was that [Cummins] was generally regarded as 

being lazy, and it was a widely known thing in legal circles in Little Rock.” 

Jennings said that Griffin and Taylor also criticized Cummins for not being in 

the office while he was looking for another job. Jennings acknowledged that 

Taylor’s awareness about events in Arkansas most likely came from Griffin. 

III. Analysis 

A. Cummins’s Removal 

Similar to our investigation into the reasons for Graves’s removal, our 

investigation of Cummins’s removal was hindered by the refusal of several 

former White House employees to cooperate with our investigation. In 

particular, Rove, Miers, Kelley, and Klingler had important and relevant 

information for our investigation, but they refused to cooperate with our 

investigation and be interviewed by us. However, we believe we were able to 

ascertain the reasons for Cummins’s removal. 

Sampson included Cummins as one of many “weak U.S. Attorneys” on 

his first removal list in March 2005. When we interviewed Sampson, he said 

that he could not recall specifically why he identified Cummins for potential 

removal on this list. Sampson said he felt that Cummins was mediocre and an 

underperformer, although he also said he could not recall learning anything 

specific about Cummins’s performance between 2001 and 2005 that would 

have supported this belief. Sampson acknowledged that his view of Cummins 

was colored by information he gained from Cummins’s nomination process, not 

from Cummins’s performance as U.S. Attorney. While Sampson told us that he 

thought other Department managers also viewed Cummins’s performance as 

mediocre, none of the Department managers we interviewed confirmed this or 

said they had provided such an assessment to Sampson. 

In fact, several of the Department’s senior managers, including Deputy 

Attorneys General Comey and McNulty, Associate Deputy Attorney General 

Margolis, and EOUSA Director Buchanan, told us they did not hear anything 

negative about Cummins’s performance. Michael Battle, the Director of 

EOUSA at the time of Cummins’s removal, had an extremely positive view of 

Cummins’s service as U.S. Attorney. Battle said that he was not aware of any 

problems or dissatisfaction within the Department concerning Cummins’s 

performance, and Battle added that he considered Cummins to be one of the 

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top five U.S. Attorneys in the country. In addition, the two EARS evaluations of 

Cummins’s office over a 4-year period were positive about his management of 

the office and his adherence to the Department’s priorities. 

We also found no factual underpinning for certain derogatory public 

comments that surfaced about Cummins after the Department removed him. 

For example, the Department produced to Congress e-mail records between 

Sampson and White House Political Affairs Director Taylor. In one e-mail, 

Taylor commented angrily that Cummins was “lazy – which is why we got rid of 

him in the first place.” Taylor subsequently apologized for this comment, and 

we found no support for this comment during our investigation. 

The evidence shows that once Sampson provided to the White House his 

initial list of U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal, White House officials 

pushed for Griffin to replace Cummins. In mid-March 2005 Karl Rove 

suggested to White House Counsel Harriet Miers that Griffin could be 

considered for Cummins’s U.S. Attorney position, and Miers discussed with 

Griffin his desire to become a U.S. Attorney. Over the next year, throughout 

Griffin’s tenure both at the White House and during his military service, Griffin 

continued to discuss his desire to be U.S. Attorney in Arkansas with Rove and 

Miers. 

In Sampson’s January 2006 list of U.S. Attorneys, he recommended that 

the White House remove Cummins and listed Griffin as a potential replacement 

for Cummins. After the removals, Sampson claimed that by January 2006 

Cummins had indicated that he intended to resign and that this was the 

reason Griffin was chosen to replace him. In fact, Cummins had not stated at 

that time when he intended to resign. Rather, Cummins had only indicated to 

a small Arkansas newspaper that it would not be shocking for him to leave 

before the end of President Bush’s second term. 

Nevertheless, in June 2006, before Cummins had made any plans to 

resign, the White House began Griffin’s pre-nomination process. On June 14, 

EOUSA Director Battle was instructed to ask Cummins for his resignation and 

inform him that the Administration wanted to give someone else the 

opportunity to serve. While Battle was surprised and upset at the directive, he 

did not question it and made the call as instructed. 

In sum, while Sampson said he thought Cummins was “mediocre,” 

primarily based on his interview of Cummins before he became the U.S. 

Attorney, neither Sampson nor anyone else in the Department evaluated 

Cummins’s performance before Cummins was placed on the initial removal list. 

After that, the White House began pressing for Griffin to be placed in 

Cummins’s position, and in June 2006 Cummins was instructed to resign to 

provide a place for Griffin. 

143
B. Misleading Statements about Cummins’s Removal 

We found that after Cummins was instructed to resign and Griffin was 

announced as his replacement, senior Department leaders made a series of 

conflicting and misleading statements about Cummins’s removal. 

First, in talking points Sampson drafted on December 19, 2006, for the 

Department’s Office of Public Affairs to use in response to any press inquiries 

about the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment, Sampson wrote that when a 

U.S. Attorney vacancy arises someone needs to be appointed even if on an 

interim basis to fill the vacancy and that Griffin was appointed because of the 

timing of Cummins’s resignation. In fact, the White House and the Department 

had directed Cummins to resign so that Griffin could take his place. The 

Department’s talking points left the misleading impression that because of the 

unexpected timing of Cummins’s resignation, the Department had to install 

Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney. In fact, the Department planned to remove 

Cummins and install Griffin. 

In his January 18, 2007, testimony before the Senate Judiciary 

Committee, Attorney General Gonzales testified that the Department had asked 

U.S. Attorneys to resign after evaluating their performance, and changes were 

made pursuant to the Attorney General’s responsibility to ensure that the 

Department had “the best possible person” in each district. However, we found 

no evidence that either Sampson or any other Department official evaluated 

Cummins’s performance. Nor does the evidence show that Griffin was chosen 

to replace Cummins because Griffin was considered to be the “best possible 

person” for the job. 

Moreover, contrary to the Attorney General’s testimony, Deputy Attorney 

General McNulty testified in his February 6 appearance before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee that Cummins was not asked to step aside for 

performance reasons, but rather to make way for Griffin. In an e-mail after the 

testimony, Sampson endorsed McNulty’s statement that Cummins’s removal 

was not connected to his performance, but was “more related to the 

opportunity to provide a fresh start with a new person in that position.” 

After this public testimony, the Department made other misleading 

statements about Cummins’s removal. The most troubling were the 

representations contained in the February 23 response to a letter from several 

Senators raising concerns about Cummins’s removal. The Department’s 

February 23 letter, drafted by Sampson and circulated to various Department 

senior managers and the White House, made three significant misleading 

statements. The first was that “It was well known as early as December 2004 

that Mr. Cummins intended to leave . . . .” In fact, as noted above, Cummins 

had simply said it would not be shocking for him to leave before the end of 

President Bush’s second term. 

144
The second concerned the timing of when the White House first 

contemplated Griffin’s appointment and when the final decision was made to 

appoint Griffin. The letter stated that “the decision to have Mr. Griffin replace 

Mr. Cummins was first contemplated in the spring or summer of 2006 [and] 

the final decision to appoint Mr. Griffin . . . was made on or about December 15 

. . . .” In fact, as discussed above, Griffin’s appointment was contemplated 

earlier than that, and the Department decided to appoint him to be the U.S. 

Attorney much earlier than December 15, 2006. 

The third misleading statement in the letter was that “The Department is 

not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.” 

This statement is contradicted by the evidence described in this chapter which 

indicated that Rove was involved in the decision to appoint Griffin and that 

Sampson was aware of that fact. The statement is also contradicted by 

Sampson’s own e-mail on December 19 to Associate White House Counsel 

Chris Oprison in which Sampson wrote, “I’m not 100 percent sure that Tim 

was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him 

appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” While Sampson later explained 

this e-mail by stating that he “assumed” but did not know that Rove was 

involved in the decision to appoint Griffin, we found this justification 

unpersuasive and belied by the evidence. 

C. Interim Appointment of Griffin 

Finally, our investigation examined the allegation that the Department 

intended to appoint Griffin to be Interim U.S. Attorney indefinitely by using the 

new authority granted to the Attorney General in the Patriot Reauthorization 

Act to bypass the Senate confirmation process. 

We concluded that when the Department initially developed and 

implemented the plan to replace Cummins with Griffin, it intended to nominate 

Griffin and seek his confirmation through the normal Senate process. After 

Cummins was directed in June 2006 to resign, the White House’s Judicial 

Selection Committee voted in favor of Griffin’s nomination, and the President 

signed off on the intent to nominate Griffin. However, the White House did not 

follow the traditional practice of informing the home-state congressional 

delegation and soliciting U.S. Attorney candidate names. This deviation from 

the customary procedure contributed to the belief that the Administration 

intended to bypass the Senate’s normal role in U.S. Attorney nominations. 

The selection of Griffin quickly ran into opposition from members of 

Congress from Arkansas, particularly Senator Pryor. The evidence indicated 

that at this point the Department officials responsible for Griffin’s nomination – 

particularly Sampson and Goodling – considered appointing Griffin to be the 

Interim U.S. Attorney indefinitely, using the new Patriot Act authority. For 

example, Griffin told us that he learned from Goodling sometime after he had 

145
spoken to Senator Pryor that an appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney under 

the Patriot Act amendment would allow him to serve as U.S. Attorney 

indefinitely. 

Moreover, although Sampson and Jennings told us that the problems 

with the Arkansas Senators did not change their thinking about having Griffin 

go through the traditional nomination and Senate confirmation process, the 

documentary evidence does not support this claim. For example, by midAugust 2006 the Department had stopped preparing the paperwork for Griffin 

to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. In addition, in 

an e-mail dated August 30, 2006, Griffin informed an EOUSA employee that he 

had spoken with Jennings who “doesn’t see any reason to proceed with the 

senate paperwork since the appointment will occur the other way.” In a 

September 13, 2006, e-mail to Miers, Sampson also wrote, “I strongly 

recommend that, as a matter of Administration policy, we utilize the new 

statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments.” 

Sampson wrote that by bypassing the Senate confirmation process, “we can 

give far less deference to home-state Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred 

person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less political 

cost to the White House.” 

Gonzales told us that he had no specific recollection of discussing this 

issue with Sampson at the time, although he said he did not support using the 

interim appointment authority to bypass the Senate confirmation process. 

In December 2006, after Cummins resigned, Griffin was appointed as 

Interim U.S. Attorney. Gonzales discussed Griffin’s appointment in several 

conversations with Senator Pryor. According to Gonzales, he asked Pryor to 

support Griffin and said that Griffin’s interim appointment would give Pryor the 

opportunity to see how Griffin performed. Pryor did not respond positively, and 

a newspaper article from Arkansas stated that he was “irked” by the surprise 

notice of Griffin’s appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney. Sampson then wrote 

another e-mail suggesting that Griffin should remain as the Interim U.S. 

Attorney indefinitely, bypassing Senate confirmation. In response to concern 

from White House Associate Counsel Oprison that the Arkansas Senators could 

use Griffin’s interim status to press for their own nominee, Sampson responded 

“I think we should gum this to death . . . .” Sampson also wrote that because 

Griffin’s interim appointment was of unlimited duration, the Department could 

“run out the clock” while appearing to be acting in good faith by asking the 

Senators for recommendations, interviewing other candidates, and pledging to 

desire a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. 

Sampson later disavowed this e-mail, labeling it a “bad idea at the staff 

level.” He also said that he did not really believe the plan was practical, and 

that Attorney General Gonzales never seriously considered it. Gonzales also 

told us that he did not support this idea. In addition, in the face of continuing 

146
opposition from Senator Pryor to Griffin’s appointment, Griffin resigned and the 

Department sought other candidates to be nominated to the U.S. Attorney 

position. 

Our investigation did not find evidence that Attorney General Gonzales 

ever supported the idea to appoint Griffin to an indefinite term to avoid the 

Senate confirmation process. However, the evidence showed that he was not 

closely involved in Griffin’s appointment process, and that Sampson, the main 

architect and implementer of the plan to replace U.S. Attorneys, advocated 

making Griffin the Interim U.S. Attorney indefinitely when his nomination was 

opposed by the Arkansas Senators. According to Sampson’s and Gonzales’s 

recollections, Sampson took these actions on his own, without input and 

supervision from Gonzales. But Sampson’s ideas were more than “a bad idea 

at the staff level” – he advocated a plan and began implementing it. Only in the 

face of determined opposition by Senator Pryor, as well as the controversy 

surrounding the removal of the other U.S. Attorneys, did Sampson abandon 

this plan. 

In sum, we concluded that Cummins was not removed for performance 

reasons, as initially suggested by the Department. His performance was never 

evaluated, and no Department leader had suggested that Cummins’s 

performance was lacking. Sampson stated that he thought Cummins was 

“mediocre” but he never assessed his performance, and he later agreed with 

McNulty that Cummins was not removed for performance reasons. Rather, the 

evidence shows that the main reason for Cummins’s removal, and the timing 

for his removal, was to provide a position for former White House employee 

Griffin. 

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148
Sep 2001

Sep 2001

Oct 16, 2006 

Representative Wilson calls Iglesias 

about public corruption case 

David Iglesias Timeline

Iglesias Events 

and Actions 

Oct 11, 2006 

President Bush tells Gonzales 

about voter fraud concerns in three 

cities, including Albuquerque 

Oct 26, 2006 

Domenici calls Iglesias about public 

corruption case and asks whether an 

indictment will be filed before November 

Jun 2004 Jul 2004 Sep 2004 Oct 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Sep 2005 Oct 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 

Jun 2004 - Sep 2004 

Iglesias hears concerns from New 

Mexico Republican officials and 

party activists about voter fraud 

Sep 2004 

Iglesias establishes a voter fraud task force 

Sep 2004 - 2006 

Task Force reviews complaints, but brings no cases 

Mar 2, 2005 

On the first removal list Sampson 

identifies Iglesias as a “strong” U.S. 

Attorney who should not be removed 

Jan 2005 - Oct 2005 

New Mexico Republican officials and activists complain to the 

White House about Iglesias's handling of voter fraud allegations 

Sep 23, 2005 

Jan 31, 2006 

Domenici makes second call to 

Gonzales concerning Iglesias 

Apr 6, 2006 

May 2006 Jun 21, 2006 

New Mexico Republicans meet with 

Department officials, including 

Goodling, to complain about Iglesias 

Sep 30, 2006 

Vigil’s retrial results in acquittal 

on 23 of 24 counts 

Oct 2, 2006 

New Mexico Republicans complain 

to Rove about Iglesias’s handling of 

courthouse public corruption and 

voter fraud cases 

Oct 4, 2006 

Domenici calls McNulty concerning Iglesias 

Oct 2006 

Rove tells Gonzales about voter fraud 

concerns in three cities, including 

Albuquerque, then Gonzales tells Sampson 

Oct 2006 - Nov 2006 

Miers calls McNulty 

about Iglesias 

Nov 7, 2006 

Iglesias’s name appears on Sampson’s 

removal list for the first time 

Nov 15, 2006 

Rove tells Wilson that Iglesias is “gone” 

Dec 7, 2006 

Iglesias is told to resign 

Jan 5, 2007 

Feb 28, 2007 

Oct 12, 2001 

Iglesias is confirmed by the 

Senate as the U.S. Attorney, 

New Mexico 

Domenici makes third call to 

Senator Domenici makes first call to Gonzales concerning Iglesias Gonzales concerning Iglesias Iglesias announces his resignation to his office 

Iglesias leaves office 

Iglesias reveals publicly that Domenici 

and Wilson called him in October 

2006 about the courthouse case 

Sep 2001 Oct 2001 

New Mexico Republican officials and 

activists complain about Iglesias's 

handling of a public corruption case 

involving Vigil, a New Mexican Democrat 

who is the state treasurer DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 
CHAPTER SIX 

DAVID IGLESIAS 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of David Iglesias, the former United 

States Attorney for the District of New Mexico. 

A. Iglesias’s Background 

Iglesias received his law degree from the University of New Mexico School 

of Law in 1984. From 1984 to 1988, he served in the U.S. Navy Judge 

Advocate General’s Corps (JAG). After leaving active duty service, he has 

served on reserve duty in the Navy JAG, where he holds the rank of Captain. 

From 1988 through 1991, Iglesias was an Assistant Attorney General in 

the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, after which he served as an Assistant 

City Attorney in Albuquerque from 1991 to 1994. Between 1994 and 1995, he 

participated in the White House Fellows program as a Special Assistant to the 

Secretary of Transportation. He served as Chief Counsel for the New Mexico 

Risk Management Legal Office between 1995 and 1998, and as General 

Counsel for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department from 1998 to 

2001. In 2001, he worked at a private law firm in Albuquerque. 

In 1998, Iglesias ran unsuccessfully as the Republican Party’s candidate 

for New Mexico Attorney General. During the campaign, staff from U.S. 

Senator Pete Domenici’s office provided advice and logistical support, and 

Iglesias met personally with Senator Domenici on several occasions. Domenici 

also made a videotaped statement endorsing Iglesias’s candidacy, which 

Iglesias used to raise campaign funds. Iglesias told us that because of the 

Senator’s interest and support, Iglesias regarded him as a mentor and someone 

who might be able to help Iglesias if he continued to pursue a political career. 

U.S. Representative Heather Wilson successfully ran for a seat in 

Congress from New Mexico in 1998, and Iglesias campaigned with her at 

several events. Iglesias said that previously, when Wilson was the Secretary of 

the New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families from 1995 to 

1998, he worked with her on several matters while he was in the state’s Risk 

Management Legal Office. 

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, Iglesias headed a New Mexico 

state-level organization called “Lawyers for Bush.” He said that after the 

election he learned that he could apply directly for the New Mexico U.S. 

Attorney position through a White House website. He submitted his résumé 

149
 

 

 

and simultaneously informed Senator Domenici’s staff that he was interested 

in the job. 

Iglesias and three other candidates were eventually selected to be 

interviewed by Senator Domenici. Iglesias told us he believes he may have 

been the only one whose name was sent on to the Department of Justice. He 

said he was interviewed at the Department by Associate Deputy Attorney 

General David Margolis, Kyle Sampson (then with the White House Office of 

Presidential Personnel), and a third official from the Executive Office for United 

States Attorneys (EOUSA). After subsequent interviews with Attorney General 

John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, Iglesias was 

nominated by the President for the U.S. Attorney position on August 2, 2001, 

confirmed by the Senate, and sworn in on October 17, 2001.95 

Iglesias was appointed as the Chair of the Border and Immigration 

Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) and 

served in that position until 2005. 

According to Iglesias, at various times in 2004 the White House asked 

him to consider an appointment to be Director of EOUSA, or an Assistant 

Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, two positions he said he 

was not interested in pursuing. Documents also reflect that around the same 

time Sampson and others in the Department considered him as a potential 

candidate for U.S. Attorney vacancies in the Southern District of New York and 

the District of Columbia. 

B. The EARS Evaluations of Iglesias’s Office 

Iglesias’s office received EARS evaluations in 2002 and 2005, and both 

reports were positive. The 2002 EARS evaluation stated: “The United States 

Attorney was well respected by the client agencies, judiciary, and USAO staff. 

He provided good leadership . . . and was appropriately engaged in the 

operations of the office.” The 2005 EARS evaluation stated: “The United States 

Attorney . . . was respected by the judiciary, agencies, and staff. The First 

Assistant United States Attorney . . . appropriately oversaw the day-to-day 

work of the senior management team, effectively addressed all management 

issues, and directed resources to accomplish the Department’s and the United 

States Attorney’s priorities.” The EARS reports did not contain any criticisms 

or concerns about Iglesias’s leadership. 

95 Iglesias hired as his Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney (EAUSA) Rumaldo Armijo, a 

former colleague from both the state Attorney General’s Office and Albuquerque city 

government. Iglesias hired Larry Gomez, a career prosecutor who had been with the New 

Mexico U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) since 1979 as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney and 

Criminal Chief. 

150
 

 

C. Iglesias’s Status on the Removal Lists 

As discussed in Chapter Three, in March 2005 Sampson sent to the 

White House the first list of U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal. On that 

list, Sampson identified Iglesias as 1 of 26 “strong” U.S. Attorneys who should 

be retained by the Department. Iglesias did not appear on any of Sampson’s 

subsequent removal lists until the list Sampson circulated on November 7, 

2006, 1 month before Iglesias and the other U.S. Attorneys were removed. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Iglesias’s Removal 

As described in Chapter Three, in February 2007 when the Department 

began to prepare witnesses for their congressional testimony regarding the U.S. 

Attorney removals, Monica Goodling and others created a chart with a list of 

the reasons justifying the removals. In her handwritten notes describing the 

reasons, Goodling wrote that Iglesias was an “underachiever in a very 

important district,” that he was an “absentee landlord,” that he was “in over his 

head,” and that “Domenici says he doesn’t move cases.” 

Senator Domenici made three telephone calls to Attorney General 

Gonzales in 2005 and 2006, and one to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty 

in October 2006, complaining about Iglesias’s performance. However, 

Domenici’s complaints were omitted from the list of reasons for Iglesias’s 

termination, both in the final typewritten chart that Goodling prepared for 

McNulty’s use in his February 14, 2007, briefing of the Senate Judiciary 

Committee and from Department officials’ initial statements about Iglesias’s 

removal.96 

According to the talking points McNulty used to prepare for the 

February 14 briefing for the Senate Judiciary Committee and notes of the 

meeting taken by Nancy Scott-Finan, an Office of Legislative Affairs official who 

attended the briefing, McNulty gave the following reasons for Iglesias’s removal: 

• He was “under-performing”; 

• He was an “absentee landlord,” who was out of the office a fair 

amount of time and who relied on the First Assistant U.S. Attorney 

to run the office; and 

• The Department had received congressional complaints about 

Iglesias. 

McNulty confirmed to us that he did not mention Senator Domenici in 

this congressional briefing. McNulty said that he did not want to refer to 

96 We describe the telephone calls from Domenici later in this chapter. 

151
 

Domenici because he was “concerned about . . . putting the Senator in a bad 

light or in a difficult position” and that he wanted to keep his conversation with 

Domenici “confidential . . . . It was just a courtesy.” In her written testimony 

to the House Judiciary Committee, Goodling, the Department’s White House 

Liaison, also stated that Domenici’s complaints about Iglesias were omitted 

from the list of reasons for Iglesias’s removal at McNulty’s suggestion. 

On March 6, 2007, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William 

Moschella testified before a House Judiciary Subcommittee about the reasons 

for the removals of each U.S. Attorney. Moschella stated that Iglesias’s removal 

was based on concerns about his management of the New Mexico U.S. 

Attorney’s Office: 

There was a general sense with regard to this district . . . that the 

district was in need of greater leadership. We have had a 

discussion about the EARS report, and the EARS report does pick 

up some management issues, and Mr. Iglesias had delegated to his 

first assistant [Larry Gomez] the overall running of the office.97 

Moschella, like McNulty, did not mention Domenici’s calls to Department 

officials. 

Iglesias himself was the first to publicly disclose that Senator Domenici 

may have had a role in his removal. In a press conference on February 28, 

2007, without naming Senator Domenici or Representative Wilson, Iglesias 

stated that he had received telephone calls from two members of Congress who 

pressured him to indict a public corruption case before the November 2006 

election. In response, on March 4 and March 6, respectively, Domenici and 

Wilson released written statements confirming that they had called Iglesias but 

denying that they pressured him in any way. 

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6, 

2007, Iglesias again stated that he believed he was asked to resign because he 

failed to respond to political pressure to indict a public corruption case against 

Democratic officials before the November 2006 election. In his Senate 

testimony, Iglesias described the telephone calls he received from Senator 

Domenici and Representative Wilson in October 2006 regarding the status of a 

pending public corruption matter, and Iglesias testified that in both instances 

he felt he was being pressured to bring an indictment before the November 

election. 

Sampson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29, 

2007, about the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. Sampson stated that he did 

97 As we discuss in Section II. A. below, Moschella’s statements about the EARS report 

were inaccurate. 

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not recall the reasons Iglesias was placed on the November 7 removal list, but 

said the fact that Senator Domenici had made three calls to the Attorney 

General and one call to the Deputy Attorney General regarding Iglesias may 

have influenced the decision to remove Iglesias. Sampson said he recalled 

McNulty saying that Domenici would not mind if Iglesias’s name stayed on the 

list. Sampson also stated that there were management concerns about 

Iglesias. He said that in 2005 William Mercer, at the time the Principal 

Associate Deputy Attorney General, “expressed negative views about Mr. 

Iglesias . . . and recommended that he not be reappointed . . . as chair of the 

Border Committee.”98 Sampson also stated that “at some point, Mr. David 

Margolis . . . indicated to me . . . that [Iglesias] wasn’t a strong manager, that 

he delegated a lot to his First Assistant.”99 

On April 19, 2007, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that 

Iglesias had “lost the confidence of Senator Domenici” because he “did not have 

the appropriate personnel focused on cases like public corruption cases.” In 

his May 10, 2007, testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales 

added that because Iglesias did not have Domenici’s confidence, it was “enough 

for me to lose confidence in Mr. Iglesias.” During Gonzales’s House and Senate 

testimony, he also stated that in one of his conversations with Domenici the 

Senator mentioned voter fraud cases. 

Gonzales also testified that in the fall of 2006 Karl Rove had mentioned 

to him his concern over voter fraud in three cities, one of which was 

Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gonzales said he did not recall, but did not 

dispute, that President Bush expressed similar concerns to him about the 

same three cities on October 11, 2006. 

E. Investigative Limitations 

It is important to note that our investigation into Iglesias’s removal was 

hampered, and is not complete, because key witnesses declined to cooperate 

with our investigation. In particular, former White House officials Harriet 

Miers and Karl Rove, both of whom appear to have significant first-hand 

knowledge regarding Iglesias’s dismissal, refused our requests for an interview 

98 When he chaired the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee in February 2005, 

Mercer had recommended to Sampson that Iglesias and several other subcommittee chairs be 

replaced because Mercer did not think they were as effective chairmen as Mercer thought they 

should be. However, Mercer told us that while some of the names on Sampson’s U.S. Attorney 

removal list did not surprise him when he first saw the list on December 5, 2006, he had not 

expected to see Iglesias on the list. 

99 However, as detailed below, Margolis told us he was certain that he told Sampson 

about these allegations only after Iglesias was removed. Margolis said he only became aware of 

Iglesias’s delegation of authority to his First Assistant when he interviewed a replacement for 

Iglesias after his removal. 

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even though the White House Counsel’s Office informed them both, as it did all 

current and former White House staff who we wanted to interview, that the 

Counsel’s Office encouraged them to cooperate with our investigation and 

submit to an interview. 

In addition, Senator Domenici and his Chief of Staff, Steve Bell, also 

declined to be interviewed by us. Domenici initially told us through his 

counsel that he would be “pleased to assist” our investigation once a pending 

Senate Ethics Committee investigation of his phone call to Iglesias was 

completed. We renewed our requests for interviews after the Senate ethics 

inquiry was concluded. Bell continued to decline to be interviewed. Domenici 

also declined to be interviewed, but said he would provide written answers to 

questions through his attorney. We declined this offer because we did not 

believe it would be a reliable or appropriate investigative method under these 

circumstances. In contrast, Representative Wilson cooperated with our 

investigation and was interviewed by us three separate times.100 

In addition, we were not provided documents from the White House that 

we believe are critical to our investigation. As noted in Chapter One, the White 

House Counsel’s Office declined to provide us internal White House e-mails 

and documents related to the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. Moreover, as 

described in Chapter One, the White House refused to authorize the 

Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to release to us drafts of a chronology of 

events related to the U.S. Attorney firings prepared by Associate White House 

Counsel Michael Scudder in cooperation with Department staff. The White 

House only authorized the release of one paragraph of that chronology related 

to Iglesias, Harriet Miers, and Representative Wilson, and two paragraphs 

containing information Rove provided to Scudder but did not allow the release 

of other information from that chronology. 

We interviewed Mickey Barnett, an attorney and former Republican state 

Senator from New Mexico, who provided documents to the U.S. Senate 

pursuant to a subpoena in connection with the Senate Ethics Committee 

investigation of Senator Domenici’s telephone call to Iglesias. Although Barnett 

gave us several documents from among those he produced to the Senate, he 

refused to give us all the documents he produced and we are not able to obtain 

them from the Senate Ethics Committee. 

100 Patrick Rogers, a New Mexico Republican Party activist who complained about 

Iglesias to Department and White House officials, notified us through his attorney that he 

would not agree to be interviewed. In one letter, he also stated that he would “consider 

providing testimony to DOJ, but only if the interview is conducted in public.” 

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II. Chronology of Events Related to Iglesias’s Removal 

In this section, we examine the reasons proffered for Iglesias’s removal. 

We first discuss the Department’s assertion that Iglesias was removed because 

he was an “absentee landlord” and because he delegated many of his duties 

and responsibilities to his First Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

We then describe in detail the factual chronology regarding Iglesias’s 

handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases in his district. We analyze 

whether the complaints about his handling of these cases were the cause of his 

removal. We also examine the nature and extent of both congressional and 

New Mexico Republican Party activists’ complaints to the White House and to 

the Department about Iglesias’s handling of these cases, and we describe the 

events leading to Iglesias’s removal. 

A. Alleged Concerns about Iglesias’s Management 

As noted above, in both its written materials and public testimony, the 

Department justified Iglesias’s removal based in part on an allegation that he 

was an “absentee landlord” who over-delegated authority to run the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office to his First Assistant. 

We determined that during the preparation sessions for McNulty’s closed 

briefing, when Department senior officials were discussing the reasons they 

would present to Congress as justifications for the removals, someone raised 

the allegation that Iglesias had been an “absentee landlord.” No one we 

interviewed remembered who called Iglesias an absentee landlord at this 

meeting. According to Margolis, when he heard at the meeting the allegation 

that Iglesias was an absentee landlord, he told Goodling that the allegation had 

been “corroborated” by New Mexico First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gomez when 

he interviewed with Margolis and Goodling for Iglesias’s vacant U.S. Attorney 

position, after Iglesias had been removed. However, Margolis told us that he 

was not aware of any allegations concerning Iglesias’s management style until 

after Iglesias was removed because his knowledge was derived solely from his 

interview of Gomez. 

As noted above, Moschella testified to the House Judiciary Subcommittee 

that an EARS report “picked up some management issues, and Mr. Iglesias had 

delegated to his first assistant the overall running of the office.” Moschella also 

testified that he did not recall whether the EARS report characterized Iglesias’s 

delegation of authority to his First Assistant as “appropriate.” We reviewed 

both EARS reports and found nothing in them to substantiate Moschella’s 

claim that an EARS report referred to any management issues regarding 

Iglesias’s delegation of authority. The 2002 EARS report stated “The United 

States Attorney was well respected by the client agencies, judiciary, and USAO 

staff. He provided good leadership . . . and was appropriately engaged in the 

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operations of the office.” Similarly, the 2005 EARS report stated that Iglesias 

was respected by agencies, the courts, and his staff, and that his First 

Assistant “appropriately oversaw the day-to-day work of the senior 

management team.” 

Attorney General Gonzales testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee 

on April 19, 2007, that an “absentee landlord” issue regarding Iglesias was “not 

in my mind, as I recall, when I accepted the recommendation [for Iglesias’s 

removal].” Gonzales also told us that his recollection was that at the time he 

approved Iglesias’s removal, the only criticism of which he was aware came 

from Senator Domenici, and he was not aware at that time of any concern 

about over-delegation of authority by Iglesias to his First Assistant. 

Both McNulty and Mercer testified to Congress that they did not know 

the basis for the allegations that Iglesias was an absentee landlord or that he 

overly delegated authority. McNulty said that he did not interpret the phrase 

“absentee landlord” to mean that Iglesias was physically out of his office. 

Rather, McNulty said that he interpreted the phrase to refer to Iglesias’s 

management style. McNulty said that he did not know who thought that 

Iglesias was an absentee landlord prior to the time that Iglesias was removed. 

Mercer told us that he had “no idea” how much time Iglesias spent in his office, 

and he told congressional investigators that he did not have “any idea about 

what sort of a leader or manager [Iglesias] was” in his office. 

Former EOUSA Director Buchanan told congressional investigators that 

she was “surprised” that Iglesias was removed. She said that “everything I 

knew about [Iglesias] was positive.” Former EOUSA Director Battle also told 

congressional investigators that he “could see no reason” why Iglesias was 

removed. Battle told us that “Iglesias was doing a good job.” 

Sampson testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, that he 

had heard concerns about Iglesias’s management. He said Margolis had 

indicated to him that Iglesias was not a strong manager and that he “delegated 

a lot” to his First Assistant. Sampson said he could not recall when Margolis 

told him this. But, as discussed previously, Margolis told us he was certain 

that he told Sampson about these allegations only after Iglesias was removed. 

According to Margolis, when he interviewed First Assistant Gomez for the 

vacant U.S. Attorney position, Gomez explained his qualifications for the U.S. 

Attorney position by noting that he ran the day-to-day operations of the office. 

Margolis told us that he thought that Gomez’s statement that he ran the dayto-day operations of the office “corroborated” the allegation that Iglesias was an 

absentee landlord. However, Margolis also told us that Gomez said nothing 

negative about Iglesias during his interview. 

Yet, Gomez told congressional investigators that he did not think that 

Iglesias over-delegated authority or was an absentee landlord. Gomez was 

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Iglesias’s First Assistant and Criminal Chief from the fall of 2001 until he 

became Acting U.S. Attorney upon Iglesias’s removal. Gomez has been a career 

federal prosecutor since 1979. Gomez told congressional investigators that he 

agreed with the 2005 EARS report that found that Iglesias “appropriately” 

delegated authority to him to oversee the day-to-day work of the office. Gomez 

also said that he never told the EARS evaluators that Iglesias over-delegated 

authority or was absent from the office for an unusual amount of time. Gomez 

said that he met with Iglesias daily when he was in the office, and spoke by 

phone with him generally every day when Iglesias was out of the office. Gomez 

added that, prior to Iglesias’s removal, Gomez never heard anyone say that 

Iglesias over-delegated authority or was an absentee landlord. Gomez said that 

Iglesias was “engaged in his office,” and that Iglesias’s management style was 

“very good.” Gomez said he never heard complaints from others about 

Iglesias’s management style. 

Rumaldo Armijo became Iglesias’s Executive Assistant in 2001. Armijo 

told us that he never heard anyone express concern that Iglesias was an 

absentee landlord or that Iglesias did not spend enough time in the office. 

Armijo said that he believed that Iglesias’s delegation of authority to Gomez 

was appropriate. Armijo said that Iglesias was “a strong leader” and that he 

was “very active in everything that went on here.” 

Iglesias told us that no one at “Main Justice” or in his office ever told him 

that he over-delegated authority. Iglesias said he delegated “routine” matters 

to Gomez, but that he decided “major issues.” Iglesias said he told Gomez that 

he did not need to know “about every little case that’s going on” but that he did 

need to know about “cases that affect policy, national priorities, or have media 

impact.” Iglesias denied he was an absentee landlord, saying many of his trips 

out of the office were to Washington to work on Department matters. Iglesias 

said that as an officer in the Naval Reserve, he was away from the office from 4 

to 6 days at a time, including weekends. As a Naval Reserve officer, he was 

required to serve 36 duty days a year, and he said that he probably averaged 

40 to 45 days of service a year. But Iglesias said that no one ever told him that 

his absences were hurting his office.101 Iglesias also told us that he was in 

constant Blackberry communication with his office when he was away. 

In sum, we concluded that the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee 

manager who had delegated too much authority to his First Assistant was an 

after-the-fact justification for Iglesias’s termination and was not in fact a 

reason he was placed on the removal list. 

101 Margolis told us that during the preparation sessions for McNulty’s testimony 

everyone agreed that Iglesias’s absences from the office as a result of his military duty were 

“honorable” and not the reason why Iglesias was deemed to be an absentee landlord. 

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B. Voter Fraud and Public Corruption Matters 

In the remainder of this chapter, we describe the facts concerning the 

complaints about Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and public corruption 

matters, which we concluded was the real reason Iglesias was removed as U.S. 

Attorney. 

1. Initial Complaints of Voter Fraud 

Iglesias told us that sometime during the summer of 2004, he became 

aware of concerns about voter fraud in New Mexico.102 The New Mexico media 

began focusing on the issue around that time, and the New Mexico USAO 

received complaints of possible registration fraud from several sources, 

including the Democratic Clerk of Bernalillo County, Mary Herrera. 

Iglesias said that he also received pressure from the Republican Party of 

New Mexico to pursue voter fraud cases before the 2004 elections. Scott 

Jennings, then the White House Associate Director of Political Affairs, told us 

that many Republicans believed that fraudulent registration by Democratic 

Party voters in New Mexico was a widespread problem and that it had cost 

President Bush the state in the 2000 Presidential election.103 Among those 

who urged Iglesias to investigate and prosecute voter fraud cases in New 

Mexico were Allen Weh, the Chairman of the state Republican Party; Patrick 

Rogers, a former general counsel to the state Republican Party who continued 

to represent the party on voter fraud and ballot access issues;104 Mickey 

Barnett, an attorney and former Republican state senator active in party 

politics; Steve Bell, Chief of Staff to Senator Pete Domenici; and Darren White, 

the elected Republican Sheriff of Bernalillo County and Chairman of the 2004 

102 The terms “voter registration fraud,” “voter fraud,” and “election fraud,” generally 

refer to practices such as fraudulently registering persons who are not eligible to vote, paying 

individuals to vote, attempting to vote multiple times, or impersonating a non-voting 

legitimately registered voter. 

103 The results of several recent presidential and congressional elections in New Mexico 

were extremely close, and the state was almost evenly balanced between votes for Republicans 

and Democrats. For example, in the 2000 presidential election Al Gore received 286,783 votes 

and George Bush received 286,417 votes, a difference of 366 votes. In 2006, incumbent House 

of Representative member Heather Wilson received 105,986 votes and her Democratic 

challenger Patricia Madrid received 105,125 votes, a difference of 861 votes. The New Mexico 

Republican Party became increasingly concerned about allegations of voter fraud in New 

Mexico, because it believed such fraud benefited Democrats by increasing the number of 

Democratic voters. As a result, Republican Party officials and activists began asking Iglesias to 

take action to address those concerns. 

104 Iglesias told us that Rogers had represented Iglesias’s campaign for Attorney 

General pro bono in 1998 when Iglesias contested a fine imposed by the state for late reporting 

of campaign contributions. Rogers also represented the Wilson campaign in 2006. 

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Bush-Cheney campaign in New Mexico.105 Iglesias said he knew all of these 

individuals and considered many of them to be his friends. 

On August 6, 2004, Weh sent Iglesias an e-mail proposing that Iglesias’s 

office become involved in “the party’s voter fraud working group” headed by 

Sheriff White. Weh copied his e-mail to Representative Wilson; Senator 

Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell; Sheriff White; Greg Graves, former Executive 

Director of the New Mexico Republican Party; New Mexico Republican 

Congressman Steve Pearce; and Pearce’s Chief of Staff, Jim Richards. Bell 

responded to Weh’s e-mail that this was a “critical matter” due to concerns 

about potential violation of voter registration laws. 

Iglesias responded that he would ask his office’s voting rights expert, 

Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Rumaldo Armijo, to coordinate a meeting 

regarding the proposal and contact White. No one associated with this 

proposal that we interviewed, including Weh, White, Wilson, Armijo, and 

Iglesias, said they recalled that the proposed working group was ever 

established, or that Iglesias’s office participated in any such group. However, 

as detailed below, Iglesias’s office continued to receive complaints from 

Republican officials and party activists about allegations of voter fraud in New 

Mexico. 

2. Representative Wilson’s Complaint Concerning Voter 

Fraud 

On August 17, 2004, Representative Wilson wrote a letter to Iglesias 

complaining about what she considered to be evidence of possible voter fraud 

in her district. In the letter, Wilson stated that an unusually large number of 

mailings from her office to newly registered voters had been returned as 

undeliverable, and she asked Iglesias’s office to “investigate whether these voter 

registrations were lawful and whether any organizations or groups are 

intentionally causing false voter registration forms to be filed with the county 

clerk.”106 

Iglesias responded to Wilson in a letter dated October 29, 2004, 

informing her that he was referring her complaint to the FBI “for their review 

and possible action. The FBI will determine whether a federal investigation 

may be warranted.” Wilson forwarded Iglesias’s response to her Chief of Staff 

with the handwritten comment, “What a waste of time. Nobody home at US 

105 Sheriff White referred several voter fraud complaints to the New Mexico USAO in 

early August 2004, including a case that received significant attention in the local press 

involving the registrations of a 13- and a 15-year-old. White is currently a Republican 

candidate for Congress in one of New Mexico’s three congressional districts. 

106 Wilson told us that there was no connection between the e-mail messages from Weh 

and Bell and her complaint to Iglesias. 

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Attorney’s Office.” Wilson told us that she faulted Iglesias for failing to pursue 

her August 17 complaint regarding possible voter fraud in a timely manner. 

3. Formation of the Election Fraud Task Force 

We determined that in response to these and other complaints, Iglesias 

consulted with his staff, spoke to attorneys in the Department’s Civil Rights 

and Criminal Divisions, and contacted federal prosecutors in other districts 

with experience in voter fraud matters. 

After discussions with the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, 

Iglesias decided to form a state and federal task force to address what he then 

believed to be a serious problem of voter fraud in the state. However, in order 

to avoid any public perception that the task force was seeking to advance a 

Republican political agenda, Iglesias also sought the participation of the 

Democratic Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, who agreed to assign an 

employee to the task force. The New Mexico Department of Public Safety (the 

state’s law enforcement agency), the U.S. Veteran’s Administration Inspector 

General’s Office, the FBI, and DOJ’s Public Integrity Section (PIN) also agreed 

to participate.107 

On September 7, 2004, the New Mexico USAO issued a press release 

announcing the formation of the Election Fraud Task Force. Two days later 

Iglesias announced at a press conference that a voter fraud (Task Force) hotline 

had been created, and he stated that allegations of fraud would be investigated 

thoroughly. In addition to Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Armijo, two 

experienced career AUSAs from Iglesias’s office were assigned to work with the 

Task Force.108 

However, Iglesias’s task force approach to allegations of voter fraud drew 

immediate criticism from some New Mexico Republicans. Former Republican 

state senator Barnett wrote an e-mail to Iglesias stating that “[m]ost of us think 

a task force is a joke and unlikely to make any citizen believe our elections and 

voter registrations are honest.” Former Republican Party general counsel 

Rogers complained to Iglesias that he had “includ[ed] the target on the task 

107 The Chief of the Department’s Public Integrity Section, Noel Hillman, and the Public 

Integrity Section’s Election Crimes Branch Director, Craig Donsanto, also participated in this 

task force. 

108 Around this time, in a letter dated September 8, 2004, Senator Domenici 

complained to the Department’s Civil Rights Division that incidents of voter registration fraud 

in New Mexico raised “serious concerns about the integrity of the upcoming elections.” The 

Senator’s letter was referred to the Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, which sent a 

generic response on November 23, 2004, stating that the Department investigates such 

allegations and “where appropriate” prosecutes them. We found no evidence that the 

Department took any other action in response to the letter. 

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force,” apparently a reference to the participation of an employee from the 

Secretary of State’s Office.109 Sheriff White told us that he thought the USAO 

should have investigated and prosecuted cases without involving state 

agencies, and that Iglesias’s concern about appearing nonpartisan was 

misguided. 

Although criticized by some New Mexico Republicans, Iglesias’s task 

force approach received recognition within the Department. For example, in 

October 2005 Iglesias was asked to speak at a Department-sponsored 

symposium on voting integrity. In addition, according to an attorney in the 

Public Integrity Section, Iglesias’s approach to the problem in New Mexico was 

held up by the Department as an example of how to handle voter fraud 

investigations. 

4. Continuing Complaints About Voter Fraud 

On September 15, 2004, the New Mexico USAO arranged for Rogers to 

meet with the FBI Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the Task Force. At 

the meeting, Rogers complained that large numbers of new voter registration 

forms in the state were fraudulent and should be investigated. Rogers 

identified an “ACORN” worker in particular as being responsible for a 

significant number of false registrations.110 Barnett told us that Republican 

activists hired a private investigator to identify and locate the ACORN worker in 

question, but they were unable to locate the worker. 

On September 19, 2004, Rogers sent an e-mail to Iglesias and Armijo 

stating that because the Democratic Party had questioned the validity of the 

voter fraud claims, Rogers wanted to “dig up all past info,” and asked if there 

was “any easy way to access the public info related to voter fraud from the 

[USAO] (public) files? Asap? Before Nov 2?” Iglesias responded that he would 

look into Rogers’ question “asap and let you know what is publicly available.” 

Iglesias subsequently identified a case the New Mexico USAO had prosecuted 

in the early 1990’s, retrieved the file, and provided public information about 

the case to Rogers, who thanked him by e-mail “for the public info.” 

On September 29, 2004, Rogers sent an e-mail to Iglesias, Armijo, and 

more than 20 persons associated with the New Mexico Republican Party, 

109 On the day the Task Force was announced, Rogers sent an e-mail to Iglesias 

criticizing the task force approach and attaching a copy of a deposition Rogers took of the 

employee from the Secretary of State’s Office assigned to the Task Force in a lawsuit contesting 

the state’s interpretation of a voter identification law. 

110 ACORN, an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform 

Now, describes itself as “the largest community organization of low- and moderate-income 

families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.” One of ACORN’s 

projects is to register new voters. 

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including Senator Domenici’s press secretary Ed Hild, Domenici’s Chief of Staff 

Bell, Representative Wilson’s Chief of Staff Bryce Dustman, New Mexico 

Republican Party Chairman Weh, and state Republican Party Executive 

Director Graves. Rogers’s lengthy e-mail included the following observations: 

I believe the [voter] ID issue should be used (now) at all levels – 

federal, state legislative races and Heather [Wilson]’s race . . . . 

You are not going to find a better wedge issue . . . . I’ve got to 

believe the [voter] ID issue would do Heather more good than 

another ad talking about how much federal taxpayer money she 

has put into the (state) education system and social security. . . . 

This is the single best wedge issue, ever in NM. We will not have 

this opportunity again . . . . Today, we expect to file a new Public 

Records lawsuit, by 3 Republican legislators, demanding the 

Bernalillo county clerk locate and produce (before Oct 15) ALL of 

the registrations signed by the ACORN employee . . . .111 

In a letter dated September 23, 2004, New Mexico Republican Party 

Executive Director Graves asked Iglesias to investigate an alleged theft of 

Republican voter registration forms from the office of the New Voter Project, an 

organization that seeks to register young people to vote. On October 21, 2004, 

Graves copied Iglesias on another complaint to the Bernalillo County Clerk 

asking that the Republican Party be allowed to inspect ACORN voter 

registration cards allegedly found during a drug raid. 

Weh also continued to pressure Iglesias to bring voter fraud prosecutions 

before the 2004 election. On September 24, 2004, Weh sent Iglesias and 

several Republican political figures, including the chiefs of staff to New 

Mexico’s Republican congressional delegation (Jim Richards, Bryce Dustman, 

and Steve Bell) an e-mail about voter fraud that included the following 

statement: 

We are still waiting for US Attorney Iglesisas [sic] to do what his 

office needs to do to hold people accountable, and have informed 

him that doing it after the election is too late. I have copied him on 

this e-mail for his info. 

In his message to Iglesias, Weh wrote: “Vote fraud issues are intensifing [sic], 

and we are looking for you to lead.” 

111 Because of the political nature of this and other e-mails he received from Rogers 

and Weh, Iglesias had previously asked them to use his personal e-mail account for these types 

of e-mails. However, both Rogers and Weh continued to contact Iglesias on occasion through 

his government e-mail account. 

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Weh told us he copied this e-mail to New Mexico Republican officials 

because he intended to send Iglesias the message that if he “cares about his 

professional reputation [he should] get his butt in gear and do what he is paid 

to do.” 

In mid-October 2004, Weh forwarded Iglesias an e-mail message he had 

received from Congressman Pearce’s Chief of Staff with an attached newspaper 

article about voter fraud in Colorado. The next day, Weh forwarded an e-mail 

to Iglesias from the assistant to Senator Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell that was 

addressed to Weh, Rogers, and John Dendahl, a former Republican Party 

Chairman and gubernatorial candidate. The original message read: “From 

Steve Bell. This [voter fraud] is really getting out of control.” Weh added the 

following message for Iglesias: “The game clock is running!” 

5. Election Fraud Task Force Review of Complaints 

The USAO’s Election Fraud Task Force met several times before the 

November 2004 election to review complaints of voter fraud. Iglesias informed 

his staff that Department of Justice policy prohibited their influencing the 

outcome of an election and that he did not believe the Department would 

authorize the commencement of any prosecutions before election day. 

According to an AUSA on the Task Force, most of the complaints the 

Task Force received involved what it considered to be relatively minor matters, 

such as campaign yard signs being stolen, harassing phone calls, or 

registration problems, and these complaints were referred to local election 

officials. Other potentially more serious matters, including the complaints 

from Representative Wilson, Sheriff White, Graves, and Rogers, were referred 

either to the FBI or to the New Mexico Department of Public Safety for 

investigation. 

In total, the Task Force received more than 100 complaints prior to the 

2004 election. The FBI investigated several potential violations of federal law 

and presented written summaries of the evidence it developed to the USAO. 

EAUSA Armijo and Craig Donsanto from the Department’s Public Integrity 

Section reviewed the summaries and made preliminary determinations 

regarding prosecutive decisions, which Iglesias reviewed and approved. With 

respect to Representative Wilson’s August 17, 2004, complaint of voter fraud 

discussed above, the FBI ultimately determined that the correspondence from 

her office to newly registered voters had been returned as undeliverable 

because of incomplete addresses on voter registration cards, errors made by 

Wilson’s office in addressing the envelopes, or because the voters, many of 

whom were college students, had changed addresses since registering. The FBI 

recommended, and EAUSA Armijo concurred, that the matter should be closed 

without further investigation or prosecution. 

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With respect to the allegation that an ACORN worker was responsible for 

a significant number of false voter registrations, the FBI identified and 

interviewed the worker in question. As a result of the investigation, the USAO 

and the Public Integrity Section jointly concluded that there was insufficient 

evidence of criminal intent on the subject’s part to justify prosecution. Iglesias 

told us that he viewed this case as the strongest one to come out of the Task 

Force, but that the evidence nevertheless did not justify going forward with a 

criminal prosecution. 

Iglesias also told us that when the Task Force began, he sincerely 

believed it would develop cases worth prosecuting. Contemporaneous e-mail 

records show that Iglesias encouraged his staff to pursue the Task Force cases, 

and that he believed the USAO needed to send a zero-tolerance message about 

voter fraud. Iglesias told us that in the final analysis, however, he concluded 

that there was insufficient evidence in any of the cases the Task Force reviewed 

to support criminal prosecution by the USAO or state authorities. The Task 

Force stopped meeting after the 2004 elections, but it was not officially 

disbanded until 2006 when the FBI completed the last of its investigations. 

6. Iglesias’s Meeting with Weh Regarding his Handling of 

Voter Fraud Complaints 

Iglesias said that sometime in 2005, while many of the Task Force 

investigations were still pending, he heard from a friend who had connections 

in the New Mexico Republican Party that the party was unhappy with his 

handling of voter fraud cases. Iglesias said he felt unable to respond directly to 

such reports and knew he could not provide information about ongoing 

investigations. However, he said he wanted to get the message out to his fellow 

Republicans that he would prosecute “provable” voter fraud cases but would 

not bring a case unless it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His 

friend agreed to pass the message along, but Iglesias later heard that many 

people in the Republican Party were still upset with him. 

In a further attempt to defuse the situation, Iglesias called state 

Republican Party Chairman Weh, and the two met briefly for coffee near Weh’s 

home on May 6, 2005. Iglesias said he tried to explain to Weh that he wanted 

to prosecute provable voter fraud cases but could not go forward without 

sufficient evidence. 

Weh told us that Iglesias began the meeting by asking if he was “in 

trouble” with the Republican Party, and that he tried to blame the lack of 

prosecutions on the FBI’s failure to commit resources. Weh also said he told 

Iglesias that Iglesias needed to do something about voter fraud and that he 

should have already done something about it. 

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7. Complaints to the White House Regarding Iglesias’s 

Handling of Voter Fraud Cases 

Weh said that although his meeting with Iglesias was cordial, he 

remained unconvinced by Iglesias’s explanation. Weh told us that he also 

thought Iglesias was unqualified for his position as U.S. Attorney, and Weh 

said he had concluded by then that Iglesias had failed to adequately investigate 

and prosecute voter fraud crimes. Weh added that his opinion of Iglesias was 

widely shared by New Mexico Republicans, and that he made his views known 

to many people. 

Weh said he complained about Iglesias to Scott Jennings in the White 

House sometime in 2005, and told Jennings that Iglesias should be 

replaced.112 E-mail records we obtained from the White House confirm that 

Weh wrote to Jennings about Iglesias on August 9, 2005. His message to 

Jennings, which was copied to Karl Rove, Sara Taylor, Tim Griffin, and Steve 

Bell, stated: 

We discussed the need to replace the US Atty in NM several 

months ago. The brief on Voter Fraud at the RNC meeting last 

week reminded me of how important this post is to this issue, and 

prompted this follow up. As you are aware the incumbent, David 

Iglesias, has failed miserably in his duty to prosecute voter fraud. 

To be perfectly candid, he was ‘missing in action’ during the last 

election, just as he was in the 2002 election cycle. I am advised 

his term expires, or is renewed, in October. It is respectfully 

requested that strong consideration be given to replacing him at 

this point . . . . If we can get a new US Atty that takes voter fraud 

seriously, combined with these other initiatives we’ll make some 

real progress in cleaning up a state notorious for crooked elections. 

Several other Republican officials and activists complained about Iglesias 

to the White House as well. Former Republican state senator Barnett told us 

that at one point he asked Iglesias why he was not bringing voter fraud cases. 

He said that Iglesias replied that he did not have enough people to work the 

cases, Department policy prohibited them from bringing cases close to the 

election, and the voter fraud statute required proof that the defendant intended 

to influence the election. Barnett said he concluded that Iglesias was 

responsible for the lack of prosecutions, and began complaining about his 

performance to people he knew at the White House and the Republican 

National Committee. 

112 Jennings worked for Sara Taylor, White House Director of Political Affairs, who in 

turn reported to Rove. 

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Senator Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell also began complaining about 

Iglesias to the White House sometime in 2005. Jennings told us that shortly 

after joining the White House in early 2005, he received criticism of Iglesias’s 

performance as U.S. Attorney from Bell. Jennings said Bell told him on a 

periodic basis that he was unhappy with Iglesias’s response to complaints 

about voter fraud, among other issues, and that the White House should 

replace him. Jennings said he passed that information along to his immediate 

superiors at the time, Taylor and Griffin.113 

Jennings said that after he was promoted to the position of Deputy 

Director of the White House Office of Political Affairs in October 2005, he 

continued to hear similar complaints from Bell, including complaints about 

Iglesias’s handling of public corruption prosecutions (which we discuss below). 

Jennings said he relayed that information to Taylor and Rove. 

According to Jennings, sometime in 2006 Bell told him that Senator 

Domenici was going to call the White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten, about 

Iglesias. Jennings notified Taylor and Rove so that Bolten could be given a 

heads-up. We do not know whether this call was made, and if so what was 

discussed. 

8. Complaints Concerning Iglesias’s Handling of Public 

Corruption Cases 

In 2006, Iglesias was also subject to criticism from both New Mexico 

Republican activists and New Mexico Republican members of Congress for his 

alleged failure to prosecute effectively or on a timely basis two significant public 

corruption matters in his district, the Vigil case and the “courthouse case.” We 

discuss those two matters in turn. 

a. The Vigil Case 

In late 2002 or early 2003, the subject of a counterfeiting investigation 

told the U.S. Secret Service that he had information about bribes being paid to 

New Mexico’s Democratic State Treasurer, Robert Vigil, to obtain government 

contracts. The case was referred to the Albuquerque office of the FBI, which 

opened an investigation and notified the New Mexico USAO. A career 

prosecutor in the office’s White Collar Crime Section was assigned to the case, 

and Vigil and his predecessor in the Treasurer’s office, Democrat Michael 

Montoya, were indicted in September 2005. 

Montoya pled guilty to one count of extortion and agreed to testify as a 

government witness. Three other participants in the bribery scheme also pled 

113 As noted above, Bell declined to be interviewed by us. 

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guilty and agreed to cooperate. Vigil’s trial began in April 2006 and went to the 

jury on May 21, 2006. After 1 day of deliberation, the judge concluded that the 

jury was hopelessly deadlocked and declared a mistrial. According to press 

accounts, one juror was unwilling to convict Vigil and refused to deliberate 

with his fellow jurors. 

Shortly after the mistrial, New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, 

Representative Wilson’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming November 2006 

election for a Congressional seat, indicted the government’s four cooperating 

witnesses. This was viewed by some as a political move to help Madrid in her 

election bid, and as likely to hurt the government’s case because those 

witnesses would be less likely to cooperate with the federal investigation while 

facing state criminal charges for the conduct. Wilson told us that she thought 

Iglesias should have responded publicly to the state indictments, and she said 

that his failure to do so demonstrated a failure of leadership on his part.114 

Representative Wilson told us that shortly after the mistrial, Senator 

Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell called her and asked what she had heard about 

the trial.115 Wilson told him she had heard that the government had a good 

case but that it was not presented well. She said Bell told her that the 

Senator’s office had received the same information. Bell also told Wilson that 

Senator Domenici had come to the conclusion that the district needed a new 

U.S. Attorney. According to Wilson, she cautioned Bell that removing Iglesias 

right away could adversely affect the Vigil re-trial and said that Bell seemed to 

agree. Wilson said that she and Bell had several subsequent conversations 

about Iglesias in which Wilson expressed her growing concern that Iglesias was 

not doing his job. 

Iglesias told us that soon after the Vigil mistrial, Senator Domenici 

summoned Iglesias to his office in Albuquerque and asked him if he needed 

more prosecutors to handle white collar crime. Iglesias said he responded that 

he had enough resources in that area, but that he needed more people to do 

immigration work. Iglesias also told us that he was reluctant to ask for more 

resources since he was aware that Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton had 

been criticized because people in the Department thought he had lobbied his 

home-state Senator for additional prosecutors.116 

114 The AUSA who tried the Vigil case told us that USAO management considered 

issuing a public response to Madrid’s action, but ultimately decided the better course was not 

to respond to the state indictments. Iglesias told us that he and his First Assistant were 

concerned that a public statement would be seized on by either the Madrid or the Wilson 

campaign and that the USAO would be accused of trying to affect the election. 

115 Wilson said that she has known Bell since she entered Congress in 1998, and that 

she talks with him often on issues of mutual concern. 

116 We describe this issue in Chapter Eight on Charlton’s removal. 

167
Senator Domenici refused our request to interview him. In a public 

statement issued on March 4, 2007, however, Domenici stated that he had had 

discussions with Iglesias over the years about resource issues in the USAO. 

According to Iglesias, the Vigil re-trial, which began in September 2006, 

proved to be more difficult than the first trial because Vigil’s attorneys knew 

the government’s case in its entirety and were able to use that information to 

their advantage in cross-examination. The defense also had additional 

impeachment material because of the state charges against the cooperating 

witnesses, and one cooperator refused to testify at the second trial because of 

the pending state charges. 

On September 30, 2006, Vigil was convicted on 1 count of attempted 

extortion and acquitted on the remaining 23 counts in the indictment. The 

verdict was seen by many of Iglesias’s critics, including Representative Wilson, 

as a defeat for the USAO. Vigil was eventually sentenced to 37 months in 

prison. 

b. The “Courthouse Case” 

Iglesias’s office handled another significant public corruption case in 

2006. This case began in the fall of 2005, when an attorney representing the 

receiver in a state court civil proceeding provided the USAO with information 

he had uncovered about possible bribes to state officials in connection with the 

construction of a new county courthouse. The USAO notified the FBI and 

opened a grand jury investigation. The AUSA handling the Vigil case was also 

assigned to this case, which was given the code name “Operation Black Robe” 

but was commonly referred to as the “courthouse case.” 

During the course of the courthouse case investigation, the grand jury 

issued subpoenas for documents to financial institutions and to the 

administrative offices of the state court. Word of the subpoenas spread 

quickly, and additional information about the government’s investigation came 

to light as the state court civil law suit progressed. In March 2006, a 

newspaper article identified former Democratic state Senator Manny Aragon as 

the target of the USAO’s investigation. 

As described below, this case was not indicted before the November 2006 

election, which drew complaints from New Mexico Republican activists. 

9. Senator Domenici’s Calls to Attorney General Gonzales 

Regarding Iglesias 

From September 2005 through April 2006, Senator Domenici telephoned 

Attorney General Gonzales on three occasions to complain about Iglesias’s 

performance as U.S. Attorney: on September 23, 2005, January 31, 2006, and 

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April 6, 2006. Gonzales said the calls concerned Iglesias’s handling of voter 

fraud and public corruption matters. 

Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19, 

2007, that: 

In the fall of 2005, when [Domenici] called me [he] said something 

to the effect that Mr. Iglesias was in over his head and that he was 

concerned that Mr. Iglesias did not have the appropriate personnel 

focused on cases like public corruption cases. 

According to Gonzales, Domenici did not mention any specific cases, only 

“public corruption cases.” Gonzales further testified that Domenici never 

asked him to fire Iglesias, but “simply complained about the – whether or not 

Mr. Iglesias was capable of continuing in that position.” In testimony before 

the House Judiciary Committee on May 10, 2007, Gonzales again stated that in 

his first conversation with Domenici, the Senator had expressed concern about 

whether Iglesias had “his best people working” on public corruption cases. 

Gonzales added that in one of their subsequent conversations Domenici 

“mentioned voter fraud cases.”117 

According to calendar entries from the Office of the Attorney General, 

Sampson and Moschella may have been in the room with Gonzales during the 

three calls, and Goodling may have been present for the April 6 call. According 

to Moschella, Gonzales never used a speaker phone, so they would have heard 

only his side of the conversation. Moschella said he has no memory of the calls 

and is not certain that he was present for any of them, but said he talked to 

Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell prior to at least one of the calls. Based on that 

conversation, Moschella said he believed that the Senator was concerned about 

the district’s caseload and that he planned to tell Gonzales that the USAO 

needed additional resources. Sampson stated that he did not remember any 

details of Gonzales’s telephone conversations with Domenici. 

Goodling testified before the House Judiciary Committee that she “knew 

that Senator Domenici had told the Attorney General he had some concerns 

with public corruption,” but she was not questioned in detail about the 

telephone conversations and she declined our request to interview her. 

117 The USAO did not begin to try the Vigil case until May 2006, and we believe that 

Attorney General Gonzales was incorrect when he stated that Senator Domenici’s 2005 call 

concerned public corruption matters. We found no evidence of complaints about Iglesias’s 

handling of public corruption matters until after the first Vigil trial concluded. We believe it is 

likely that all of Domenici’s calls to Gonzales, not just one of the later ones as Gonzales 

testified, concerned the voter fraud issue. However, we were unable to interview Domenici 

about this matter, and Gonzales told us that he did not have a specific recollection of which 

matter was discussed in which call. 

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Gonzales said he did not say anything to Iglesias about the telephone 

calls from Senator Domenici, and we found no evidence that Gonzales directed 

that the Department examine the merits of Domenici’s criticism. Gonzales told 

us that, in retrospect, he would have expected that someone would have looked 

into the complaints about Iglesias that Senator Domenici related to McNulty, 

which we discuss below. Gonzales said to us: “You can’t have, you know, a 

member of Congress calling and making an allegation and not checking it out 

and seeing whether or not there’s anything there to it.” Gonzales also told us 

that he “would hope” that the reason why Iglesias was removed was “more than 

simply Domenici calling and saying, ‘I have concerns about . . . David Iglesias.’” 

10. Complaints to the Department Regarding Voter Fraud 

and Corruption Cases 

As the 2006 elections approached, Patrick Rogers, the former general 

counsel to the New Mexico state Republican Party and a party activist, 

continued to complain about voter fraud issues in New Mexico. In a March 

2006 e-mail forwarded to Donsanto in the Public Integrity Section, Rogers 

complained about voter fraud in New Mexico and added, “I have calls in, to the 

USA and his main assistant, but they were not much help during the ACORN 

fraudulent registration debacle last election.” 

In June 2006, Rogers sent the following e-mail to Executive Assistant 

U.S. Attorney Armijo: 

The voter fraud wars continue. Any indictment of the Acorn 

woman would be appreciated. . . . The ACLU/Wortheim [sic] 

democrats will turn to the camera and suggest fraud is not an 

issue, because the USA would have done something by now. 

Carpe Diem! 118 

In June 2006, Mickey Barnett said he asked White House Deputy 

Political Affairs Director Jennings to set up a meeting for Barnett and Rogers at 

the Department of Justice to discuss Iglesias’s performance. According to 

Barnett, he had complained to Jennings about Iglesias approximately 5 to 10 

times by that point. Barnett told us that he wanted to ask someone at the 

Department about three explanations Iglesias had given him for why he had 

not indicted any voter fraud cases: (1) the USAO did not have enough 

resources; (2) Department policy prohibited them from bringing cases close to 

the election; and (3) the voter fraud statute required proof that the defendant 

intended to influence the election. Jennings arranged a meeting for Barnett 

with Goodling on June 21, 2006, when Barnett planned to be in Washington 

118 This was apparently a reference to the Chairman of the New Mexico Democratic 

Party at the time, John Wertheim. 

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for interviews related to his pending nomination to the U.S. Postal Service 

Board of Governors. 

Jennings told us that he did not know that Barnett wanted to complain 

to the Department about Iglesias, only that the meeting concerned a matter 

Barnett did not want to discuss with the USAO in New Mexico.119 In an e-mail 

message to Goodling, Jennings asked her to meet with Barnett and Rogers, and 

Jennings characterized the subject matter as “sensitive.” 

On the afternoon of June 21, 2006, Barnett and Rogers met with 

Goodling in her office at the Department. Barnett said they explained their 

concerns about Iglesias and outlined the questions they had about what 

Iglesias had told them regarding voter fraud cases. Barnett told Goodling that 

Iglesias was failing to prosecute good voter fraud cases, and Barnett also 

mentioned delays in a public corruption case (the “courthouse case” discussed 

above). According to Barnett, Goodling took extensive notes during the 20­

minute meeting, but provided no feedback. Barnett said that after they 

finished explaining their concerns, Goodling telephoned Matthew Friedrich, 

then Chief of Staff to Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, 

and asked if she could bring Barnett and Rogers to his office. 

Friedrich told us that he remembered being called by Goodling, and that 

while waiting for her to arrive he telephoned Noel Hillman, the former Chief of 

the Public Integrity Section, who was then a Counselor to Assistant Attorney 

General Fisher while his nomination to be a federal judge was pending. 

Friedrich asked Hillman to sit in on the meeting. Shortly thereafter, Goodling 

brought Barnett and Rogers to Friedrich’s office and left them with him. 

While they waited for Hillman to arrive, Friedrich, Barnett, and Rogers 

made small talk about New Mexico and Albuquerque. Friedrich told us that he 

had the impression that Barnett and Rogers were not particularly 

knowledgeable about how the Department operated. He said they told 

Friedrich that they had already complained to Goodling about Iglesias’s 

performance as U.S. Attorney and explained that they were unhappy with how 

he had handled voter fraud in New Mexico. They stated that one case in 

particular, involving ACORN, had not been vigorously pursued in their opinion. 

At some point during the discussion, Hillman joined them, and he and 

Friedrich tried to explain how the Department handled such cases. Friedrich 

said he told Barnett and Rogers that they could contact the Public Integrity 

Section if they felt voter fraud cases were being ignored in New Mexico. The 

courthouse case was not discussed. 

119 Barnett told us that he explained the purpose of the meeting to Jennings, although 

he acknowledged that he was not entirely sure how much he told him. 

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Barnett told us that Friedrich and Hillman listened carefully to their 

complaints and gave them all the time they needed to explain the problem. He 

said that when he and Rogers realized they were starting to repeat themselves, 

they ended the meeting, which had lasted about an hour. According to 

Barnett, Friedrich and Hillman listened attentively but were extremely 

circumspect and did not provide any information or refer them to anyone else 

in the Department. 

According to Jennings, the next day Barnett and Rogers joined him at 

the White House mess for breakfast, but they did not discuss Iglesias or voter 

fraud issues. 

11. Complaints to Senator Domenici 

Barnett told us that 2 weeks after his June 21 meeting at the 

Department, when he returned to Washington for his confirmation hearing, he 

spoke briefly in person with Senator Domenici. He told the Senator that he 

wanted to talk about three or four items, which he had written down on a 3-by5 card. The first item was Iglesias, but when he said to the Senator, “Do we 

need to discuss Iglesias?” Domenici simply replied, “Nah.” According to 

Barnett, Domenici was familiar with his complaints about Iglesias by then, and 

Barnett concluded from the Senator’s response that no further discussion was 

necessary. Barnett said that Domenici never told him what, if anything, he 

had done or was planning to do about the complaints regarding Iglesias. 

Iglesias told us that after the Vigil mistrial he learned from a friend in the 

New Mexico Republican Party that Rogers had sent a 14-page letter to Senator 

Domenici complaining about Iglesias’s performance as U.S. Attorney. 

12. Complaints to Karl Rove about Delays in the Courthouse 

Case 

In July 2006, another newspaper article identified former Democratic 

state senator Aragon as the target of the courthouse case investigation. On 

October 2, 2006, an article in the Albuquerque Tribune quoted a local FBI 

spokesman as stating the FBI had completed its investigation and had turned 

the case over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.120 

That same day, Barnett sent a copy of the Albuquerque Tribune article 

by e-mail to Rove and Jennings at the White House, and to Rogers, with the 

message: 

120 The FBI spokesman was reported to have said, “It's basically with them. As far as I 

know, we’ve completed our investigation.” 

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Karl, 

This article confirms what I mentioned Saturday.121 An FBI agent 

told me more than six months ago that their investigation was 

done and been turned over to the US Attorney a long time ago. He 

said agents were totally frustrated with some even trying to get out 

of New Mexico. I can put you or anyone you designate with 

lawyers knowledgeable about the US Atty office – including lawyers 

in the office – that will show how poorly it is being run. 

Scott Jennings was kind enough to set up an appointment at the 

Justice Department several months ago where Pat Rogers and I 

laid all this out. I hope Justice can now be persuaded to send out 

some cracker jack prosecutor and perhaps promote Iglesias to a 

Justice department position. 

We still await the results of the task force Iglesias convened about 

this time two years ago on the clear Acorn fraudulent voter 

registrations. We were told it would look to [sic] “political” to indict 

anyone that close to the election. Then we never heard anything 

else. 

Barnett told us that the FBI agent he referred to in his e-mail was the 

agent who was handling his background investigation for the Postal Service 

Board of Governors. According to Barnett, that agent was not assigned to the 

courthouse case, and Barnett said he received no information from anyone 

with first-hand knowledge of the case. 

Barnett also told us that his comment in the e-mail about promoting 

Iglesias to a Department of Justice position reflected his and Rogers’s belief 

that Iglesias should be replaced with an aggressive public corruption 

prosecutor and “kick[ed] . . . upstairs” to a supervisory position at the 

Department or the White House. 

Barnett further stated that although he did not attend the fundraising 

lunch that brought Rove to Albuquerque on September 30, 2006, he met Rove 

at the airport that day and accompanied him to a short meeting with 

Republican Party volunteers.122 Barnett said he told Rove about the alleged 

delays in the courthouse public corruption case and the ACORN voter fraud 

cases, and Barnett said he complained about Iglesias’s failure to move these 

cases forward. According to Barnett, Rove indicated that he was aware of the 

121 Weh told us that Rove had been in Albuquerque on Saturday, September 30, 2006, 

for a Republican National Committee fundraising lunch that Weh hosted for a small group of 

donors at his house. 

122 Several attendees at the fundraiser told us that neither Iglesias nor the courthouse 

case was discussed at the lunch. 

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complaints about Iglesias, although Rove did not tell Barnett what, if anything, 

he planned to do about the situation. Barnett said that by this time he had 

complained about Iglesias to Rove, Domenici, and other officials at the White 

House or the Republican National Committee on many occasions. 

We asked the trial AUSA handling the courthouse case about the FBI 

spokesman’s comments in the October 2 Albuquerque Tribune article. The 

AUSA said that the courthouse grand jury investigation was still underway at 

that time, and that a great deal of work remained to be done before the case 

would be ready to indict. Subpoenas for documents were outstanding, 

additional subpoenas had to be issued, witnesses remained to be interviewed, 

and the AUSA had just finished retrying the Vigil case. The AUSA told us that 

no one with any knowledge of the investigation would have described it as 

complete at that time.123 

The AUSA acknowledged that FBI officials in New Mexico thought the 

courthouse case should have been indicted right after the Vigil retrial, and that 

the FBI case agents were unhappy with the USAO’s decision not to assign 

another prosecutor to the courthouse case after the first Vigil trial. 

13. Senator Domenici’s Telephone Call to Deputy Attorney 

General McNulty 

On October 4, 2006, Senator Domenici called Deputy Attorney General 

McNulty. According to McNulty, the conversation was very brief. McNulty said 

Domenici expressed his concerns about Iglesias’s abilities in general terms 

such as, “he’s not up for the job,” he’s in “over his head,” and he is “not getting 

the job done.” McNulty said Domenici did not refer to any specific case and 

only talked in generalities about Iglesias’s lack of fitness for the job. According 

to McNulty, Domenici did not ask the Department to replace Iglesias or to do 

anything specific. 

McNulty said he has no specific recollection of discussing Domenici’s 

phone call with Gonzales or Sampson, but he told us that it is the type of 

contact he would have passed along to them. McNulty told congressional 

investigators that he did not take any steps to find out what had triggered 

Domenici’s call, or take any steps “of an investigative nature” in response to the 

call. 

123 On March 29, 2007, 1 month after Iglesias left office, the New Mexico U.S. 

Attorney’s Office obtained an indictment charging Manny Aragon and three others with mail 

fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with the courthouse case. Also, on 

that day, the USAO announced plea agreements with three other defendants in the case. On 

August 23, 2007, the grand jury returned a 28-count superseding indictment, adding an 

additional defendant. The case is still pending trial. 

174
Sampson said he learned in October 2006, most likely from Elston, that 

Senator Domenici had called McNulty on October 4 to complain that Iglesias 

was not “up to the job.” Sampson said he remembered McNulty mentioning 

the call and that Domenici had said that Iglesias did not move cases and was 

in over his head. Sampson said that he did not recall McNulty recommending 

the removal of Iglesias based on the call. However, McNulty told congressional 

investigators that Domenici’s call was a “significant factor” in why he did not 

object to Iglesias’s removal or ask that Iglesias’s name be taken off the list. 

Gonzales told us that he was not aware that Senator Domenici had called 

McNulty “until this whole thing became very public.” 

14. White House Communications with Attorney General 

Gonzales 

President Bush and Karl Rove both spoke with Attorney General 

Gonzales in October 2006 about their concerns over voter fraud in three cities, 

one of which was Albuquerque, New Mexico. There is conflicting evidence 

about exactly what was communicated to Gonzales, and what the Department’s 

response was to these concerns. 

On March 13, 2007, in response to reporters’ questions about the 

removals of U.S. Attorneys, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett stated that 

the President had told Gonzales in late 2006 that he had been hearing about 

election fraud concerns from members of Congress regarding three cities: 

Albuquerque, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Bartlett said the President did not 

identify any U.S. Attorney by name. Gonzales told Congress and us that 

although he had no specific recollection of his discussion with the President, he 

did not dispute Bartlett’s assertion. Gonzales testified to the Senate that after 

checking his calendar he believed his meeting with the President was on 

October 11, 2006. 

Gonzales testified several times that in the fall of 2006, Rove had also 

told him that he had “concerns” about voter fraud in three cities. Gonzales told 

us that he thought these were the same three cities that Bartlett said the 

President mentioned to Gonzales during his October 11 meeting. Gonzales 

stated that he surmised that his conversation with Rove preceded his 

conversation with the President because of a remark made by Bartlett. Bartlett 

had told the media that when the President raised the issue of voter fraud with 

Gonzales, Gonzales replied, “I know, and we are looking at those issues.” 

Based on that statement, Gonzales told us that he thought his comment was 

referring to his prior conversation with Rove. Gonzales testified that he had no 

recollection of Rove asking or telling him to remove Iglesias. 

Gonzales testified that he recalled mentioning his conversation with Rove 

to Sampson and asking him to look into the matter. Sampson told 

175
congressional investigators that he recalled that after the removals became 

public, Gonzales told him that he recalled the President telling him in October 

that Domenici had concerns about Iglesias. Sampson said that Gonzales told 

him that Rove had concerns about voter fraud enforcement by three U.S. 

Attorneys, in Albuquerque, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee, and that Gonzales 

had asked Sampson to look into the allegations. Sampson said he in turn 

asked Matthew Friedrich, then a Counselor to the Attorney General, to look 

into the allegations. Sampson said that he had no recollection of Friedrich ever 

getting back to him on the issue. 

Friedrich told congressional investigators that according to his notes, on 

October 12, 2006, Sampson asked him to look into concerns from the White 

House about voter fraud enforcement in Albuquerque, Philadelphia, and 

Milwaukee. Friedrich did not recall Sampson identifying anyone at the White 

House who raised those concerns. According to Friedrich, he then called 

Benton Campbell, the Chief of Staff to Criminal Division Assistant Attorney 

General Alice Fisher, and asked him for an update on jurisdictions where voter 

fraud enforcement was a problem. Campbell in turn called Public Integrity 

Section attorney Donsanto, the Department’s expert on voter fraud matters. 

Based on his notes of their conversation, Friedrich said that Campbell had told 

him that voter fraud in Albuquerque was “not too bad,” but that in rural New 

Mexico it was “bad.” Friedrich said he passed this information on to Sampson. 

As noted above, however, Sampson said he did not recall hearing back from 

Friedrich on the issue. 

According to Campbell, Donsanto gave him an overview of voter fraud 

issues in several districts, including New Mexico. With respect to New Mexico, 

Donsanto told Campbell that enforcement of voter fraud in Albuquerque was 

good, but that there were problems in rural counties. Campbell said that 

Donsanto mentioned that the New Mexico voter fraud initiative had not 

produced any cases. Campbell also said that Donsanto said something to the 

effect that the district did not follow up on cases and seemed reluctant to 

prosecute. Donsanto told us, however, that he thought Iglesias pursued voter 

fraud cases vigorously and fairly. 

Both Gonzales and Sampson testified that Gonzales did not recommend 

that Iglesias be placed on the removal list as a result of the call from Rove. 

According to Gonzales, he neither intended nor expected Sampson to add 

Iglesias’s name to the removal list based solely on the fact of Rove’s complaint. 

15. Iglesias’s Meeting with Rogers 

On October 11, 2006, Iglesias met with Rogers to discuss voter fraud 

issues. The meeting was prompted by an e-mail Rogers sent to EAUSA Armijo 

on October 3, 2006, attaching an item from a local political blog that was 

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critical of the Republican claim that election fraud was a growing crisis in New 

Mexico. Rogers wrote in his e-mail: 

[T]his is probably not the best time to remind you guys of the 

ACORN disasters, but I wanted to make sure you and David saw 

the Democrat’s analysis of the task force. History being the lie 

generally agreed upon, [the blogger’s] spin is the “history” of fraud 

in NM. Call when you can. 

Armijo forwarded the e-mail to Iglesias, who suggested scheduling a 

meeting with Rogers. On October 11, 2006, Iglesias, Armijo, and Rogers met 

for lunch at an Albuquerque restaurant. After some small talk, Rogers brought 

up the issue of voter fraud and complained that Iglesias had not responded to 

the problem. According to Iglesias, he did not discuss the details of any Task 

Force cases, but he told Rogers that “if we have a prosecutable case, we’ll 

prosecute it. If we don’t, we won’t.” Armijo said he confirmed with Rogers that 

the FBI had interviewed him about his voter fraud complaints, but said he and 

Iglesias did not discuss the details of any cases with him. 

Armijo also said that during the lunch Rogers mentioned the recent 

newspaper article about the courthouse case. Armijo was not involved in that 

prosecution, and told Rogers he had not seen the article. Armijo told us that 

he believed Rogers was looking for information about what the USAO was 

planning to do in that case. Armijo did not respond, and said that Iglesias cut 

off the discussion by telling Rogers they could not talk about a pending case. 

16. Representative Wilson’s Telephone Call to Iglesias 

On Sunday, October 15, 2006, Representative Wilson e-mailed a 

newspaper article about public corruption prosecutions in other states to her 

Chief of Staff, her campaign manager, another campaign aide, and Domenici’s 

Chief of Staff Bell with the message, “FBI or those close to them are talking 

about public corruption cases ongoing in other states.” Bell forwarded the 

message to Jennings in the White House with the comment, “Seems like other 

USAttorneys (sic) can do their work even in election season. And FBI has 

already admitted they have turned over their evidence to the USA in NM and 

are merely awaiting his action . . . .” 

According to Wilson, her e-mail to Bell was not intended as a reference to 

Iglesias. However, the next day, October 16, 2006, Wilson telephoned Iglesias 

to ask about delays in public corruption matters being handled by his office. 

Wilson told us that a day or two before the call, a constituent had complained 

to her that Iglesias was intentionally delaying public corruption prosecutions in 

the district. According to Wilson, the constituent did not refer to any particular 

matter, just corruption cases in general. According to Wilson, the constituent 

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alleged that sealed indictments had already been returned, and that Iglesias 

was delaying their release for no reason. 

Wilson refused to identify the constituent to us and would not provide 

any information that would allow us to assess the constituent’s bias, motives, 

or credibility. She simply asserted that the constituent was a reliable source 

whom she believed to be knowledgeable about the matter. However, contrary 

to what Wilson was told, there were no sealed indictments in the courthouse 

case in October 2006. 

According to Wilson, she told Iglesias in her telephone call that she had 

heard he was intentionally delaying corruption prosecutions. Iglesias 

responded that the accusation was not true and that the AUSA who handled 

corruption cases had simply been tied up with the Vigil trial. Wilson said she 

then asked if delaying the release of sealed indictments rang any bells with 

him. Iglesias responded that his office sometimes sealed national security 

cases or juvenile cases, but that such a practice would not necessarily apply to 

corruption cases. Wilson said she closed the conversation by stating that she 

would take him at his word. 

Wilson, who had served in the Air Force, told us that because she 

thought she was speaking as one former military officer to another, she 

intended that final phrase to convey that Iglesias’s word was good enough for 

her and that she considered the matter closed. According to Wilson, she did 

not discuss this conversation “with any other legislative or executive official” 

and “did not tell New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici or anyone on his staff 

about the matter or her telephone conversation with Mr. Iglesias . . . or any 

other official.” Wilson denied calling Iglesias in an effort to induce him to file 

any indictments prior to the election, which was only weeks away, in order to 

influence the outcome of the election. 

Iglesias told us that Wilson called him and said she had heard something 

about sealed indictments in corruption cases. Iglesias knew that the only 

pending public corruption case that had been reported in the press at that time 

was the courthouse case, so he concluded Wilson was referring to that matter. 

He said he was wary of discussing a pending investigation, and he deflected the 

question with a general statement about how the office sometimes used sealed 

indictments in juvenile cases or in national security matters. Wilson ended the 

conversation by saying something like, “Well, I guess I’ll have to take your word 

for it.” Iglesias told us that, based on her tone, he concluded that she was 

disappointed by his response. 

Iglesias did not report Congresswoman Wilson’s call to anyone in the 

Department even though he acknowledged knowing that the U.S. Attorneys’ 

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Manual required him to report the call.124 He said that he considered Wilson 

to be a friend, that he thought she had simply exercised poor judgment in 

calling him, and that he believed the matter would go no further. 

17. Senator Domenici’s Telephone Call to Iglesias 

Iglesias said that approximately 10 days after Wilson’s call, sometime 

around October 26, 2006, and possibly on a weekend, Steve Bell called him at 

home in the morning and told him that Senator Domenici wanted to talk to him 

about some complaints he had heard. Domenici came on the line and, without 

any preliminary small talk, asked about the district’s corruption matters. 

Iglesias said he took this as a reference to the courthouse case, the only 

publicly known corruption investigation in the office at the time. Domenici 

asked Iglesias if he was going to file an indictment before November. 

Iglesias told us that he wanted to be responsive without revealing any 

information, so he tried to hedge his answer by saying that he did not think so. 

According to Iglesias, Domenici then said, “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that,” 

and hung up. 

Iglesias told us he turned to his wife, who was in the room during the 

call. She asked him who he had been talking to, and he said, “You’re not going 

to believe what just happened,” and described the call. 

We also interviewed Iglesias’s wife about her knowledge of the Domenici 

phone call. She confirmed that she was in the room with Iglesias when he took 

the call from Senator Domenici on his cell phone. She said it may have been a 

weekend morning because they were both in casual clothes. She described her 

husband’s tone during the call as serious, as if he were receiving bad news, 

and his body language suggested to her that it was not a friendly conversation. 

She said at one point in the conversation she heard him say, “I don’t think so.” 

Mrs. Iglesias estimated that the conversation lasted 2 minutes, and said 

the call ended abruptly without a “good bye” or any other closing words. At 

first, neither of them could believe that Senator Domenici had hung up the 

phone, and she suggested that Iglesias’s cell phone had dropped the call and 

that Domenici would call back. 

According to Iglesias, he felt ill after the call. He said he believed 

Domenici had asked for confidential information about an ongoing 

investigation, and that Iglesias would pay in some way for refusing to cooperate 

with him. 

124 USAM Section 1-8.010 requires that all congressional requests to U.S. Attorney’s 

Offices for information about or assistance with non-public matters must promptly be reported 

to the Counsel to the Director of EOUSA. 

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Iglesias said he did not mention the call to anyone other than his wife 

until after he was asked to resign. He said that he decided not to report the 

call to the Department, which he knew was required by the U.S. Attorneys’ 

Manual, out of a combination of personal admiration for the Senator and 

gratitude for his past assistance, all of which made Iglesias unwilling to 

embarrass or create difficulties for Domenici. Iglesias said he also believed that 

he was unlikely to be the winner in a dispute with Senator Domenici. 

On March 4, 2007, after Iglesias’s removal and public disclosure of the 

telephone call, Domenici issued the following public statement about the call to 

Iglesias: 

I called Mr. Iglesias late last year. My call had been preceded by 

months of extensive media reports about acknowledged 

investigations into courthouse construction, including public 

comments from the FBI that it had completed its work months 

earlier, and a growing number of inquiries from constituents. I 

asked Mr. Iglesias if he could tell me what was going on in that 

investigation and give me an idea of what timeframe we were 

looking at. It was a very brief conversation, which concluded when 

I was told that the courthouse investigation would be continuing 

for a lengthy period. 

In retrospect, I regret making that call and I apologize. However, at 

no time in that conversation or any other conversation with Mr. 

Iglesias did I ever tell him what course of action I thought he 

should take on any legal matter. I have never pressured him nor 

threatened him in any way. . . . 

My conversations with Mr. Iglesias over the years have been almost 

exclusively about this resource problem and complaints by 

constituents. He consistently told me that he needed more help, 

as have many other New Mexicans within the legal community. 

My frustration with the U.S. attorney’s office mounted as we tried 

to get more resources for it, but public accounts indicated an 

inability within the office to move more quickly on cases. Indeed, 

in 2004 and 2005 my staff and I expressed my frustration with the 

U.S. Attorney’s office to the Justice Department and asked the 

Department to see if the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s office needed 

more help, including perhaps an infusion of professionals from 

other districts. 

This ongoing dialogue and experience led me, several months 

before my call with Mr. Iglesias, to conclude and recommend to the 

Department of Justice that New Mexico needed a new United 

States Attorney. 

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As a result of Senator Domenici’s acknowledgement that he called 

Iglesias in October 2006 to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation, the 

Senate Select Committee on Ethics opened an investigation of Domenici on 

March 7, 2007. The Ethics Committee interviewed Senator Domenici, Iglesias, 

and others, and on April 24, 2008, issued a Public Letter of Qualified 

Admonition to Senator Domenici. The letter stated that the Ethics Committee 

found “no substantial evidence to determine that [Domenici] attempted to 

improperly influence an ongoing investigation.” The Ethics Committee’s letter 

also stated that Domenici’s telephone call “created an appearance of 

impropriety” because of the “approaching election which may have turned on or 

been influenced by the prosecutor’s actions in the corruption matter.” 

As noted above, in response to our request for an interview, Senator 

Domenici initially informed us through counsel that he would cooperate with 

our investigation after the Senate Ethics Committee finished its investigation. 

At the conclusion of the Ethics Committee investigation, we again asked 

Domenici for an interview. Domenici’s counsel requested that we provide him 

in advance with the subject matter of our questions. When we did so, 

Domenici continued to decline to be interviewed, stating that there were 

“institutional implications” to such an interview, and noting that he served on a 

committee with oversight over the Department. Domenici’s counsel also 

expressed concern that our interview would be recorded and under oath. 

Although we agreed to consider waiving these conditions, Domenici again 

refused our request for an interview. Finally, Domenici’s counsel offered to 

respond through his attorneys to written questions. We declined that offer 

because we do not believe it would be a reliable or appropriate investigative 

method under these circumstances. 

18. Allegation Concerning Representative Wilson’s 

Telephone Call to Harriet Miers 

As mentioned in Chapters One and Three of this report, during our 

investigation we learned that in March 2007, to prepare a timeline of events 

related to the U.S. Attorney firings, White House Associate Counsel Michael 

Scudder interviewed several people in the White House and in the Department, 

and also gathered information from Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Acting 

Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury, who had interviewed other 

Department managers about the U.S. Attorney removals. Although the White 

House refused to provide us with a complete copy of Scudder’s memorandum, 

it provided to us small portions of it, including the following paragraph: 

In approximately October 2006, Paul McNulty received a telephone 

call from [White House Counsel Harriet] Miers in which she relayed 

a telephone conversation she had with Representative Wilson from 

New Mexico. McNulty recalls Miers stating that Wilson was 

displeased with David Iglesias’s performance as U.S. Attorney in 

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New Mexico. McNulty does not recall Miers relating any concern 

about Iglesias not prosecuting voting fraud. 

According to Bradbury, the information in this paragraph was relayed to 

Bradbury by McNulty, and Bradbury subsequently relayed it to Scudder. If 

true, the information in this paragraph about the call – particularly the timing -

would be significant, because it would show that Wilson was complaining to 

the White House about Iglesias shortly before the 2006 election, and that the 

White House relayed her complaints to the Department in October 2006, both 

of which occurred just before Iglesias’s name first appeared on the list of U.S. 

Attorneys to be removed. 

However, Representative Wilson told us she was certain that she never 

had a telephone conversation with Miers about Iglesias or any other related 

matter, never had a substantive discussion with her in person, and may never 

have spoken to her at all on any matter. Wilson suggested that we confirm her 

representations by examining White House telephone logs. We subsequently 

asked the White House Counsel’s Office to produce telephone logs that would 

show Miers’s calls in October and November 2006. In response, the Counsel’s 

Office told us that there were no entries in Miers’s telephone logs reflecting any 

conversations with Representative Wilson in September, October, or November 

2006. 

McNulty told us that Miers called him and said that Wilson had 

complained to her about Iglesias. But McNulty said that the call occurred in 

November 2006, not October 2006 as represented in Scudder’s chronology. 

McNulty said he was certain that Miers told him about Wilson’s complaint only 

after Iglesias had been added to the list of U.S. Attorneys to be removed (the 

November 7, 2006, list), and after that list had been transmitted to the White 

House. 

Miers refused our requests for an interview. We were therefore unable to 

resolve whether or when this call occurred. 

III. Iglesias’s Removal 

A. Iglesias is Added to Sampson’s List 

As noted above, on November 7, 2006, Sampson sent Elston a revised list 

of U.S. Attorneys slated for removal that included Iglesias’s name for the first 

time. Elston responded to Sampson that the list looked “fine” to him, and he 

forwarded it to McNulty that evening. 

In their various statements to Congress and to us, the Department 

officials who Sampson identified as being involved in the final stage of the U.S. 

Attorney removal process – Gonzales, McNulty, Goodling, and Elston – 

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disclaimed any responsibility for causing Iglesias’s name to be placed on 

Sampson’s U.S. Attorney removal list in the first instance. McNulty stated that 

he did not add Iglesias to the list. Elston told us he did not recommend adding 

Iglesias to the list, although he assumed his removal had something to do with 

Senator Domenici’s call to McNulty. Goodling testified that she did not know 

who put Iglesias on the list. Gonzales stated that he lost confidence in Iglesias 

because Senator Domenici had lost confidence in him, but that he did not add 

Iglesias to the list. 

As discussed below, Sampson gave inconsistent testimony to Congress 

and to us about his knowledge of who put Iglesias on the removal list and why. 

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29, 2007, 

Sampson was asked: “Who was responsible for your consideration of David 

Iglesias to be added to the list?” Sampson answered that “sometime after 

October 17 . . . an effort was made . . . by myself, the Deputy Attorney General, 

his chief of staff, [and] Monica Goodling” to look at the U.S. Attorneys whose 4­

year term had expired for the purpose of determining whether additional names 

should be added to the removal list and, as a result, four names, including 

Iglesias, were added. According to Sampson, the other three names came off 

the list but Iglesias’s name remained “because nobody suggested that he come 

off.” 

In fact, as described in Chapter Three of this report, only one name – 

Iglesias – was added to the list between October 17 and November 7. The three 

names that came off the list after October 17 – Tom Marino, Greg Miller, and 

Paula Silsby – had already appeared on the previous list on September 13, 

2006. 

Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the fact that Senator 

Domenici had made three calls to the Attorney General and one call to McNulty 

regarding Iglesias may have influenced the decision to remove Iglesias. 

Sampson also testified that he recalled McNulty saying that Senator Domenici 

would not mind if Iglesias’s name stayed on the list. 

Sampson also told the Senate that concerns about Iglesias’s 

management contributed to his removal, including Mercer’s recommendation to 

remove Iglesias as chair of an AGAC subcommittee and Margolis’s statement 

suggesting that Iglesias delegated too much authority to his First Assistant. 

Yet, Sampson also acknowledged in his testimony that he did not attempt to 

verify any of the information he received about Iglesias and did not review an 

EARS evaluation of Iglesias’s office. 

In his subsequent interview with Senate Judiciary staff on April 15, 

2007, Sampson stated “I don’t remember how Mr. Iglesias first got on the list. I 

remember that after he was on the list, there was discussion about whether he 

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should remain on the list. But I don’t have any memory about how that came 

to be.” 

In his interview with us, Sampson gave a conflicting and confused 

account of how Iglesias was added to the removal list: 

I don’t remember putting his name on the list. I did it, because I 

was the one who did that, but I don’t remember doing it and I don’t 

remember there being a specific reason for doing it. You know, I 

knew these things generally about Mr. Iglesias, and I apparently 

put his name on the list. 

When Sampson referred to “these things” in this quotation, he said he 

was referring to what he thought he had heard about Iglesias in October 2006, 

including Domenici’s and Rove’s communications with the Department 

combined with bits and pieces of information he had learned about Iglesias 

before then. Sampson also said he recalled hearing from Matthew Friedrich 

that Republicans in New Mexico were unhappy with Iglesias and that this may 

have been a factor he considered.125 In addition, Sampson said he knew that 

in early 2005 Mercer had recommended that Iglesias be replaced as the head of 

an AGAC subcommittee for lack of effective participation. 

Sampson also told the Senate that “to the best of my memory” he knew 

about Margolis’s allegation that Iglesias over-delegated authority to his First 

Assistant before October 2006. However, as we discussed above, Margolis did 

not become aware of the First Assistant’s comment until he was interviewed for 

Iglesias’s position, after Iglesias’s removal. 

With respect to his various accounts of why Iglesias was placed on the 

list, Sampson told us: “The way Iglesias got on the list is I sort of generally 

knew all of these things, and in looking back over the list again, put him on, 

and then nobody suggested that he come off.” 

Sampson claimed that no one at the White House exerted any pressure 

to place Iglesias’s name on the U.S. Attorney removal list. He testified that he 

125 Yet, Friedrich told us that he did not tell Sampson about the complaints from 

Rogers and Barnett until February 28, 2007, the day of Iglesias’s press conference, which was 

well after he was told to resign. On that date, Friedrich was traveling with Gonzales, Sampson, 

and AAG Fisher to a meeting in San Diego. Fisher, who was seated at the front of the plane 

with Gonzales and Sampson, called him to the front and asked what he knew about voter fraud 

in New Mexico. Friedrich said he gave them a brief account of his meeting with Rogers and 

Barnett, and related what Campbell had told him about New Mexico and other districts. 

However, Friedrich told us that he is certain that he did not tell Sampson about Rogers and 

Barnett before then because he regarded their complaints as unsubstantiated. We concluded 

that Sampson did not learn about this complaint until after Iglesias had been removed. 

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did not recall anyone at the White House, including specifically Rove and 

Miers, suggesting that Iglesias needed to be removed. 

B. White House Knowledge of the Decision to Remove Iglesias 

The 2006 mid-term congressional elections occurred on November 7, 

2006. At 1:03 p.m. that day, Domenici’s Chief of Staff Bell sent Rove an e-mail 

about ballot problems in a New Mexico precinct. Bell ended his e-mail with the 

statement, “We worry still about the USA here.” Rove responded at 1:35 p.m: 

“I’d have the Senator call the Attorney General about this.” 

On November 15, 2006, Representative Wilson attended a White House 

breakfast meeting with a dozen or so Republican members of Congress who 

had just won closely contested elections. Rove was also present. Wilson told 

us that as the meeting was breaking up she approached him and said, “Mr. 

Rove, for what it’s worth, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico is a waste of breath.” 

Rove responded, “That decision has already been made. He’s gone.” According 

to Wilson’s calendar, the meeting occurred from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. 

Department e-mail records show that Sampson sent the November “USA 

Replacement Plan” that first included Iglesias’s name to Miers at the White 

House on November 15, 2006, at 10:55 a.m. There is no record of the list 

being provided to the White House before then. Yet, neither Sampson nor any 

of the other Department or White House officials we interviewed said that the 

White House was told that Iglesias had been added to the removal list before 

then. As described previously, Miers and Rove declined our requests for an 

interview. Thus, we were unable to determine how or why Rove knew that 

Iglesias was slated to be replaced when he spoke to Wilson earlier in the 

morning on November 15. 

C. Iglesias is Told to Resign 

Consistent with Sampson’s written plan for terminating the U.S. 

Attorneys, on the morning of December 7, 2006, Deputy White House Counsel 

Kelley informed Senator Domenici’s office that Iglesias was being asked to 

resign. After the call, Kelley reported to Sampson, “Domenici’s COS [chief of 

staff] is happy as a clam.” 

Iglesias told us that on the afternoon of December 7, 2006, he was at the 

Baltimore Washington International airport when he received a message to call 

EOUSA Director Michael Battle. Iglesias said he returned the call right away 

and asked what was going on. Battle told him that the Administration wanted 

“to go a different way” and asked him to submit his resignation by the end of 

January 2007. Iglesias asked if there was a problem, to which Battle replied 

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that he did not know and did not want to know, but that “it came from on 

high.”126 

Iglesias told us that he had no previous indication the Department had 

any problem with his performance as U.S. Attorney, and that he had expected 

to stay in office until the end of the Bush Administration. Iglesias said he had 

not thought about his next job and knew that he would need more time to line 

something up. 

On December 14, 2006, Weh attended a Christmas party at the White 

House and asked Rove, “When are we ever going to get rid of Iglesias?” Weh 

told us that Rove responded, “He’s been told.” 

On December 18, 2006, Iglesias asked Battle by e-mail for additional 

time before he stepped down as U.S. Attorney. On January 5, 2007, not having 

heard back from Battle, Iglesias made the same request by e-mail to McNulty. 

McNulty passed the request along to Sampson, who gave his approval. 

McNulty let Iglesias know later that day that he had until the end of February 

2007 to leave office. 

Iglesias thanked McNulty by e-mail and asked if he could use him as a 

reference. McNulty replied, “I would be happy to be a reference for you.” 

Iglesias made the same request to Attorney General Gonzales through 

Sampson, who responded, “You can list the AG as a reference – not a 

problem.”127 

IV. Analysis 

In this section, we provide our analysis regarding the reasons proffered 

for Iglesias’s removal. However, at the outset it is important to note that we 

were unable to fully investigate these issues because of the refusal by several 

former key White House officials, including Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, to 

cooperate with our investigation. In addition, the White House would not 

provide us any internal documents and e-mails relating to the removals of 

126 Shortly after receiving the December 7 call from Battle, Iglesias spoke by telephone 

with U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton from the Western District of Texas, the Chair of the AGAC. 

Iglesias told Sutton about the call and asked for his advice. According to Iglesias, Sutton said, 

“This is political. If I were you, I’d go quietly.” Sutton told us he remembers the conversation, 

but said that if he used the word “political,” it would have been in the context of, “we’re all 

political appointees, and there’s not a lot we can do if they ask us to leave.” He stated that he 

had no advance knowledge of any political considerations that may have been behind Iglesias’s 

removal. 

127 Iglesias told us that he made the reference requests because he was trying to 

understand why he had been fired. He said he reasoned that if he had been fired for poor 

performance, neither official would have been willing to serve as a reference. 

186
Iglesias or the other U.S. Attorneys. 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 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. As discussed at the end of this chapter, we believe 

this investigation should be pursued further, and we recommend that a 

counsel specially appointed by the Attorney General work with us to further 

examine the reasons behind Iglesias’s removal and whether criminal laws were 

violated. 

However, as discussed below, we believe the evidence we uncovered 

showed that Iglesias was removed because of complaints to the Department of 

Justice and the White House by New Mexico Republican members of Congress 

and party activists about Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and public 

corruption cases. We concluded that the other reasons proffered by the 

Department after his removal were after-the-fact rationalizations that did not 

actually contribute to Iglesias’s removal. 

Moreover, we determined that the Department never objectively assessed 

the complaints raised by New Mexico politicians and activists about Iglesias’s 

actions on the voter fraud or public corruption cases, or even asked Iglesias 

about them. Rather, based upon these complaints alone and the resulting 

“loss of confidence” in Iglesias, the Department placed Iglesias on the removal 

list and told him to resign along with the other U.S. Attorneys. 

As we discuss below, by these actions we believe Department leaders 

abdicated their responsibility to ensure that prosecutorial decisions would be 

based on the law, the evidence, and Department policy, not political pressure. 

In the following sections, we discuss in turn the inaccurate reasons 

proffered by the Department for Iglesias’s removal, the real reason that we were 

able to determine in this investigation, and the unanswered issues regarding 

Iglesias’s removal. 

A. Iglesias was not Removed Because of Management Issues 

On Sampson’s first list of U.S. Attorneys sent to Miers at the White 

House in March 2005, Iglesias was identified as 1 of 26 “strong” U.S. Attorneys 

who should be retained by the Department. Iglesias did not appear on any of 

Sampson’s subsequent removal lists until the list Sampson circulated on 

November 7, 2006, after Republican members of Congress and party activists 

from New Mexico had repeatedly complained to the White House and the 

Department about Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and public corruption 

cases. 

187
After the U.S. Attorneys were removed and as part of their preparations 

for their congressional testimony about the removals, Department officials 

constructed a list of reasons justifying the removals. This list, and McNulty’s 

subsequent briefing of Congress using this list, stated that Iglesias was 

removed in part because he was an “underperformer” and an “absentee 

landlord” who over-delegated authority to his First Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

Similarly, Moschella stated in his congressional testimony, again based on the 

information from this list of reasons, that Iglesias’s removal was based in part 

on concerns about his management and that his office was in need of greater 

leadership. 

Based on our investigation, we concluded that these statements were 

disingenuous after-the-fact rationalizations that had nothing to do with the real 

reason for Iglesias’s removal. As noted above, Iglesias was identified as a 

strong U.S. Attorney on Sampson’s initial U.S. Attorney removal list, and 

nothing changed substantively to alter that assessment – except the complaints 

from New Mexico politicians and party activists about his handling of voter 

fraud and public corruption cases. 

The two EARS evaluations of his office completed during his tenure as 

U.S. Attorney do not support claims that Iglesias was an “absentee landlord” 

who “over delegated,” or that the office lacked strong leadership. For example, 

the 2002 EARS evaluation described Iglesias as “well respected by the client 

agencies, judiciary, and USAO staff. He provided good leadership . . . and was 

appropriately engaged in the operations of the office.” Similarly, the 2005 

EARS evaluation noted that Iglesias “was respected by the judiciary, agencies, 

and staff.” It added that his First Assistant appropriately oversaw the day-today work of the office’s senior management team, effectively addressed all 

management issues, and directed resources to accomplish the Department’s 

and the U.S. Attorney’s priorities. Neither of these EARS evaluations criticized 

Iglesias for his management of the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

We also found no evidence that any Department official ever raised any 

concerns about Iglesias’s management of the office to him, or to others within 

the Department, prior to his removal. 

The testimony of Sampson, who placed Iglesias on the removal list, also 

did not support these alleged reasons for his removal. Sampson initially stated 

that he did not recall the reasons Iglesias was placed on the November 7 

removal list, although he said the fact that Senator Domenici had made three 

calls to the Attorney General and one call to McNulty complaining about 

Iglesias may have influenced his decision. Sampson’s only claim that was 

vaguely related to a management concern was that he had heard that Principal 

Associate Deputy Attorney General Mercer said in 2005 that Iglesias and 

several other U.S. Attorneys should not be reappointed as chairs of 

subcommittees of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) because 

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they were not as effective as chairmen as Mercer thought they should have 

been. Yet, Iglesias was not included on the first four removal lists Sampson 

produced in 2005 and 2006. Moreover, no other U.S. Attorneys were removed 

because of some concern about their effectiveness in chairing an AGAC 

subcommittee. Even Mercer told us that he did not expect to see Iglesias on 

the list of U.S. Attorneys to be removed. 

We concluded that the alleged concern that Iglesias was an “absentee 

landlord” or that he had delegated to his First Assistant too much authority to 

run the office had nothing to do with Iglesias’s removal. Other than Sampson, 

none of the witnesses involved with reviewing the various U.S. Attorney 

removal lists said that they considered Iglesias’s alleged absence from the office 

or delegation of management responsibility as reasons for his dismissal. 

Moreover, although Sampson testified to Congress that Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Margolis had indicated at some point that Iglesias “delegated 

a lot to his First Assistant,” Margolis told us that he never heard about that 

claim until after Iglesias was removed, during his interview of Larry Gomez, 

Iglesias’s First Assistant, for the U.S. Attorney position. However, according to 

Margolis, he heard from Gomez only that he ran the day-to-day operations of 

the office, and Margolis thought that this statement “corroborated” the 

allegation that Iglesias was an absentee landlord. Margolis acknowledged that 

Gomez said nothing negative about Iglesias during his interview. In fact, 

Gomez told us that he did not think that Iglesias over delegated authority or 

was an absentee landlord. Gomez said that Iglesias was “engaged in his office,” 

and that that Iglesias’s management style was “very good.” In addition, Gomez 

said he never heard complaints from others about Iglesias’s management style. 

Rumaldo Armijo, Iglesias’s Executive Assistant, also told us that he never 

heard anyone express concern that Iglesias was an absentee landlord or that 

Iglesias did not spend enough time in the office. Armijo said that he believed 

that Iglesias’s delegation of authority to Gomez was appropriate, that Iglesias 

was “a strong leader,” and that he was “very active in everything that went on 

here.” 

It is true that Iglesias was a Captain in the Navy Reserves and was 

required to serve reserve duty for 36 days each year. However, the Department 

and the White House knew about these responsibilities when he was 

appointed, and no one raised that as a concern during his tenure as U.S. 

Attorney. Further, neither of the two EARS reviews raised that concern. 

In sum, we believe the Department’s claims after Iglesias’s removal that 

concerns about his management of his office or that he was an “absentee 

landlord” were justifications created after-the-fact in an attempt to buttress the 

rationale for his removal. We found no evidence that any such concerns 

actually contributed to Iglesias’s removal. 

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B. Complaints about Iglesias’s Handling of Voter Fraud and Public 

Corruption Cases 

The evidence we uncovered in our investigation demonstrated that the 

real reason for Iglesias’s removal were the complaints from New Mexico 

Republican politicians and party activists about how Iglesias handled voter 

fraud and public corruption cases in the state. 

As detailed above, many Republicans in New Mexico believed that 

fraudulent registrations by Democratic Party voters was a widespread problem 

in New Mexico, an evenly divided state politically that has had very close 

national elections. Beginning in the summer of 2004, New Mexico Republican 

Party activists talked to Iglesias about the “party’s . . . efforts” on the voter 

fraud issue, and sought to involve him in those efforts. 

In response to the allegations of voter fraud, and after discussions with 

the Department’s Criminal Division about the issue, Iglesias formed an 

Election Fraud Task Force to examine the complaints. The Task Force’s 

participants included the FBI and election law experts in the Department. 

Iglesias also sought to explain to New Mexico Republican Party officials the 

Department’s policies regarding the appropriate handling of such complaints. 

We found that Iglesias’s approach to these complaints received 

recognition from within the Department as an example of how to handle voter 

fraud investigations. In addition, the Chief of the Public Integrity Section’s 

Election Crimes Branch, Craig Donsanto, told us that he thought Iglesias 

pursued voter fraud cases vigorously and fairly, and that he had no complaints 

about Iglesias’s office’s attention to those matters. 

However, New Mexico Republican officials were dissatisfied with Iglesias’s 

task force approach and its prosecutorial decisions on individual voter fraud 

cases. Consequently, they began making repeated and vociferous complaints 

about Iglesias’s handling of these cases, first directly to Iglesias, then to the 

Department, to New Mexico Republican members of Congress, and to the White 

House. These complaints generated requests from Senator Domenici and 

Representative Wilson for Iglesias’s removal. It also appears that the 

complaints from the New Mexico Republicans reached the highest levels of the 

White House, including Karl Rove. 

We found that Senator Domenici called Attorney General Gonzales three 

times about Iglesias – in September 2005, January 2006, and April 2006. 

Domenici declined to be interviewed by us, and Gonzales’s testimony was 

vague about the substance of each of the three calls. However, Gonzales told 

us he recalled that Domenici questioned whether Iglesias should remain in his 

position as U.S. Attorney and mentioned voter fraud and public corruption 

cases as areas of concern. 

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In addition, in 2006 New Mexico Republican officials began complaining 

about Iglesias’s alleged delay in indicting a case, known as the courthouse 

case, against a prominent Democrat prior to the 2006 congressional mid-term 

election. However, the New Mexico AUSA handling the matter told us that the 

courthouse investigation was still ongoing at that time, that a great deal of 

work remained to be done before the case would be ready to indict, and that no 

one with any knowledge of the investigation would have described it as 

complete at that time. 

In October 2006, shortly before the elections, the complaints about 

Iglesias intensified. On September 30, 2006, and October 2, 2006, New Mexico 

Republican political activist Mickey Barnett complained to Rove and others 

that Iglesias was not moving quickly enough on the courthouse case and was 

not prosecuting voter fraud cases before the election. According to Barnett, 

Rove said he was familiar with the complaints about Iglesias. On October 4, 

Senator Domenici called McNulty expressing concern about Iglesias’s lack of 

fitness for the job of U.S. Attorney. 

Also in October 2006, according to Gonzales, Rove expressed concern to 

him about voter fraud in three jurisdictions, including Albuquerque, New 

Mexico. Gonzales said he mentioned the conversation to Sampson and asked 

him to look into it. In addition, on October 11 President Bush told Gonzales he 

was receiving complaints from congressmen regarding voter fraud in three 

jurisdictions (apparently the same three that Rove discussed with Gonzales). 

Although Gonzales told us he did not recall this conversation with the 

President, he did not dispute that it occurred. Sampson told congressional 

investigators that he recalled that after the removals became public, Gonzales 

told him that he recalled the President telling him in October that Domenici 

had concerns about Iglesias. Sampson said that Gonzales told him that Rove 

had concerns about voter fraud enforcement by U.S. Attorneys in Albuquerque, 

Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. 

On October 15, Representative Heather Wilson sent an article to Senator 

Domenici’s Chief of Staff, Steve Bell, noting public corruption prosecutions in 

states other than New Mexico. Bell forwarded the complaint to the White 

House, stating that other U.S. Attorneys were able to “do their work in an 

election season.” The next day Wilson called Iglesias inquiring whether he was 

delaying public corruption investigations. Ten days later, around October 26, 

Senator Domenici called Iglesias about the courthouse case, and asked Iglesias 

if an indictment would be filed “before November.” When Iglesias responded 

that he did not think it would, Domenici said he was sorry to hear that and 

hung up. 

Several days later, on November 7, Iglesias appeared on Sampson’s 

removal list for the first time. Sampson transmitted this list to the White 

House on November 15. Yet, even before the list was transmitted, the White 

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House had apparently been informed that Iglesias’s name had been included 

on it. 

We found that the Department officials who Sampson identified as being 

involved in the final stage of the U.S. Attorney removal process – Gonzales, 

McNulty, Goodling, and Elston – disclaimed any responsibility for causing 

Iglesias’s name to be placed on this list. McNulty stated to us that he did not 

add Iglesias to the list. Elston told us he did not recommend adding Iglesias to 

the list, although he assumed his removal had something to do with Senator 

Domenici’s call to McNulty. Goodling testified to Congress that she did not 

know who put Iglesias on the removal list. 

When Gonzales was asked about Iglesias’s removal during his hearing 

before the House Judiciary Committee, he noted that Senator Domenici had 

lost confidence in Iglesias, and also said that “[n]ot having the confidence of the 

senior senator and the senior leadership in the Department was enough for me 

to lose confidence in Mr. Iglesias . . . .” However, Gonzales also testified that 

he hoped that Iglesias was not removed solely because of Domenici’s calls. 

In Sampson’s congressional testimony, he disclaimed knowledge of how 

or why Iglesias was added to the removal list. He ultimately acknowledged that 

he added Iglesias to the list sometime between October 17 and November 7, 

2006, but stated that he had no specific recollection of why he did so. He said 

that at the time he added Iglesias to the list he was aware that Senator 

Domenici had complained to Gonzales and McNulty about Iglesias, and that 

Gonzales had received some sort of complaint from Rove about voter fraud. He 

said he later learned that the President had raised similar concerns to 

Gonzales. However, Sampson stated to us that he did not know about the 

President’s comment when he put Iglesias on the removal list. 

In sum, we believe the evidence shows that the complaints about Iglesias 

from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists, both to the 

Department and to the White House, caused Sampson to place Iglesias on the 

removal list. Once Iglesias was on the list, none of the senior Department 

leaders questioned his inclusion or asked that he be taken off the list. 

We believe that Senator Domenici’s complaints were the primary factor 

for Iglesias’s placement on the list. Although Gonzales and McNulty stated that 

Domenici never directly asked the Department to replace Iglesias, the nature of 

Domenici’s criticisms left little doubt that he wanted a new U.S. Attorney in 

New Mexico. Gonzales said that Domenici “complained about . . . whether or 

not Mr. Iglesias was capable of continuing in that position.” According to 

McNulty, Domenici criticized Iglesias’s handling of public corruption cases and 

said that Iglesias was “in over his head.” McNulty said that Domenici’s 

assertiveness and tone during the conversation were “striking.” 

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Yet, we found no evidence that anyone in the Department examined any 

of the complaints about Iglesias through any careful or objective analysis. 

Although Gonzales said he asked Sampson to look into Rove’s concerns about 

voter fraud enforcement in New Mexico, Gonzales never followed up with 

Sampson about his findings or to ensure that the complaints were objectively 

examined. McNulty said he did not take any steps to find out what had 

triggered Domenici’s telephone call or take any steps “of an investigative 

nature” in response. Gonzales told us that in retrospect he would have 

expected that someone would have looked into the complaints. Gonzales said 

“you can’t have, you know, a member of Congress calling and making an 

allegation and not checking it out and seeing whether or not there’s anything 

there to it.” 

However, no one reached out to anyone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office or 

the FBI to ask about the voter fraud or public corruption cases, or whether 

Iglesias was inappropriately delaying an indictment in a prominent public 

corruption investigation. More importantly, no one in the Department ever 

asked Iglesias about these complaints, or why he had handled the cases the 

way he did. 

Rather, Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson, and those involved in the decision 

to remove Iglesias accepted at face value that the complaints raised about 

Iglesias by New Mexico Republican officials were a sufficient reason to remove 

him. Because of complaints by political officials who had a political interest in 

the outcome of these voter fraud and public corruption cases, the Department 

removed Iglesias, an individual who had previously been viewed as a strong 

U.S. attorney. 

We believe that these actions by Department officials were a troubling 

dereliction of their responsibility to protect the integrity and independence of 

prosecutorial decisions by the Department. These officials had an obligation to 

determine that the complaints about Iglesias and the suggestions that he be 

removed were not made to influence the investigation and prosecution of the 

courthouse case or the voter fraud cases. Yet, they took no action to look into 

the matter. 

In our view, the primary responsibility for this dramatic failure rests with 

Attorney General Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General McNulty, and Chief of 

Staff Sampson. While Sampson placed Iglesias’s name on the removal list, 

neither Gonzales nor McNulty ensured that the complaints about Iglesias were 

appropriately and objectively assessed. Gonzales said he asked Sampson to 

look into the complaints, but never inquired about the outcome of any review 

or ensured that the complaints were fairly assessed. McNulty abdicated any 

responsibility for Iglesias’s removal, stating that he did not add Iglesias to the 

list, that he did not have any reason to recommend his removal at the time, 

and that he assumed whoever placed him on the list had an independent 

193
reason for doing so. But neither Gonzales nor McNulty inquired whether a 

Department prosecutor was being unfairly criticized for appropriately doing his 

job – weighing the evidence on particular cases in accord with the law and 

Department policy, and determining whether and when a prosecution was 

warranted. 

We recognize that Senators and other political officials can recommend to 

the White House candidates for U.S. Attorney in their states, and they can use 

political factors in determining who to recommend. But once U.S. Attorneys 

assume office, they are obligated to put political considerations aside when 

making prosecutive judgments on individual cases. Inevitably, their decisions 

may displease the political officials who initially supported them. 

If a U.S. Attorney must maintain the confidence of home-state political 

officials to avoid removal, regardless of the merits of the U.S. Attorney’s 

prosecutorial decisions, respect for the Department of Justice’s independence 

and integrity will be severely damaged and every U.S. Attorneys’ prosecutorial 

decisions will be suspect. The longstanding tradition of integrity and 

independent judgments by Department prosecutors will be undermined, and 

confidence that the Department of Justice decides who to prosecute based 

solely on the evidence and the law, without regard to political factors, will 

disappear. 

In sum, we believe that Department’s actions in this case to remove 

Iglesias – based on complaints from New Mexico political officials and party 

activists about his handling of particular criminal cases and without any action 

to determine whether the complaints were legitimate or whether they were 

made in an effort to influence the initiation or the timing of an investigation or 

prosecution for political gain – were an abdication of senior Department 

leaders’ responsibilities, independence, and integrity. 

C. Additional Issues 

First, we believe it is also important to point out that Iglesias was not 

completely blameless in this matter. Department policy requires that any 

requests from members of Congress or congressional staff (including telephone 

requests) to U.S. Attorney’s Offices for non-public information must be 

promptly reported to the Counsel to the Director of EOUSA. See Section 1­

8.010 of the United States Attorneys’ Manual (USAM). This requirement is 

important because the Department needs to be aware of elected officials’ 

requests relating to both matters of policy and to ongoing or prospective 

investigations, in part to ensure the absence of political pressure or influence. 

Iglesias acknowledged that he was aware of this requirement but that he 

did not report to EOUSA either Representative Wilson’s or Senator Domenici’s 

telephone calls. He said that he considered Wilson to be a friend, that he 

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thought she had simply exercised poor judgment in calling him, and that he 

believed the matter would go no further. Iglesias also stated that he decided 

not to report Senator Domenici’s call out of a combination of personal 

admiration for the Senator and gratitude for his past assistance. Moreover, 

Iglesias said he believed that he was unlikely to be the winner in a dispute with 

Senator Domenici. 

As Margolis later noted, had Iglesias reported these calls as he should 

have, it would have made it more difficult for the Department to remove him 

without first examining the substance of the complaints raised against him. 

Whether this is true or not, Iglesias should have reported the telephone calls 

from the members of Congress, as he later acknowledged to us, and his failure 

to do so violated Department policy. 

Moreover, we found that Iglesias’s answer to the question Domenici 

posed in their telephone conversation was inappropriate. Iglesias 

acknowledged that he understood Domenici to be asking him about whether a 

grand jury indictment in a specific case – the courthouse case – would be filed 

before November. Iglesias should have told Domenici that he could not answer 

that question. Instead, he answered, “I don’t think so.” Although Iglesias told 

us that he was trying to be responsive without providing information, the 

words he used gave Domenici the answer to his question about the timing of 

the courthouse case indictment. 

In contrast, according to Iglesias, when Wilson called him she said she 

had heard something about sealed indictments in public corruption cases, 

apparently seeking non-public information about the courthouse case, the only 

public corruption case that had been reported in the press at that time. 

Iglesias did not disclose any non-public information in response. 

We believe that Iglesias committed misconduct both in answering 

Domenici’s question and in failing to report the contacts from Wilson and 

Domenici pursuant to Department policy. However, while we believe Iglesias 

committed misconduct, this does not excuse or mitigate in any way the 

Department’s actions in this matter. 

Second, we are troubled by McNulty’s failure to discuss Senator 

Domenici’s call to him in his congressional briefing when he described the 

reasons for Iglesias’s removal. McNulty said he did not want to refer to Senator 

Domenici because he was “concerned about . . . putting the Senator in a bad 

light or in a difficult position” and that he wanted to keep the conversation 

between Domenici and him about Iglesias “confidential . . . . It was just a 

courtesy.” McNulty also attempted to defend his action by noting that he had 

disclosed in his briefing generic “congressional concerns” about Iglesias. 

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We disagree with McNulty’s actions, and do not believe that Senator 

Domenici’s call should have been kept confidential or that the Department 

owed the Senator any “courtesy” with regard to his multiple complaints about 

Iglesias, which led to Iglesias’s removal. Rather, McNulty and the Department 

owed Congress and the public a duty to provide full, honest, and complete 

testimony regarding this matter. McNulty failed to provide such testimony as a 

result of his misguided attempt to shield Domenici from criticism. And, as 

discussed above, not only did the Department fail to provide details about the 

real reason Iglesias was fired, it also proffered after-the-fact rationalizations for 

Iglesias’s termination, such as concerns with his management and that he was 

an “absentee landlord.” 

Third, we were concerned about the accuracy and consistency of 

Sampson’s testimony before Congress and his statements to us about why 

Iglesias was placed on the removal list. Sampson claimed not to remember 

why Iglesias was placed on the list and disclaimed responsibility for the 

decision. In addition, his testimony was varying, vague, and sometimes 

contrary to the evidence, despite the fact that it concerned an event that 

happened only a few months before his testimony. For example, Sampson told 

the Senate Judiciary Committee that sometime after October 17, 2006, the 

Deputy Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, the Attorney General, and Goodling 

looked at the U.S. Attorneys whose 4-year terms had expired to determine 

whether additional names should be added to the removal list and, as a result, 

four names, including Iglesias, were added. According to Sampson, the other 

three names came off the removal list but Iglesias’s name remained “because 

nobody suggested that he come off.” In fact, only Iglesias’s name was added to 

the list between October 17 and November 7 – the three other names had 

already appeared on previous lists. 

In his subsequent interview with House and Senate Judiciary staff, 

Sampson stated that he did not remember how Iglesias’s name first came to be 

placed on the list. Sampson also testified that Senator Domenici had made 

three calls to the Attorney General and one to McNulty regarding Iglesias and 

that these calls may have influenced the Department’s decision to remove 

Iglesias, but he did not recall whether they did. 

In his interview with us, Sampson acknowledged that he put Iglesias’s 

name on the removal list, but said he did not remember putting it on the list 

and did not remember there being a specific reason for adding it. He also said 

he placed Iglesias on the list based on what he had heard about him in October 

2006 regarding complaints from Senator Domenici, combined with bits and 

pieces of information he had learned about Iglesias before then. We question 

why Sampson could not remember the precise reason why he placed Iglesias 

on the removal list, given the relatively short passage of time since the incident, 

the fact that Iglesias’s name was the only one placed on the list at that time, 

and the high-profile nature of the contacts (three calls to the Attorney General 

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and one to the Deputy Attorney General) from a Senator. Sampson’s other 

inaccurate explanations about why Iglesias was placed on the list, such as his 

over-delegation of authority to his First Assistant, also caused us to doubt the 

candor of his explanations, and we question whether he provided us the full 

story about Iglesias’s placement on the list. 

D. Unanswered Questions 

We believe we were able to ascertain with reasonable assurance that the 

complaints from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists about 

Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and corruption cases were the reasons for his 

removal as U.S. Attorney. However, based upon our inability to compel the 

cooperation of certain witnesses and obtain White House documents, we were 

not able to identify the role the White House played in the decision to remove 

Iglesias. Nor could we uncover all the evidence regarding the role of 

congressional or New Mexico Republican party activists in Iglesias’s removal. 

As discussed above, we were not able to interview Senator Domenici, his Chief 

of Staff Steve Bell, Monica Goodling, and several White House officials, 

including Harriet Miers and Karl Rove. The White House also would not 

provide us internal documents related to the removals of U.S. Attorneys. 

While Sampson said he did not place Iglesias on the list at the behest of 

the White House, his claimed recollection of the reasons for Iglesias’s removal 

was inconsistent and vague. In addition, Attorney General Gonzales did not 

dispute that he had conversations with the President and, separately, with 

Rove about voter fraud in several districts, including in New Mexico, although 

Gonzales said he did not recall the specifics of the conversations. The limited 

evidence we were able to obtain about the White House’s involvement in 

Iglesias’s removal showed that Rove was interested in and aware of the plan to 

remove Iglesias. Indeed on the morning of November 15, 2006, before 

Sampson sent his list to the White House with Iglesias’s name on it for the first 

time, Rove told Representative Wilson that the decision to remove Iglesias had 

already been made. Nevertheless, we were unable to determine Rove’s precise 

role. Moreover, it appears that Miers spoke to McNulty about Iglesias in the fall 

of 2006, although we could not determine when or what exactly was discussed. 

Iglesias’s removal led to serious allegations that he was dismissed for 

improper partisan political reasons – namely, to influence voter fraud 

prosecutions in a closely divided state or to affect the timing of a public 

corruption case against a prominent Democrat in order to influence the 

outcome of the election. While we were able to obtain a significant amount of 

evidence related to Iglesias’s removal, we could not obtain all the evidence 

related to these allegations. 

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Therefore, we recommend that a counsel specially appointed by the 

Attorney General work with us to further investigate these issues. We believe 

obtaining this additional information is important for several related reasons. 

First, it is important to be able to ascertain the full facts relating to why 

Iglesias, and other U.S. Attorneys, were removed. 

Second, we believe this counsel should consider whether Sampson or 

other Department officials made false statements to Congress or to us about 

the reasons for the removal of Iglesias or other U.S. Attorneys. The false 

statements statute applies to any individual who “in any matter within the 

jurisdiction of the executive [or] legislative . . . branch of the Government of the 

United States, knowingly and willfully – (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by 

any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; [or] (2) makes any materially false, 

fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 

1001(a).128 

As described above, we are concerned about Sampson’s testimony before 

Congress and his statements to us about the reasons for the removal of 

Iglesias, as well as his statements about other U.S. Attorneys. For example, 

while Sampson claimed he did not remember the reasons that Iglesias was 

placed on the removal list, and that he did not recall anyone at the White 

House, including Rove and Miers, suggesting that Iglesias needed to be 

removed, other evidence suggests White House involvement in Iglesias’s 

removal. We question why Sampson could not recall the precise reason why he 

placed Iglesias on the removal list, given the relatively short passage of time 

between the incident and his testimony, and the fact that Iglesias’s name alone 

was added, for the first time, to the November 2006 list. Moreover, Sampson’s 

other misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the 

list caused us to further doubt the candor of Sampson’s explanations. 

We believe that interviews of witnesses who refused to cooperate with us, 

such as Goodling, Rove, and Miers, and a review of White House documents 

would provide more evidence to determine whether Sampson or anyone else 

made false statements to Congress or to us about the reasons for the removals 

of Iglesias or the other U.S. Attorneys. Without such additional testimony and 

documents, we cannot fully assess the accuracy of testimony provided by 

Sampson and other Department officials to us or Congress. 

Third, we believe a full investigation is necessary to determine whether 

other federal criminal statutes were violated with regard to the removal of 

128 With regard to investigations by Congress, the statute applies to “any investigation 

or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission 

or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.” 18 U.S.C. § 

1001(c)(2). 

198
Iglesias. For example, Iglesias and others have alleged that he was removed in 

retaliation for his failure to accelerate the indictment of a public corruption 

case and his alleged failure to initiate voter fraud investigations. Iglesias said 

that Representative Wilson, who was running for reelection in a close race, 

called him before the 2006 election and asked him about delays in public 

corruption cases being handled by his office, apparently referring to the 

courthouse case. In addition, Iglesias believed that Senator Domenici 

attempted to pressure him to indict the courthouse case before the election in 

order to benefit Wilson, and when Iglesias declined to do so Domenici 

engineered his removal. The evidence we have developed so far shows that 

Wilson and Domenici in fact called Iglesias shortly before the election, and that 

the substance of the calls led Iglesias to believe he was being pressured to 

indict the courthouse case before the upcoming election. Moreover, New 

Mexico Republican politicians and party activists contacted Iglesias, the 

Department, and the White House to complain about Iglesias’s handling of 

voter fraud investigations and public corruption cases. 

It is possible that those seeking Iglesias’s removal did so simply because 

they believed he was not competently prosecuting worthwhile cases. However, 

if they attempted to pressure Iglesias to accelerate his charging decision in the 

courthouse case or to initiate voter fraud investigations to affect the outcome of 

the upcoming election, their conduct may have been criminal. The obstruction 

of justice statute makes it a crime for any person who “corruptly . . . 

influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct or 

impede, the due administration of justice . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 1503(a). While we 

found no case charging a violation of the obstruction of justice statute involving 

an effort to accelerate a criminal prosecution for partisan political purposes, we 

believe that pressuring a prosecutor to indict a case more quickly to affect the 

outcome of an upcoming election could be a corrupt attempt to influence the 

prosecution in violation of the obstruction of justice statute. The same 

reasoning could apply to pressuring a prosecutor to take partisan political 

considerations into account in his charging decisions in voter fraud matters. 

In addition, the wire fraud statute bars “any scheme or artifice to 

defraud” that is furthered by the use of interstate wire communications. 18 

U.S.C. § 1343. A “scheme or artifice to defraud” includes “a scheme or artifice 

to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” 18 U.S.C. § 1346. 

The elements of an honest services wire fraud case are: (1) a scheme or artifice 

to defraud by depriving another of the intangible right of honest services; (2) an 

intent to defraud; and (3) the use of interstate wire communications to execute 

the scheme. See generally United States v. Sawyer, 85 F.3d 713, 723-727 (1st 

Cir. 1996); United States v. Welch, 327 F.3d 1081, 1104 (10th Cir. 2003). An 

individual who conspires or attempts to induce a public official to violate a 

public duty can be prosecuted for wire fraud. See 18 U.S.C. § 1349. 

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As a United States Attorney, Iglesias had a duty to prosecute cases 

without regard to his own professional or personal considerations, and without 

regard to partisan political considerations. See United States Attorneys’ 

Manual § 9-27.000 (Principles of Federal Prosecution) and § 9-27.260 (A)(3) 

(Initiating and Declining Charges – Impermissible Considerations). If anyone 

used interstate wire communications to pressure Iglesias to take partisan 

political considerations into account in his charging decision in the courthouse 

case, that could violate the wire fraud statute. 

Senator Domenici declined our request for an interview. So did his Chief 

of Staff, who was involved in both fielding and making complaints about 

Iglesias’s handling of the courthouse case and voter fraud matters and thus 

should have knowledge about whether there were efforts to influence Iglesias to 

consider partisan political factors in his charging decisions. Although Wilson 

consented to be interviewed, she refused to tell us the identity of the 

constituent who allegedly told her that Iglesias was intentionally delaying 

public corruption prosecutions in her district. An interview of that person 

could potentially provide evidence regarding Wilson’s intent in calling Iglesias 

and complaining to others about him. 

In addition, the evidence indicates that Monica Goodling may have 

knowledge of the nature of the complaints about Iglesias to Department 

officials or the White House, and the reasons for Iglesias’s removal, but she 

also refused to cooperate with our investigation. Moreover, we were unable to 

interview Rove and Miers about the complaints that reached them about 

Iglesias and any actions they took in response. Nor have we been able to 

review relevant White House documents, such as the Scudder memorandum 

and internal e-mails. 

We want to make clear that we are not stating that the evidence we have 

uncovered thus far establishes that a violation of the false statements, 

obstruction of justice, or wire fraud statutes has occurred. However, we believe 

that the evidence collected in this investigation is not complete, and that 

serious allegations involving potential criminal conduct have not been fully 

investigated or resolved. 

We recommend that a counsel specially appointed by the Attorney 

General assess the facts we have uncovered, work with us to conduct further 

investigation, and ultimately determine whether the totality of the evidence 

demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed. Because we do not 

have the authority to compel witness testimony or the production of documents 

from the White House, we cannot pursue this investigation further on our own. 

We believe that this matter should be fully investigated, the facts and 

conclusions fully developed, and final decisions made based on all the 

evidence. 

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-

Nov 2001

Nov 2001

Daniel Bogden Timeline

Sep 6, 2006 

Ward, Bogden, and others meet in Las Vegas; 

Bogden does not agree to assign a prosecutor 

to a Task Force case 

Dec 5, 2006 

McNulty sends an e-mail to Sampson saying he is “skittish” 

about removing Bogden 

When McNulty meets with Sampson and learns Bogden is 

single McNulty does not object to Bogden's removal 

Dec 7, 2006 

Bogden is told to resign 

Oct 23, 2001 

Bogden is confirmed by the Senate 

as the U.S. Attorney, Nevada 

2003 

Bogden’s office and the FBI use the 

Patriot Act to obtain information in a 

criminal case 

Bogden Events 

and Actions 

Brent Ward, Director of the Obscenity 

Prosecution Task Force, meets with 

Bogden’s senior staff about obscenity 

prosecution 

Jan 2006 

Oct 2001 Nov 2001 Jan 2003 Feb 2003 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 

Mar 2005 

Bogden is not included on 

Sampson's first removal list DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 

Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 

Aug 17, 2006 Aug 18, 2006 

Ward meets with Sampson and 

complains about Bogden's 

cooperation with the Task Force 

Aug 28, 2006 

Ward complains to Sampson that 

Bogden refuses to assist with an 

obscenity case 

Sep 13, 2006 

Bogden’s name appears on 

Sampson’s removal list for 

the first time 

Nov 27, 2006 

The removal list is finalized and 

approved. After the meeting 

McNulty asks about Bogden 

Jan 17, 2007 

Bogden announces his resignation 

Feb 28, 2007 

Bogden leaves office 

2007 

Gonzales calls Bogden three times to 

offer assistance in finding employment 
CHAPTER SEVEN 

DANIEL BOGDEN 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of Daniel Bogden, the former United 

States Attorney for Nevada. 

A. Bogden’s Background 

Bogden received his law degree in 1982 from the University of Toledo 

College of Law. He served as a member of the United States Air Force Judge 

Advocate General’s Office from 1982 until 1987. From 1987 until 1990, 

Bogden was a prosecutor in the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office in 

Reno, Nevada. He was hired as an Assistant United States Attorney in the 

District of Nevada in 1990, and was named Chief of the Reno office in 1998. 

In 2001, Bogden was approached by Nevada U.S. Senator John Ensign 

and asked if he was interested in becoming the U.S. Attorney for the District of 

Nevada. Bogden said that Ensign also asked him if he had a political party 

affiliation. Bogden told Ensign that he was unaffiliated and voted for who he 

believed to be the best candidate. 

Bogden was nominated to be the United States Attorney for the District 

of Nevada on September 4, 2001, and sworn in on November 2, 2001. 

B. The EARS Evaluation of Bogden’s Office 

During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Bogden’s office underwent one EARS 

evaluation in February 2003. The EARS evaluation stated: 

United States Attorney Bogden and his supervisory [staff] were well 

respected by the USAO staff, the investigative and client agencies, 

and the judiciary . . . . The senior management team appropriately 

managed the Department’s criminal and civil priority programs 

and initiatives . . . . Bogden was highly regarded by the federal 

judiciary, the law enforcement and civil client agencies, and the 

staff of the USAO. He was a capable leader of the USAO. He was 

actively involved in the day-to-day management of the USAO. 

C. Bogden’s Status on the Removal Lists 

On Kyle Sampson’s first list of U.S. Attorneys recommended for removal, 

which he sent to the White House on March 2, 2005, Bogden was identified as 

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1 of 40 U.S. Attorneys who had not distinguished themselves either positively 

or negatively. At the beginning of January 2006, Sampson prepared a draft 

memorandum for White House Counsel Miers identifying 11 U.S. Attorneys for 

replacement, which he shared with Monica Goodling, then Senior Counsel to 

the Attorney General. Goodling made handwritten notes about Bogden on a 

copy of the draft memorandum: “Quiet/not sure about – Bogden.” However, 

Sampson did not include Bogden in the January 9, 2006, list he sent to 

Miers.129 

Bogden also was not included in Sampson’s April 2006 list of U.S. 

Attorneys to be removed. 

Bogden’s name first appeared on the fourth removal list Sampson sent to 

Miers on September 13, 2006, and he remained on the list through December 

7, 2006, when he was told to resign. He announced his resignation on 

January 17, 2007, and left office on February 28, 2007. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Bogden’s Removal 

As described in Chapter Three, in February 2007 when the Department 

began to prepare witnesses for their congressional testimony regarding the U.S. 

Attorney removals, Goodling and others created a chart of the reasons 

justifying the removals. In her handwritten notes describing the reasons for 

Bogden’s removal, Goodling wrote: “very important – terror, violent crime, 

drugs in important district, resistant to AG priorities (obscenity task force), 

Margolis, in over his head.” 

Based on Goodling’s notes, the Department created several versions of a 

typewritten chart containing justifications for the U.S. Attorney removals. The 

reasons for Bogden’s removal were stated in one of these charts as follows: 

Similarly, Nevada is what we consider to be a very important 

district that was underserved. 

Given the large tourist population that visits each year, it’s wellknown that Las Vegas could present a target for terrorism. It has 

also struggled with violent crime, drugs, and organized crime. This 

is an office where we have the right to expect excellence and 

aggressive prosecution in a number of priority areas. 

Despite the national focus the Attorney General requested for 

offices to place on the federal crime of obscenity, which coarsens 

129 Shortly after his January 2006 discussion with Goodling, Sampson created a draft 

of a 3-tier list in which he identified Bogden as a “Tier 2” candidate who was not recommended 

for immediate termination, but who was a possible future candidate for replacement. 

202
society, the USA failed to support the Department’s prosecution of 

a case that was developed within his district. 

This is another district where, now that Mr. Bogden has finished 

his four-year term (and then some), we thought we could make a 

change to bring more dynamic leadership to the office. 

On February 14, 2007, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty briefed 

the Senate Judiciary Committee on the U.S. Attorney removals. The notes of 

this meeting prepared by Nancy Scott-Finan, an official in the Department’s 

Office of Legislative Affairs who attended, and the talking points that McNulty 

used to prepare for the meeting reflect that McNulty gave as reasons for 

Bogden’s removal that Bogden “lacked energy and leadership” and he was 

“good on guns, but not good on obscenity cases.” 

During Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella’s 

March 6, 2007, testimony, he told the House Judiciary Subcommittee that 

while there “was no particular deficiency” concerning Bogden, the Department 

removed him to obtain “renewed energy” and “renewed vigor” in his office. 

During our investigation, we could not determine who was responsible 

for Bogden’s name being placed on the U.S. Attorney removal list. Sampson, 

who described himself as the “aggregator” of information and the keeper of the 

list, acknowledged that he must have physically placed Bogden’s name on the 

list. But he denied that he made the decision to add Bogden to the list, and 

said that he did not remember who made the recommendation. Sampson said 

he did not remember how Bogden got on the list “except that there was a 

general view that he was mediocre, and he stayed on the list.” Other than 

Goodling, no one we interviewed said they recommended that Bogden be placed 

on the removal list. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told us that he did not 

have an independent basis for understanding why Bogden was to be removed. 

Gonzales also expressed regret to us that no one talked to Bogden before he 

was removed. Gonzales stated that he wished that “someone had talked to all 

of these folks beforehand, just to make sure we understood their side of the 

story, but particularly with respect to Bogden.” 

As we describe in more detail in Section II. D. below, Deputy Attorney 

General McNulty said that because he did not know why Bogden’s name was 

on the list of U.S. Attorneys to be removed, he looked more closely at Bogden’s 

removal than he did at others on the list. McNulty asked Sampson if Bogden 

“had done something wrong,” and commented that he was “skittish” about 

removing him. When McNulty was told that Bogden was single and did not 

have a family, McNulty agreed to his removal. 

Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis told congressional 

investigators that prior to the December 7 removals, he had no understanding 

of how or why Bogden was removed. We asked Margolis about Goodling’s 

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handwritten notes summarizing the reasons why Bogden was removed, which 

included the notations “Margolis” and “in over his head.” Margolis told us that 

he never said to anyone that Bogden was “in over his head” because he did not 

think that was an accurate description of Bogden’s performance, which 

Margolis described to us as “average.” Margolis told us that he did not know 

why Goodling would have written his name in her notes concerning Bogden’s 

removal. 

Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General Michael Elston told 

congressional investigators that he did not suggest that Bogden be removed. 

According to Elston, he did not object to Bogden’s removal because he thought 

that although Bogden “didn’t really do anything wrong,” he was not “doing 

anything great.” 

Goodling was the only witness who said she affirmatively recommended 

that Bogden be removed. In her May 2007 immunized testimony to the House 

Judiciary Committee, Goodling stated that Sampson consulted with her in 

January 2006 about the list of candidates for removal he planned to send to 

Miers. She said that at that time she recommended that Bogden be added to 

Sampson’s list. Goodling also submitted a written statement to the House 

Judiciary Committee in which she said that she made the recommendation to 

remove Bogden because she did not know of any specific accomplishments in 

his district and because she recalled some criticism of Bogden involving the 

Patriot Act. 

However, Goodling’s testimony that she recommended Bogden’s removal 

in January 2006 is inconsistent with her contemporaneous notes from that 

time. Goodling’s handwritten notes on a copy of a draft of Sampson’s January 

list state, “Quiet/not sure about – Bogden.” Sampson said he did not 

remember Goodling mentioning any Patriot Act issue with respect to Bogden, 

and we were unable to interview Goodling because she declined to cooperate 

with our investigation. 

Even Goodling, however, disclaimed that her recommendation was the 

reason Bogden was removed. In her testimony before the House Judiciary 

Committee, Goodling noted that after her January 2006 recommendation, 

Sampson did not include Bogden on the removal lists he sent to the White 

House in January and April 2006. She said she therefore assumed that 

Bogden’s name appeared on the September 2006 U.S. Attorney removal list “for 

reasons unrelated to my assessment nine months earlier.” 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Bogden’s Removal 

In this section, we describe our findings concerning the stated reasons 

for Bogden’s removal, including Bogden’s response to a request from the 

Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force to prosecute an obscenity case 

204
in Nevada, alleged concerns about his energy and leadership, and his use of a 

Patriot Act provision in prosecuting a criminal case. 

A. Obscenity Prosecution 

In 2006, the Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (Task 

Force) asked Bogden to assign an Assistant U.S. Attorney from his office to 

prosecute an adult obscenity case. As described below, Bogden’s response to 

the request became one of the reasons proffered for his removal. 

1. Obscenity Prosecution Task Force 

In 2005, the Department created the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force 

in the Criminal Division in Main Justice. The Task Force has a small staff of 

approximately two to four attorneys. The current Director of the Task Force, 

Brent Ward, was a former U.S. Attorney in Utah in the 1980s. Because of its 

small size, the Task Force relies upon assistance from U.S. Attorneys’ Offices 

across the country to prosecute the cases it identifies. 

According to Ward, the Task Force seeks to prosecute adult obscenity 

matters in which there is no allegation that minors or children are involved, 

and no allegation that the persons involved were coerced or otherwise forced to 

perform the acts alleged to be obscene. Ward told us that it was common for 

the Task Force to encounter strong resistance from U.S. Attorneys’ Offices 

when asked to prosecute such cases. A Task Force trial attorney also said that 

the Task Force does not “get a real warm reception” from U.S. Attorneys’ 

Offices when it requests assistance. He said that he could think of only 1 or 2 

people he had worked with over the last 15 months who “really wanted” to 

assist in such prosecutions. 

According to the Department’s stated reasons for Bogden’s removal, 

obscenity prosecutions were a leadership “priority” for the Department. We 

found that Ward often sought to invoke the Attorney General’s priorities when 

trying to persuade U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to assist the Task Force with 

obscenity prosecutions. However, documents and e-mails also reflect that 

Ward himself vociferously complained that obscenity prosecutions were not, in 

fact, a Department priority. For example, Ward prepared an August 17, 2006, 

outline of matters to discuss with Sampson in which he noted that the 

Department’s 2003-2008 strategic plan omitted obscenity as a prosecution 

priority. In addition, in December 2006 Ward sent an e-mail to several 

Criminal Division front office staff, including Assistant Attorney General Alice 

Fisher, complaining that a draft set of Criminal Division enforcement priorities 

omitted obscenity prosecutions. Ward stated that the omission would 

encourage U.S. Attorneys already hesitant to take on such cases to refuse 

them. Ward also sent a copy of this e-mail to Sampson on December 12, 2006. 

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2. Task Force Request to Bogden and Complaints About His 

Response 

In January 2006, Ward met with Bogden’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney 

and his Criminal Chief to discuss, in general terms, potential obscenity 

prosecutions in Nevada. According to Ward, they told him that they were not 

interested in pursuing adult obscenity cases in Nevada. 

In August 2006, Task Force officials began to plan a visit to the Nevada 

U.S. Attorney’s Office to request that Bogden assist in a proposed criminal 

obscenity prosecution concerning allegations that Internet videos depicted 

obscene acts. 

On August 16, 2006, Ward sent an e-mail to the Task Force trial attorney 

and the FBI agents assigned to the Task Force stating that he had scheduled a 

September 6 meeting with Bogden and his staff in Las Vegas to request that a 

grand jury be opened and that Bogden assign an AUSA to assist in the 

prosecution. Ward and the trial attorney told us that the Task Force preferred 

that a local prosecutor take the first chair at trial because of the perceived 

importance of persuading the jury that the case was an important local issue 

and not one being pushed solely by attorneys from Washington, D.C. 

On August 17 or 18, 2006, a day or two after Ward had arranged the 

meeting with Bogden, Ward met with Sampson to discuss problems that the 

Task Force was encountering throughout the country. Both Ward and 

Sampson were from Utah, and Ward said that he was a friend of Sampson’s 

brother, who lived in Salt Lake City. Ward said he had used that connection to 

communicate with Sampson before he came to Washington to lead the Task 

Force. We also found that Ward frequently complained directly to Sampson 

about the problems encountered by the Task Force. 

In Ward’s prepared outline for the meeting with Sampson, Ward 

identified several reasons why he believed the Task Force’s mission was not 

succeeding, including insufficient resources and lack of support from the FBI, 

the Criminal Division front office, and the Office of the Attorney General. 

Ward’s outline also contained the following notation: “Big districts thumb nose 

– word gets around CDCA, AZ, NV.” Ward told us that he and Sampson 

discussed during that meeting problems Ward had encountered in the Los 

Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office (U.S. Attorney Debra Yang), the Phoenix U.S. 

Attorney’s Office (U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton), and the Las Vegas U.S. 

Attorney’s Office (Bogden). 

On August 28, Ward sent an e-mail to Bogden to confirm their 

September 6 meeting and to inform Bogden that he would be accompanied by 

the Task Force trial attorney and three FBI agents. Bogden replied the same 

day acknowledging the scheduled meeting, but stated that he would likely not 

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agree to Ward’s request for assistance due to “severe manning and personnel 

shortages” in the district. 

Ward was angered by Bogden’s response and forwarded it to several 

senior Department officials, including Sampson. In his e-mail to Sampson, 

Ward remarked, “This is now typical and has brought our efforts virtually to a 

standstill.” Ward asked Sampson in the e-mail whether Attorney General 

Gonzales would consider calling the districts, including Bogden’s, to encourage 

them to cooperate with the Task Force. We did not find any response from 

Sampson to this e-mail. Sampson told us that he “may have” discussed Ward’s 

complaints with Gonzales, but Sampson said he did not recall whether or not 

he did so. 

On August 29, Ward also forwarded Bogden’s response to Matthew 

Lewis, a Senior Counsel in the Criminal Division front office. Ward repeated 

some of the comments he had made to Sampson about Bogden’s response, and 

also said that it would be bad for the FBI agents to go with him to the 

scheduled meeting “and listen to the lame excuses of a defiant U.S. Attorney.” 

Lewis responded that he would forward the e-mail to three other officials in the 

Criminal Division front office, including Chief of Staff Matthew Friedrich. A few 

hours later, Ward forwarded Bogden’s response to Friedrich, along with other 

complaints about the reasons why the Task Force was unable to accomplish its 

mission. 

On August 30, Friedrich forwarded Ward’s e-mail to Elston, saying they 

needed to discuss the matter. Elston responded, “Don’t throw in the towel yet.” 

Elston told us that his phrase “don’t throw in the towel” meant that he hoped 

that he could get the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to take some kind 

of action to move the Task Force cases forward. 

The day before his September 6 trip to Las Vegas, Ward sent an e-mail to 

Bogden to request a private meeting with him. In his response, Bogden 

repeated his previous comment that his office lacked the resources to provide 

Ward with much assistance. Ward responded by stating that the Attorney 

General had made obscenity prosecutions a priority, and that he wanted 

Bogden to assign an AUSA to the matter. Bogden replied that “the AG has set 

a number of priorities” and that because of staff shortages, “we find ourselves 

unable to cut one AG priority [in] order to deal with other priorities.” 

Ward and several FBI agents met with Bogden and several of his senior 

staff on September 6 in Las Vegas. Bogden said that he also asked the local 

FBI Special Agent in Charge to attend the meeting with Ward and his team. 

Bogden said that before the meeting he met alone with Ward and again told 

him that he lacked the resources to take on the adult obscenity matter. 

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In his interview with us, Bogden said that in addition to the resource 

issue, he did not view the case Ward presented to him as particularly 

significant. He said it was a “small potatoes” prosecution that would not have 

made “a huge impact.” Bogden also said that the participants in the allegedly 

obscene acts depicted were the target of the investigation and his wife. Bogden 

also said that the target lacked significant assets and that there were no money 

laundering or criminal tax aspects to the case. 

Bogden also told us that he was not persuaded by the Task Force that 

venue for the prosecution was in Nevada because it was not clear where the 

website was located for venue purposes. In addition, Bogden said that the case 

“needed a whole lot of work,” and the sole basis for the prosecution was the 

fact that an agent had viewed the material on the website and thought it 

obscene. Bogden said he did not consider the videos to be particularly 

egregious. Bogden said more work was needed regarding the subject, his 

finances, and the venue issue. 

Ward disagreed with Bogden’s assessment of the case, although he 

acknowledged that the target had few assets. Ward and the trial attorney said 

that the target and his wife were participants in the videos, but asserted that 

other females appeared in the videos as well. Ward and the trial attorney also 

told us that the material depicted women being abused and engaging in 

egregious behavior. Ward said he thought the case was a significant matter. 

The meeting between Bogden, Ward, and their staffs ended without a 

resolution as to whether Bogden’s office would accept the case. 

On September 13, 1 week after Ward’s meeting with Bogden and 2 weeks 

after Ward complained to Sampson and Criminal Division personnel about 

Bogden’s refusal to assist in the obscenity case, Bogden’s name appeared on 

Sampson’s removal list for the first time.130 

On September 20, 2006, Ward sent an e-mail to Sampson with another 

complaint about Bogden and Charlton: 

We have two U.S. Attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases 

we have presented to them. They are Paul Charlton in Phoenix 

(this is urgent) and Dan Bogden in Las Vegas. In light of the AG’s 

comments at the NAC to “kick butt and take names”, what do you 

suggest I do?131 Do you think at this point that these names 

130 Charlton’s name also appeared on the September 13 removal list for the first time. 

131 A few weeks earlier, Gonzales had spoken at a conference on obscenity prosecutions 

at the Department’s National Advocacy Center. Ward acknowledged to us that Gonzales had 

not actually said he would “kick butt and take names,” and that his recitation of Gonzales’s 

comments was not verbatim. 

208
 

 

should go through channels to reach the AG, or is it enough for me 

to give the names to you? 

Sampson responded that Ward should go through regular channels. 

Ward therefore sent an e-mail that same day to several Criminal Division front 

office staff stating in part, “the Attorney General expressed his desire to ‘take 

the names’ of U.S. Attorneys who will not assign an AUSA on obscenity cases. 

. . . There are two U.S. Attorneys who fit squarely in that category right now, 

Paul Charlton . . . and Dan Bogden . . . I would like to position them for calls 

from the Attorney General.” 

Sampson told us that he never examined the facts underlying Ward’s 

complaints about Bogden because he did not have “any reason to doubt Mr. 

Ward.” Sampson said he did not recall whether the obscenity prosecution 

issue caused him to place Bogden on the list. Sampson also said he did not 

recall raising this issue with Gonzales. 

McNulty told us that in the fall of 2006 he may have had some 

knowledge about the issues regarding Bogden and the obscenity prosecution, 

but that he had no clear recollection of the matter. 

According to Bogden, Ward called him in October 2006 to again ask that 

he assign an AUSA to the Task Force matter. Bogden said he offered to give 

Ward office space, grand jury time, secretarial assistance, and prosecution 

advice, but not an AUSA. Bogden said that Ward rejected this offer, insisting 

that a local prosecutor was necessary to try the case. 

Bogden said that he also recommended to Ward that if the case were to 

be prosecuted, it should be brought in Reno where jurors might be more 

receptive than Las Vegas jurors to an obscenity prosecution. According to 

Bogden, Ward rejected this suggestion as well.132 Bogden also said that he told 

Ward to check back with him about assigning a prosecutor to the obscenity 

case in early 2007 when Bogden was slated to fill several open AUSA slots. 

B. Bogden’s Alleged Lack of Energy and Leadership 

In their testimony and interviews with us, Department officials 

characterized Bogden’s performance as U.S. Attorney as mediocre. Sampson 

said that although he did not remember how Bogden got on the removal list, 

“there was a general view that he was mediocre, and he stayed on the list.” 

McNulty said Bogden lacked “energy and leadership.” Moschella said Bogden 

was replaced so that his office would have renewed “energy” and “vigor.” 

132 Ward said he did not recall Bogden suggesting Reno as a venue for the prosecution. 

However, Charlton recalled that Bogden told him that Ward had rejected Reno as a venue for 

the case and insisted on Las Vegas. 

209
Elston said he did not object to Bogden’s removal because he was not 

“exercising inspired leadership.” 

Goodling’s chart listing the reasons the Department proffered for each 

U.S. Attorney’s removal included the comment under Bogden that Nevada was 

a “very important” district, in part because it could be a target for “terrorism.” 

However, no one we interviewed raised that contention or offered any evidence 

that this was considered a reason for removing Bogden. Elston, for instance, 

told us that “I don’t recall anyone talking about Las Vegas being a prime target 

for terrorism.” 

As discussed previously, the only EARS evaluation during Bogden’s 

tenure was completed in 2003. The report stated that “Bogden was highly 

regarded by the federal judiciary, the law enforcement and civil client agencies, 

and the staff of the USAO. He was a capable leader of the USAO. He was 

actively involved in the day-to-day management of the USAO.” We found no 

criticisms of Bogden’s management of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the EARS 

report. 

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary 

Committee that he thought Bogden “was an excellent U.S. attorney . . . . I 

thought very highly of him . . . . When I left in August of 2005, I couldn’t have 

thought of a reason why he should be asked to resign.” 

Margolis told congressional investigators that he had “no reason to 

support or question” Bogden’s performance. Margolis told us that he thought 

Bogden was a “ham and egger,” which Margolis said meant “average.” 

However, Margolis also said that he did not know anything about Bogden that 

would “cause me to put him on the list.” 

EOUSA Director Battle told congressional investigators that he did not 

know why Bogden was removed, and that he was not aware of any issues 

regarding Bogden when Battle served as EOUSA Director. Battle told us that 

Bogden was the person who “surprised me the most” when he learned he was 

to be removed. Former EOUSA Director Mary Beth Buchanan told 

congressional investigators that she did not have any reason to believe that 

there was “anything negative” regarding Bogden’s performance, and that she 

did not recall hearing anything good or bad about his office. 

We also found no evidence that any Department official involved in the 

removals spoke with EOUSA or Criminal Division officials about how Bogden 

was performing. In addition, McNulty stated in an e-mail to Sampson on 

December 5, 2006 – 2 days before the removal plan was to be executed – that 

he had not looked at Bogden’s district’s performance. Gonzales told us that he 

“wish[ed]” someone had talked to Bogden to get his side of the story before he 

was removed. 

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Further, there appeared to be no systematic effort to assess whether 

there were other allegedly “mediocre” U.S. Attorneys who should be removed at 

the same time as Bogden. Sampson said he was uncertain whether there were 

other U.S. Attorneys who were more “mediocre” than Bogden who were not 

removed.133 

Sampson also admitted that there may have been U.S. Attorneys who 

were more mediocre than Bogden who were not fired because they had political 

backing. When we asked Sampson whether “there could be people who are 

even worse than Bogden, but they just hadn’t been identified,” he answered, 

“Correct. There could be people that were worse than Bogden, but we thought 

we don’t want to pick that political fight [with home state senators].” Sampson 

agreed that Bogden was removed not just because he was “mediocre,” but also 

because he lacked political support.134 

C. Patriot Act Criticism 

As described above, Goodling also raised in her congressional testimony 

that she recommended to Sampson that Bogden be removed in part because 

she recalled that Bogden had been criticized for an incident in his district 

involving the Patriot Act. Goodling also testified that during the November 27, 

2006, meeting in the Attorney General’s conference room where the U.S. 

Attorney removal decisions were finalized and approved, she told the group 

133 When Sampson was asked, “Wouldn’t you be the prime person in a position to know 

how Mr. Bogden ranked relative to all the other United States Attorneys?” he replied, 

Sitting here today, I don’t – look, I don’t think – sitting here today, I’d have to 

look at that list of U.S. Attorneys and think back and say were any of these more 

mediocre than Mr. Bogden. I don’t think there were, or they would have been on 

the list as well. Perhaps. I’m not sure. I don’t know. 

134 Some media reports also suggested that Bogden was removed because of concerns 

over his handling of voter fraud allegations in Nevada. As discussed in detail in the chapter on 

U.S. Attorney Iglesias, in the fall of 2006 Karl Rove told Gonzales that he was concerned about 

voter fraud in three cities, none of which were in Nevada. Gonzales asked Sampson to inquire 

about Rove’s concerns. Sampson in turn asked Matthew Friedrich, then Counselor to the 

Attorney General, to follow up on Rove’s information. Friedrich consulted with Criminal 

Division Chief of Staff Benton Campbell, who in turn consulted with Craig Donsanto, the 

Criminal Division’s expert on voter fraud issues, to obtain information responsive to Friedrich’s 

request. Donsanto mentioned to Campbell a list of jurisdictions with alleged voter fraud 

problems; one of them was Nevada. This information is reflected in Friedrich’s handwritten 

notes of his subsequent conversation with Campbell. Friedrich said he passed on the 

information he received from Campbell to Sampson, but Sampson said he did not recall ever 

hearing back from Friedrich. No one in the Department ever cited voter fraud as a reason for 

Bogden’s removal. Bogden told us that after media stories about these documents were 

published, he consulted with his election law coordinator in the USAO and confirmed that his 

office has never had any serious voter fraud issues during his tenure. We found no evidence to 

support any speculation that Bogden’s removal was related to any voter fraud issue. 

211
that she was aware of “one case involving use of the Patriot Act that had gotten 

a little messy a few years ago.” 

Goodling was apparently referring to a criminal case in 2003 in which 

the FBI in Nevada had used a provision of the Patriot Act to obtain financial 

information about a strip-club owner and elected officials who may have 

received bribes from the club owner. The matter generated media coverage and 

congressional criticism for using a Patriot Act provision in a criminal matter 

involving the strip club. At the time, Goodling worked in the Department’s 

Office of Public Affairs, and her e-mails show that she was involved in 

responding to the media coverage. 

Bogden explained to us that FBI investigators had used a provision of the 

Patriot Act to obtain financial information in order to gather evidence necessary 

for grand jury subpoenas for certain accounts and financial institutions. 

Bogden said that the investigators had received approval to use the 

investigative technique “from the highest level of the FBI.” 

Bogden also said that he had been in constant contact with Department 

officials in Washington, and no one ever expressed any concern about this 

incident with him. In addition, he said that former Attorney General John 

Ashcroft and former Deputy Attorney General Comey had each visited Nevada 

twice, and Attorney General Gonzales had visited Nevada once while Bogden 

was U.S. Attorney, and none of them had ever raised the issue with him. 

We also conducted an extensive search of Department e-mails regarding 

this issue, including e-mails to and from senior Department officials in the 

Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and 

Criminal Division. We found no criticism by them of the FBI and the USAO’s 

use of the Patriot Act provision in this case, other than complaints that the FBI 

had disclosed use of the Patriot Act to the press. 

In addition, we found that Goodling did not include any mention of the 

Patriot Act matter in her handwritten notes memorializing the Department’s 

justifications for the U.S. Attorney removals. Sampson told us that he did not 

recall Goodling mentioning a Patriot Act issue and did not recall any criticism 

of Bogden related to the Patriot Act. No Department official other than 

Goodling cited use of the Patriot Act as a reason for Bogden’s removal in public 

or closed congressional testimony. 

D. McNulty’s Qualms About Removing Bogden 

Goodling testified before the House Judiciary Committee that at the 

November 27, 2006, meeting to finalize the plan to remove several U.S. 

Attorneys, McNulty said, “the one person I have a question about is Mr. 

Bogden. Did he do something wrong, or is it just a general sense that we could 

212
 

 

do better?” According to Goodling, Sampson responded that “it was a general 

kind of sense that we could do better.” 

EOUSA Director Battle stated that immediately after the November 27 

meeting, McNulty asked him if he knew why Bogden was going to be removed. 

Battle said he told McNulty that he was not aware of any problems with 

Bogden. 

McNulty continued to be concerned about Bogden’s removal. On 

December 5, 2006, 2 days before the plan to remove the U.S. Attorneys was to 

be executed, McNulty sent an e-mail to Sampson stating: 

I’m still a little skittish about Bogden. He has been with DOJ since 

1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside government . . . . 

I’ll admit [I] have not looked at his district’s performance. Sorry to 

be raising this again/now; it was just on my mind last night and 

this morning. 

After McNulty sent this e-mail, he met with Sampson to discuss his 

concerns about removing Bogden. Elston or Mercer may also have been 

present at the meeting. Sampson testified that “his best guess” was that the 

meeting lasted “about 90 seconds.” When asked what occurred during those 

90 seconds Sampson stated: 

My recollection is that Mr. McNulty and those other people came 

into my office, and I said, “I got your e-mail.” And he said, “I’m 

just concerned about Bogden” – you know, essentially what he 

says in the e-mail, about that he’s 50, hasn’t had a job in [the] 

private sector, and what about his family. And I think Mike Elston 

or Bill Mercer said, “He’s a bachelor. He’s single.” And Mr. 

McNulty said, “Okay. Never mind,” and then got up and left my 

office. 

Elston denied that he ever told McNulty that Bogden was single, and 

stated that he never knew Bogden’s marital status. Mercer, who was the 

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the time, also denied telling 

McNulty at this meeting that Bogden was single.135 

According to McNulty, he told Sampson that he was “worried about 

[Bogden’s] wife and kids. I was worried it might have an impact on his family . 

. . .” McNulty said that Sampson told him that Bogden “didn’t have a family, 

135 Mercer said he recalled a conversation he had with McNulty and Sampson that 

occurred later in 2006 or in early 2007 when they were discussing Bogden’s request for an 

extension of his departure date. Mercer told us that during that conversation he told Sampson 

and McNulty that he did not think that Bogden had children. 

213
he was single.” McNulty said he then replied “I guess I don’t have any 

objection to going forward.” 

E. Bogden’s Removal and Gonzales’s Concerns 

According to Bogden, Battle called him on December 7, 2006, told him 

that he served at the pleasure of the President, and told him to resign by 

January 31, 2007. Bogden said he asked why he was being asked to resign 

and Battle responded that “they just want to move the office in another 

direction.” Bogden said he received no other information from Battle. 

Bogden subsequently called Mercer to obtain more information about 

why he was asked to resign. Bogden said that Mercer told him that there was 

a window of opportunity for the Administration to build up the résumés of 

candidates for judgeships and political offices. Mercer later testified to 

congressional staff that he did not recall making such a statement to Bogden. 

Bogden then called McNulty. Bogden said he asked McNulty if he was 

fired because of his performance or the performance of his office. According to 

Bogden, McNulty told him that performance “didn’t enter into the equation.” 

Bogden said that he spoke with Gonzales three times after he was asked 

to resign. During each conversation, Gonzales asked Bogden whether he could 

help him obtain a new position, and each time Bogden asked Gonzales to 

reinstate him as the U.S. Attorney. Gonzales refused. Gonzales testified to 

Congress that he did not speak with any of the other fired U.S. Attorneys after 

they were asked to resign. Gonzales stated that the reason he called Bogden to 

offer his assistance in finding new employment was that he believed Bogden 

was “the closest call.” Gonzales told us that he did not know why Bogden was 

asked to step down. 

III. Analysis 

As with the removals of several other U.S. Attorneys, we were unable to 

identify the person responsible for placing Bogden on the removal list. 

Goodling stated that in January 2006 she recommended to Sampson that 

Bogden be removed. However, Goodling’s testimony is inconsistent with her 

January 2006 contemporaneous handwritten note stating “Quiet, not sure 

about” Bogden. Goodling also stated that she did not believe her 

recommendation was the reason Bogden was removed. This is consistent with 

the fact that after Goodling’s recommendation, Bogden did not appear on the 

January 2006 removal list or the next list Sampson sent in April 2006. Rather, 

Bogden was first placed on the list in September 2006, shortly after Sampson 

received complaints from the head of the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force 

about both Bogden and Charlton, who was also placed on the list for the first 

time. 

214
No other Department leader told us that they recommended that Bogden 

be placed on the removal list, and we found no documents or evidence showing 

who made the ultimate decision. Sampson acknowledged that he must have 

physically placed Bogden’s name on the list, but denied that he had made the 

decision to do so and said that he did not remember who made the 

recommendation. 

We found no support for one of the reasons the Department proffered for 

why Bogden was place on the list – the Patriot Act incident mentioned by 

Goodling. The use by Bogden’s office and the Nevada FBI of a provision of the 

Patriot Act to obtain evidence in a criminal case occurred in 2003, several years 

before his removal. Goodling did not include any mention of the Patriot Act 

matter in her handwritten notes memorializing the Department’s justifications 

for the U.S. Attorney removals. In addition, Sampson told us that he did not 

recall Goodling mentioning this issue and did not recall any criticism of Bogden 

related to his use of the Patriot Act. No Department official other than 

Goodling cited the Patriot Act matter as a reason for Bogden’s removal in public 

or closed congressional testimony, and we found no evidence that it 

contributed to Bogden’s removal. 

It appears that some Department officials believed that voter fraud was 

an issue in Nevada. However, no one complained about Bogden’s handling of 

any allegations of voter fraud, and we found no evidence to support any 

speculation that Bogden’s removal was related to any voter fraud issues. 

Rather, we believe that the primary reason for Bogden’s inclusion on the 

removal list was the complaints by Ward, the head of the Department’s 

Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, about Bogden’s decision not to assign a 

Nevada prosecutor to a Task Force case. The evidence shows that in August 

2006 Ward, who knew Sampson’s brother and who frequently spoke directly 

with Sampson about Task Force matters, complained about Bogden to 

Sampson. Sampson stated that he was aware of Ward’s complaints, although 

he said he did not recall whether those complaints played a role in the decision 

to remove Bogden. We found Sampson’s lack of recall particularly suspect, 

given his role in the removal process. 

It does not appear that any Department official other than Sampson 

knew that Bogden was placed on the September 2006 removal list because he 

refused to assign an attorney to assist the Department’s Obscenity Prosecution 

Task Force. Rather, it appears that, at most, some of those involved thought 

Bogden was being removed because he was a “mediocre” U.S. Attorney and the 

Department “could do better.” Attorney General Gonzales and Deputy Attorney 

General McNulty were apparently never informed as to the real reason for 

placing Bogden’s name on the list of U.S. Attorneys to be removed. 

215
 

We are troubled that neither Sampson nor any other Department official 

involved in the removal process ever asked Bogden for his explanation about 

Ward’s complaint. No one asked about Bogden’s rationale for declining to 

assign a prosecutor to the obscenity case, his competing resource needs for 

other priority issues, his view of the strength of the case, or his alternative offer 

to provide assistance to the Task Force with office space, grand jury time, 

secretarial support, and prosecution advice. 

As another reason for Bogden’s removal, Department officials testified 

and told us that Bogden was considered to be a mediocre U.S. Attorney, and he 

lacked energy and leadership. However, no one involved in the removals said 

that Bogden was placed on the list because he was “mediocre.” Based on our 

investigation, we found that this argument was raised late in the process, after 

Bogden was already on the list. According to Goodling’s congressional 

testimony, when McNulty asked at the November 27 meeting why Bogden was 

on the list, Sampson said there was a “sense we can do better.” Similarly, 

Elston told us that although he did not recommend that Bogden be removed, 

he did not object to Bogden being on the list because there was a “general 

sense” that his office lacked leadership and energy. Sampson also told 

congressional investigators that he could not recall why Bogden was placed on 

the list “except that there was a general view that he was mediocre, and he 

stayed on the list.” 

However, we found that no one involved in the removal process ever 

objectively assessed any concerns about Bogden’s performance. No one 

examined any statistical measures of his office’s work compared to other 

USAOs, or inquired about the assessment of local law enforcement officials 

about him. No one involved in the removals reviewed the EARS report about 

Bogden’s office. 

We also found no evidence that Department officials ever raised concerns 

about Bogden’s performance with him before he was removed.136 No one 

involved in the removal process even contacted the Department officials who 

would likely be most knowledgeable about Bogden’s performance, such as 

EOUSA Director Battle or Associate Deputy Attorney General Margolis, before 

placing Bogden on the list. 

Battle said that Bogden was the person who “surprised me the most” 

when he learned he was to be removed. Margolis said that Bogden was an 

average U.S. Attorney, and that he did not know anything about Bogden that 

would have caused him to recommend Bogden’s removal. 

136 Also, according to Bogden, when he asked McNulty if he was fired because of his 

performance or the performance of his office, McNulty replied that performance “didn’t enter 

into the equation.” 

216
We also found it noteworthy that Sampson admitted that other U.S. 

Attorneys who were also considered “mediocre” were not removed. Sampson 

acknowledged to us that there may have been U.S. Attorneys whose 

performance was worse than Bogden’s but who were not removed because they 

had the right political connections. We are troubled that a Department of 

Justice official would make such a statement indicating that the standard by 

which he assessed whether U.S. Attorneys should be removed was not 

mediocrity, but rather mediocrity without political support. 

In addition, we are concerned about the reasoning for why Bogden 

remained on the list when McNulty had qualms about it, just before the 

removal plan was to be implemented. McNulty was troubled by Bogden’s 

inclusion on the list and asked to meet with Sampson 2 days before the 

removal plan was implemented. According to McNulty, he told Sampson that 

he was worried about the impact of Bogden’s removal on his wife and kids. 

When Sampson told McNulty that Bogden was single, McNulty dropped his 

objection. The fact that Bogden was not married or did not have children was 

irrelevant to his performance as U.S. Attorney or to an objective, reasonable 

assessment of his performance. We question whether Bogden’s marital or 

family status was an appropriate basis on which to decide whether he should 

or should not be removed as U.S. Attorney. 

Finally, we find it remarkable that Attorney General Gonzales and 

Deputy Attorney General McNulty stated that they did not know why Bogden 

was being removed. In our view, the fact that the Attorney General and Deputy 

Attorney General were apparently in the dark as to the reasons why Bogden 

was placed on the removal list demonstrates the flawed nature of their 

oversight of the U.S. Attorney removal process. 

217
[PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]

218
Apr 2, 2004 - Jun 2, 2004 

Charlton talks to Senator Kyl 

about obtaining additional 

resources 

Nov 2001

Nov 2001

Mar 15, 2006 

Charlton proposes a pilot tape 

recording project 

Charlton Events 

and Actions 

May 31, 2006 

Gonzales directs Charlton to notify the court that 

the U.S. will seek the death penalty in a case 

Charlton receives an extension from the court to 

file the death penalty notice 

Aug 15, 2006 

McNulty recommends to Gonzales against 

reconsideration of death penalty case; decision stands 

Charlton asks to speak to Gonzales about his decision 

Gonzales denies Charlton’s request 

Sep 13, 2006 

Paul Charlton Timeline 

Feb 2006 

Charlton announces a tape 

recording policy for his Arizona 

district 

Charlton’s name appears on Sampson’s 

removal list for the first time 

Nov 2001 Dec 2001 

Nov 6, 2001 

Charlton is confirmed by the 

Senate as the U.S. Attorney, 

Arizona 

Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 

Jun 27, 2006 

Charlton requests reconsideration 

of the AG’s decision to seek the 

death penalty in a case 

Oct 2006 

Senior DOJ leadership becomes 

aware of the Renzi investigation 

Dec 7, 2006 

Charlton is told to resign 

Dec 18, 2006 

Charlton announces 

his resignation 

Jan 30, 2007 

Charlton leaves office 

Apr 2004 May 2004 Jun 2004 May 2005 Jun 2005 Jul 2005 Aug 2005 

May 2005 

Comey establishes a working group 

to consider tape recording policy 

Aug 2005 

Comey leaves the Department 

Feb 28, 2006 

McNulty instructs Charlton to 

rescind tape recording policy 

and to develop a pilot proposal 

DOJ Events 

and Actions 

Aug 2, 2006 

Charlton discusses the death penalty case with McNulty 

Aug 28, 2006 

The Director of the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force 

complains to Sampson that Charlton refuses to assign a 

prosecutor to obscenity case 
CHAPTER EIGHT 

PAUL CHARLTON 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of Paul Charlton, the former United 

States Attorney for the District of Arizona. 

A. Charlton’s Background 

Charlton graduated from the University of Arizona Law School in 1988, 

and then clerked for the Arizona Court of Appeals. In 1989, he became an 

Assistant Attorney General in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Division 

of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. In 1991, he became an Assistant U.S. 

Attorney (AUSA) in the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of 

Arizona. 

Charlton said he considered seeking the Arizona U.S. Attorney position 

sometime in December 2000, and friends recommended him to Arizona 

Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain. In the spring of 2001, following Charlton’s 

interviews with the two Senators, the Department appointed him as Interim 

U.S. Attorney. After serving 120 days, Charlton was reappointed on an interim 

basis by the federal district court. He was nominated by the President for the 

permanent position on July 30, 2001, and was confirmed by the Senate on 

November 6, 2001. 

In April 2005, Charlton was appointed as the Chair the Border and 

Immigration Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee 

(AGAC), replacing David Iglesias. 

B. The EARS Evaluation of Charlton’s Office 

Charlton’s office underwent an EARS evaluation at the end of 2003. The 

evaluation stated that he was “well respected by USAO staff, investigative and 

civil client agencies, [the] local law enforcement community, [the] Native 

American Nations, and [the] judiciary regarding his integrity, professionalism, 

and competence.” The only criticism we found in the EARS evaluation was a 

note that his adherence to a chain of command structure in the office had “led 

to a perception by some that he is inaccessible” and “not open to suggestions 

or criticism.” 

C. Charlton’s Status on the Removal Lists 

As we discussed in Chapter Three, in March 2005 Kyle Sampson 

provided to White House Counsel Harriet Miers a list containing the names of 

219
 

 

all U.S. Attorneys, divided into three categories: (1) those he recommended be 

retained, whom he described as “strong U.S. Attorneys who performed well and 

exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General,” (2) those he 

recommended be removed, described as “weak U.S. Attorneys who have been 

ineffectual managers . . . and chafed against administration initiatives,” and (3) 

those for which he provided no recommendation, who had not “distinguished 

themselves either positively or negatively.” Sampson identified Charlton on the 

March 2005 list as a U.S. Attorney who had not distinguished himself either 

positively or negatively. 

Charlton’s name did not appear on the second removal list that Sampson 

sent to the White House on January 9, 2006. However, as we discuss below, 

Monica Goodling suggested to Sampson around that time that Charlton be 

considered for removal. While Sampson did not include Charlton on his 

second removal list of U.S. Attorneys, he placed Charlton’s name on a draft list 

of other U.S. Attorneys who might eventually be considered for removal. 

Charlton’s name also did not appear on the third removal list Sampson sent to 

the White House on April 14, 2006, of U.S. Attorneys recommended for 

removal. 

On September 13, 2006, Sampson sent a fourth list to the White House 

containing the names of U.S. Attorneys “We Now Should Consider Pushing 

Out.” Charlton’s name appeared on that list and stayed on successive lists 

until he was told to resign on December 7, 2006. 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Charlton’s Removal 

As noted in Chapter Three, in preparation for McNulty’s closed briefing of 

the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2006, senior Department 

officials discussed the reasons that supported the removals of the U.S. 

Attorneys. Based on their discussion, Goodling created a chart for McNulty to 

help him prepare for the briefing. As the basis for Charlton’s removal, the 

chart cited “repeated instances of insubordination” and “actions taken that 

were clearly unauthorized.” The chart stated: (1) Charlton advocated for 

additional resources for his office directly with Senator Kyl; (2) Charlton 

instituted a policy for tape recording interrogations; (3) Charlton did not timely 

file a notice that the Department would seek the death penalty in a particular 

case; and (4) Charlton refused to prosecute obscenity cases.137 

137 The chart Goodling prepared for McNulty’s closed briefing also indicates another 

reason for Charlton’s termination: that “contrary to guidance from Main Justice that it was 

poor judgment,” Charlton allowed an employee to take leave without pay so that she could 

become press secretary for a candidate in the 2002 Arizona gubernatorial campaign. However, 

we found no evidence that this was ever raised as justification for Charlton’s removal. When 

we asked Charlton about it, he said that EOUSA approved this arrangement but with certain 

(Cont’d.) 

220
 

 

 

According to notes taken during the closed briefing of the Senators, 

McNulty stated that Charlton was “insubordinate as to the Department’s way of 

doing business” concerning the death penalty and taping interrogations. 

McNulty also told the Senators that he was personally aware of friction between 

Charlton and other officials at the Department. 

On March 29, 2007, Sampson testified to Congress that Charlton was 

removed because of policy disputes with the Department in a death penalty 

case and an initiative in his district to tape record interrogations. Sampson 

also suggested that Charlton had improperly advocated directly with Senator 

Kyl for additional resources for his office. 

In our investigation, we examined the facts surrounding each of the 

allegations concerning Charlton’s removal. In the remainder of this chapter, 

we describe those facts and then provide our findings regarding the reasons for 

Charlton’s removal. In addition, we examine allegations appearing in the 

media in the aftermath of the removals that Charlton was removed because of 

his involvement in the investigation of Republican Congressman Rick Renzi. 

A. Charlton’s Discussions With Senator Kyl 

As noted above, one of the justifications raised as a basis for Charlton’s 

removal was that he had, in McNulty’s words, “worked outside proper 

channels” to obtain an increase in the number of staff positions for the Arizona 

U.S. Attorney’s Office. McNulty told congressional staffers that although the 

issue had predated his tenure as Deputy Attorney General, he learned from the 

group in the preparation session for his testimony that Charlton had dealt 

directly with Senator Kyl concerning additional prosecutors in Arizona, and as 

a result the Department had to move AUSA positions out of larger districts to 

provide additional positions to Arizona. 

This issue surfaced in the spring of 2004. Charlton said that in the 

spring of 2004, Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth sent a letter to Attorney 

constraints, such as that the employee could not indicate that she worked in the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office. Charlton stated that he had received a letter from EOUSA that it was 

permissible for the employee to work on the campaign, but not advisable even with the 

constraints EOUSA suggested. According to Charlton, the employee therefore resigned from 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office to work on the campaign. In his congressional interview, Margolis 

said he was concerned at the time about the employee going on leave without pay status to 

work on the campaign because he thought it made the Department look too political. However, 

Margolis said the incident happened early on in Charlton’s tenure, and he said he recalled it 

only on the eve of McNulty’s preparation session. Margolis pointed out that it could not have 

been a ground for Charlton’s termination because no one knew about it until the group met to 

discuss the reasons. We concluded that this was another example of the group including afterthe-fact rationalizations that did not in fact play any part in the placement of a U.S. Attorney 

on the removal list. 

221
 

General Ashcroft asking why the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office was not doing 

more to support immigration prosecutions on the border. Charlton said that 

after the Department received the letter, Sampson called him on behalf of the 

Attorney General to ask how many more positions he needed to make a 

difference. Charlton said he told Sampson that 10 additional prosecutors 

could make a significant impact on the district’s immigration prosecution 

numbers. Charlton said Sampson indicated he would work on getting the 

additional positions for Arizona. 

Charlton told us that shortly after his conversation with Sampson, 

Senator Kyl made his annual visit to the district.138 Charlton said Kyl asked 

whether there was anything that the district needed, and Charlton mentioned 

to Kyl his conversation with Sampson about getting 10 additional positions for 

the office. Charlton said he believed that Senator Kyl subsequently spoke to 

Attorney General Ashcroft about this issue. Charlton said that he did not ask 

Senator Kyl to intervene on his behalf for more resources. He said he told Kyl 

about his conversation with Sampson as part of the discussion of what was 

happening in terms of obtaining additional resources to prosecute illegal 

immigration. Documents show that the U.S. Attorney’s Office subsequently 

received funding for seven additional prosecutors and six support staff. 

In her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Goodling stated 

that she considered Charlton to be a problem because during her tenure in 

EOUSA she received complaints that Charlton had had unauthorized 

discussions with a member of Congress (Senator Kyl). 

In his March 29 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 

Sampson testified that he recalled individuals in the Office of the Attorney 

General expressing concern that Charlton had directly contacted Senator Kyl in 

order to obtain additional resources for his office.139 During Sampson’s 

hearing, however, Senator Kyl publicly stated that he wanted to correct any 

misimpression that Charlton had initiated the conversation with him. Kyl 

stated that he recalled one occasion where Charlton told him the office needed 

more prosecutors to handle immigration cases, and that it was likely that 

Charlton was responding to a question Kyl had asked. Kyl said that he 

believed his subsequent discussion with Attorney General Ashcroft assisted in 

obtaining additional resources for the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

138 According to both Charlton and a statement by Senator Kyl, the Department was 

aware of their annual meetings at which they discussed what was generally happening in the 

district. 

139 During our interview, Sampson said he had nothing further to add on this topic 

beyond his prior congressional testimony. 

222
 

 

Deputy Attorney General James Comey told us that he recalled hearing 

at the time that members of Attorney General Ashcroft’s staff were upset that 

Charlton had gone around the Department to obtain additional resources. 

Comey said he could not recall who told him about the issue, but he 

remembered members of the Attorney General’s staff complaining that 

Charlton had gone to Senator Kyl, who then spoke to Ashcroft, reportedly 

causing Ashcroft to feel blindsided and compelled to provide the district with 

the additional resources Charlton had previously discussed with Sampson. 

Comey told us it was the only criticism he had ever heard about Charlton while 

he worked at the Department.140 

B. Tape Recording Interrogations 

Sampson testified to Congress that one of the main reasons he 

recommended Charlton be removed was that Charlton had attempted to 

require federal law enforcement agents in Arizona to tape record interrogations. 

E-mail traffic shows that in the spring of 2004 Charlton began exploring 

with the Department’s senior leadership whether federal law enforcement 

agents should tape record interrogations. Charlton told us he believed his 

office was losing cases because of a failure to tape record interrogations. He 

said that in the Arizona state criminal justice system where Charlton had 

begun his career as a prosecutor, interrogations were generally tape recorded. 

He said that when he became U.S. Attorney, he wanted to change what he 

believed was an antiquated policy and implement a policy that would protect 

both crime victims and defendants. 

Charlton said he first raised the issue with Deputy Attorney General 

Comey during a closed session at the U.S. Attorney’s conference in San Diego 

in 2004, and a few days later Comey’s Chief of Staff, Chuck Rosenberg, raised 

it with the FBI. Charlton said Rosenberg told him that the FBI was opposed to 

changing the policy. 

1. Department Considers Tape Recording Policy 

During the spring of 2005, the Department’s Office of Legal Policy worked 

with Charlton to consider the tape recording policy and to create a strategy to 

address expected resistance from Department law enforcement agencies about 

recording interrogations. Charlton told us that he also raised the issue with 

140 We note that other people also heard that Charlton had been criticized for allegedly 

requesting additional resources from Senator Kyl. For example, as we discuss in Chapter Six, 

Iglesias told us that he was reluctant to respond when asked in 2006 by Senator Domenici if he 

needed more resources since he was aware that Charlton had been criticized because people in 

the Department thought he had lobbied his home-state Senator for additional resources. 

223
 

 

 

Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) Chair Johnny Sutton, who 

opposed changing the policy. 

Charlton raised the issue with Comey again at the U.S. Attorney’s 

conference in Arizona in 2005. In May 2005 Comey established a working 

group, which included Charlton, to formally consider the matter. According to 

Charlton, the working group discussed the issues several times, but after 

Comey left the Department in August 2005 and McNulty became Deputy 

Attorney General in early November 2005, the issue did not move forward. 

E-mail and other documents also show that throughout late 2005 

Charlton was trying to persuade the FBI to agree to expand its taping policy.141 

In early December 2005, the working group engaged in an e-mail exchange 

with Michael Elston, McNulty’s Chief of Staff, discussing the merits of the 

recording policy. However, Charlton said that by December 2005 McNulty had 

not yet indicated a willingness for the working group to continue studying the 

issue. According to former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General 

William Mercer, by the end of 2005 the working group had not reached a 

consensus on whether to recommend a taping policy, although the FBI 

representatives in the group were supposed to be preparing a memorandum 

discussing various options. 

2. Charlton Implements a Taping Policy in His District 

Charlton said that when nothing further happened by early 2006 

concerning his desire to begin tape recording interrogations in Arizona, it was 

clear to him that if there was going to be a change in the policy, he would have 

to implement it in his district. Charlton said he believed that he could isolate 

his district in a way that would not affect other cases nationwide. Charlton 

also said that his district was uniquely situated because of its federal 

jurisdiction over the prosecution of crime on the 21 Indian reservations in 

Arizona. He said that establishing a tape recording policy in his district would 

assist in the prosecution of the many violent crime cases occurring on the 

Indian reservations, but would not affect other districts that did not have 

federal jurisdiction over such local crimes. Charlton also said his policy was 

flexible enough that if federal agents believed that they could not tape record 

an interrogation, they could conduct the interview without taping it. 

In early February 2006, Charlton formally notified his office and all 

Special Agents in Charge of federal law enforcement agencies in his district 

141 The FBI’s policy provides that use of tape recorders in interviews is permissible in 

limited circumstances on a selective basis after obtaining authorization from the FBI field 

office’s Special Agent in Charge. 

224
 

 

 

 

about his new policy, which was scheduled to take effect on March 1, 2006.142 

Charlton acknowledged to us that he did not discuss his decision to implement 

the new tape recording policy in his district with the Department’s leadership. 

According to Charlton, after his announcement most of the law 

enforcement agencies in Arizona expressed no concerns to him about the new 

tape recording policy beyond questions about the mechanics of the program, 

such as whether the U.S. Attorney’s Office would purchase the recorders. 

Charlton said that as he had expected, both the FBI and the DEA objected to 

implementation of the new policy and complained to the Deputy Attorney 

General’s Office. 

According to McNulty, FBI Director Robert Mueller called him in late 

February 2006 and complained that Charlton’s Arizona tape recording policy 

could jeopardize criminal prosecutions in other districts that did not record 

interrogations. McNulty said he spoke to Charlton at a U.S. Attorneys’ 

conference in Orlando on March 1, 2 days before the policy was to go into 

effect, and told him to rescind it, but Charlton refused to do so. Charlton told 

us that he told Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Mercer that he 

would prefer to resign rather than rescind the policy. 

Charlton said that McNulty repeated FBI Director Mueller’s views about 

the policy and expressed concern that he could not persuade Mueller to change 

his position opposing the taping policy. Charlton said his conversation with 

McNulty was interrupted before they resolved anything, and McNulty asked 

Mercer to continue discussing the matter with Charlton. 

3. Pilot Project for Charlton’s District 

Charlton said that Mercer persuaded him to design a pilot project for 

tape recording interrogations rather than submitting his resignation over being 

forced to rescind the new policy. Charlton said Mercer told him to forward the 

proposal for a pilot project to him, and Mercer assured him that it would 

receive expeditious and favorable review. 

Mercer also told Charlton that McNulty was upset because Charlton had 

committed a “procedural foul” by not clearing the initiative with the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office prior to its implementation. Charlton said that 

Mercer’s “procedural foul” comment led him to believe that he could alleviate 

142 The policy stated that “Cases submitted to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District 

of Arizona for prosecution in which an investigative target’s statements has been taken, shall 

include a recording, by either audio or audio and video, of that statement . . . the recording 

shall cover the entirety of the interview to include the advice of Miranda warnings and any 

subsequent questioning.” The policy contained an exception for circumstances “where a taped 

statement cannot reasonably be obtained . . .” 

225
the concerns by framing implementation of the new policy as a pilot program in 

his district rather than as a finalized Department policy change. 

Charlton told us that he wanted something in writing from McNulty’s 

office reflecting his agreement with Mercer. Charlton therefore asked Elston to 

confirm in writing that McNulty had asked that implementation of the new 

policy be delayed until his staff could review the policy and the pilot program 

proposal. On February 28, Elston wrote an e-mail to Charlton stating: 

[McNulty] is very interested in having you submit a proposal to 

have a pilot program in your district. Such a proposal would 

receive expeditious consideration. [McNulty] understands this 

issue and is interested in energizing the Department’s 

consideration of it. You are the best advocate for the proposed 

policy, and he hopes you will play a significant role in the 

Department’s review and the interagency review process. 

Charlton submitted his proposal for the pilot program to McNulty on 

March 15, 2006. In August 2006, McNulty’s staff recommended that he 

approve it. However, McNulty took no action. Charlton said that he followed 

up with Mercer at least once a month thereafter concerning the status of the 

pilot program, and Mercer reassured him that although McNulty was hesitant 

about the program, he would approve it. 

McNulty told us that he had supported the pilot program mainly as an 

accommodation to Charlton because Charlton had already announced the 

policy to his office and to law enforcement agencies in his district, and it would 

have been awkward for him to rescind it. However, McNulty told us that he did 

not believe that the Department should pursue the policy. We found no 

indication that anyone from McNulty’s office told Charlton that McNulty in fact 

did not support the pilot program. 

McNulty also told us that he thought Charlton showed poor judgment in 

proceeding to implement a new policy that had national implications without 

first obtaining Department approval. McNulty said that he had most likely 

discussed this matter with Sampson in their regular senior leadership 

meetings. McNulty told congressional investigators that he did not see 

Charlton’s actions at the time as insubordinate, although he acknowledged 

that Charlton’s actions concerning the taping policy came to his mind when he 

saw Charlton’s name on the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired. However, 

McNulty told us that if it had been up to him he would not have fired Charlton 

because of his attempt to implement the new tape recording policy. 

Nevertheless, McNulty said he did not ask Sampson to remove Charlton’s name 

from the list. 

226
 

 

 

C. The Death Penalty Case 

Around the same time that Charlton was seeking to implement the new 

taping policy, he disagreed with senior Department officials over a decision to 

seek the death penalty in an Arizona case involving a defendant who was being 

prosecuted for using a firearm to commit a murder during a drug deal. 

1. The Department’s Procedure for Death Penalty Cases 

The U.S. Attorneys’ Manual describes the Department’s death penalty 

review process. First, the U.S. Attorney sends a memorandum containing the 

facts and legal analysis in the case to the Assistant Attorney General for the 

Criminal Division in support of a recommendation to seek or not to seek the 

death penalty. The Assistant Attorney General then forwards the package to 

the Criminal Division’s Capital Case Unit (CCU). The CCU reviews the material 

from the U.S. Attorney and any material submitted by defense counsel, and 

passes it on for a recommendation from the Attorney General’s Review 

Committee for Capital Cases (the Committee).143 The Committee makes a 

recommendation to the Attorney General through the Deputy Attorney General. 

The Deputy Attorney General provides his recommendation to the Attorney 

General when the Committee’s recommendation differs from that of the U.S. 

Attorney. 

According to the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s CCU, as a 

matter of practice it is also understood that a representative from the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office calls the U.S. Attorney to consider the district’s view 

of the case when the district recommends against seeking the death penalty 

but the Committee votes in favor. 

The Attorney General makes the final decision about whether or not to 

seek the death penalty. The Attorney General conveys the final decision to the 

U.S. Attorney in a letter authorizing the U.S. Attorney to seek or not to seek the 

death penalty. However, attorneys in the CCU convey by telephone or e-mail 

the Attorney General’s decision to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as soon as the 

decision is made. 

2. The Death Penalty Decision 

In a memorandum to Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Alice 

Fisher dated December 16, 2005, Charlton requested that the Department not 

seek the death penalty for the defendant who allegedly had committed a 

143 The Committee is composed of career officials and political appointees from the 

Criminal Division, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Capital Case Unit, and a 

rotating group of Assistant United States Attorneys. 

227
 

 

 

 

 

 

murder during a drug deal.144 Charlton told us that representatives of his 

office met with the Committee in the spring of 2006 to argue that the death 

penalty was not appropriate in this case. According to e-mail traffic, however, 

the Committee recommended in late May 2006 that the government seek the 

death penalty. The Deputy Attorney General also recommended that the death 

penalty be sought in this case. 

Elston signed the recommendation for Deputy Attorney General McNulty 

on May 30, 2006, because McNulty was out of the country at the time. 

According to e-mail records, as of the morning of May 30, 2006, the Attorney 

General had not yet considered the Deputy Attorney General’s endorsement of 

the Committee’s recommendation, even though a court notice (called the “seek 

notice”) was supposed to be filed on the following day, May 31.145 

As noted above, as a matter of practice a representative from the Office of 

the Deputy Attorney General calls the U.S. Attorney to consider the district’s 

view of the case when the district recommends against seeking the death 

penalty but the Committee votes in favor. Charlton told us that McNulty’s 

office did not give him a chance to respond to the Committee’s recommendation 

before the Attorney General made his decision to seek the death penalty in this 

case.146 

In addition, according to Charlton, he was not notified that McNulty had 

recommended to the Attorney General that the government should seek the 

death penalty. Charlton said he first learned that the Attorney General had 

made a decision on May 31, 2006. On that day, the AUSAs handling the case 

were notified by a CCU attorney that the Attorney General had signed the letter 

to Charlton authorizing him to seek the death penalty. 

Charlton’s office did not file the notice of intent to seek the death penalty 

on May 31 in order to allow Charlton time to further discuss the matter with 

the Department. The same day Charlton received the letter from the Attorney 

General, an AUSA in Charlton’s office filed a motion requesting an extension of 

time to file the notice. Later that day, the court extended the deadline to 

144 According to Department documents describing the crime, the defendant in that 

case allegedly ordered a large quantity of methamphetamine from his supplier and murdered 

her when she delivered part of it to the apartment where the defendant lived. 

145 The “seek notice” is the document filed in the U.S. district court stating that the 

United States intends to seek the death penalty against the defendant. 

146 We determined that in early May 2006, coordination between the Deputy Attorney 

General’s Office and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices concerning capital cases was assigned to a 

former Associate Deputy Attorney General who left the Department before the Arizona case 

came to Deputy Attorney General McNulty for decision. Former Counselor to the Deputy 

Attorney General Joan Meyer took over the former Associate Deputy Attorney General’s capital 

case responsibilities in late June-early July 2006. 

228
 

June 30, and on the defendant’s subsequent motion, extended the deadline to 

August 20, 2006. 

3. Charlton Seeks Reconsideration of the Decision 

Charlton contacted Jeffrey Taylor, a Counselor to the Attorney General 

who had responsibility for death penalty matters, and expressed his 

unhappiness that he had not had an opportunity to speak with McNulty or the 

Attorney General about the recommendation before the Attorney General 

decided the matter.147 Charlton said that, at Taylor’s suggestion, he decided to 

request reconsideration of the decision. 

Charlton then contacted Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General 

Fisher to see if she would weigh in on the matter. Charlton said he and Fisher 

discussed the process by which Charlton could seek reconsideration of the 

decision. According to Fisher, she told Charlton she was uncertain about how 

Charlton should proceed without a showing that the circumstances had 

changed in the case because she could not simply overrule the Attorney 

General’s decision. Fisher said she advised Charlton to contact the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office.148 Charlton said he considered his conversations 

with Taylor and Fisher as support for his view that the matter was not final 

and was open for reconsideration. 

In a June 27, 2006, memorandum addressed to Fisher, Charlton 

requested reconsideration in part because the defense had not presented 

evidence in mitigation to the Capital Case Committee prior to the Attorney 

General’s decision. Charlton’s letter enclosed the mitigation evidence 

submitted by the defense and also requested that Fisher direct the Committee 

to meet with Charlton and the AUSAs assigned to the case to hear their 

arguments for reconsideration. 

According to an e-mail dated July 11, an AUSA in Charlton’s office called 

the CCU to determine if it planned to meet with Charlton about the request for 

reconsideration. A CCU trial attorney informed the AUSA by e-mail that “any 

decision to confer with your office and the defense is within the discretion of 

[Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher]. As yet, we are unaware of any 

147 Charlton noted that during Ashcroft’s tenure as Attorney General he had 

successfully sought reconsideration of the Department’s recommendation in another death 

penalty case after discussing the matter with Deputy Attorney General Comey. Comey 

confirmed to us that after Charlton raised concerns about the case, Comey changed the advice 

he was planning to give Attorney General Ashcroft, who agreed with the “no seek” 

recommendation. 

148 Charlton told us he was not sure whether the request to reconsider should go 

through the Deputy Attorney General’s Office at that point, and he said Fisher was not sure 

either. He said he contacted Fisher because she oversaw the Death Penalty Review Committee. 

229
request for such a conference.” Charlton responded that he would call Fisher, 

and e-mail traffic shows that a conference call between Charlton’s office, 

Fisher, and the CCU was scheduled for Thursday, July 13. 

Fisher told us that during the conference call on July 13 she raised the 

issue of whether she could appropriately handle the request to reconsider 

because it was not a request for authorization to withdraw the notice based on 

changed circumstances, but was instead a request that she reconsider the 

Attorney General’s original decision. 

On July 17, the CCU forwarded for Fisher’s signature a memorandum to 

the Attorney General which stated that Charlton’s request for reconsideration 

did not present the new evidence required to revisit the Attorney General’s 

original decision. The memorandum also stated that “the United States 

Attorney declined to file the notice of intent to seek the death penalty following 

the Attorney General’s May 31, 2006 decision, opting instead to seek 

reconsideration.” The memorandum stated that the material submitted by the 

defense did not “clearly identify any actual mitigating evidence that the 

Committee and the Attorney General have not already considered” and 

recommended against reconsideration of the Attorney General’s decision to 

seek the death penalty in the case. 

Our review of e-mails and other documents shows that until July 17, 

officials in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office were unaware that Charlton 

had not filed with the court the notice that the Department intended to seek 

the death penalty. On that day, Joan Meyer, a Counselor in McNulty’s office, 

forwarded the CCU memorandum to Jeff Taylor in the Attorney General’s Office 

with the notation that “This seems somewhat disrespectful to the Attorney 

General . . . I don’t know how the USA thinks he has the discretion to decline 

to file in May.” Taylor responded by e-mail to Meyer that he had told Charlton 

that if Charlton thought there were changed circumstances he could ask for 

reconsideration. However, Taylor wrote that he did not know that Charlton 

had not filed the notice. Taylor then asked Meyer to contact Charlton to find 

out why he chose that course. 

According to e-mail records, Meyer contacted Charlton that day, and 

Charlton told her he did not know he was required to file the “seek notice,” 

especially since the court had granted an enlargement of time in which to do 

so. Meyer informed Taylor in an e-mail that she told Charlton that the notice 

should have been filed when Charlton received notification of the Attorney 

General’s decision. Meyer also suggested to Taylor affording Charlton the 

courtesy of going through the review process again, but expressed concern that 

it might set an adverse precedent. Meyer wrote, “When the AG makes a 

decision, the USA needs to implement it.” 

230
 

 

Taylor responded that he would discuss the matter with Sampson, and 

he asked Meyer to inform Elston. The following day, Taylor wrote to Meyer, 

“After discussing this with Kyle [Sampson] I think Charlton should be directed 

to file the seek notice in the pending matter.” 

4. Charlton Asks to Speak to Attorney General Gonzales 

About the Decision 

In an e-mail dated July 20, 2006, Meyer informed Elston that she had 

called Charlton to tell him to file the notice, and that Charlton said he 

understood but wanted to speak to “someone higher up, presumably the DAG 

or the AG.” In her e-mail to Elston, Meyer said she told Charlton it would be 

better to discuss the issue with Deputy Attorney General McNulty. She 

concluded her e-mail with: “This usa is just not going to take no for an 

answer.” When Elston responded that he would call Charlton, Meyer replied, 

“Thanks. Things like this are an abuse of the process.” 

On July 20, Elston called Charlton to discuss the matter. Charlton told 

us that during this conversation, Elston told him there were individuals in the 

Department who thought Charlton had disregarded the Attorney General’s 

order to file the death penalty notice. After their conversation, Charlton sent 

an e-mail to Elston stating: 

At no time was anyone attempting to ignore or refuse to file as the 

AG requested. Everyone here thought that [not filing the notice 

and obtaining an enlargement of time to file it] was the appropriate 

way to handle this matter in a case where we hoped to have a 

reconsideration of this matter. It was, until very recently, my 

understanding that we did not have to file our notice until the date 

required by the Court. No disrespect of any kind was intended. I 

apologize if anyone saw it as otherwise. 

In an e-mail to Meyer on July 21, Elston told her about his conversation 

with Charlton and asked for Meyer’s input concerning the substantive aspects 

of Charlton’s request for reconsideration. Meyer responded, “I don’t want to 

accuse him of anything but I find it very difficult to believe that he was doing 

anything but trying to circumvent the AG’s ruling.” Meyer added that she 

believed Charlton “obviously has a problem with the death penalty, either 

because of the resource issue or personal philosophy.”149 Meyer also 

recommended that Elston tell Charlton there would be no meeting or “redoing 

149 When we asked Charlton about this claim, he stated that he was not opposed to the 

death penalty and that he believed the death penalty should be imposed “where the law 

required it.” He said the concern in this case was that the evidence was not sufficient to seek 

capital punishment. 

231
the process” and instead instruct him to file the notice no later than the 

following week. 

On July 31, Elston e-mailed Meyer and Taylor that he had spoken to 

Charlton and that Charlton had requested a conference call with McNulty. 

Taylor responded, “Charlton is really pushing it with this.” Elston also wrote 

that Charlton might seek to discuss the matter with the Attorney General “if 

(when) he gets no satisfaction from us, but we will try to dissuade him from 

making that request.” 

On August 2, Charlton spoke with McNulty and Elston by telephone 

about his request for reconsideration. Charlton said he told McNulty and 

Elston that he did not believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office would be successful in 

obtaining the death penalty before the jury. Charlton explained to McNulty 

that the case was based on testimony from cooperating witnesses who were all 

drug dealers or users, and the government had modest forensic evidence in 

part because the Department had allegedly refused to pay for exhuming the 

victim’s body from a landfill south of Phoenix. Charlton said McNulty had little 

reaction to his presentation, although Charlton said McNulty agreed to discuss 

the death penalty recommendation with the Attorney General. 

McNulty told us that he considered his conversation with Charlton to be 

the appropriate thing to do given the circumstances of the underlying case and 

Charlton’s view that the Attorney General should reconsider his decision. 

McNulty said that Charlton “pushed hard,” but after listening to Charlton’s 

views and after his own evaluation of the case, his recommendation to the 

Attorney General was that the decision to seek the death penalty should stand. 

McNulty told congressional investigators that to his knowledge Charlton 

was the only U.S. Attorney to ever disregard a “seek letter.” McNulty also said 

that when Charlton did not file the notice with the court after receiving the 

Attorney General’s letter, it was “rather significant” because it was well 

established that U.S. Attorneys are required to comply with the Attorney 

General’s direction once a decision is made. Mercer, who was the U.S. 

Attorney in Montana and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the 

time, told us that “based on training and understanding” U.S. Attorneys are 

aware that unlike other cases, they do not possess discretion in deciding 

whether or not to seek the death penalty in a capital case. Mercer said that 

despite the wording in the letter from the Attorney General stating, “You are 

authorized to seek the death penalty,” all U.S. Attorneys know that upon 

232
 

 

receipt of such a letter they are required to inform the court the prosecution 

will seek the death penalty.150 

5. Attorney General Gonzales Denies Charlton’s Request to 

Reconsider 

McNulty said that although he believed that Charlton had failed to follow 

the rules, he attempted to address Charlton’s request to reconsider the 

decision to seek the death penalty. McNulty told us he carefully reviewed the 

file after he spoke with Charlton, and he then met with Attorney General 

Gonzales and presented Charlton’s arguments. Calendar entries indicate that 

on August 15, 2006, a meeting between Gonzales and McNulty was scheduled 

from 3:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. to discuss Charlton’s request for reconsideration. 

McNulty told us he informed Gonzales that Charlton had made no new 

arguments since the Attorney General’s original decision, and McNulty 

therefore recommended that Gonzales maintain his position that the death 

penalty was appropriate in this case. According to McNulty, Gonzales believed 

his previous decision to seek the death penalty was appropriate. 

In Gonzales’s public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 

July 24, 2007, he said he had no specific recollection of the case or of his 

conversation with McNulty. During our interview, Gonzales told us that he was 

surprised to learn shortly after making the original decision that Charlton’s 

office had not filed the notice. Gonzales said he did not recall taking any action 

at the time other than perhaps asking McNulty to discuss the matter with 

Charlton. 

Charlton told us that shortly after McNulty’s meeting with Attorney 

General Gonzales, Elston called Charlton to inform him of Gonzales’s decision. 

According to Charlton, Elston told him that McNulty had spent a considerable 

amount of time discussing the issue with Gonzales, “perhaps 15 minutes.” 

Charlton said he thought at the time that common sense would prevail if 

Gonzales could listen to Charlton make the presentation. Charlton said that 

he asked Elston if he could speak personally with the Attorney General about 

the case and Elston advised him that it would be unwise to seek an audience 

with the Attorney General. 

During Elston’s interview with congressional staff, he said he advised 

Charlton not to request a meeting with Gonzales because Elston believed he 

knew what Gonzales would say. Elston said he did not think it was worth it to 

Charlton to waste “political capital” with Gonzales to discuss the case further. 

150 According to the Deputy Chief of the Capital Case Unit, this situation prompted a 

change in the wording of the Attorney General’s letters to U.S. Attorneys in death penalty 

cases, which now states, “You are authorized and directed to seek the death penalty.” 

233
 

 

Elston also said that the entire incident caused him to question Charlton’s 

judgment about how he had handled the matter. 

According to an e-mail dated August 15, 2006, at 6:51 p.m., Elston 

forwarded to Sampson Charlton’s request to meet with Gonzales. Elston wrote 

to Sampson, “In the ‘you won’t believe this category’, Paul Charlton would like 

a few minutes of the AG’s time.” Elston told Sampson he had explained to 

Charlton that Charlton had already been given “extensive, unusual process” 

and Elston had also told Charlton he did not think it was a good idea for him to 

press the matter further, but Charlton insisted that Elston make the request. 

Sampson responded at 7:00 p.m. with a one word e-mail, “Denied.” 

The following day, August 16, 2006, Elston informed Charlton by e-mail 

that the Attorney General “has declined your invitation to speak further about 

the case,” and Elston instructed Charlton to file the notice that the government 

was seeking the death penalty. That same day, Charlton’s office filed the 

notice.151 

6. Sampson Places Charlton’s Name on the September 2006 

Removal List 

Less than 1 month later, on September 13, 2006, Sampson included 

Charlton’s name on his removal list for the first time. Sampson testified to 

Congress that Charlton was placed on the September 13 list based on policy 

disputes Charlton had with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office during the 

summer of 2006. According to Sampson, Charlton’s action in the death 

penalty matter was one of the two primary reasons he placed Charlton’s name 

on the September 13 list. The other was Charlton’s efforts to institute a new 

policy in his district requiring tape recording of interrogations. 

D. Obscenity Prosecutions 

Another issue that was raised in McNulty’s preparation session for his 

closed briefing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and also listed in Goodling’s 

chart as a reason justifying Charlton’s removal, was Charlton’s alleged 

resistance to prosecuting obscenity cases identified as significant by the 

Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (Task Force). Although we did 

not find that any Department official asserted in testimony or interviews that 

Charlton’s removal was based on this issue, we examined this claim because it 

was listed in Goodling’s chart. 

151 On September 2, 2008, the defendant pled guilty to murder, drug, and weapons 

charges and agreed to a life sentence. 

234
 

 

1. The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force Requests 

Charlton’s Assistance 

Charlton and Brent Ward, the Director of the Task Force, first met in 

March 2006 to discuss the investigation of an alleged distributor of illegal 

pornography in Arizona. Charlton said that Ward requested that Charlton 

assign an AUSA from his office to act as the “second chair” to a Task Force trial 

attorney through the investigation and ultimate prosecution of the case. 

Charlton told us that he initially expressed reluctance to assist the Task Force 

because he believed his office did not have sufficient resources to take on the 

additional cases the Task Force had identified. Charlton also said that while 

he believed that Task Force attorneys should be primarily responsible for the 

prosecutions, he nevertheless agreed to support the case by assigning a 

prosecutor to assist the Task Force attorney assigned to the Arizona case. 

According to e-mail traffic, on March 8, 2006, Charlton provided Ward with the 

name of an AUSA in Arizona who would assist with the investigation and 

prosecution of the case. 

On April 26, 2006, Ward e-mailed a report to Criminal Division Assistant 

Attorney General Fisher describing what he called the “first wave” of cases from 

the Task Force. Ward also provided the names of the U.S. Attorneys who had 

been assisting the Task Force so that Fisher could personally commend them 

for their assistance. In that report, Ward wrote that Charlton had been “very 

cooperative,” but he also noted that Charlton’s office appeared to have serious 

resource issues that might preclude providing trial assistance to the Task 

Force. Ward informed Fisher that trial assistance was absolutely crucial for 

the Arizona case and requested that she encourage Charlton “to stick it out 

with [the Task Force].” We found no indication that Fisher responded to Ward 

or spoke to Charlton about the matter at that time. 

2. Task Force Complaints About Charlton 

On May 22, 2006, Ward, accompanied by an FBI Washington Field Office 

Special Agent in Charge (SAC) and a Task Force trial attorney, met with 

Charlton in Arizona to discuss the investigation of the pornography 

distributor.152 The case against the distributor was indicted in Arizona the 

following day. According to Charlton, Ward tried to persuade Charlton to have 

his office take over the case or to assist with the trial. Charlton said that he 

was unable to do so because the assigned AUSA had a busy caseload of his 

own, but Charlton said he would provide office space for the Task Force 

attorney. 

152 The Task Force’s investigative work was handled by the Adult Obscenity Squad, a 

nationwide FBI initiative operating out of the FBI’s Washington, D.C., Field Office. 

235
 

 

E-mail records show that by the end of June 2006, Ward had begun to 

request that Fisher’s office assist him in persuading Charlton and U.S. 

Attorney Debra Yang of the Central District of California to accept 

responsibility for prosecution of two Task Force cases. Criminal Division Chief 

of Staff Matthew Friedrich said he called Charlton to ask him to take over the 

case in Arizona, and Charlton told him he did not have the resources to do so. 

Friedrich said that after he spoke to Charlton, he told Elston about Ward’s 

complaints that Charlton refused to take over the case or assist with the trial. 

According to Friedrich, however, adult obscenity cases were not a high priority 

for the Deputy Attorney General’s Office at that time and no one from the 

Deputy Attorney General’s Office raised a concern about them.153 

In July 2006 Friedrich informed Elston and Principal Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Mercer that he wanted McNulty’s office to direct Charlton and 

Yang to lend resources to handle specific obscenity cases. At Friedrich’s 

request, in early August Mercer spoke to Charlton about taking over the 

Arizona task force case. Charlton said that his office was not in a position to 

assume responsibility for the case, but said that one of his AUSAs would assist 

with the case when it got closer to trial. 

In an August 28, 2006, e-mail, Ward complained to Sampson that the 

Task Force’s efforts were at a standstill because Charlton, Bogden, and Yang 

refused to take over the obscenity cases the Task Force had identified and had 

begun to develop in their districts. Ward also complained that he was unable 

to get either Fisher or Friedrich to meet with him to discuss the matter. Ward 

asked Sampson whether the Attorney General would consider calling the U.S. 

Attorneys to instruct them to take over the cases. We found no response to 

Ward’s request, and Sampson told us he did not recall discussing the matter 

with Gonzales. 

On August 29, 2006, Ward sent an e-mail to Friedrich stating that 

Charlton and Bogden’s failure to cooperate with the Task Force was going to 

lead to a “showdown with the FBI.” Ward also wrote that the FBI seemed to 

minimize its participation in the Task Force after Charlton allegedly “thumbed 

his nose” at Ward and the FBI SAC at their May 22, 2006, meeting. Friedrich 

forwarded Ward’s e-mail to Elston, who responded, “don’t throw in the towel 

yet.” 

153 Fisher noted that U.S. Attorneys do not report “in any way, shape, or form” to the 

Criminal Division, but rather to the Deputy Attorney General. According to Fisher, the attitude 

of the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices towards the Task Force was mixed. According to Fisher, several 

districts were interested in pursuing cases but lacked the resources to do so. Fisher added 

that the Task Force was established as a small team of two to four attorneys who worked 

closely with the FBI to identify potential cases for referral to U.S. Attorneys, but the Task Force 

itself was not designed to prosecute cases. 

236
 

Elston said that he and McNulty discussed the matter in early September 

2006, and McNulty indicated he wanted to familiarize himself with the cases so 

he could discuss them with the U.S. Attorneys. Elston told us that he knew 

Friedrich was frustrated at how long it was taking McNulty to directly contact 

the U.S. Attorneys about the obscenity cases, but Elston said McNulty wanted 

to have all the information concerning Ward’s complaints before he called them 

about the cases. In an e-mail to Friedrich on August 31, 2006, Ward prepared 

a timeline describing his interactions with Charlton for a proposed briefing of 

McNulty concerning the Arizona obscenity case. 

Between September 13 and 15, 2006, the Department’s National 

Advocacy Center (NAC) in Columbia, South Carolina, hosted a training seminar 

for Department personnel and other law enforcement agencies about 

investigating obscenity cases. Attorney General Gonzales spoke at the seminar 

and underscored that obscenity prosecutions were a Department priority. 

Following the seminar, Ward continued to complain about Charlton and 

other U.S. Attorneys. In a September 20, 2006, e-mail to Sampson, Ward 

stated that Charlton and Bogden were unwilling to take “good cases” presented 

to them. Ward asked, “In light of the Attorney General’s comments at the NAC 

. . . what do you suggest I do?” Ward also asked Sampson whether it was 

necessary for him to go through the chain of command to complain to the 

Attorney General or whether telling Sampson about Charlton and Bogden was 

sufficient. Sampson responded that Ward should go through the regular 

channels to avoid “step[ping] on [Fisher]’s or [McNulty]’s toes.” 

That same day, Ward again complained to Friedrich and others in the 

Criminal Division, stating, “I would like to position them [Charlton and Bogden] 

for calls from the Attorney General.” On September 21, 2006, Ward provided 

Friedrich with summaries of the “problem districts” in which he described 

Charlton as “a hardened hold-out [who] will probably not budge until the AG 

calls, if then.” We found no evidence that the Attorney General or anyone else 

ever called Charlton to discuss these matters. 

During his interview with us, Sampson stated that he did not place 

Charlton’s name on the September 13 list because of Ward’s complaints about 

Charlton’s lack of cooperation on obscenity cases.154 Sampson said he could 

not recall anything about Charlton beyond his actions concerning the death 

penalty matter and his attempt to implement the recorded interrogations policy 

as the basis for placing Charlton on the list. Sampson said that he did not ask 

McNulty or anyone else about Charlton but he had learned in passing 

154 Sampson said failure to participate in the obscenity prosecutions may have been a 

factor in the decision to place Bogden on the list, although he said he could not recall if it was 

a factor in Bogden’s removal. 

237
 

 

 

sometime during the summer of 2006 about Charlton’s actions regarding the 

death penalty and recorded interrogations issues. 

McNulty told us that at no time did he associate Charlton with concerns 

about failing to undertake obscenity prosecutions. McNulty said that when he 

learned in late October 2006 that Charlton was on the list of U.S. Attorneys to 

be removed, Charlton’s actions concerning the tape recording policy and the 

death penalty case were foremost in his mind. 

E. Investigation of Congressman Renzi 

Another issue that surfaced in media reports concerned whether 

Charlton’s removal was connected to the investigation of Republican 

Congressman Rick Renzi of Arizona or to a media leak about the 

investigation.155 

The FBI’s investigation of Renzi began in early 2005. The Arizona U.S. 

Attorney’s Office participated in the investigation, and the Department’s Public 

Integrity Section joined the case in the fall of 2005. In October 2006, senior 

leadership in the Department became aware that Charlton’s office and the 

Department’s Public Integrity Section were jointly handling the investigation. 

According to Benton Campbell, who replaced Friedrich as Assistant Attorney 

General Fisher’s Chief of Staff at the end of September 2006, the Criminal 

Division began to closely supervise aspects of the investigation in mid-October 

2006 after Fisher learned that Charlton’s office planned to employ a certain 

investigative technique. 

On Thursday, October 19, 2006, Charlton’s office submitted a request to 

the Criminal Division to seek a court order to use the investigative technique. 

The following day, an Associated Press (AP) reporter told Department 

spokesperson Brian Roehrkasse that the AP planned to publish an article 

reporting that the Department was investigating Renzi for bribery and that the 

Department was using a wiretap in the investigation. Fisher responded that 

Campbell would brief Roehrkasse about the investigation, but cautioned that 

the report was not accurate. 

According to Charlton, on Saturday, October 21 an Internet blog falsely 

reported that the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office was “up on a wire” and had 

already indicted Renzi but was sitting on the indictment until after the 

upcoming election. In an October 22 e-mail to Elston requesting assistance in 

obtaining expedited consideration of Charlton’s request to use the particular 

investigative technique, Charlton discussed the media reports and noted that 

155 The investigation focused in part on an allegation that Renzi agreed, in exchange for 

a monetary payment, to sponsor federal legislation to buy land from a former business 

associate. 

238
up to this point the Department had declined to comment. Charlton informed 

Elston that after becoming aware of the news report, Renzi had contacted the 

Arizona FBI office to ask if he was under investigation, but the FBI had refused 

to comment. 

According to Charlton, on Monday, October 23 Renzi’s Chief of Staff left a 

voicemail for Charlton and his public affairs officer inquiring about the status 

of any case against Renzi. Charlton said they did not return the staff member’s 

calls, and the office’s Criminal Chief immediately reported the calls to John 

Nowacki, a Deputy Director in EOUSA. 

Charlton told us that by October 24 supervisors in the Criminal Division 

had approved the request to seek the investigative technique, but Assistant 

Attorney General Fisher’s office had not yet approved the request. Charlton 

said he tried to discuss the matter with Criminal Division Chief of Staff 

Campbell to no avail, and then went directly to Fisher. Charlton told us that 

Fisher expressed concern about moving forward more quickly with the 

investigative technique for two reasons: (1) a recent controversy concerning 

whether the Department was overaggressive in obtaining and executing a 

search warrant in U.S. Representative William Jefferson’s congressional office 

and, (2) the risk that disclosure of the Renzi investigation before the election 

could interfere with the election. 

On October 25, stories about the Renzi investigation appeared in The 

Washington Post and The New York Times, and both quoted an unnamed 

Department official stating that the investigation was in a preliminary stage. 

Documents show that Fisher approved the investigative technique 

request on October 26. Campbell said that during the week of November 2, he 

informed Charlton’s office that no one was authorized to take any other 

investigative steps until after the election. 

E-mail records show that in early November 2006, Charlton complained 

to Fisher that Campbell’s oversight of the investigation was becoming “far too 

restrictive.” Campbell told us that he recognized that the Arizona U.S. 

Attorney’s Office was frustrated with the extent of his review, but he believed it 

was justified by the extraordinary circumstances of the case. Campbell also 

told us that his conversations with Charlton were very professional. He said 

that Charlton was “backing his people” and was not unreasonable. Campbell 

also said that the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office was ultimately able to take all 

the investigative steps it had requested. Campbell also said he was shocked 

when he learned in December 2006 that Charlton had been asked to resign 

because he had just spoken with Charlton 6 weeks earlier. 

Fisher said she did not have any input into the issue of which U.S. 

Attorneys were to be removed. She said that if any of her thoughts or opinions 

239
were used in the decision-making process, it was without her knowledge or 

permission. 

Sampson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Charlton’s 

removal was not related to the Renzi investigation. He also stated that to his 

knowledge no one from the White House or outside the Administration 

advocated for Charlton’s removal. McNulty told us that he was unaware of any 

information that would support the conclusion that Charlton’s removal was 

related to the Renzi investigation. McNulty also said he heard no complaints 

from the Attorney General or the White House about Charlton’s actions in the 

Renzi investigation. 

F. Charlton’s Resignation 

On December 7, 2006, EOUSA Director Battle called Charlton and told 

him that the Department wanted him to resign as U.S. Attorney by the end of 

January. According to Charlton, his call with Battle was a “very curt” 

conversation. Charlton said after speaking with Battle he called Acting 

Associate Attorney General Mercer, who told him that the action was being 

taken so others would have the opportunity to serve as U.S. Attorney before the 

end of the President’s term. 

Charlton said that at the time he thought he was probably asked to 

resign because of the difficulties he had with the Department concerning the 

death penalty matter and the taping policy. On December 18, 2006, Charlton 

submitted a letter of resignation to the President and the Attorney General 

stating that he would resign effective January 30, 2007. 

On December 21, 2006, after Charlton announced his resignation, he 

sent an e-mail to Mercer notifying him that the media had asked whether 

Charlton’s resignation was connected to the leak in the Renzi investigation. 

Mercer told us he could not specifically recall discussing the matter with 

Charlton, other than advising Charlton to respond to media inquiries about his 

resignation by making it clear that it was Charlton’s decision to resign. 

III. Analysis 

In this section, we analyze the various reasons that have been proffered 

for why Charlton was removed as U.S. Attorney. 

A. Renzi Prosecution 

We found no evidence that Charlton was removed because of his office’s 

investigation and prosecution of Congressman Renzi, as was alleged in some 

media reports after the U.S. Attorney removals became public. Sampson and 

other Department officials denied this claim, and our review of Department e240
mails and documents did not find any indication that these investigations had 

anything to do with Charlton’s removal. Moreover, the case was handled 

jointly by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department’s Public 

Integrity Section beginning in the fall of 2005, and Charlton’s name did not 

appear on any removal list until September 2006. 

Sampson testified that he was not aware of the Renzi investigation when 

he put Charlton’s name on the removal list in September 2006, and we found 

no evidence that the investigation played any role in Charlton’s removal. It is 

also noteworthy that after Charlton’s removal, the Renzi investigation and 

prosecution continued unabated, resulting in Renzi’s indictment in February 

2007. The case is pending. 

B. Obscenity Prosecution 

One of the issues listed in Goodling’s chart as a justification for 

Charlton’s removal was his alleged resistance to assisting in the prosecution of 

Obscenity Prosecution Task Force cases. It is unclear whether, and to what 

extent, the task force leader’s complaints about Charlton played a role in his 

removal. 

Sampson stated that he did not recall placing Charlton on the list for 

reasons other than Charlton’s actions concerning the tape recording policy and 

his disagreements with the Department about seeking the death penalty in a 

particular case. Elston and McNulty also told us they did not recall that 

Charlton’s alleged failure to assist the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force was a 

factor in his removal. 

However, we found that Ward, the Task Force leader, complained directly 

to Sampson and indirectly to Elston about Charlton throughout the summer of 

2006, shortly before Sampson placed Charlton on the list. Ward also 

complained to Sampson about Bogden, who was also placed on the 

September 13, 2006, removal list for the first time. Yet, Charlton and Bogden 

were not the only U.S. Attorneys about whom Ward complained, and those 

other U.S. Attorneys were not removed. While it is not clear to what extent 

Charlton’s alleged failure to assist the Task Force was a factor in his removal, 

we believe it played a part in Sampson’s decision to put him on the list. 

C. Discussion with Senator Kyl About Resources 

Department officials believed that Charlton had improper discussions 

with Senator Kyl to seek more resources for the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

During McNulty’s preparation session for his closed briefing for the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, Sampson mentioned Charlton’s discussion with Kyl 

about resources as justification for Charlton’s removal. Sampson later testified 

before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he recalled officials in the Office of 

the Attorney General thinking that Charlton had directly contacted Senator Kyl 

241
in order to obtain more resources for his office. Goodling testified that 

Charlton’s unauthorized discussions with members of Congress were on her 

mind when she examined Sampson’s draft list in early 2006. Moreover, 

Iglesias told us that he was aware that Charlton had been criticized because 

people in the Department thought he had lobbied his home-state Senator for 

additional prosecutors, evidencing how strongly and widely held this view was 

in the Department. 

In fact, Charlton did not approach Senator Kyl for additional resources. 

Rather, after an Arizona Congressman had raised to the Department the need 

to devote more resources to border prosecutions, Sampson asked Charlton for 

his views, and Charlton confirmed his need for additional resources. Shortly 

after Sampson’s conversation with Charlton, Senator Kyl visited Charlton’s 

office and asked Charlton directly whether there was anything the district 

needed. Charlton mentioned to Kyl his conversation with Sampson about 

seeking additional attorney positions for the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

Charlton did not ask Senator Kyl to intervene on his behalf for more resources; 

he was responding to Kyl’s question. Nevertheless, when Senator Kyl later 

pressed the Department for more resources for Arizona, Department officials 

apparently believed that Charlton had acted inappropriately. 

We concluded that Sampson’s, Goodling’s, and other Department 

officials’ erroneous belief that Charlton had acted inappropriately with Senator 

Kyl was another factor in the decision to remove him. However, we do not 

believe that this issue was the most significant factor in Charlton’s removal. 

The incident occurred in 2004, and none of the early removal lists included 

Charlton’s name. Rather, as discussed next, we believe that the primary 

reasons for Charlton’s removal were the Department’s view of his actions 

regarding the tape recording of interrogations and, most important, its view of 

his persistent efforts to reconsider the Department’s decision to seek the death 

penalty in a particular case. 

D. Tape Recording Policy 

Sampson testified that he placed Charlton on the U.S. Attorney removal 

list because of Charlton’s actions in attempting to implement a tape recording 

policy in his district and because of his actions in the death penalty case. 

With regard to the tape recording of interrogations, we determined that 

Charlton began exploring this issue in 2004 because he believed the absence of 

recordings was undermining prosecutions in his district. Charlton first raised 

the issue with Deputy Attorney General Comey, who established a working 

group that included Charlton to consider the matter. However, the working 

group did not reach a consensus. After McNulty became the Deputy Attorney 

General, the working group became dormant, and Charlton decided to 

implement a tape recording policy in his district without consulting the 

242
Department’s leadership. As Charlton expected, the FBI opposed the policy 

and complained to McNulty about it. 

Shortly before Charlton’s tape recording policy was scheduled to take 

effect, McNulty spoke with Charlton at a U.S. Attorneys’ conference and told 

him to rescind it. Charlton refused to do so, telling McNulty he would prefer to 

resign rather than rescind the policy. According to Charlton, the conversation 

was interrupted and McNulty asked Principal Deputy Attorney General Mercer 

to continue discussing the matter with Charlton. 

Mercer told us that he persuaded Charlton to design a pilot program for 

tape recording interrogations rather than submit his resignation. Charlton 

agreed to develop the pilot program, and McNulty’s Chief of Staff Michael 

Elston sent an e-mail to Charlton stating that McNulty was very interested in 

the pilot program and that it would receive expeditious consideration. Elston 

added that McNulty understood the issue and was interested in energizing the 

Department’s consideration of it, and that McNulty hoped that Charlton would 

play a significant role in the Department’s review and the subsequent 

interagency review process. However, we found no evidence that Charlton’s 

pilot program was finally approved. 

We believe that Charlton should have consulted with Department 

officials before implementing a policy requiring recording of interrogations in 

his district, and his unilateral action was unauthorized and inappropriate. 

However, after the issue was discussed with McNulty and his staff, agreement 

was reached that Charlton would design a pilot program. Thereafter, Charlton 

continued to pursue the issue, with apparent support from the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office. 

McNulty told us that he thought the incident demonstrated poor 

judgment by Charlton. McNulty said he told Sampson about Charlton’s 

actions at one of their regular senior leadership meetings, and Sampson said 

this was one of the reasons for Charlton’s removal. However, McNulty also told 

congressional investigators that he did not see Charlton’s actions at the time as 

insubordinate. McNulty told us that if it had been up to him, he would not 

have chosen to remove Charlton because of his attempt to implement the 

recording policy. However, McNulty acknowledged that he did not ask 

Sampson to remove Charlton’s name from the list when McNulty saw it. 

Mercer also told us that he did not think Charlton’s actions concerning the 

taping policy should have served as a basis for his removal because Charlton 

had ultimately “stood down” and agreed to work on the pilot program. 

Moreover, after the dispute with McNulty about the taping policy, which 

occurred in February and March 2006, Charlton was not included on the next 

version of the U.S. Attorney removal list that Sampson forwarded to the White 

House on April 14, 2006. Nonetheless, we concluded that Charlton’s actions in 

the matter were a significant factor in Sampson’s decision later to place 

243
 

Charlton on the list, and also in no other Department official’s advocating for 

his removal from the list. 

E. The Death Penalty Case 

We believe that Charlton’s action related to the death penalty case during 

the summer of 2006 was the most significant factor in Charlton’s removal. 

As described above, Charlton felt strongly that the death penalty should 

not be sought in a particular case based on his conclusion that there were 

deficiencies in the evidence. After the case was examined through the 

Department’s review process, however, Attorney General Gonzales accepted the 

recommendation to seek the death penalty and issued a letter authorizing 

Charlton to notify the court of the Department’s intentions.156 

Contemporaneous e-mail records and interviews show that the Deputy 

Attorney General’s staff and the Attorney General’s staff were upset when they 

learned that, after the Attorney General’s decision, Charlton’s office did not 

promptly file the death penalty notice, but instead obtained an enlargement of 

time from the court in order to request that the Attorney General reconsider 

the issue. The Deputy Attorney General’s and the Attorney General’s staffs 

believed that Charlton was insubordinate in not filing the notice, and that his 

attempts to seek a meeting with Attorney General Gonzales on the issue were 

an abuse of the review process. We believe that the perception about 

Charlton’s conduct in this matter, along with complaints about the tape 

recording issue, his perceived contact with Senator Kyl concerning resources, 

and his failure to assist the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force all contributed 

to Sampson’s decision to include Charlton on the September 13, 2006, list of 

U.S. Attorneys to be removed. 

We do not agree that Charlton’s forceful advocacy on the death penalty 

case constituted insubordination. Charlton did not receive notice of the initial 

recommendation by the death penalty review committee and was not provided 

an opportunity to advocate against the committee’s recommendation. 

Moreover, Charlton was not informed of the outcome until he received notice 

that the Attorney General had authorized Charlton to seek the death penalty. 

When Charlton learned of the decision, he contacted the Attorney 

General’s Counsel Jeffrey Taylor about an opportunity to be heard on the 

matter and, with Taylor’s encouragement, he sought reconsideration of the 

decision. Charlton then obtained an extension of time from the court for filing 

156 It is important to note that we did not examine the merits of Charlton’s position 

about the strength of the evidence in this case, nor did we examine in detail the Department’s 

death penalty review process in this matter. Such an examination is beyond the scope of our 

investigation, which focused on the reasons for Charlton’s dismissal. 

244
the death penalty notice. Later, when he was informed that Department staff 

believed his decision to seek an enlargement of time rather than file the notice 

was “insubordination,” he immediately sent an e-mail stating that he did not 

intend to ignore the Attorney General’s decision or exhibit any disrespect, but 

believed it appropriate to seek reconsideration of the Attorney General’s 

decision particularly since he had not had an opportunity to discuss the issue 

with the Deputy Attorney General before the Attorney General made a final 

decision. 

As a result of Charlton’s persistence in seeking reconsideration of the 

death penalty decision, McNulty spoke with Charlton and later discussed the 

issue with Attorney General Gonzales, who affirmed his initial decision. 

Charlton then sought to speak with Gonzales directly, which according to 

Elston caused Department leaders to further question Charlton’s conduct. 

In sum, while Department officials may have concluded that Charlton 

should have accepted the Department’s decision and complied with it promptly, 

we do not believe it is insubordinate for a U.S. Attorney to press for an 

audience with the ultimate decision makers in a matter as important as the 

decision to seek the death penalty. We believe an issue of this magnitude 

warrants full and vigorous examination and debate within the Department, and 

that Charlton’s request to speak directly to the Attorney General was neither 

insubordinate nor inappropriate. 

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246
-

-

Oct 2001

Oct 2001

John McKay Timeline

McKay Events 

and Actions Mar 2002 

McKay obtains a new AUSA for the 

Thomas Wales murder investigation 

Apr 2005 

Comey designates McKay leader of the LInX 

information sharing pilot project in the Northwest 

Aug 30, 2006 

McKay sends a letter signed by 17 U.S. 

Attorneys to McNulty and non-Department 

personnel advocating LInX 

Oct 2001 Nov 2001 Dec 2001 Jan 2002 Feb 2002 Mar 2002 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 May 2005 Jun 2005 Jul 2005 Aug 2005 Sep 2005 Oct 2005 Nov 2005 Dec 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 

Oct 23, 2001 

McKay is confirmed by the Senate 

as the U.S. Attorney, Western 

District of Washington 

Dec 2004 

The final recount in the state 

governor's race results in victory for 

the Democratic candidate 

Jan 25, 2005 Jan 27, 2005 

Complaints that McKay will not 

investigate voter fraud complaints 

Mar 2, 2005 

McKay is included on Sampson's 

first removal list 

Aug 2005 

Outgoing Comey describes to Sampson 

McKay's great work on the information 

sharing project 

Jan 2006 Apr 2006 

In early 2006, the DAG's 

office receives complaints 

from DOJ agencies about 

McKay’s advocacy 

concerning LInX 

Sep 13, 2006 

McKay’s name is on Sampson’s 

fourth removal list of U.S. Attorneys 

Dec 7, 2006 

McKay is told to resign 

Jan 26, 2007 

McKay leaves office 

DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 

Jan 4, 2005 

Representative Hasting's Chief of 

Staff calls McKay to ask about 

USAO's investigation of voter fraud 

allegations 

Jun 30, 2006 

McKay has heated discussions with 

McNulty and Mercer about LInX 

Aug 22, 2006 

White House officials Miers and Kelley tell 

McKay that Washington State Republicans 

were displeased with his handling of the voter 

fraud allegations 

Jan 9, 2006 

McKay is not included 

on Sampson's second 

removal list 

Apr 19, 2006 

McKay is not included on 

Sampson's third removal list 

Dec 14, 2006 

McKay announces his resignation 
CHAPTER NINE 

JOHN MCKAY 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of John McKay, the former United 

States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. 

A. McKay’s Background 

McKay graduated from Creighton University Law School in 1982. From 

1982 to 1989, he worked in a private law firm in Seattle, Washington. He was 

named a White House Fellow in 1989 and served as a Special Assistant to FBI 

Director William Sessions until 1990. In 1990 McKay returned to private law 

practice in Seattle, where he remained until 1997 when he was named 

President of the Legal Services Corporation. He served in that position until he 

became the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. McKay was 

nominated on September 19, 2001, confirmed by the Senate on October 24, 

and sworn in as U.S. Attorney on October 30, 2001. 

1. The EARS Evaluations of McKay’s Office 

McKay’s office underwent two EARS evaluations, the first in May 2002 

shortly after his arrival as the U.S. Attorney, and the second in March 2006. 

The 2002 evaluation was positive, stating that “McKay was setting appropriate 

goals and priorities and was doing an outstanding job furthering interagency 

cooperation.” The evaluation also stated that “McKay was well respected by his 

staff, the judiciary and all the law enforcement and civil agencies.” 

The 2006 evaluation described McKay as an “effective, well-regarded, and 

capable leader” of the office and of the local law enforcement community. It 

noted that the office had established strategic goals to meet the priorities of the 

Department and the needs of the district. The only criticism concerned 

McKay’s office’s sentencing practices. The evaluation stated that the office 

lacked a uniform procedure for documenting the Criminal Chief’s approval of 

motions seeking downward departures in sentencing recommendations where 

defendants had provided substantial assistance to the government. 

2. McKay’s Status on the Removal Lists 

As discussed in Chapter Three, McKay’s name was included on 

Sampson’s first removal list which Sampson sent to White House Counsel 

Harriet Miers in March 2005. In August 2005 Deputy Attorney General Comey 

told Sampson that McKay had been “great on my information sharing project,” 

and Sampson took McKay’s name off the next two U.S. Attorney removal lists 

247
he sent to the White House in January and April 2006. However, McKay’s 

name reappeared on Sampson’s September 2006 list, and it remained there 

until McKay was told to resign on December 7, 2006. 

B. Reasons Proffered for McKay’s Removal 

A variety of reasons were proffered for McKay’s removal. McNulty stated 

in a closed briefing to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 

2007 that McKay was “enthusiastic but temperamental,” had made promises 

that the Department could not support regarding information sharing with 

other law enforcement agencies, and was resistant to direction from 

Department leadership. McNulty also stated that McKay’s performance was 

deficient because his district was not seeking to appeal sentences that fell 

below the sentencing guideline range. 

The news media also reported allegations that McKay was removed 

because of his alleged failure to investigate claims of voter fraud in the wake of 

the 2004 Washington State governor’s race. 

Sampson testified in March 2007 that he believed he included McKay’s 

name on the March 2005 list because McKay was overly aggressive in seeking 

resources to investigate the 2001 murder of an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 

McKay’s district. Sampson also stated that he placed McKay on the 

September 13, 2006, list because he perceived that the Deputy Attorney 

General’s office was not pleased with the way McKay had tried to force the 

Deputy’s hand on an information sharing initiative known as LInX. 

Our investigation examined each of these alleged reasons for McKay’s 

removal. In the remainder of this chapter, we describe the facts related to 

these issues in chronological order and then provide our analysis regarding the 

reasons for McKay’s removal. 

II. Chronology of Events Related to McKay’s Removal 

A. The Wales Murder Investigation 

As noted above, Sampson testified that he may have identified McKay for 

removal on the March 2005 list after Department officials raised concerns 

about McKay’s actions in connection with the investigation of the October 11, 

2001, murder of Seattle Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Thomas C. Wales. 

Sampson stated that he learned that there had been a conflict between McKay 

and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson in which McKay 

demanded that Thompson take certain actions concerning the investigation of 

the murder. 

248
McKay became U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington 6 

weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks and 3 weeks after the murder of 

AUSA Wales. Wales, who was a highly regarded and well liked AUSA, was at 

home in his basement office when someone shot and killed him through the 

basement window. 

McKay said that when he became the U.S. Attorney, Wales’s office was 

still surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. Associate Deputy Attorney 

General David Margolis had recused McKay’s office from conducting the 

murder investigation, and according to McKay that decision was very 

controversial. McKay said that the office did not have confidence in the 

prosecutor Department officials had initially assigned to the case. 

McKay said that shortly after he arrived as the U.S. Attorney in October 

2001, he began to ask Deputy Attorney General Thompson and Thompson’s 

senior staff to replace the prosecutor on the Wales investigation. McKay 

acknowledged to us that he had several “tense conversations” with Principal 

Associate Deputy Attorney General Christopher Wray concerning this issue. 

According to McKay, his tenacity paid off and in March 2002 a more 

experienced prosecutor was assigned to oversee the Wales murder 

investigation. 

McKay also told us that while he was not directly involved in the 

investigation of Wales’s murder, he pushed hard for the Department to commit 

more resources to the investigation. He said he felt it was his responsibility to 

be the conduit between the FBI’s Seattle Division and the Department 

concerning the allocation of resources. For example, McKay said that he felt 

obligated to raise with Department officials and the FBI issues such as the 

number of FBI agents assigned to the investigation and whether it was 

appropriate to assign agents from FBI Headquarters or take resources away 

from the FBI’s Seattle Division for the investigation. McKay said he thought he 

raised the issues in a professional manner, and he said that at no time did 

anyone share any concerns with him or otherwise indicate that they thought 

his conduct was inappropriate. 

We found little contemporaneous documentation concerning McKay’s 

interaction with Department officials regarding the Wales investigation. 

However, from interviewing the individuals McKay communicated with in the 

Deputy Attorney General’s office concerning the matter, we believe that McKay 

accurately described his efforts to obtain more resources. Both Thompson and 

Wray described McKay as very aggressive about making certain that adequate 

resources were devoted to the investigation. 

Thompson, who served as Deputy Attorney General until October 2003, 

said he did not recall any tension between himself and McKay. Thompson told 

us that he remembered people on his staff complaining about McKay’s 

249
 

 

constant pressure and demands for resources. Thompson acknowledged that 

on occasion he was irritated with the way McKay complained and pushed for 

more resources. Thompson emphasized that McKay did not do anything 

inappropriate. Thompson said that while he may have become annoyed with 

McKay’s persistence, he was also aggravated by the actions of a number of 

other U.S. Attorneys. As he described the situation, it was “not new in the 

annals of the Department of Justice [that] a DAG got aggravated with a U.S. 

Attorney.” Thompson said he never had any major problems with McKay, aside 

from some consternation at the way McKay was pushing the resource issue. 

However, Thompson said he did not remember discussing McKay with 

Sampson. 

Wray, who served as Thompson’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney 

General, told us that McKay communicated to the Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General his perception that the Department did not commit appropriate 

resources to the Wales murder investigation. Wray told us that EOUSA 

officials and officials in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office considered McKay 

to be “high maintenance,” not just about the Wales murder investigation, but 

also with respect to other issues.157 Wray said that when McKay’s office had a 

stake in something, McKay approached the issues with a level of intensity that 

Wray said was not the norm among other U.S. Attorneys. 

Wray told us that McKay’s behavior was discussed among people in the 

Deputy Attorney General’s Office informally in offhand conversation, but there 

was never any attempt to formally review McKay’s actions. Wray also stated 

that he did not recall ever discussing McKay’s conduct with Sampson. 

However, he said that he kept the Attorney General’s Office apprised of the 

events concerning the replacement of the prosecutor in the Wales murder 

investigation. Wray said that it would not have been unusual to have 

discussed his interactions with McKay informally with the Attorney General’s 

staff, but he said he had no specific recollection of doing so. 

Margolis said he recalled that McKay was emotional in his interactions 

with the Department relating to the Wales murder investigation. However, 

Margolis told us that he gave McKay a lot of leeway because he was new to the 

Department and in a terrible situation. Margolis said that although he 

considered McKay to be extremely pushy, McKay’s conduct was 

understandable given the situation in which McKay found himself when he 

became U.S. Attorney, trying to lead the office in the aftermath of Wales’s 

157 As an example, Wray cited McKay’s aversion in 2003 to moving the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office from commercial space into the courthouse in Seattle. Wray said that McKay’s passion 

concerning the move to the courthouse struck him as “out of proportion” to the situation. An 

examination of e-mail traffic between McKay, Wray, and former EOUSA Director Guy Lewis 

shows that McKay argued with Lewis and Wray concerning the move and wanted the Deputy 

Attorney General to intervene. 

250
 

murder and in the wake of the September 11 attacks when resources for 

matters other than terrorism investigations were scarce. Margolis also 

expressed skepticism to us that Sampson listed McKay for removal in his 

March 2005 because of any alleged confrontation with Thompson about the 

Wales investigation. 

B. The Northwest LInX Project 

Despite any differences McKay may have had with some officials in the 

Deputy Attorney General’s Office, all of the managers we interviewed agreed 

that McKay assumed a valuable leadership role in the Department’s law 

enforcement information sharing initiative. McKay told us he became very 

interested in information sharing issues early in his tenure as U.S. Attorney. 

According to McKay, in 2002-2003 he began working on an initiative with 

officials of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to build a state, local, 

and federal law enforcement record sharing program in the Puget Sound area 

in Washington. 

McKay told us that by early 2004, NCIS had agreed to fund what 

eventually became known as the Northwest Law Enforcement Information 

Exchange (LInX) Project.158 McKay said he enlisted Deputy Attorney General 

Comey to support the initiative, reasoning that Comey would have the ability to 

direct Department law enforcement agencies to share their records with the 

project. 

Comey told us that when McKay explained the LInX program, Comey 

thought it could be used as part of the OneDOJ strategy to get Department law 

enforcement agencies to share information among themselves and to share 

information with state and local law enforcement. During our interview, Comey 

described McKay as a “visionary” concerning information sharing, and said 

that he wholeheartedly supported McKay’s efforts. 

In early 2005, Comey asked McKay to lead a pilot program in Seattle for 

entering DOJ law enforcement information into LInX. Comey said he knew the 

program would be controversial, even within the Department, because the law 

enforcement agencies did not openly share their information. In April 2005, 

Comey issued a memorandum to the Department’s law enforcement agency 

component heads designating McKay as the leader of the Northwest LInX pilot 

program in Seattle. The memorandum directed Department component heads 

to participate in the program and specified deadlines for uploading law 

158 Broadly speaking, LInX provides a searchable database of full text investigative data 

from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. According to McKay, LInX is designed 

to allow law enforcement officials to type in names, places, and events and bring up the actual 

law enforcement records containing the search term, similar to a Google-type search on the 

Internet. 

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enforcement records into the new system. Comey told us he issued this formal 

memorandum because he knew the federal agencies were not enthusiastic 

about the LInX program. 

According to McKay, the Department’s law enforcement components did 

not fully comply with Comey’s directive. In addition, McKay said that once 

Comey announced his resignation in the spring of 2005, the Department 

component heads did not seem to consider the LInX project a priority, and 

there was no one at the Department who would be firm with the components 

about sharing their full text records in the system. McKay said that by the 

time McNulty became Deputy Attorney General in late 2005, McKay had begun 

to sense that the Department was less than enthusiastic about participating in 

the LInX project. We discuss this issue further below. 

C. The Washington State Gubernatorial Election 

Around the same time that McKay assumed leadership of the Northwest 

LInX pilot program in early 2005, McKay’s office also became involved in the 

controversy surrounding the Washington State governor’s election. Along with 

the general election for federal offices on November 2, 2004, voters in 

Washington also elected a governor. The results of the federal contests were 

certified soon after the election, but the state gubernatorial result was too close 

to call. On November 17, 2004, the initial count indicated that Dino Rossi, the 

Republican candidate, received more votes than Christine Gregoire, the 

Democratic candidate. Following a recount, Rossi led Gregoire by a smaller 

margin than the initial count. A second recount, conducted by hand, resulted 

in Gregoire leading by fewer than 200 votes. 

1. McKay’s Office Initiates a Preliminary Inquiry 

McKay told us that by the end of December 2004, an outside group had 

contacted him alleging that the recounts had revealed forged signatures on 

provisional ballot affidavits. Contemporaneous e-mails between McKay’s office 

and Craig Donsanto, the Director of the Election Crimes Branch of the 

Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, show that McKay’s office sought 

advice concerning whether it could open a federal investigation if the dispute 

involved only an election for state office. Donsanto advised McKay’s office 

against taking any action to investigate the allegations until the election 

authorities had certified the winner of the governor’s race and any ensuing 

election contests in state court had run their course.159 

159 A few days after Donsanto’s advice, an AUSA in McKay’s office distributed a legal 

memorandum to McKay and others in the office noting that federal jurisdiction required a 

showing that the alleged fraud exposed a federal race to potential harm, while the evidence of 

fraud the complainant had provided pertained only to the recount for the state governor’s race. 

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McKay said he did not fully agree with that advice, and he directed that 

the FBI undertake a preliminary inquiry into the allegations of forged 

signatures on provisional ballot affidavits. An AUSA in McKay’s office said that 

the FBI interviewed the individual who raised the initial complaint but took no 

further steps at that time because the election results had not yet been 

certified. Rather, McKay’s office advised the complainant to provide any 

evidence to the local prosecutor because the dispute concerned the election of a 

state official. According to the AUSA, the election was certified on 

December 30, 2004, and immediately became the subject of state court 

litigation. 

E-mails show that in early January 2005, McKay’s office met with the 

FBI and consulted with Department officials to discuss the next steps in the 

matter. According to McKay, everyone at the meeting agreed that the 

allegations of voter fraud in the state election, without more, did not at that 

point provide a sufficient predicate for opening a federal grand jury 

investigation. E-mails between Donsanto and the AUSA also show that 

Donsanto counseled the U.S. Attorney’s Office to refrain from being proactive 

and instead to collect facts and monitor the state court litigation. Donsanto 

told us that he gave this advice because he was concerned that the mere fact of 

an active federal investigation could be used as fodder in the state election 

contest. 

On January 4, 2005, McKay drafted a public statement for use by the 

FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in responding to questions concerning the 

controversy surrounding the governor’s race. The statement noted that federal 

law enforcement officials would receive and evaluate complaints of election 

fraud and voting rights abuses, but because the governor’s race was a state 

election matter, citizens with information concerning the election should also 

provide that information to state officials. 

2. Telephone Call to McKay from Congressman Hastings’s 

Chief of Staff 

The same day McKay issued the public statement, Ed Cassidy, the Chief 

of Staff to Washington State Republican Congressman Richard “Doc” Hastings, 

telephoned McKay to discuss the contested governor’s race. McKay said that 

Cassidy began asking him questions about the election and McKay’s potential 

investigation, and McKay said he responded with information consistent with 

his public statement. McKay said that Cassidy began to say, “You know John, 

it’s really important - ” when McKay interrupted him and said, “Ed, I’m sure 

you’re not about to start talking to me about the future direction of this case.” 

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According to McKay, he took a very stern tone with Cassidy, and Cassidy 

quickly ended the call.160 

McKay said he immediately discussed the call with the First Assistant 

U.S. Attorney and the Criminal Chief, who both said that McKay had handled 

the call appropriately. McKay said that they decided that he was not required 

to report the call to the Department because Cassidy did not cross the line and 

demand that McKay open an investigation.161 

Cassidy told us that he did not place the call to McKay at the behest of 

Congressman Hastings. Rather, Cassidy said that after Rossi had lost the 

third recount, Hastings’s constituents and state Republican Party officials 

expressed concern and outrage over the election to Hastings’s office. Cassidy 

said that as Hastings’s Chief of Staff he was concerned that Hastings not make 

inappropriate public statements if in fact there was an ongoing federal 

investigation into the election. Cassidy said he called McKay because he did 

not want Hastings to make “intemperate remarks” when confronted with 

questions concerning the election. 

Cassidy said he explained to McKay his concerns and said that it would 

be helpful for him to know whether there was an open federal investigation in 

order to determine how Hastings should respond to questions. Cassidy said 

McKay provided him with the publicly available information that the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office and the FBI were receiving and evaluating complaints. 

Cassidy said that when he called McKay he was confident that McKay would 

know what the appropriate boundaries were and would ensure that the 

conversation did not stray beyond them. 

160 As we discussed in the Iglesias chapter, the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual §1-8.010 

requires that congressional contacts with U.S. Attorney’s Offices be reported under certain 

circumstances: 

All Congressional staff or member contacts with USAOs or USAO staff including 

letters, phone calls, visits or other means must be reported promptly to the 

United States Attorney (USA), First Assistant United States Attorney (FAUSA) or 

other designated senior staff prior to making any response. All requests for 

information or assistance, except for public information, must also be promptly 

reported to [the Counsel to the Director of EOUSA]. 

We did not find that McKay was required under this policy to report Cassidy’s contact. 

As McKay described the conversation, he only provided public information in response to 

Cassidy’s inquiry and cautioned Cassidy not to request non-public information; Cassidy 

refrained from doing so. 

161 McKay told us that he did not document the call, and he heard nothing further 

about it until Senate investigators asked him about it prior to his March 6, 2007, testimony 

before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

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Cassidy said that he asked McKay whether it was likely that there would 

be a federal investigation based upon the complaints they were receiving, and 

that McKay responded, “I hope you’re not asking me to tell you something that 

I can’t tell you.” Cassidy said he told McKay he was not and he ended the call 

quickly. Cassidy also said there was nothing difficult or strained about the 

conversation, and he had no reason to believe that McKay thought the call was 

inappropriate at the time. Cassidy said he did not recall discussing the 

conversation with Congressman Hastings or otherwise having any 

conversations with anyone about his call to McKay. 

Congressman Hastings told us he did not know how it happened that 

Cassidy placed the call to McKay. He said he did not remember telling Cassidy 

to call McKay, and he said he could not recall whether Cassidy told him he had 

done so. Hastings said that he may have also received constituent complaints 

about the election, and that concerns about voter fraud were a frequent topic of 

conversation in his district because of the controversy concerning the recounts. 

Hastings also told us that he believed that the controversy over the election 

was a state rather than a federal matter. Hastings also said that he never 

discussed McKay’s performance as U.S. Attorney with anyone at the White 

House or at the Department of Justice. When we asked whether Hastings had 

any misgivings about the way McKay handled the allegations about the 

election, Hastings said, “I never thought anything about it.” Hastings added 

that he had no misgivings about McKay. 

As part of his response to the March 2007 disclosure that his Chief of 

Staff had telephoned McKay to discuss voter fraud matters in early 2005, 

Hastings disclosed that the head of the association that supplied information 

concerning allegedly forged signatures on provisional ballot affidavits had 

written a letter in July 2005 urging that Hastings tell the White House to 

replace McKay for failing to investigate the 2004 governor’s race. Cassidy told 

us that Hastings’s office did not respond to the letter. Congressman Hastings 

also told us that he would not have called the White House to complain about 

McKay because he generally did not get involved in personnel matters in the 

Executive Branch. In addition, none of the White House officials we 

interviewed said they had any recollection of any such call from Hastings.162 

3. Complaints About McKay’s Handling of Voter Fraud 

Allegations 

By the end of January 2005, McKay had begun receiving complaints 

from various individuals and groups about the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s failure to 

investigate alleged voter fraud in the 2004 governor’s race. According to e162 However, we were unable to interview several White House officials, including 

Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, to ask them what they knew about the matter. 

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mails sent to McKay at the time, political groups forwarded to McKay news 

articles about the election and demanded to know why his office was not 

investigating the allegations. Consistent with his public statement in early 

January 2005, McKay responded that the FBI would consider information 

about voter fraud in the gubernatorial election, but it was generally a state 

rather than a federal matter. 

According to e-mail and other documents written at the time, throughout 

January and February 2005 McKay consulted with experts in his office on 

election fraud and directed the FBI to closely examine the state court litigation. 

McKay also sought assurance from the AUSAs assigned to election fraud 

matters and from the Department that there was no basis for federal 

jurisdiction over the allegations of voter fraud. 

According to FBI documents, in a letter dated April 28, 2005, an outside 

political group supplied evidence allegedly supporting its theory that 

provisional ballot affidavits had been forged. An AUSA in McKay’s office who 

reviewed the evidence told us that he concluded that even if the affidavits had 

been forged, there was still no basis for federal jurisdiction over the alleged 

conduct. The AUSA said that the federal issues on the ballot were not part of 

the ongoing litigation, and the conduct affecting the absentee ballots was not 

considered state action because it was allegedly undertaken by a political party 

rather than a government entity.163 

As noted above, Sampson identified McKay for removal on the first list he 

sent to the White House on March 2, 2005. Comey told us he had met with 

Sampson on February 28, 2005, shortly after Sampson became Deputy Chief of 

Staff to Attorney General Gonzales, to discuss two issues, one of which was 

Comey’s assessment of the strongest and weakest U.S. Attorneys. Comey said 

he did not recall any mention of McKay or of the Washington State governor’s 

race during that conversation. 

Beginning in April 2005 and continuing throughout 2006, McKay 

received a steady stream of complaints concerning the perceived inaction of the 

U.S. Attorney’s Office in investigating voter fraud complaints. Several 

complaints about McKay were also sent to Department officials. Sampson told 

congressional investigators he did not recall seeing any letters to Department 

officials complaining about McKay’s purported refusal to open an investigation 

into the voter fraud allegations during the time Sampson served in the Attorney 

General’s Office. 

163 According to the AUSA, the association reported the conduct to the petitioners in 

the state court case, who in turn decided not to pursue the evidence on the ground that they 

perceived the handwriting analysis to be unreliable. 

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The trial in the state court election contest began on May 23, 2005. The 

court dismissed the action on June 6, 2005, finding that there was no evidence 

that fraudulent conduct had influenced the election outcome. 

According to his contemporaneous e-mail and other documents we 

reviewed, McKay directed his AUSAs to closely monitor the state court litigation 

and follow up with the petitioners’ investigators in order to determine whether 

there was a basis for federal involvement once the state process had concluded. 

McKay directed the AUSAs to monitor the petitioners’ argument that 

Democrats had stuffed ballot boxes and said, “If they have evidence of these 

new claims, we will need to see it immediately.” One of the AUSAs involved in 

the review said that when he asked the petitioners’ investigators whether they 

had any direct evidence of fraud beyond what was presented at the state court 

trial, they told him they had no proof of anyone stuffing a ballot box. The 

petitioners’ investigators also said they did not pursue the forged signatures 

issue because they did not believe the handwriting analysis was reliable and 

they said they had no specific evidence of anyone stealing votes. 

In March 2006, the Department officially closed the matter. 

4. Statements of Department Officials 

We were unable to determine exactly how the allegation that McKay was 

put on the removal list for his alleged failure to prosecute voter fraud first 

arose.164 When we asked Sampson whether he included McKay on his first list 

in March 2005 because of complaints about McKay’s handling of voter fraud 

matters, Sampson told us that he did not believe he did so, and he also said he 

did not remember the issue being connected with McKay being asked to resign. 

Sampson told us that at some point he learned that people were critical of 

McKay for not getting into the middle of the controversy over the 2004 

Washington State governor’s race, but said he could not remember when he 

learned that. 

Both Gonzales and McNulty said that they did not recall hearing any 

criticism or complaints about McKay’s handling of the voter fraud allegations. 

In addition, Comey told us he did not remember hearing anything negative 

about McKay concerning the governor’s race. Similarly, none of the other 

Department managers we interviewed said they recalled hearing any concerns 

about the way McKay handled the allegations of voter fraud. 

164 It appears that this allegation was first raised in a newspaper article. On 

February 16, 2007, the Seattle Times reported a rumor in Seattle that the Department forced 

McKay to resign because he failed to investigate allegations of voter fraud. Congressman John 

Conyers mentioned the article during McKay’s March 6, 2007, testimony before the House 

Judiciary Committee. 

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D. 2006 LInX Issues 

In August 2005, just prior to Comey’s departure, Sampson sought his 

assessment of certain U.S. Attorneys whose terms were expiring, including 

McKay. According to a contemporaneous e-mail from Comey, he told Sampson 

he agreed with one of Sampson’s assessments and stated he had no strong 

views on the others, with the exception of McKay. Comey stated, “McKay has 

been great on my information sharing effort.”165 

In the fall of 2005, McKay was appointed to chair the Regional 

Information Sharing Working Group, a subcommittee of the Attorney General’s 

Advisory Committee (AGAC). In that role, McKay began traveling around the 

country giving presentations about the benefits of LInX to other U.S. Attorneys. 

According to Mercer, who was Principal Associate Deputy Attorney 

General at the time, in early 2006 the Deputy Attorney General’s Office became 

concerned that McKay was advocating LInX as the Department’s only 

information sharing initiative when it was one of several different information 

sharing initiatives used in U.S. Attorneys’ districts nationwide. Mercer said in 

early 2006 the Deputy Attorney General’s Office received complaints from 

Department law enforcement components that McKay was traveling around the 

country endorsing what was viewed as a Navy-funded system for nationwide 

use even though other U.S. Attorneys’ districts used different informationsharing programs. However, we found no evidence that anyone shared those 

complaints with McKay. 

McKay acknowledged that he presented LInX to other U.S. Attorneys and 

federal law enforcement entities in the districts as the Department’s national 

information sharing vision. McKay told us that at the time he was unaware of 

the complaints or that the Department did not want to endorse any particular 

system. McKay said that he believed the other information systems were 

fundamentally different from the LInX program. McKay also said that through 

mid-2006, no one in the Department’s leadership offices told him they 

disagreed with his assessment of LInX or indicated they wanted to go in a 

different direction on a national information sharing system. 

In addition, McKay said that during a meeting with Pentagon officials on 

April 27, 2006, McNulty led him to believe that McNulty fully supported LInX 

as the Department’s nationwide information sharing program. McKay said 

McNulty indicated to Department of Defense officials at the meeting that he 

fully supported LInX, including full text information sharing and robust 

participation by the Department law enforcement components. McKay said he 

165 Sampson removed McKay’s name from the second removal list in January 2006. 

McKay’s name did not reappear on another removal list until September 2006. 

258
came away from the meeting with the view that McNulty would soon draft a 

letter to the Deputy Secretary of Defense accepting an offer the Department of 

Defense made to help establish the LInX program in a second district and to 

partner with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to expand 

LInX nationwide. 

McNulty, however, told us the issue was not as simple as McKay seemed 

to believe. McNulty noted that there were other types of information sharing 

systems used in other areas of the country, and he was attempting to address 

the complexities of a broader multi-law enforcement agency information 

sharing concept. McNulty said that several groups, including the Navy, had 

different agendas for information sharing with the Department, and he was 

attempting to address conflicting concerns, such as the extent to which the 

Department should open its records to outside entities. McNulty said he 

discussed with his staff the technology issues involved in information sharing, 

and they concluded that the Department needed to remain neutral about 

which systems it used. 

1. Contentious Meeting with McNulty and Mercer 

McKay said that by the end of June 2006, he was concerned about the 

Department’s inaction in endorsing LInX over other information sharing 

systems. According to McNulty and Mercer, the matter came to a head on 

June 30, 2006, when McNulty, Mercer, and McKay had what McNulty 

described as an intense meeting with McKay to discuss the future of LInX. 

McNulty said that McKay expressed very strong views as to how the 

Department’s information sharing strategy should proceed. McNulty told us 

that McKay refused to acknowledge what McNulty described as the 

complexities of the issue. McNulty said he became frustrated trying to get 

McKay to understand that there were many factors involved in developing a 

national information sharing strategy. According to McNulty, he tried to 

explain to McKay that there were other types of information sharing systems 

being used across the country and it was important to be neutral about a 

particular technology. McNulty said McKay persisted in trying to persuade 

McNulty to endorse LInX as the sole information sharing program for the entire 

Department. McNulty told us that he also described to McKay one Department 

law enforcement component’s unease about sharing its law enforcement 

records with local law enforcement because those records contained sensitive 

source information and leads in cases, but McKay did not seem concerned 

about that. According to McNulty, McKay was not in a position to appreciate 

the complexities because he was not seeing the issues from a national 

perspective. 

Mercer described McKay’s conduct at the June 30 meeting as “hostile” 

and “confrontational,” and said he believed McKay crossed over the line from 

259
healthy discussion to accusing McNulty of failing to do anything to advance the 

LInX program. Mercer told us that he thought the meeting was a very 

significant event in terms of how McNulty perceived McKay. Mercer said 

McKay acted as though he were the decision maker concerning how the 

Department’s information sharing program should proceed. Mercer also said 

that McKay did not seem to appreciate that it was up to McNulty to figure out a 

way to harmonize all of the different interests of the Department and come up 

with a coherent information sharing policy. Mercer acknowledged, however, 

that neither he nor McNulty warned McKay about his conduct either at the 

meeting or afterward. 

McKay agreed that the meeting was intense, and said that he bluntly laid 

out his concerns that the Department’s law enforcement components were not 

providing full information for the existing LInX programs and that McNulty had 

not followed up with the Department of Defense on its offer to contribute 

additional funding for new LInX systems. McKay said that he came away from 

the meeting still believing that the Department was going to move forward with 

LInX nationwide in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and 

the Department of Defense. According to McKay, neither McNulty nor his staff 

informed him that the Department was going in a different direction and would 

not be endorsing LInX as the Department’s sole information sharing initiative. 

2. McKay’s Bid for a Judicial Nomination 

During the summer of 2006, McKay sought a judicial nomination to the 

federal district court in Seattle, and the Department supported his nomination. 

Sampson wrote in an August 8, 2006, e-mail to one of McKay’s U.S. Attorney 

colleagues, “It’s highly unlikely we could do better in Seattle.” Sampson also 

wrote that on behalf of Attorney General Gonzales he had raised the issue of 

McKay’s nomination to the White House. Sampson said he viewed the job of 

U.S. Attorney as different from the job of a judge. Sampson stated that he 

liked McKay personally and thought McKay was “a personable guy.” Sampson 

also said he “was always disposed for prosecutors to go on the bench.” 

However, the Washington state judicial selection panel did not 

recommend McKay for the judgeship. McKay said that after learning he had 

not received the recommendation, he called Harriet Miers, whom he knew from 

his tenure as President of the Legal Services Corporation. On August 22, 2006, 

McKay met with Miers and Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley about 

his interest in being selected for the judicial vacancy. McKay told us that he 

found out at this meeting that the White House Counsel’s Office had been told 

that McKay had mishandled the investigation of voter fraud allegations 

stemming from the 2004 governor’s election. According to McKay, the first 

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question Miers and Kelley asked him at the meeting was why Republicans in 

the state of Washington were angry with him.166 

3. McKay’s August 30 Letter to McNulty 

E-mail and other documents indicate that at the end of the summer 

2006, tensions between McKay and members of the Deputy Attorney General’s 

staff had continued to build over the LInX issue. On August 30, 2006, McKay 

prepared a letter he drafted to McNulty on behalf of the AGAC Regional 

Information Sharing Working Group. The letter, which contained the 

signatures of 17 U.S. Attorneys in addition to McKay, included a request that 

McNulty meet with the group. It also stated, 

As the Department’s “Field Commanders,” we United States 

Attorneys believe that the LInX approach offers the best, most 

complete and proven path to real and effective law enforcement 

information sharing among federal, state, and local partners.167 

The letter urged McNulty to endorse the LInX approach, support its expansion 

nationwide, mandate that DOJ law enforcement components share the full text 

of unclassified law enforcement records, and “direct DOJ policy and resources 

to support building, funding and management of LInX projects in partnership” 

with other agencies. 

McKay told us he drafted the letter because he thought it would be 

useful to McNulty to have the views of the other U.S. Attorneys in the working 

group. McKay said he did not think the letter was controversial because he 

had the impression that McNulty had already agreed to the points in the letter. 

McKay said he reasoned that McNulty could use the letter to address any 

contrary arguments from the law enforcement components because McNulty 

could tell the components that he was responding to the concerns of 

Presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys. 

On August 31, 2006, McKay distributed the letter via e-mail to 

approximately 50 people, including U.S. Attorneys and Justice Department 

officials involved in the information sharing program, as well as to individuals 

at NCIS, state and local government officials involved in Northwest LInX, and 

an individual in the private sector involved in developing the LInX concept. 

McKay said he sent the letter to the non-Department individuals because they 

were either parties to the Memorandum of Understanding between the 

Department and the Northwest LInX Governance Board, or they had otherwise 

166 As noted previously, both Miers and Kelley refused our request for an interview. 

167 This letter came shortly after a letter McNulty had received on August 27 from NCIS 

and local law enforcement leaders of Northwest LInX complaining about some federal law 

enforcement agencies’ failure to share agency records. 

261
worked with NCIS to develop the strategic plan for LInX. McKay said the nonDepartment officials whom he copied on the letter were “deeply involved” in the 

question of how much data the Department would provide. McKay said it was 

not his intention to put McNulty in a difficult position by copying the letter to 

the non-Department entities involved in LInX. 

4. McNulty’s Response to McKay’s letter 

In an e-mail on August 31, 2006, to Elston, McNulty’s Chief of Staff, a 

detailee in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office expressed outrage that the 

letter, which he characterized as an “internal deliberation” document, was 

shared with individuals outside of the Department of Justice. Elston 

telephoned McKay on September 1. According to McKay, Elston was extremely 

upset about the letter. McKay said he was alarmed and surprised to get the 

call because he had thought the letter would be well received based on his prior 

conversations with McNulty. McKay also said he did not believe the letter 

would be controversial because he had discussed the issues in the letter on 

numerous occasions with McNulty and McNulty had not disagreed with him. 

McKay said that Elston accused him of trying to force McNulty to 

endorse LInX. McKay said he explained the issues to Elston and noted that the 

letter had been signed by all of the U.S. Attorneys in the Working Group. 

McKay said that Elston was also very angry that the letter had been distributed 

outside the Department. McKay acknowledged to Elston that the letter was 

sent to individuals outside the Department, but said that those individuals 

were involved in the Northwest LInX project, and it was not intended to be 

distributed to the general public. McKay said that by the end of his 

conversation with Elston he thought he had reassured Elston by explaining 

that the working group did not want to put McNulty in a difficult position but 

was only trying to voice the working group’s concerns. McKay said he also 

noted that in the letter the U.S. Attorneys had asked for a meeting with 

McNulty to discuss the issues. Elston told McKay that he would talk to 

McNulty and would be back in touch with him. According to Elston, McNulty 

decided to “wait things out” before agreeing to meet with the U.S. Attorneys. 

On September 5, 2006, McNulty wrote an e-mail to the U.S. Attorneys 

who signed the letter, stating “I am quite disappointed that you have chosen to 

communicate with me in this way. It appears that you are trying to force me to 

take some specific actions.” McNulty wrote that the letter was “particularly 

distressing because it is shared with folks outside the Department. This is not 

the way we should be working through difficult issues.” McNulty also wrote, 

“There are other important considerations involved in this matter. Does 

anyone see the problem with the Department endorsing a specific brand of info 

sharing when there are other types being used with success in various 

regions?” McNulty wrote that “it is best to talk these things through a bit 

before laying down a challenge in writing which will set the Department up for 

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failure.” McNulty ended the message by stating, “I look forward to meeting 

with the working group, although now it will be a more challenging 

conversation.” 

McKay said McNulty’s e-mail “scared the hell out of everybody.” McKay 

said that given the prior telephone call from Elston, he was not completely 

surprised by McNulty’s e-mail. However, McKay said that McNulty’s e-mail 

expressed views that were inconsistent with conversations he had previously 

with McNulty about the information-sharing initiative. McKay said he had 

briefed McNulty in great detail at the June 30 meeting concerning what McKay 

perceived to be the inadequacies of the other information sharing systems, and 

he thought McNulty had agreed with him. McKay also said that McNulty had 

never given him any indication that other information systems were still a 

concern until he received McNulty’s September 5 e-mail. McKay said that in 

his opinion, up to that point there was never truly a policy disagreement 

between McKay and Department leaders over LInX.168 

E. McKay Appears on the September 2006 Removal List 

On September 13, 2006, 8 days after McNulty sent his e-mail to the U.S. 

Attorneys, McKay’s name reappeared on Sampson’s list of U.S. Attorneys the 

Department recommended removing. Sampson listed McKay as one of six 

“USAs Who We Now Should Consider Pushing Out.” 

Sampson said that he put McKay on the September 13 list because 

McNulty’s office was unhappy that McKay had tried to force McNulty to act on 

the LInX matter. Sampson added that McKay’s conduct in connection with the 

LInX matter had irritated McNulty and Elston. Sampson said it was likely he 

had learned from McNulty and Elston at the daily senior management meetings 

about McKay’s August 30 letter. 

McNulty told us he likely expressed his frustration to Sampson about the 

way McKay was handling the LInX matter. However, McNulty told us he did 

not instruct Sampson to put McKay on the removal list. McNulty also said that 

he was prepared to work with McKay to resolve the issues. McNulty said that 

despite his frustration with McKay at the time, if Sampson’s removal plan had 

not been initiated, McKay’s conduct would not have warranted his removal. 

As discussed in Chapter Three, McNulty did not become aware until the 

late fall of 2006 that McKay’s name was on a list of U.S. Attorneys to be 

removed. McNulty said he was “predominantly deferential” to Sampson as the 

Department’s personnel official who decided who to remove. McNulty said his 

168 McKay noted that in January 2007 the Department of the Navy awarded McKay its 

highest civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Award, for innovation in law 

enforcement leadership, based on his work promoting LInX. 

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first reaction, after being surprised that the U.S. Attorney removal plan was 

going to be implemented, was to ask himself if he had any objection to the 

names. He said he did not object to McKay’s name on the list because he had 

questions about McKay’s judgment in light of the way McKay had handled the 

LInX matter. 

F. McKay is Told to Resign 

McKay said he was very surprised when EOUSA Director Battle called 

him on December 7, 2006, and told him to resign. McKay said Battle told him 

that “‛the Administration wants to go in a different direction and they would 

like you to resign.’” McKay said he asked Battle what had happened and Battle 

told him he could not provide him with any further information. 

McKay said Battle indicated that he should resign by the end of January. 

McKay said that although he immediately assumed he had done something 

wrong, he readily dismissed that from his mind because nothing had happened 

other than the LInX matter, and he said he never dreamed that that would be 

the cause for his dismissal. McKay said that he began to press Battle about 

whether he had done something wrong. Battle responded with words to the 

effect that “someone getting a call like this one is going to assume that they 

have done something wrong and that’s not always the case.” McKay said that 

during the call they did not discuss any issues concerning policy or 

performance or any other reason for his removal. 

Battle confirmed McKay’s account of the conversation. He said McKay 

asked Battle if he had done anything wrong and Battle responded that he was 

not in a position to tell him. Battle told us he did not know the reason why 

McKay had been asked to resign. 

McKay told us that he believed he was still in the running to be a federal 

judge when he received the December 7 telephone call from Battle, but that as 

soon as he received the phone call he knew he would not be nominated. 

McKay said that a few days after Battle told him to resign he received a phone 

call from the White House stating that he was not going to receive the judicial 

nomination. 

McKay announced his resignation on December 14, 2006, and left office 

on January 26, 2007. 

G. Allegation that McKay was Removed Because His District’s 

Sentencing Statistics Were Out of Line 

As discussed in Chapter Three, on February 14, 2007, McNulty provided 

a closed briefing for the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to notes taken 

by Nancy Scott-Finan, an official in the Department’s Office of Legislative 

Affairs, McNulty stated that one of the reasons for McKay’s removal was that 

264
 

sentencing statistics of the Western District of Washington were out of line with 

other districts and the office was not seeking to appeal sentences that were 

below the relevant ranges in the United States Sentencing Guidelines. 

Sampson told us that although he put McKay on the September 13 list 

because of his behavior related to the LInX matter, the sentencing issues were 

another concern in Sampson’s mind that justified McKay’s removal. Sampson 

also told congressional investigators that he recalled hearing concerns from 

Mercer about McKay’s district’s sentencing practices, although Sampson said 

he could not recall when the discussion took place.169 Sampson said he 

recalled discussing with Mercer the concern that McKay’s office never sought to 

appeal downward departures that resulted in lesser sentences than called for 

under the sentencing guidelines. 

Mercer told us that McKay’s district’s sentencing statistics could not 

have become an issue until well after the Supreme Court decided United States 

v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) on January 12, 2005.170 Mercer said that after 

that decision, in contrast to other districts McKay’s district was not asking the 

Department’s Solicitor General to authorize appeals in cases with major 

downward departures. 

Mercer stated that he did not learn about McKay’s district’s sentencing 

issues until sometime in 2006 after the data from the Sentencing Commission 

was released for fiscal year 2005. Mercer said that he never contacted McKay 

about any concerns relating to sentencing issues in McKay’s district, and he 

had no idea whether anyone else at the Department spoke to McKay about the 

concern. 

McKay told us that he was never made aware that the Department was 

concerned about his office’s sentencing statistics. McKay said he never had a 

conversation with anyone in Department leadership about the issue, and had 

no idea that anyone had expressed a concern that he was not complying with 

Department policy. McKay testified to Congress that the first he learned about 

the Department having such concerns was in Moschella’s testimony before 

Congress on March 6, 2007, after McKay had been removed. 

169 Sampson acknowledged that any discussions he had with Mercer concerning 

McKay’s district’s sentencing practices would have occurred at the earliest during the summer 

of 2005, after McKay’s name initially appeared on the first list of U.S. Attorneys whom the 

White House might consider for removal. McKay’s name was taken off subsequent removal 

lists, and did not reappear on the removal list until a few days after McKay sent the August 30, 

2006, LInX letter to McNulty. 

170 In that case, the Supreme Court held in part that the sentencing guidelines were 

advisory rather than mandatory. 

265
Margolis told congressional investigators that it was only after McKay 

was asked to resign that Margolis became aware of any concern regarding 

McKay’s district’s sentencing practices. Rather, according to Margolis, after he 

learned in late 2006 that McKay was going to be removed, Mercer told him 

McKay was on the list because he had acted like a bully when he tried to use 

other U.S. Attorneys to unfairly pin the Deputy Attorney General into a corner 

on an information sharing project. 

III. Analysis 

The most serious allegation related to McKay’s removal was that he was 

forced to resign because of complaints about his handling of allegations of voter 

fraud in the closely contested Washington State gubernatorial election in 2004. 

Sampson included McKay’s name on his first removal list in March 2005, 

during the controversy about McKay’s handling of the voter fraud allegations. 

However, Sampson stated that he did not believe he placed McKay’s name on 

this list because of anything related to voter fraud allegations, and none of the 

other Department officials we interviewed said they recalled hearing any 

concerns about the way McKay handled such allegations. 

Sampson took McKay’s name off his next two removal lists, in January 

and April 2006, but subsequently put McKay back on the list in September 

2006. McKay remained on subsequent removal lists and on December 7, 2006, 

was told to resign. 

As discussed below, we were not able to conclude, based on the evidence, 

whether complaints about McKay’s handling of voter fraud cases either did or 

did not contribute to his removal as U.S. Attorney. However, the evidence 

suggests that the primary reason for McKay’s removal was his clash with 

Deputy Attorney General McNulty over the LInX information-sharing program. 

A. Voter Fraud Complaints 

McKay was included on Sampson’s first removal list, which he sent to 

the White House on March 2, 2005, the same time as the controversy about 

voter fraud allegations connected to the 2004 Washington State governor’s 

election. Sampson stated that he did not believe he put McKay’s name on this 

first list because of McKay’s handling of these voter fraud issues. Rather, 

Sampson said he believed he placed McKay’s name on this list based on 

McKay’s contentious relationship with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office 

over the Wales murder investigation. 

In August 2005, Deputy Attorney General Comey spoke very highly of 

McKay to Sampson, praising McKay’s work on an information sharing project 

called LInX and calling McKay a “visionary” for his work on that project. After 

266
Comey’s comments to Sampson, McKay did not appear on Sampson’s next two 

removal lists, in January 2006 and April of 2006. 

McKay’s name reappeared on Sampson’s September 2006 list. Sampson 

told us that he placed McKay on the September 2006 list because McNulty’s 

office was unhappy that McKay had tried to force McNulty to act on the LInX 

information-sharing matter. 

McKay told us that White House Counsel Miers and Deputy White House 

Counsel Kelley told him at a meeting in August 2006 – a few weeks before 

McKay’s name was placed back on the list – that Washington State 

Republicans were displeased with his handling of the voter fraud allegations. 

This suggests that someone complained to White House officials about the way 

McKay handled the allegations, but we do not know what impact any such 

complaints had on McKay’s removal. Sampson told us he remembered hearing 

complaints at some point about McKay’s handling of the voter fraud issues, 

although he did not remember when or who raised the complaints. As noted 

above, key White House officials such as Rove, Miers, and Kelley declined to be 

interviewed by us. 

In sum, we could not determine whether complaints to the White House 

about McKay’s handling of the voter fraud allegations stemming from the 2004 

Washington State gubernatorial election contributed to his placement on the 

removal list, particularly without interviews of relevant White House officials. 

B. Wales Murder Investigation 

Sampson told congressional investigators that he believed he had initially 

included McKay’s name on his first removal list in March 2005 because McKay 

was overly aggressive with Deputy Attorney General Thompson in seeking 

resources to investigate the 2001 murder of AUSA Wales. However, we did not 

find significant corroboration for Sampson’s claim. First, Thompson said he 

did not recall any tension between himself and McKay on this issue. While 

Thompson said he remembered people on his staff complaining about McKay’s 

constant demands for additional resources for the case, Thompson also 

emphasized that McKay did not do anything inappropriate in connection with 

the Wales case. 

Other Department managers we interviewed said that McKay was very 

aggressive about seeking additional resources for the Wales investigation and 

in seeking to replace the prosecutor originally assigned to the Wales 

investigation. Several officials told us that McKay was pushy and tended to 

complain a lot. Yet, we found no evidence that anyone suggested to Sampson 

that McKay should be removed because of his actions in the Wales case, and 

no one ever said to McKay that anything he did in advocating for more 

resources in the Wales case was inappropriate. 

267
If Sampson’s statement about why he put McKay on the list is accurate, 

we find it troubling that McKay’s aggressive push for resources in the 

investigation of the murder of an AUSA from his office would result in his 

placement on a removal list. As Associate Deputy Attorney General Margolis 

stated, McKay’s conduct was understandable given the situation in which 

McKay found himself when he became U.S. Attorney – trying to lead the office 

in the aftermath of Wales’s murder and in the wake of the September 11 

attacks when resources for matters other than terrorism investigations were 

scarce. Deputy Attorney General Thompson also said that while he may have 

become annoyed with McKay’s persistence, he was also aggravated by a 

number of other U.S. Attorneys. 

McKay’s inclusion on the removal lists also underscores the fundamental 

problem with the entire removal process: the Department’s failure to use 

consistent or transparent standards to measure U.S. Attorney performance and 

to determine whether a U.S. Attorney should be recommended for replacement. 

Instead, Sampson talked to a few people about who they thought were strong 

or weak U.S. Attorneys, and he relied on their impressions and comments 

about various U.S. Attorneys, without any attempt to corroborate the 

comments, seek alternative views, systematically evaluate the U.S. Attorneys’ 

performance, or even allow the U.S. Attorneys to respond to any concerns 

about their actions. The ad hoc nature of Sampson’s lists and Sampson’s 

claim, if true, about why McKay’s name appeared on the first list – allegedly for 

being too aggressive in seeking resources for an investigation of the murder of 

an AUSA – demonstrated the fundamentally flawed and subjective process he 

used to create these lists. 

C. Sentencing Statistics 

We also did not find any evidence to support the claim, first raised in 

McNulty’s closed briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee, that McKay was 

removed because his district’s sentencing statistics were out of line with other 

districts. No one raised this issue with McKay while he was U.S. Attorney, and 

this issue did not appear to come to light within the Department as a concern 

until after McKay had been removed. Although Mercer said he was aware 

sometime in 2006 that McKay’s district’s sentencing statistics were below par, 

we found no evidence that any other Department manager was concerned 

about it, discussed it among themselves, or raised it with McKay. 

In sum, this purported reason appears to be another after-the-fact 

rationalization for why McKay was included on the removal list. We believe 

that raising this claim in the briefing to Congress was misleading and cast 

further doubt on the Department’s credibility in providing the real reasons for 

the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. 

268
D. LInX 

Sampson told us that he placed McKay on the September 13 list because 

McNulty’s office was unhappy that McKay had tried to force McNulty to act on 

the LInX information sharing system. Sampson told us that McNulty was 

irritated by McKay’s August 30 letter urging McNulty to adopt LInX as the 

Department’s sole information-sharing program. The letter, signed by 17 U.S. 

Attorneys in addition to McKay, was disseminated inside and outside the 

Department. The timing of McKay’s placement on the September 13 list – only 

a few days after the controversy about his actions concerning LInX arose – 

supports Sampson’s explanation for placing McKay on this removal list. 

McNulty said he likely expressed his frustration to Sampson about the 

way McKay had handled the LInX matter in late August 2006. McNulty also 

told us he would not have recommended McKay’s removal because of the LInX 

issue, but he did not say that to Sampson. Moreover, once McNulty learned 

about the removal plan in late October 2006 and saw McKay’s name on the list, 

he did not tell Sampson to take McKay’s name off the list. 

In sum, we believe the evidence suggests that Sampson placed McKay on 

the list for removal because of his actions in the LInX matter. However, the 

Department’s various descriptions of why McKay was removed severely 

undermined its credibility when it tried to explain its actions. 

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270
Nov 2002

Nov 2002

Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 

Apr 6, 2006 

House Judiciary Committee holds an 

oversight hearing during which 

Representative Keller criticizes Lam to 

Gonzales 

Jun 15, 2006 

Senator Feinstein writes 

Gonzales regarding immigration 

prosecutions in Lam's office 

Aug 2, 2006 

Lam meets with Representatives Issa and 

Sensenbrenner regarding immigration prosecutions 

Aug 23, 2006 

OLA responds to Senator Feinstein's 

letter, citing Lam’s explanations of 

her office’s enforcement strategy 

Feb 15, 2007 

2007 

Carol Lam Timeline 

Lam Events 

and Actions 

Apr 2004 

Lam’s first discussion with 

Comey about gun prosecutions 

Nov 2004 

Sampson prepares a memorandum that Lam’s 

office compares poorly with other southwest 

border USAOs' immigration prosecutions 

Sep 23, 2005 

19 Members of Congress write the 

President regarding prosecution of 

alien smuggling, citing Lam's office 

Oct 20, 2005 

19 Members of Congress write 

Gonzales regarding prosecution of 

alien smuggling, citing Lam's office 

Jun 1, 2006 

Sampson sends an e-mail to Mercer and Elston saying that 

“the AG . . . believes we should adopt a plan” regarding Lam. 

Sampson lays out the elements of the plan in the e-mail. 

Jun 5, 2006 

Mercer sends an e-mail to McNulty saying 

that the AG wants his views on the plan 

regarding Lam 

Jul 5, 2006 

Mercer asks Lam to verify sentencing statistics 

regarding gun and immigration offenses 

Jul 10, 2006 

Lam's memo in response is provided to an intern for 

analysis but the intern states that he lacks the expertise 

to assess Lam's explanation; no analysis of Lam's 

response is conducted 

Dec 7, 2006 

Lam is told to resign 

Jan 16, 2007 

Feb 2006 Lam announces her resignation

May 11, 2006 

Sampson sends an e-mail to Deputy White House 

Counsel Kelley saying that “the real problem we have 

right now with Carol Lam . . . leads me to conclude that 

we should” replace her 

Nov 2002 Dec 2002 Feb 2004 Mar 2004 Apr 2004 Jul 2004 Aug 2004 Nov 2004 Dec 2004 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Sep 2005 Oct 2005 Nov 2005 Dec 2005 

Nov 12, 2002 

Lam is confirmed by the Senate as 

the U.S. Attorney, Southern District 

of California 

Feb 2, 2004 

Representative Issa writes to Lam 

regarding lack of prosecution of alien 

smuggling cases 

Jul 2004 

Lam’s second discussion with 

Comey about gun prosecutions 

Jul 30, 2004 

14 Members of Congress write Ashcroft 

regarding Lam's prosecution of alien 

smuggling case 

Feb 2005 

An EARS team evaluates Lam’s office and 

reports issues with guns and immigration 

cases 

Mar 2, 2005 

Lam is included on Sampson’s 

first removal list 

Oct 13, 2005 

Representative Issa 

writes Lam regarding 

a criminal alien case 

ODAG prepares a memorandum regarding some USAOs’ 

poor gun prosecution statistics, including Lam's office. Lam 

is not contacted concerning this memo. 

Lam leaves office 

CIA official Foggo is 

indicted by Lam's office 

Nov 2005 

Representative Cunningham 

pleads guilty 

May 22, 2006 

Representative Issa criticizes Lam on national 

television regarding alien smugglers 

DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 
CHAPTER TEN 

CAROL LAM 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of Carol Lam, the former United 

States Attorney for the Southern District of California. 

A. Lam’s Background 

Lam received her law degree in 1985 from the Stanford University Law 

School. She then served as a clerk for a judge on the Second Circuit Court of 

Appeals. After her clerkship, Lam served as an Assistant United States 

Attorney (AUSA) in the Southern District of California from 1986 to 2000. In 

2000, Lam was appointed as a California Superior Court judge. 

In 2001, Lam applied for the position of U.S. Attorney and was 

interviewed twice at the Department. Lam described herself as “non-partisan” 

and told us she is not a registered member of any political party. Lam stated 

that during her second interview she believed that the interviewers asked for 

assurances that she supported the Department of Justice’s policies in light of 

the fact that she was not a Republican. Lam said she told the interviewers that 

she believed that “it is a responsibility of a U.S. Attorney to effect the Attorney 

General’s guidelines in a way that makes sense in the district.” 

After her second interview, Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff to the Attorney 

General, called her and offered her the position. Lam said she commented to 

Sampson that she had not “made things easy by virtue of the fact that I was a 

non-partisan.” According to Lam, Sampson did not respond to her remark. 

On November 18, 2002, Lam was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney for the 

Southern District of California. She was told to resign on December 7, 2006, 

and her last day in office was February 15, 2007. 

B. The EARS Evaluation of Lam’s Office 

Lam’s office underwent one EARS evaluation during her tenure as U.S. 

Attorney in February 2005. The EARS evaluators wrote that Lam was “an 

effective manager . . . respected by the judiciary, law enforcement agencies, 

and the USAO staff.” 

The EARS evaluation, however, noted concerns about the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office (USAO) prosecution of firearms and immigration cases. The report 

stated: “The USAO intake and initial processing of criminal cases worked 

smoothly except for firearms cases . . . . The number of firearms cases 

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prosecuted by the USAO was well below the national average and well below 

the average of other USAOs in California.” The EARS evaluation also stated: 

“[T]he number of immigration cases handled per AUSA work year was 

statistically lower than the immigration cases handled per AUSA work year in 

the other Southwest Border USAOs.” 

C. Lam’s Status on the Removal Lists 

As discussed in Chapter Three, Lam’s name appeared on Sampson’s first 

removal list in March 2005, and she remained on all the lists until her removal 

in December 2006. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Lam’s Removal 

Sampson said that Lam was placed on the removal list because of 

concerns about her district’s prosecution of firearms cases and she remained 

on the list because of additional concerns over her office’s prosecution of 

immigration cases. Several senior Department officials told us they agreed 

Lam should be removed. For example, former Principal Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Mercer stated that when he discussed with Sampson possible 

U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, he would have suggested Lam if her 

name had not already been on the list. 

Associate Deputy Attorney General Margolis, told congressional staff that 

while he thought Lam was “outstanding,” “tough,” and “honest,” she was also 

“probably insubordinate” about “what the priorities of the Department would 

be.” Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said that although he had serious 

concerns about Lam’s performance, he probably would have preferred to 

address those concerns by some method other than removal. 

After the removals, the chart created by Monica Goodling to prepare 

McNulty for his congressional testimony stated with regard to Lam’s removal: 

[Lam] continually failed to perform in relation to significant 

leadership priorities – these were priorities that were well-known 

within the Department . . . . 

[T]he President and Attorney General have made clear that border 

enforcement is a top priority . . . . [Lam] failed to tackle this 

responsibility as aggressively and as vigorously as we expected and 

needed her to do . . . . The President has made clear that he 

expects strong immigration enforcement efforts, but SDCA [the 

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California] has 

only brought a fraction of the cases that other significant border 

districts are doing . . . . 

[T]he President and both Attorneys General in this Administration 

made clear that, after terrorism, gun crime is the top priority and 

272
 

 

an important tactic to fighting violent crime . . . . SDCA has only 

brought a fraction of the cases of other extra-large districts. 

Despite its size and population, it ranks 91 out of 93 districts in 

terms of average numbers of firearms cases since FY 2000 (doing 

only an average of 18 cases) . . . . 

Thus, according to the statements of Department officials and this 

document, the Department removed Lam for two main reasons: her alleged 

failure to prosecute firearms and immigration cases. We discuss these reasons 

below, as well as another allegation that surfaced after Lam’s removal – that 

she was removed because of her office’s involvement in the investigations of 

Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Central Intelligence Agency 

(CIA) official Kyle Dustin Foggo.171 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Lam’s Removal 

A. Firearms Cases 

In 2001 the Department initiated Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a 

national program designed to prevent and deter gun violence.172 PSN was a 

priority of the Department. For example, it was discussed in the Department’s 

2003-2008 strategic plan, and since 2001 more than $1.5 billion dollars has 

been allocated to PSN to hire prosecutors and implement programs to 

prosecute firearms cases and to reduce gun violence. 

In early 2004, the Office of the Attorney General began to identify those 

United States Attorneys’ Offices that it believed were “underperforming” in 

implementing PSN, based on data collected by EOUSA. In a March 10, 2004, 

memorandum to Sampson, who was Counselor to the Attorney General at the 

171 This chart contained one other alleged reason for Lam’s removal: “[R]ather than 

focusing on the management of her office, [Lam] spent a significant amount of her time trying 

cases – this is discouraged in extra-large districts, because these are offices that require fulltime managers.” In 2005, Lam had personally tried a lengthy criminal case lasting many 

months. Goodling also mentioned this reason in her congressional testimony when asked 

about Lam. However, we found no evidence that there was a concern among Department 

senior managers about Lam’s decision to try the case herself, and we concluded that this 

reason was an after-the-fact rationalization to attempt to further justify her removal. 

172 Project Safe Neighborhoods is a Department initiative that involves collaborative 

efforts by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and communities to 

prevent and deter gun violence. The Executive Summary maintained on the PSN Internet 

website contains a description of PSN which states, “The U.S. Attorney in each of the 94 

judicial districts, working side by side with local law enforcement and other officials, has 

tailored the PSN strategy to fit the unique gun crime problem in that district. Criminals who 

use guns are prosecuted under federal, state, or local laws, depending on which jurisdiction 

can provide the most appropriate punishment . . . . [PSN] does not mandate a ‘one-size-fits-allapproach’ . . .” 

273
 

time, the EOUSA Director identified 16 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices whose PSN 

performance was “below their potential.” Lam’s office was one of these offices. 

The memorandum noted that Lam’s office returned “only 17 firearms 

indictments” in FY 2003, and that her office’s PSN indictments and defendants 

“per criminal work years for FY 2003 is the lowest in the nation.” In 

subsequent Department analyses of PSN performance, the Southern District of 

California was identified as a district whose firearms prosecution performance 

was in need of improvement. 

In the summer of 2004, Deputy Attorney General Comey made a series of 

telephone calls to, or had meetings with, 12 of the 16 U.S. Attorneys whose 

districts had been identified by EOUSA and the Attorney General’s Office as 

PSN underperformers. Comey called Lam in July 2004.173 According to 

Comey, he told Lam that PSN is “a priority of the Department; it’s something 

incredibly important to the Attorney General and me, and to the President.” 

Comey said that he told Lam that he wanted her “to really focus on this and 

make sure you are not missing something.” Comey also described his own 

experience with PSN prosecutions in the Eastern District of Virginia and the 

Southern District of New York, telling Lam that federal prosecutors had a much 

larger role in gun prosecutions in Virginia than in New York, because of New 

York’s strong state gun laws. Comey said he told Lam, as he told all the U.S. 

Attorneys he called, that he was not calling “just for the sake of getting your 

[PSN] numbers up.” 

When we asked Comey whether he thought that Lam understood that 

she needed to increase her PSN numbers, Comey said, “I was keen not to 

convey that directly.” Comey also said that although he did not recall Lam’s 

explanation for her office’s low number of firearms cases, he thought it was 

acceptable to let state prosecutors handle gun prosecutions when the state had 

stricter laws, as Lam asserted was the case in California. However, Comey also 

told us that he expected her office’s PSN numbers to increase because of the 

fact that the Deputy Attorney General had called her to discuss her district’s 

low numbers. Comey said he did not tell Lam that a failure to improve her PSN 

numbers would result in her removal. 

In a July 20, 2004, memorandum to Sampson, Spencer Pryor, a Counsel 

in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and a participant in Comey’s July 

phone call to Lam, summarized in a memorandum the results of Comey’s calls 

to and meetings with the U.S. Attorneys about PSN. Pryor wrote that these 

efforts were designed as “an important reminder . . . that PSN is a Presidential 

priority that must be focused on by each of the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and their 

173 According to Lam, she had also had a prior discussion with Comey about PSN when 

he visited San Diego to speak at a U.S. Attorneys’ conference in April 2004. Lam stated that 

her first conversation with Comey was much like the second. 

274
respective PSN task forces.” Pryor’s memorandum stated that Lam 

“acknowledged problems with PSN initiative,” but that she explained that she 

had not received any PSN resources. Pryor’s memorandum disagreed with 

Lam’s assertion, stating that her district had received one new PSN prosecutor. 

Pryor also wrote that Lam said her district’s PSN case screening process was 

“broken,” and that a new system would help boost PSN prosecutions. Pryor 

also noted in the memorandum Lam’s statement that California’s “tough 

firearms” laws were responsible in part for the low PSN numbers in her district. 

Pryor concluded by stating that Lam’s office needed more resources to 

prosecute PSN cases. 

Lam discussed her call with Comey in a July 7, 2004, e-mail to her staff. 

She wrote that Comey said the Southern District of California ranked 93 out of 

94 USAOs in firearms prosecutions, with only 20 such cases in the past year. 

Lam reported that Comey told her he was not interested in bringing gun cases 

just for the sake of bringing gun cases, and that she told Comey she thought 

the district’s PSN numbers would be higher in the future, but not to expect a 

“meteoric rise.” Lam also stated in the e-mail that she explained to Comey that 

the district’s low numbers were a result of several factors: California has 

strong state gun laws; the Southern District is comprised of only two counties 

and local law enforcement does a good job prosecuting gun crimes; and her 

district already has an “immense” caseload. Lam also stated in her e-mail that 

her office would fix any problems it had with local law enforcement regarding 

the referral of gun prosecutions to her office. Lam told us that she believed 

Comey’s call was an “indirect” request for her to increase the office’s PSN 

numbers, because it was “obviously the reason he was calling.” 

Lam also told us that she had hoped that her PSN prosecutions would 

increase as a result of a protocol her office had entered into with local law 

enforcement agencies in which those offices would refer to her office any 

firearm case where the federal sentence would exceed the state sentence by 24 

months. In addition, Lam said that in 2005 or 2006 her office made concerted 

efforts to seek more firearm cases pursuant to the protocol by sending federal 

prosecutors to meet with local law enforcement agencies and by changing the 

way local officials handled the paperwork on firearm cases to make referrals 

easier. However, Lam said these measures were “a solution in search of a 

problem.” Lam said that she was disappointed when more cases were not 

referred to her office as a result of the protocol and her office’s efforts to 

implement it. 

Comey left the Department in August 2005. In March 2006, the Office of 

the Deputy Attorney General prepared another memorandum for Deputy 

Attorney General McNulty regarding PSN performance by U.S. Attorneys’ 

Offices. The memorandum recommended that the Deputy Attorney General 

contact four U.S. Attorneys’ Offices regarding their poor PSN performance, one 

of which was Lam’s office. In addition, the memorandum identified 11 other 

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U.S. Attorneys’ Offices where PSN performance could be resolved by the staffs 

of the Deputy Attorney General’s Office and the USAO. The memorandum, 

which was also sent to Mercer and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney 

General Elston, noted that Lam’s office had filed only 12 PSN cases in FY 2005. 

However, the memorandum stated that PSN performance was not intended to 

be assessed by prosecution statistics alone. 

We found no evidence that McNulty ever contacted Lam or the other 

three offices identified in this memorandum. McNulty told us that he “just 

didn’t have the time to get around to the systematic review of the gun cases to 

go to different U.S. Attorneys and talk to them about the numbers.” 

However, Lam appeared to be aware that her PSN numbers continued to 

be low. In April 2006, she sent an e-mail to a fellow U.S. Attorney in which she 

said she was not going to a PSN conference because she was “too 

embarrassed.” 

On July 5, 2006, Mercer sent a facsimile to Lam with portions of a 

United States Sentencing Commission report for fiscal year 2005 containing 

sentencing statistics for the southwest border U. S. Attorneys’ Offices. These 

statistics showed that in each year between 2002 and 2005, Lam’s office was 

involved in the sentencing of fewer than 20 defendants whose primary offense 

was a firearms charge, and that other border districts were involved in far more 

such sentencings. According to the report, some border districts had 

approximately 10 times more defendants sentenced in gun cases than Lam’s 

district. Mercer asked Lam to confirm that these statistics were accurate.174 

After speaking with Mercer on July 5, Lam sent an e-mail to several 

people in her office and asked them to prepare a response to Mercer’s fax. Lam 

wrote that Mercer had made the request because “the DAG had tasked him 

with looking at resource allocations to the various districts in light of the 

President’s and AG’s priorities.” (Emphasis in original) 

In a July 10, 2006, response to Elston, Lam stated that the statistics 

were “roughly accurate.”175 Lam noted that for fiscal year 2005 her office had 

174 As discussed below, Mercer later testified to congressional investigators that when 

he sent the facsimile to Lam asking her to verify that the statistics were accurate, he did so at 

McNulty’s direction. Mercer’s facsimile also included statistics concerning immigration 

enforcement in her district, and he asked Lam to verify the accuracy of those statistics as well. 

Mercer told us that his facsimile to Lam about immigration statistics was in response to a plan 

by Gonzales and Sampson to address concerns over Lam’s enforcement of immigration crimes, 

which we discuss in the next section. 

175 Lam sent the response to Elston because Mercer had left his position in the Deputy 

Attorney General’s office to return to Montana as the full time U.S. Attorney. Mercer was later 

appointed Acting Associate Attorney General. 

276
 

2,441 felony sentences, which was much higher than similarly sized districts in 

Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Northern District of California, although she 

acknowledged that the PSN number “remains low for now.” Lam also reiterated 

her explanations for her office’s low PSN numbers, writing that California had 

strict gun laws which were competently handled by local prosecutors; the 

Southern District of California contained only two counties, leading to 

consistent local enforcement of state gun laws; and that illegal guns were not a 

big problem in her district.176 She stated in her response that to prosecute 

more gun cases would reduce the number of immigration prosecutions, and 

that her office had recently revised and liberalized a protocol with the local 

prosecutor whereby gun cases in which the federal sentence exceeded the state 

sentence by 24 months would be referred to her office for prosecution. She 

said the new protocol had resulted in very few referrals. 

We found no evidence that anyone in the Department leadership offices 

had any further communications with Lam about her office’s gun prosecutions 

after this response in July 2006. Lam told us that she was not told, and did 

not know, that her explanation for why her PSN numbers were low was 

unpersuasive to Department managers. She said the only conversations she 

had about the issue had been the ones discussed above with Comey in April 

and July 2004, and Lam said that Comey “didn’t have a problem” with her 

explanation. 

B. Immigration Cases 

The Southern District of California’s record regarding the criminal 

enforcement of immigration laws was also raised as a reason for Lam’s 

removal. 

In 2004, 2005, and 2006, members of Congress complained publicly 

about the alleged failure of Lam’s office to aggressively prosecute violations of 

criminal immigration laws. These criticisms were also voiced by many 

Department officials. We describe below both the public and internal 

Department criticism of Lam’s immigration enforcement efforts, and her 

response to that criticism. 

On February 2, 2004, Darrell Issa, a member of Congress from Southern 

California, wrote Lam regarding her office’s failure to prosecute an alien 

smuggler. A few months later, on July 30, 2004, 14 members of Congress from 

California wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft to criticize the prosecution 

of alien smuggling in general, referencing an incident in the Southern District 

176 Lam also asserted on several occasions that in 2005 San Diego had the lowest 

violent crime rate in 25 years. She stated that since the purpose of PSN was to reduce violent 

crime, this statistic showed that her decision to defer gun prosecutions to local prosecutors 

was sound. 

277
 

 

of California in which an alien smuggler was arrested and then released 

without prosecution. On November 4, 2004, Sampson (then Counselor to the 

Attorney General) sent a memorandum to the Attorney General’s Chief of Staff 

regarding the July 30 letter to Ashcroft. Citing statistics on the prosecution of 

immigration crimes, the memorandum concluded that the enforcement of 

criminal immigration laws by Lam’s office compared poorly to other Southwest 

Border districts. 

On September 23, 2005, 19 members of Congress wrote to President 

Bush to complain about the Department’s failure to adequately prosecute alien 

smugglers, citing Lam’s office as one example. A few weeks later, on 

October 13, 2005, Congressman Issa wrote to Lam regarding the failure to 

prosecute another criminal alien case. Issa referred to what he called Lam’s 

“appalling record of refusal to prosecute” even the worst offenders. On 

October 20, 2005, 19 members of Congress wrote to Attorney General Gonzales 

requesting a meeting to discuss the Department’s alleged failure to prosecute 

criminal aliens. The letter cited Lam’s office’s alleged policy of not prosecuting 

criminal aliens unless they were convicted of two prior felonies in the 

district.177 

On April 6, 2006, the House Judiciary Committee held a Justice 

Department oversight hearing at which Attorney General Gonzales testified. 

Representative Richard Keller from Florida complained to Gonzales about 

Lam’s “pathetic failure . . . to prosecute alien smugglers who have been 

arrested 20 times.” Gonzales responded in part by saying that “I am aware of 

what you’re talking about with respect to the San Diego situation . . . we are 

looking at the situation . . . and we are directing that our U.S. attorneys do 

more . . . .”178 

On April 6, 2006, William Moschella, then the Assistant Attorney General 

for the Office of Legislative Affairs, sent an e-mail to the Office of the Attorney 

General stating that after speaking with Gonzales and Sampson he wanted to 

arrange a 10-minute telephone call between Gonzales and Congressman Issa to 

discuss “border enforcement in Southern California.” Although the call was 

scheduled for April 17, it appears that it never occurred. On that date, 

Moschella was informed by e-mail that Gonzales thought the call was 

unnecessary in light of his congressional testimony on April 6 and his 

“subsequent sidebar with Issa.” According to the e-mail, McNulty also said 

that if Gonzales were to talk to Issa, Gonzales could say that he had directed 

McNulty to look “into border enforcement practices in the San Diego area.” 

177 We found no evidence this meeting was ever held. 

178 According to Lam, no one in the Department notified her of Keller’s criticism, and 

she learned of it only when another U.S. Attorney mentioned it in passing several months later. 

278
On May 11, 2006, Sampson sent an e-mail to many of the Department’s 

senior officials to inform them that President Bush would be giving a “major 

speech” regarding immigration reform, and that the Department would be 

assigned several matters related to border enforcement in connection with a 

Presidential initiative on immigration reform. On that same day, Sampson 

forwarded to Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley the April 14, 2006, 

removal list, which again included Lam. Sampson commented that “The real 

problem we have right now with Carol Lam . . . leads me to conclude that we 

should have somebody ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year 

term expires.” 

On May 22, 2006, Congressman Issa complained on the Lou Dobbs 

television show on CNN about the refusal by Lam’s office to prosecute alien 

smugglers. The show’s producers had asked Lam’s office for an official 

response to Issa’s charges, which her office supplied prior to the broadcast. In 

the response, Lam’s office questioned the validity of documents on which Issa 

had relied. Two days after the broadcast, Issa wrote to Lam regarding her 

response. The Department and Lam apparently never responded to Issa’s 

letter. 

On May 31, 2006, Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General Dan Fridman 

sent Mercer a draft analysis of immigration prosecutions in Lam’s office, which 

Mercer forwarded to Sampson. The memorandum stated that it was prepared 

because of congressional and media attention on the office’s enforcement of 

criminal immigration laws. The memorandum contained statistical data which 

indicated that the Southern District of California’s immigration prosecution 

numbers in general were lower than those of several other southwest border 

districts. Sampson replied to Mercer that he also wanted a comparison 

between Lam’s office and the Southern District of Texas (a district that was not 

included in the memorandum), and Mercer sent a final draft of the 

memorandum to McNulty on June 6, 2006, after receiving that data. The 

memorandum stated that the data showed that AUSAs in the Southern District 

of Texas were more productive and efficient in prosecuting immigration 

offenses than were AUSAs in Lam’s office. 

Also on May 31, Sampson sent an e-mail to Mercer asking “[has] ODAG 

ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement? Has 

anyone?” Mercer responded, “I don’t believe so. Not that I am aware of.” 

Sampson told congressional investigators that during the April to June 

2006 time frame, the Department’s senior management, including Attorney 

General Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General McNulty and their staffs, had 

“several conversations” about their concern over Lam’s office’s enforcement of 

immigration laws. Sampson stated that Gonzales had directed the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office to work with Lam’s office to improve its immigration 

enforcement efforts, and that Sampson’s e-mail as to whether Lam had been 

279
 

“woodshedded” was seeking information as to whether the Deputy Attorney 

General’s Office had followed up with Lam as directed. Sampson said he 

recalled being concerned that the Deputy Attorney General’s Office had failed 

to communicate the Department’s concerns over immigration enforcement to 

Lam. 

On June 1, 2006, Sampson sent an e-mail to Elston and Mercer stating 

that President Bush and Karl Rove had told Attorney General Gonzales that 

during the next 2 weeks the Department needed to “trumpet” its immigration 

enforcement efforts. That same day, Sampson sent another e-mail to Elston 

and Mercer, which Sampson said was related to his prior e-mail regarding 

immigration enforcement. Sampson wrote that “the AG has given additional 

thought to the SD [Southern District of California] situation and now believes 

that we should adopt a plan.”179 Sampson outlined the plan, which set forth a 

series of steps to address the Department’s concerns regarding Lam: 

Have a heart-to-heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve 

immigration enforcement in SD; 

Work with her to develop a plan for addressing the problem – to 

include alteration of prosecution thresholds; additional DOJ 

prosecutors; additional DHS SAUSA resources; etc. 

Put her on a very short leash; 

If she balks on any of the foregoing or otherwise does not perform 

in a measurable way by July 15 [my date], remove her. (brackets in 

original) 

AG then appoints new USA from outside the office. 

Sampson’s e-mail stated that this was “the sort of thing for ODAG and 

EOUSA to execute.” He asked Mercer and Elston to “tune up my plan/list of 

bullets, and be prepared to (1) present such plan to the AG tomorrow or early 

next week for his approval and (2) execute the plan next week.” 

On June 5, 2006, Mercer sent an e-mail to McNulty stating that the 

Attorney General wanted McNulty’s views on the proposed plan. McNulty 

responded by e-mail: “If [Lam’s] numbers are really bad, I may be in favor of a 

call inquiring about her exit plans. I’m concerned that a PIP for a USA may 

create some difficult issues.”180 

179 A day earlier Sampson had sent an e-mail to Mercer stating that in connection with 

Lam’s office, “I got some guidance from the AG this morning and we need to talk.” 

180 A PIP refers to a “performance improvement plan,” a written document that sets 

forth specific goals and measures to help an employee improve his or her performance. 

280
We found no evidence that the Attorney General’s Office, the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office, or that anyone in EOUSA took any of the steps 

outlined in Sampson’s June 1, 2006, plan to address the issues associated 

with the Southern District of California’s enforcement of criminal immigration 

laws. For example, we found no evidence that, in response to this proposed 

plan, anyone had a “heart-to-heart” talk with Lam about immigration 

prosecutions by her office. We also found no evidence that anyone developed a 

“plan” to help address her district’s performance or that anyone considered 

providing her office with additional resources, as discussed in Sampson’s email. 

Sampson told congressional investigators and told us that he believed 

the Deputy Attorney General’s Office failed to implement the plan that he and 

the Attorney General had developed. However, Mercer told us he believed that 

the Deputy Attorney General’s Office did respond to the Attorney General’s 

initiative. According to Mercer, McNulty thought that the first step in 

implementing the Attorney General’s plan should be to ask Lam for her 

response to the statistics comparing the Southern District of California’s 

immigration and firearm prosecutions to other southwest border districts. 

Therefore, as discussed previously, on July 5, 2006, Mercer sent Lam portions 

of the Sentencing Commission report for fiscal year 2005 containing sentencing 

statistics for the southwest border U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. Although Mercer 

told us that he sent the statistics to Lam as part of the Attorney General’s plan 

to improve Lam’s performance, he did not tell her that. Mercer called Lam 

before sending the statistics on July 5 and told her that he wanted her to verify 

the accuracy of the statistics to make sure that they did not underrepresent 

her office’s performance. 

Lam told us that Mercer had called her and asked her to verify if the 

statistics were accurate. Lam also said that Mercer made some allusion to 

“looking at resources on the border.” In a document that Mercer prepared for 

his congressional testimony, he wrote that he told Lam that he wanted her to 

verify that the statistics were accurate and told her that he had “reviewed data 

in conjunction with on-going discussions regarding DOJ resource allocations 

and DOJ priorities.” 

The statistics Mercer sent showed that in FY 2005 fewer immigration 

defendants were sentenced in Lam’s district than any other southwest border 

district. In her July 10, 2006, written response, Lam stated that the statistics 

were “roughly accurate” and explained the statistics by stating that her office 

prosecuted only the most dangerous offenders and sought the highest 

sentences, which resulted in more trials with increased resources devoted to 

those trials. Lam wrote that she had made a decision in 2005 to reduce the 

number of alien smuggling cases accepted for prosecution because defendants 

convicted in those cases faced the lowest sentences and engaged in the least 

egregious behavior. Lam argued that her strategy of prosecuting the most 

281
dangerous offenders greatly increased the number of immigration cases in 

which longer sentences were imposed and resulted in more resource-intensive 

trials. 

After receiving Lam’s response, Elston asked a summer intern in the 

Deputy Attorney General’s Office to read and comment on the response. The 

intern sent Elston an e-mail stating that he lacked the expertise to assess 

Lam’s justification for focusing on more serious crimes at the expense of not 

prosecuting less serious crimes. We found no evidence that anyone analyzed 

Lam’s response. 

McNulty told us that he recalled that in the summer of 2006 Mercer and 

another member of his staff (who we believe was probably Fridman) were 

tasked with evaluating immigration prosecutions in Lam’s office. McNulty said 

that by the end of the summer they had identified options to approach the 

problem but that no decision was ever made about what options to pursue. 

McNulty did not identify what the options were. McNulty also asserted that 

Lam was aware of the evaluation of her office and participated by responding to 

that evaluation. It is likely that McNulty was referring to Mercer’s sending the 

sentencing statistics to Lam and asking her to verify their accuracy. McNulty 

apparently did not know that Mercer had not told Lam that the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office was assessing her performance as part of a plan that 

could result in her removal. 

On August 2, 2006, Lam met in her district with Representative James 

Sensenbrenner and Issa regarding immigration prosecutions. Lam 

summarized the results of her meeting in an e-mail she sent that day to the 

Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA), which OLA circulated to several 

Department officials, one of whom sent it to Elston and Goodling. In her email, Lam stated that she had explained her office’s immigration enforcement 

priorities to the congressmen, that she chose to prosecute more serious 

offenders charged with offenses carrying longer sentences, and that it took 

more resources to prosecute those more serious cases. 

The Attorney General had also received a letter from California Senator 

Dianne Feinstein on June 15, 2006, questioning immigration law enforcement 

in Lam’s district. On August 23, 2006, OLA Assistant Attorney General 

Moschella replied to Senator Feinstein’s letter, citing many of Lam’s arguments 

about her office’s immigration enforcement effort. The OLA letter stated that 

Lam’s office focused on the worst offenders by bringing felony cases that would 

result in the longest sentences; that alien smuggling prosecutions were 

increasing; and that focusing on more serious crimes resulted in more trials, 

which were resource intensive and reduced the overall number of cases that 

could be brought. 

282
Lam told us that after her meeting with Representatives Issa and 

Sensenbrenner, there was a “fairly quiet” period until she was told to resign. 

After the Department’s August 23 letter to Senator Feinstein, we found no 

further evidence of any criticism of Lam’s immigration prosecution efforts 

before she was removed. 

C. Lam’s Removal 

According to Lam, EOUSA Director Battle called her on December 7, 

2006, and thanked her for her years of service as U.S. Attorney. Battle then 

told her that the Department wanted to take her office in a new direction and 

told her to resign by January 31, 2007. Lam said she asked why, and Battle 

told her he did not know. Lam told us that she was “devastated,” in part 

because for days she thought she was the only U.S. Attorney fired. Lam said 

she understood from “history and tradition” that unless she committed 

misconduct, she would remain the U.S. Attorney until the end of the 

Administration. 

Lam said she called McNulty a few minutes after Battle’s call to ask what 

had happened and whether she had done something to embarrass the 

Administration or the Department. According to Lam, McNulty refused to 

answer, saying he wanted to give some thought to the answers to her 

questions. Lam stated that McNulty never explained to her why she was fired. 

Lam also said that McNulty told her that he recognized that she had worked 

very hard and had even personally tried a long case (which Lam noted to us 

was one of the reasons the Department later proffered for her removal). 

Lam said that some weeks later she commented to Elston during a 

telephone conversation that she was never told why she was asked to resign. 

Lam said that Elston responded, “I don’t know why that information would be 

useful to you.” 

Lam said that she also called Margolis, who oversaw misconduct 

investigations against U.S. Attorneys, to find out whether she was fired for an 

ethics violation. Lam stated that Margolis told her that she was not the subject 

of any ethics investigation. 

According to Margolis, when Lam called him after she was fired, Lam 

“speculated to me that [her removal] was over immigration and guns.” When 

we asked Lam about Margolis’s recollection, she said she did not recall 

speculating about whether those were the reasons she was asked to resign. 

She said she might have made such a comment, but did not recall doing so. 

Lam said she made several attempts to delay her removal because of 

several important cases in her district. Lam said that Battle asked her to draft 

a memorandum supporting that request. Lam did so, but said she received no 

response for several weeks. Lam said that Elston eventually called her in early 

283
 

January and told her that her request for an extension of time to resign was 

not viewed favorably in the Department. Lam said that she spoke with Elston 

shortly after that, and he told her that if she announced her resignation that 

day, she could delay her departure two weeks beyond January 31. Lam 

announced her resignation on January 16 and left office on February 15. 

D. Public Corruption Investigations 

When Lam’s removal became public in early January 2007, there was 

public and congressional speculation that she was removed in retaliation for 

her office’s prosecution of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a Republican member of 

the House of Representatives, and her office’s ongoing public corruption 

investigation of a high-ranking CIA official, Kyle Dustin Foggo. 

In November 2005, after an investigation by Lam’s office, Cunningham 

had pled guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion. In early 2006, Cunningham 

received a prison sentence of 8 years. In 2007, after an investigation related to 

the Cunningham matter, Lam’s office indicted Foggo, then the third highest 

ranking CIA official, for, among other charges, conspiracy, wire fraud, and 

money laundering. Foggo’s case is still pending. 

To determine whether these prosecutions were related to Lam’s removal, 

we conducted extensive searches of the e-mail accounts and electronic 

computer files of Sampson, McNulty, Elston, Goodling, and others in the 

Department who had any connection with the U.S. Attorney removals.181 We 

also reviewed numerous documents related to the removals. We found no 

evidence indicating that Lam’s removal as U.S. Attorney was in any way related 

to her office’s investigation or prosecution of Cunningham, Foggo, or any other 

official, or that she was removed to affect other such investigations or 

prosecutions. 

Department officials also denied that Lam was removed because of the 

Cunningham or Foggo cases. For example, Elston testified to congressional 

staff that the Cunningham prosecution was “incredibly significant,” and noted 

that when he was an AUSA he assisted the Cunningham prosecution by 

securing a search warrant in the Eastern District of Virginia to obtain evidence 

related to the prosecution. Lam told us that she did not know why she was 

removed, but offered no evidence that it was because of the Cunningham or 

Foggo cases. 

Some speculation in the media also suggested that Sampson’s May 11 email stating that “the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam” was 

related in some way to her office’s investigation of Foggo. As discussed above, 

181 Gonzales did not maintain a Department e-mail account or computer files. 

284
 

 

 

however, Sampson’s May 11 e-mail was sent shortly after Lam’s office was 

criticized for its immigration prosecutions during a congressional hearing. 

Sampson also testified that his e-mail’s reference to the “real problem” was 

Lam’s “office’s prosecution of immigration cases.” The evidence we found 

supported that testimony.182 

III. Analysis 

We found no evidence that Lam was removed because of the investigation 

or prosecution of Representative Cunningham or CIA official Foggo, as was 

claimed by some after the U.S. Attorney removals became public. Sampson 

and other Department officials denied this claim, and our review of Department 

e-mails and documents did not find any indication that these investigations 

had anything to do with Lam’s removal. We also note that the investigation 

and prosecution of Cunningham and Foggo were aggressively pursued by 

career prosecutors in Lam’s office, both during and after her tenure. 

We determined that the Department’s claim that inattention to 

management was a reason for Lam’s removal was not accurate. Goodling 

testified and included in her summary document about the reasons for U.S. 

Attorney removals that Lam had personally tried cases rather than focused on 

the management of her office. We did not find any support that this had 

anything to do with Lam’s removal, and we believe it was disingenuous for 

Goodling and the Department to raise this claim. This appears to be another 

after-the-fact rationalization used to further justify the removal of a U.S. 

Attorney, and we found that it played no role in the decision to remove Lam. 

Rather, the evidence in our investigation demonstrated that Lam was 

removed because of the Department’s concerns about her office’s gun and 

immigration prosecution statistics. Sampson placed Lam on his first removal 

list, and she remained on all subsequent lists. Sampson consistently testified 

that concern about the low number of gun and immigration prosecutions by 

Lam’s office was the reason for her removal. Other Department leaders 

corroborated Sampson’s testimony. 

182 Some people have alleged that an August 8, 2006, e-mail Elston sent to a colleague 

in the Deputy Attorney General’s office asking, “have you heard back from Rizzo re SDCA case 

and WHC?” may have been related to Lam’s removal. However, Elston stated that “Rizzo” 

referred to CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo, and that the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Office was trying to assist Lam’s office to obtain classified documents from the White House or 

the CIA that were relevant to an investigation. Elston denied that the e-mail related to the 

firing of Lam. In fact, contemporaneous e-mails in July and August of 2006 show that Lam’s 

office was seeking the Deputy Attorney General’s Office’s assistance in obtaining classified 

information from the CIA on several matters, and that the White House Counsel’s Office was 

involved in those discussions. 

285
We also found that concerns about Lam’s low number of gun and 

immigration prosecutions were raised in the February 2005 EARS evaluation. 

In addition, in the summer of 2004 Deputy Attorney General Comey raised 

with Lam the priority of Project Safe Neighborhoods gun prosecutions, and we 

found that the Department remained concerned with the low number of gun 

prosecutions in Lam’s district. Her office’s immigration prosecutions also 

received significant congressional attention. Moreover, the Department was 

troubled by the relatively low number of immigration cases brought by her 

office compared to other southwest border offices. 

In response, Lam argued to the Department that the low number of gun 

prosecutions resulted from a variety of factors in her district, such as 

California’s strong state gun laws; state and local law enforcement’s effective 

prosecution of gun cases in her district; her district’s heavy caseload; and the 

absence of a significant gun problem in her district. Lam also said that she 

made efforts to seek more gun cases from local law enforcement agencies, 

without success. With regard to immigration cases, Lam stated that she 

decided to prosecute the more serious offenders with charges that would result 

in the longest sentences, and that it took more resources to prosecute these 

types of cases. 

Lam’s explanations did not persuade Department leaders or assuage 

their concerns about her prosecutorial priorities. It is the President’s and the 

Department’s prerogative to remove a U.S. Attorney who they believe is not 

adhering to their priorities or not adequately prosecuting the types of cases 

that the President and the Department decide to emphasize. This is true for 

any U.S. Attorney, even one like Lam who was described by Margolis as 

otherwise “outstanding,” “tough,” and “honest,” and who the EARS evaluation 

said was “an effective manager . . . respected by the judiciary, law enforcement 

agencies, and the USAO staff.” 

However, what we found troubling about Lam’s case was that the 

Department removed Lam without ever seriously examining her explanations or 

even discussing with her that she needed to improve her office’s statistics in 

gun and immigration cases or face removal. 

In fact, while it was never implemented, the Department had outlined 

what we believe was a reasonable and appropriate approach to address its 

concerns about Lam’s prosecutorial priorities. In June 2006, Sampson wrote 

an e-mail to Mercer and Elston that the Attorney General “believes that we 

should adopt a plan” with regard to the concerns about Lam. The plan 

included having “a heart-to-heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve 

immigration enforcement”; working with her to develop a plan to address the 

problem; and if she “balks” or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way, 

remove her. Sampson asked Mercer and Elston to comment on the plan and 

then execute it. 

286
Yet, we found that neither Mercer nor Elston carried out the plan as 

outlined. Neither called Lam or had a “heart-to-heart” conversation with her 

about her “urgent” need to improve her district’s immigration enforcement, 

talked with her about her office’s prosecutions, or developed a plan to help her 

address her district’s performance with respect to immigration and firearms 

prosecutions. Moreover, no one put Lam on notice that she had to improve her 

performance in a measurable way or face removal, as the plan suggested. 

Rather, when Mercer informed McNulty of the suggested plan, McNulty 

responded that “If [Lam’s] numbers are really bad, I may be in favor of a call 

inquiring about her exit plans. I’m concerned that a PIP [Performance 

Improvement Plan] for a USA may create some difficult issues.” But neither 

McNulty nor his staff ever made a call to Lam inquiring about her exit plans. 

Mercer, who was Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the 

time, claimed that by faxing the sentencing statistics to Lam and asking her to 

verify them, he was executing the first step in the plan. Yet, even if he thought 

such action constituted the first step, he did not talk to Lam about her 

performance, execute any other steps of the plan, or even ask her about her 

exit plans, as McNulty had proposed. 

The only action the Department apparently took in an attempt to assess 

Lam’s explanations for her office’s statistics was to direct a summer intern in 

the Deputy Attorney General’s Office to read and comment on her response to 

Mercer’s facsimile. The intern concluded that he lacked the expertise to assess 

Lam’s justifications for focusing on more serious immigration crimes instead of 

less serious crimes, and the Department conducted no analysis of her 

response. 

We found that neither Sampson, McNulty, Mercer, Elston, nor anyone 

else in the Department followed the plan outlined by Sampson at the behest of 

the Attorney General or directly addressed with Lam the issues of concern. We 

also found no evidence that Sampson or Gonzales ever inquired about whether 

the plan had been executed. Instead, on December 7, Lam was directed to 

resign. 

We also believe the Department handled her forced resignation unfairly 

by never telling her why she was being instructed to resign, despite her 

repeated questions. Then, when she asked for additional time because of 

important pending cases in her office, she was granted a 2-week extension 

beyond January 31, but only if she announced her resignation that day. 

In sum, we recognize that the President and the Department had the 

authority to remove Lam at their discretion based on concerns about her 

prosecutorial priorities and statistics. In this case the Department designed a 

reasonable plan to address the concerns regarding Lam’s gun and immigration 

287
statistics, but no one implemented the plan or followed up to inquire why it 

had not been implemented. We believe the Department’s actions provide a 

clear example of the disorganized removal process and the lack of oversight 

over that process. 

288
Oct 2001

Oct 2001

Margaret Chiara Timeline

Chiara Events 

and Actions 

Jul 2004 Aug 2004 Sep 2004 Oct 2004 Nov 2004 Dec 2004 Jan 2005 Feb 2005 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 May 2005 Jun 2005 Jul 2005 Aug 2005 Sep 2005 Oct 2005 Nov 2005 Dec 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 Mar 2007 

Oct 2004 - Dec 2004 

Chiara's AUSA friend wins the EOUSA Director’s Award; 

Lloyd Meyer was nominated but not selected 

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Green confronts Joan Meyer 

about spreading rumors of a romantic relationship between 

Chiara and the AUSA 

Jan 2005 

Mar 2, 2005 

Chiara is on Sampson's first removal list 

based on Margolis's recommendation 

May 23, 2005 

Joan Meyer complains to Chiara 

about the AUSA's performance and 

excessive travel 

Jul 28, 2005 

Jul 2005 

Lloyd Meyer accepts a detail 

to the Office of Legal Policy in 

Washington, D.C. 

Sep 2005 

The AUSA is 

removed from 

Joan Meyer’s 

supervision 

Sep 1, 2005 - Sep 14, 2005 

Chiara asks EOUSA General Counsel Scott 

Schools for assistance to “resolve conflicts” 

with Gross and Joan Meyer 

Schools meets with Chiara, Gross, and Joan 

Meyer to discuss differences 

Joan Meyer tells Schools that Chiara and the 

AUSA have a secretive relationship 

Schools discusses Chiara's situation with 

Margolis; a decision is made not to refer the 

relationship allegation for investigation 

Oct 2005 

The AUSA accepts a detail to 

EOUSA in Washington, D.C. 

Nov 6, 2005 

Joan Meyer complains to Chiara about her 

“favoritism” towards the AUSA, citing Chiara 

authorizing her travel and issuing the AUSA 

two “case of the year” awards 

Nov 8, 2005 

Jul 2006 - Oct 19, 2006 

The Senate Judiciary Committee receives three 

anonymous letters alleging misconduct by former First 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Green 

Chiara asks the DOJ to investigate the source of the 

anonymous allegations 

Margolis denies her investigation request; Chiara asks 

for meeting with McNulty 

Chiara meets with McNulty and others 

Nov 2006 

Dec 7, 2006 

Battle tells Chiara to resign 

Feb 1, 2007 

Chiara asks McNulty for the “real 

reason” for her resignation request; 

McNulty does not respond 

Feb 23, 2007 

Chiara announces her resignation 

Mar 16, 2007 

Chiara leaves office 

Chiara reports to Schools that the 

“situation here continues to deteriorate" 

Apr 2006 

Gross changes the AUSA's performance 

evaluation at Chiara's request; Chiara accepts 

Gross’s evaluation of Joan Meyer 

Jan 15, 2006 - Jan 31, 2006 

Joan Meyer begins a detail with the 

DAG's office in Washington, D.C. 

Thereafter, Joan Meyer tells several 

DOJ officials that Chiara and the AUSA 

are in a relationship and living together 

Gross steps down as First 

Assistant U.S. Attorney 

Jun 2006 

Green steps down as First Assistant U.S. Attorney; 

Chuck Gross is appointed to the position 

Joan Meyer is appointed Criminal Chief and later 

confronts Chiara about her relationship with the AUSA 

Jan 9, 2005 

The AUSA receives a 

16-hour time-off award 

Chiara asks Elston about taking a 

temporary leave of absence to serve as 

interim law school dean 

Elston informs Chiara that her resignation 

will likely be requested after the election 

Chiara asks McNulty why her resignation 

will be requested 

Oct 23, 2001 Jul 12, 2004 - Jul 16, 2004 

Chiara is confirmed by the An EARS evaluation is favorable Senate as the U.S. Attorney, but notes complaints concerning Western District of Michigan the distribution of awards 

Joan Meyer complains 

to Chiara about her 

inability to supervise 

the AUSA 

Oct 2001 Nov 2001 Oct 2002 Nov 2002 

Oct 2002 

Chiara’s friend is 

hired as an AUSA 

DOJ and Other Events 

and Actions 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 

MARGARET CHIARA 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of Margaret Chiara, the former United 

States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan. 

A. Background 

Chiara received her law degree in 1979 from the Rutgers University 

School of Law. She worked at a private law firm from 1979 to 1982, and then 

as an assistant prosecutor in Cass County, Michigan, from 1982 to 1987. 

From 1988 to 1996, Chiara served two terms as the elected Prosecuting 

Attorney for Cass County. From 1993 to 1994, she also served as the 

President of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Association of Michigan. 

Upon completion of her second term as Cass County Prosecuting 

Attorney in 1996, Chiara was appointed Administrator of the Michigan Trial 

Court Assessment Commission, which evaluated and made recommendations 

for changes in the operation and funding of state trial courts. In 1999, Chiara 

began work as the Policy and Planning Director for the Michigan Supreme 

Court. 

On September 4, 2001, Chiara was nominated by the President to be the 

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan. She was confirmed by the 

Senate on October 23, 2001. 

During her tenure as U.S. Attorney, Chiara served on three 

subcommittees of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC): Native 

American Issues, Management and Budget, and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices 

Outreach. 

Chiara was called by the Director of the Executive Office of U.S. 

Attorneys, Michael Battle, on December 7, 2006, along with the other U.S. 

Attorneys, and told to resign. She announced her resignation on February 23, 

2007, and left office on March 16, 2007. 

B. The EARS Evaluation of Chiara’s Office 

Chiara’s office underwent one EARS evaluation during her tenure as U.S. 

Attorney. The EARS team’s evaluation was conducted in July 2004. The EARS 

report stated that “The United States Attorney was a well regarded, hardworking, and capable leader who had the respect and confidence of the 

judiciary, the agencies, and USAO personnel.” However, notwithstanding this 

289
 

positive comment regarding Chiara, the EARS report noted “discontent within 

the Criminal Division” in the U.S. Attorney’s Office based on workload and 

productivity differences among Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSA). Additionally, 

the report commented that “a substantial number of AUSAs perceived that the 

actual process by which cash and time-off awards were determined was not 

equitable.” A draft report dated September 3, 2004, also commented that 

“[m]any AUSAs reported to evaluators [concerns about] the number and size of 

awards given to other AUSAs during the last 12 months. This information was 

found by evaluators to be generally inaccurate.” 

C. Chiara’s Status on the Removal Lists 

On the first U.S. Attorney removal list, which Sampson e-mailed to White 

House Counsel Harriet Miers on March 2, 2005, Chiara was rated as “weak” 

and was 1 of 14 U.S. Attorneys whom Sampson recommended for removal. 

Chiara’s name appeared on every subsequent removal list. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Chiara’s Removal 

As described in Chapter Three, in February 2007 when the Department 

began to prepare witnesses for their congressional testimony regarding the U.S. 

Attorney removals, Department of Justice White House Liaison Monica 

Goodling created a chart of reasons justifying the firings. The first draft of 

these reasons was reflected in Goodling’s two pages of handwritten notes. As 

to Chiara, Goodling wrote that “there was disarray in [her] office under her 

leadership . . . . [her office was] incredibly fractured . . . [she] lost [the] 

confidence of her subordinates and superiors.” 

In the chart Goodling prepared, the reasons for Chiara’s removal 

similarly stated: “During USA’s tenure, the office has become fractured, morale 

has fallen, and the USA has lost the confidence of some career prosecutors. 

The problems here have required an on-site visit by management experts from 

our EOUSA to visit and mediate with members of the leadership team.” 

On February 14, 2007, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty briefed 

members and staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the U.S. Attorney 

removals. According to notes of the closed briefing prepared by Office of 

Legislative Affairs official Nancy Scott-Finan who attended the session, and the 

talking points that McNulty used to prepare for the meeting, McNulty said at 

the meeting that one unidentified office (referring to Chiara’s office) had 

“serious morale issues” and there was a “loss of confidence” in her 

leadership.183 

183 At the meeting, McNulty did not identify Chiara as the U.S. Attorney to whom he 

was referring because her removal was not yet public. 

290
Chiara’s identity as the seventh U.S. Attorney contacted by Battle on 

December 7, 2006, and told to resign was not publicly revealed until late 

February 2007. As a result of the controversy surrounding the removal of 

other U.S. Attorneys, Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow sent 

a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on February 13, 2007, asking 

whether either of Michigan’s U.S. Attorneys had been asked to resign and, if so, 

the justification for the request. On February 23, 2007, the same day Chiara 

announced her resignation, Acting OLA Assistant Attorney General Richard 

Hertling sent a letter to Levin and Stabenow informing them that Chiara had 

been asked to resign for “performance-related reasons.” 

Two weeks later, in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee 

on March 6, 2007, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William 

Moschella addressed the reasons for the removals of the six U.S. Attorneys who 

were also testifying before the Committee that day. With regard to the two U.S. 

Attorneys not present – Kevin Ryan from San Francisco and Chiara – Moschella 

stated that they had “problems managing their districts.” 

Several Department witnesses addressed questions about Chiara’s 

removal in interviews with congressional investigators. Sampson told 

congressional investigators that Associate Deputy Attorney General David 

Margolis had expressed concerns to him about Chiara’s “management 

problems.” McNulty also used the phrase “management problems” when 

explaining to congressional investigators why Chiara was removed. Principal 

Associate Deputy Attorney General William Mercer told congressional 

investigators that Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General Michael Elston 

informed him in October 2006 that Chiara was going to be replaced because of 

“performance assessments.” Margolis told congressional investigators that 

Sampson consulted with him either in late 2004 or early 2005 about possibly 

removing some U.S. Attorneys. Margolis said that he either suggested that 

Chiara be removed or endorsed her removal at that time based on her 

“performance.” 

According to Chiara, no Department manager told her before Moschella’s 

March 6 testimony that she was removed because of management deficiencies 

on her part. In interviews with us on May 30, 2007, and September 15, 2008, 

and a letter dated July 22, 2008, Chiara alleged that she was removed as U.S. 

Attorney because of baseless rumors that she had a homosexual relationship 

with a subordinate AUSA in her office. Chiara asserted that the rumors were 

spread by Joan Meyer, who was the Criminal Chief in Chiara’s U.S. Attorney’s 

Office from January 2005 to January 2006 and later served on detail as a 

Counselor in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General from January 2006 to 

February 2008, and also by Meyer’s husband, Lloyd Meyer, who was an AUSA 

in Chiara’s office from 1994 to 2005 and later served on detail in Washington, 

D.C., in the Office of Legal Policy (OLP) as a Senior Counsel from 2005 to 2006. 

Chiara stated that given the Meyers’ detailee positions in the Department, they 

291
likely conveyed the rumor of the homosexual relationship to the Office of the 

Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General’s Office officials, and in 

particular to Goodling. Chiara said she believed that rumor resulted in her 

removal as U.S. Attorney. 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Chiara’s Removal 

A. Chiara’s Inclusion on the Removal Lists 

Sampson told us he included Chiara’s name as a U.S. Attorney 

recommended for removal on his first removal list, on March 2, 2005, primarily 

based on Margolis’s opinion. Margolis told us that he either recommended 

Chiara for removal or endorsed her removal when her name was first raised by 

Sampson, and said he recalled discussing this issue with Sampson in late 

2004 or early 2005, after the Presidential election. According to Margolis, he 

had serious questions about Chiara regarding her temperament and “turmoil 

in her office” when Sampson first broached with him the subject of removing 

underperforming U.S. Attorneys. Margolis also said his questions about her 

“kept on getting more serious” and his recommendation in favor of her removal 

became “stronger as time went on.” 

Margolis told us that he began having serious questions about Chiara’s 

leadership after he was contacted by a former Department of Justice official 

who had recommended Chiara for the U.S. Attorney position in 2001. Margolis 

said this official contacted him sometime before he spoke to Sampson about 

the removals of U.S. Attorneys. The former Department official, whom Margolis 

knew well and respected highly, said he was aware of events within Chiara’s 

office, and told Margolis that Chiara was “divisive” and that the office was “in 

turmoil.” 

Margolis said that the concerns he had about Chiara based on the former 

Department official’s comments intensified when EOUSA General Counsel 

Scott Schools returned from a meeting with Chiara in September 2005 (which 

we describe below). 

After Sampson’s March 2, 2005, list, Chiara was included on each of 

Sampson’s subsequent removal lists. As we discuss below, all but one of the 

senior Department officials responsible for determining which U.S. Attorneys 

should be removed – Sampson, McNulty, Elston, and Goodling – were aware of 

both the allegation that Chiara’s office was in turmoil and the allegation that 

Chiara showed favoritism towards a subordinate AUSA with whom it was 

alleged that she had a sexual relationship. Only Attorney General Gonzales 

said that he was not aware of these allegations. Gonzales testified to Congress 

and told us that he did not recall knowing why Chiara was removed prior to 

her removal. 

292
 

 

 

 

We discuss in the next section the conflict that arose in Chiara’s office. 

B. Factual Chronology Relating to Conflict in Western District of 

Michigan U.S. Attorney’s Office 

1. U.S. Attorney’s Office 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan is located 

in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with branch offices in Lansing and Marquette. The 

office has about 85 staff members, including approximately 35 attorneys. Prior 

to Chiara becoming the U.S. Attorney in October 2001, AUSA Phillip Green 

served as Interim U.S. Attorney from January to October 2001. Joan Meyer 

served as Green’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney.184 

After Chiara’s confirmation, Green became Chiara’s First Assistant and 

Meyer stepped down to become a line AUSA. As described below, Chiara later 

appointed Meyer as the office’s Criminal Chief. 

2. Senior Management Conflicts in Chiara’s Office 

Several witnesses in our investigation, including Chiara, described to us 

significant management conflicts during Chiara’s tenure as U.S. Attorney. The 

conflicts began in the fall of 2004 and worsened over time. The conflicts 

related to allegations that Chiara was engaged in a sexual relationship with a 

subordinate AUSA and that as a result of the relationship Chiara showed 

favoritism toward the AUSA in granting monetary awards, bonuses, and other 

personnel actions. According to several witnesses, Joan and Lloyd Meyer were 

the primary sources of these allegations. 

a. Rumors and Allegations Regarding Relationship 

with AUSA and Favoritism 

(1) Chiara’s friend is hired 

The AUSA who was alleged to have an inappropriate sexual relationship 

with Chiara joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in October 2002. According to the 

AUSA, she and Chiara were friends at the time she applied for the position.185 

184 Joan Meyer had also been the First Assistant in the late 1990s for former U.S. 

Attorney Michael Dettmer, who resigned in late 2000. 

185 The AUSA told us that her friendship with Chiara was disclosed to the USAO’s 

hiring committee. However, Chuck Gross, then the Civil Chief and the head of the USAO’s 

hiring committee, said he did not know at the time that the AUSA and Chiara were friends. 

Joan Meyer, who was also on the hiring committee, said that Chiara disclosed only a 

“professional relationship” with the AUSA before endorsing her as a “great prosecutor.” 

Chiara told us that she did not participate in the AUSA’s hiring process other than to 

approve the committee’s “unanimous” recommendation. Former First Assistant Green told us 

(Cont’d.) 

293
 

Chiara also told us that the two were friends prior to the AUSA applying for the 

AUSA position, and that they became very good friends during the time they 

worked together in the USAO. Chiara said they met in 1996 and shared a 

professional bond stemming from their time serving as 2 of only 3 elected 

female county prosecutors in a state with 83 counties. Both Chiara and the 

AUSA told us that they did not have a sexual relationship, contrary to rumors 

circulated in the office and in the Department about them. 

When the AUSA joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she was assigned to 

work in the Criminal Division. Her caseload included violent crimes in Indian 

Country, including domestic violence and sexual assault matters. At the time, 

Joan Meyer and her husband were also AUSAs in the Criminal Division. 

The AUSA told us that when she joined the USAO she had an apartment 

in the eastern part of the state, about a 2 1⁄2 hour drive from the district’s main 

office in Grand Rapids where she worked. She said that during her first year at 

the office, she occasionally (about two nights a month) stayed in a basement 

apartment in Chiara’s house in Lansing in order to cut down her commute. 

The AUSA told us that she obtained her own apartment in Lansing during her 

second year in the office. However, she said that even after renting her own 

apartment in Lansing she occasionally stayed at Chiara’s house to take care of 

Chiara’s dog when Chiara was out of town. Chiara confirmed that the AUSA 

would occasionally stay in her house to care for her dog when she was on 

travel, and Chiara said that the AUSA was the only USAO employee to do so. 

The AUSA said that during her first year at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, to 

avoid the perception that she was receiving favorable treatment from Chiara, 

she drove her own car to the office rather than commute with Chiara and two 

other women who lived in Lansing and worked at the USAO. She said that 

after she moved to Lansing and rented her own apartment, she joined a car 

pool with Chiara and the two other USAO employees. 

Both Chiara and the AUSA told us that they traveled together 

occasionally on business relating to meetings of the Native American Issues 

Subcommittee of the AGAC. Both said that they also took a vacation day on 

one such trip to Seattle to enjoy the sights. Chiara also said that the AUSA has 

stayed at Chiara’s house in South Carolina a couple of times with her. The 

that Chiara told the hiring committee she was leaving the choice up to them. According to 

Green, the committee reached a consensus that the AUSA was the best qualified applicant. 

However, Gross told us that he opposed hiring the AUSA because he believed that another 

candidate was more qualified. He said there was no consensus on the committee for or against 

the AUSA, and he thought the decision to hire her was probably made by Chiara and Green. 

When we informed Chiara that Gross said that he had opposed the AUSA’s hiring, Chiara said 

she had not known that and that she had been told the AUSA’s selection was unanimous. 

294
AUSA told us that she stayed at the South Carolina house at least one time 

without Chiara. 

(2) Rumors about their relationship 

As noted above, an EARS team evaluated the USAO during the week of 

July 12-16, 2004. The EARS team leader was the First Assistant from another 

U.S. Attorney’s Office. He told us that as part of the EARS process, he and his 

team provided questionnaires to, and then interviewed, virtually all USAO 

employees. The questionnaires and interviews sought employee views on the 

office and any problems or issues that they thought merited the EARS team’s 

attention. 

The EARS leader said that the team heard only one rumor about a 

relationship between Chiara and the AUSA during their week in the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office. The leader said the rumor was so vague that he did not feel it 

warranted any mention in the report, or any follow up or independent 

investigation. He said he did not recall who made the allegation about the 

relationship, but he recalled that Joan Meyer did not provide this information 

or other negative information about Chiara or the office. The EARS leader said 

that he probably did not tell anyone outside the EARS team members about the 

rumor, but that if he had done so it would only have been to the EARS staff in 

EOUSA in Washington, D.C. 

Lloyd Meyer told us that he told the EARS team about the allegations 

concerning Chiara’s sexual relationship with the AUSA. He said that he 

understood that many AUSAs had told the EARS team about the rumors and 

that the rumors had circulated in the USAO since 2002. 

The EARS team leader said that the EARS team did hear several 

complaints about inequitable distribution of awards, and that some of those 

complaints specifically concerned the AUSA. The leader said that he reviewed 

the AUSA’s awards and concluded that they were justified because the AUSA 

prosecuted matters that no one else in the USAO wanted to prosecute, that she 

did so in a location far from the main office requiring considerable travel, and 

that she worked long hours. 

According to former First Assistant Green, the rumors about a sexual 

relationship between Chiara and the AUSA began in the fall of 2004. Green 

attributed the rumors to Joan and Lloyd Meyer. He said that the rumors began 

to circulate after the announcement of an EOUSA Director’s Award in the fall of 

2004. According to Green, the AUSA’s immediate supervisor had nominated 

her for the award, while Lloyd Meyer had nominated himself and another AUSA 

who tried a case with him. Chiara submitted both award nominations to 

EOUSA, which made the decision to give a Director’s Award to the AUSA but 

295
 

 

not to Lloyd Meyer or his co-counsel.186 According to Green, Lloyd Meyer “went 

ballistic” when he learned that the AUSA had won the award and he did not. 

Green said he believed the Director’s Award fueled the rumors regarding a 

relationship between Chiara and the AUSA. Lloyd Meyer told us that he 

thought Chiara pulled strings at EOUSA to get the AUSA the award, although 

he admitted he had no evidence to support his assertion. 

The AUSA told us that although she had heard complaints about 

favoritism towards her before receiving the award, the complaints intensified in 

the fall of 2004 after she won the Director’s Award. Chiara told us that Lloyd 

Meyer mounted a “campaign” to undermine her and drive the AUSA from the 

district after the AUSA won the award. 

Green said that he knew that Lloyd Meyer, even more than Joan Meyer, 

was spreading rumors about an intimate relationship between Chiara and the 

AUSA. Green told us he confronted Joan Meyer in the fall of 2004 concerning 

the rumors, and Green said that Joan Meyer confirmed that Lloyd Meyer was 

“telling everyone.” Green said that he told Joan Meyer emphatically that the 

rumors were false.187 He said that Joan Meyer insisted to him that she knew 

better and cited the example that Chiara and the AUSA had been seen driving 

into work together and therefore must be living together because the AUSA’s 

residence was a considerable distance from Grand Rapids. Green told us that 

he told Joan Meyer that the AUSA had an apartment in Lansing and often 

drove to the office with Chiara. 

Joan Meyer told us that she had “speculated” to people in the office 

about the relationship between Chiara and the AUSA. When we asked Meyer 

about the basis for her speculation, she said she “had been noticing 

situations,” “putting two and two together,” “talking to people,” and came to 

believe that Chiara and the AUSA were living together. Meyer said she based 

her conjecture regarding their living arrangement on her observation that 

Chiara and the AUSA were driving to and from work together every day when 

the AUSA’s permanent residence was on the east side of the state, 6 hours 

from Grand Rapids. 

Green also said that when he confronted Joan Meyer about the rumors 

in the fall of 2004, she mentioned to him a “huge award” of approximately 

$20,000 that the AUSA had allegedly received. Green said he started laughing 

186 Green said he submitted both nominations in different categories to avoid having 

colleagues competing against each other. Green also told us that he reviewed and finalized the 

award submissions and that Chiara only signed off on them. 

187 Green told us that Chiara and the AUSA were friends and nothing more. He said he 

was as “certain as [he] could be about two people who did not live” with him that they were not 

involved in a sexual or romantic relationship. 

296
and told Meyer that the allegation was “preposterous” and explained to her that 

he came up with the office bonus amounts, not Chiara. He said that although 

he thought his response “struck a chord” with Meyer, the rumors persisted. 

Green told us that the bonus rumors may have been started because of a 

change in the bonus award process Chiara instituted in the office in the spring 

of 2004. He said Chiara made the decision to award bonuses only to 

employees who received “outstanding” performance evaluations for the previous 

rating year. Green said under the new award process he made the 

recommendations as to the amounts to be awarded and Chiara talked to the 

supervisors to make sure that they were in agreement with the bonus 

recommendations. Green said it was his understanding that no supervisor 

voiced any objections to the new award system. This process, however, 

deviated from the past practice in the office under which the management team 

collectively determined the award recipients and the amounts of the bonuses. 

Green said he believed the change fueled rumors that the bonus determination 

process was “secretive” and that Chiara was “pulling the strings.” Green told 

us that he had devised the formula to determine the recommended bonus 

amount for each prospective awardee, and said he did not recall any instance 

in which the final bonus amount deviated from his recommendation. 

Both Meyers also alleged to us that in December 2004 an incident 

occurred that generated further allegations of Chiara’s favoritism towards the 

AUSA. They alleged that Chiara directed the AUSA’s supervisor to give the 

AUSA a time-off award after her completion of a trial, against the 

recommendation of the AUSA’s immediate supervisor. 

We determined that on December 28, 2004, Chiara sent an e-mail to the 

AUSA’s supervisor concerning time-off awards for several people, including the 

AUSA, who had been involved in a trial. Chiara’s e-mail stated that the AUSA 

deserved “no less than 32 and could easily be given 40 hours for pulling off this 

difficult evidentiary case against exceptionally tough odds.” Chiara also 

recommended a 24-hour award for an AUSA who had been “2nd chair” at the 

same trial, a 16-hour award for an employee who worked through the weekend 

in connection with the trial, and 4 and 0 hours, respectively, for two other 

employees involved in the trial. Chiara told us that she believed the AUSA 

merited a 32 or 40 hour time-off award because of the difficult preparation 

work for the trial, especially during the winter in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

In a reply e-mail, the supervisor stated that he had intended to submit 

16-hour awards for the AUSA, the second-chair AUSA, and the employee who 

had worked through the weekend. He also said he would have submitted 4-

and 8-hour awards for the two other employees. The supervisor also noted in 

the e-mail that while Chiara could increase the awards for the AUSA and the 

second chair AUSA, he was reluctant to propose such large time-off awards for 

297
 

a 3-day trial. He stated that time-off awards were generally limited to 8 to 16 

hours for week-long trials. 

According to EOUSA records, the AUSA received a 16-hour time off 

award, effective January 9, 2005. EOUSA records also show that two of the 

staff mentioned in the e-mail exchange between Chiara and the supervisor 

received 16-hour time off awards, and one employee received a 4-hour time off 

award. Thus, contrary to the Meyers’ assertion that Chiara gave the AUSA an 

award against her supervisor’s recommendation, it appears that the supervisor 

intended to nominate the AUSA for an award independent of Chiara’s 

suggestion, and that Chiara did not overrule the supervisor regarding the size 

of the time-off award. 

Joan Meyer also asserted to us that the AUSA received a 

disproportionate amount of bonuses and time-off awards compared to other 

employees. Meyer said she “had no doubt” that the AUSA received “18 percent 

of the bonus pool” allocated for the 40 attorneys in the office. Both Meyers 

claimed that the AUSA received unmerited bonuses, and cited a story in the 

Grand Rapids Press on March 14, 2007, which included the allegation that the 

AUSA received 14% of the bonus money “paid to two dozen assistants.” 

Our review of bonus records maintained by EOUSA showed that for the 

2004 fiscal year (October 1, 2003, to September 30, 2004, before the 

allegations first surfaced), the AUSA received a $5,000 bonus. No other 

employee received a higher bonus, but four other line AUSAs, including Joan 

Meyer, received the same amount. The AUSA also received one “spot award” of 

less than $500, which brought her total award money for the year slightly 

above the other four. Other AUSAs in the office received lesser bonus 

amounts. The AUSA’s total award comprised roughly 9% of the total bonus 

pool for attorneys during that fiscal year. EOUSA records show that in the 

subsequent year, the AUSA received a “Special Act or Service Award” of $500 

and a $3,000 bonus that was matched or exceeded by seven other AUSAs. The 

AUSA’s percentage of the bonus pool for attorneys that year was roughly 7%. 

Joan Meyer claimed that Chiara made the bonus decisions, and Meyer 

said she was unaware that anyone else played a role in the bonus 

determination. We found, however, that Green made the determinations 

regarding both recipients and amounts for the 2004 fiscal year, the first year 

that bonus amounts were called into question.188 As described above, Green 

told us he explained to Joan Meyer his role in determining attorney bonuses. 

188 Green was not involved in the bonus determinations for the 2005 fiscal year 

because he had stepped down as First Assistant by that time. Gross, his replacement as First 

Assistant, told us that Chiara participated in choosing the recipients and award amounts. 

Chiara told us that after much discussion, she and Gross came to a “consensus” about bonus 

(Cont’d.) 

298
 

b. Meyer Confronts Chiara About her Relationship 

with the AUSA 

In January 2005, Green stepped down as First Assistant and took a 

position as a line AUSA in the USAO’s Criminal Division. Green told us that he 

stepped down “predominantly” because of the Meyers. He said that the rumors 

they were spreading about Chiara and the AUSA were “the straw that broke the 

camel’s back.” 

Green said that while the office had morale issues under Chiara, it had 

had morale issues under Chiara’s predecessor as well. He told us that he did 

not believe that there were widespread morale issues during Chiara’s tenure 

and said that the 2004 EARS evaluation supported his belief. He also said that 

what morale problems existed were “driven by” the Meyers. Green said that the 

rumors about Chiara and the AUSA living together did not interfere with the 

functioning of the office “to any great extent.” He said that aside from the 

Meyers, no one ever told him that Chiara was not competent to be the U.S. 

Attorney. 

After Green stepped down, Chuck Gross was named First Assistant and 

Joan Meyer was selected as Criminal Chief. According to Chiara, she chose 

Gross as First Assistant and Meyer as Criminal Chief based upon Green’s 

recommendation. She said Green reasoned that Gross was close to Meyer and 

could keep her “on track with her criminal [chief] responsibilities.” 

After a few months, however, the new management team was in conflict. 

One of Joan Meyer’s new responsibilities as Criminal Chief was to supervise 

the AUSA. Meyer told us that her concern about the relationship between 

Chiara and the AUSA had “nothing to do with any purported homosexuality” 

but related to the impact the relationship had on Meyer’s ability to supervise 

the AUSA. Meyer said she believed the relationship between Chiara and the 

AUSA made the AUSA “virtually unsupervisable.” 

Shortly after she became Criminal Chief, Joan Meyer asked Chiara 

directly if she was living with the AUSA. Meyer told us that being a “good 

supervisor and wanting to get it on the table,” she confronted Chiara in First 

Assistant Gross’s presence about the alleged relationship. Meyer said she told 

Chiara that it would be impossible to supervise the AUSA if she was living with 

Chiara. According to Meyer, Chiara told her not to assume anything. Meyer 

said she then asked Chiara directly if she and the AUSA were living together, 

but Chiara expressly declined to answer the question, telling Meyer it was 

irrelevant to her job and that she expected Meyer to supervise the AUSA. 

amounts for that year. Chiara told us that she did not recall disagreeing with Gross over the 

bonus amount for the AUSA. 

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Chiara confirmed that Meyer confronted her in early 2005 about the 

relationship. According to Chiara, Meyer said that she could not supervise the 

AUSA because of Chiara’s interference. Chiara said Meyer asked her directly if 

the two had a personal relationship. Chiara told us she probably responded 

that Meyer had no right to ask that question. 

Chiara told us that after the confrontation, she gradually became aware 

that the allegation about her relationship with the AUSA had become “an officewide issue.” Chiara told us that because of the “reign of terror” spread by 

Lloyd and Joan Meyer in 2005, her office had become a “disaster.” However, 

Chiara told us that she never considered directly addressing this issue either 

with Joan Meyer or within the office. She also told us that she never 

considered formally removing herself from personnel decisions affecting the 

AUSA, such as awards and performance evaluations. Chiara said that she had 

other friends in the USAO besides the AUSA, and that she did not consider 

removing herself from decisions concerning them. 

Joan Meyer said she believed the AUSA had numerous deficiencies in her 

performance. In addition, Meyer said she also started raising questions about 

the AUSA’s travel because the AUSA was “disappearing” to numerous 

seminars, which Meyer said depleted the office’s travel budget and required 

others to do the work the AUSA left behind. Meyer said the AUSA’s travel 

authorizations were handled without her knowledge or approval. Meyer said 

she did not know who actually signed off on the AUSA’s travel authorizations, 

but assumed it was Chiara. Chiara denied that she routinely signed off on the 

AUSA’s travel authorizations, but said she would sign them in an emergency, 

as she would for any employee. 

E-mails reflect that Joan Meyer raised these issues with Chiara in the 

spring and summer of 2005. On May 23, 2005, Meyer complained in an e-mail 

to Chiara and Gross about the AUSA’s performance and excessive travel. We 

did not find any response to Meyer’s e-mail. 

On July 12, 2005, Meyer sent another e-mail to Chiara and Gross 

commenting that the AUSA was seeking a detail in Washington, D.C. and 

noting that Meyer’s relationship with Chiara had “significantly deteriorated.” 

On July 28, 2005, Meyer sent Chiara another e-mail complaining about her 

inability to supervise the AUSA, and stating that the AUSA had “unfettered 

professional and personnel access” to Chiara. Again, we found no responses to 

Meyer’s e-mails. 

In July 2005, Lloyd Meyer accepted a detail to the Office of Legal Policy 

in Washington, D.C. He said he took the detail because “the situation in that 

office was intolerable.” 

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By September 2005, the relationship between Joan Meyer and the AUSA 

had become so strained that Chiara removed the AUSA from Meyer’s 

supervision and assigned her to another supervisor on Chiara’s management 

team. According to Chiara, Joan Meyer had stopped speaking with the AUSA. 

In October 2005, the AUSA accepted a detail to EOUSA in Washington, 

D.C. 

3. Chiara Requests Assistance from EOUSA 

In the fall of 2005, Chiara called EOUSA General Counsel Scott Schools 

and asked for his help to “resolve conflicts” between herself and her principal 

managers, Gross and Joan Meyer. According to Schools, Chiara believed that 

Meyer was “undermining her authority with her subordinates” and that Gross 

was “not supportive enough of her efforts to manage the office.” Schools 

decided to visit the USAO, and before the visit he spoke by telephone with 

Meyer and Green. 

According to Schools’s written notes of his pre-meeting telephone 

conversations, Meyer asserted that Chiara was engaged in a relationship of a 

“secretive nature” with a female AUSA that resulted in the AUSA being 

rewarded excessively for her work. Schools’s notes state that Meyer told 

Schools that Chiara and the AUSA were seen arriving at and leaving the office 

together and taking the same vacation days; that the relationship was an “open 

and notorious problem in the district”; and that the AUSA was being “singled 

out for awards” she did not deserve, and as a consequence morale in the office 

was “very low.” 

Schools’s notes also reflect that Green disputed Meyer’s contentions that 

there was an inappropriate relationship between Chiara and the AUSA or that 

Chiara gave preferential treatment to the AUSA. Green attributed the turmoil 

in the office to the Meyers, whom he described as “two troublesome AUSAs who 

have their own agenda” and were “spreading rumors” that Chiara and the 

AUSA were “living together and sleeping together.” 

On September 14, 2005, Schools met with Chiara, Gross, and Joan 

Meyer at a private attorney’s office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in an effort to 

resolve the differences among them. The three agreed upon guidelines 

proposed by Schools to improve communication within the management team, 

and they agreed to work together for the good of the office. According to 

Schools, the issue of Chiara’s alleged relationship with the AUSA was not 

discussed. Chiara told us that she probably discussed the favoritism 

allegations with Schools, but said that that issue was only “one factor” out of 

many causing the management problems in her office. 

We asked Schools if he came to any conclusion after his visit to the 

district about the management team in the office, and whether it appeared 

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effective or in disarray. Schools responded, “I would say it was closer to the 

disarray side.” When asked how much of the disarray was attributable to Joan 

Meyer’s allegation about the relationship between Chiara and the AUSA, 

Schools answered that he viewed the allegation as “a little bit tangential.” 

According to Schools, there was a “perception” by Meyer about the nature of 

Chiara’s relationship with the AUSA, but the larger complaint Meyer expressed 

was that “Ms. Chiara was a poor manager overall and the issues regarding [the 

AUSA] were a component of that but not the real driving issue behind the 

problem.” 

Upon returning to EOUSA, Schools reported to Margolis on his meeting 

with Chiara and her managers. Schools said he gave Margolis his opinion that 

the office was in a “difficult situation”; that Chiara was “frustrated”; and that 

Schools was “not optimistic” that the management problems would be resolved. 

Schools said he told Margolis about Meyer’s allegation about the relationship 

between Chiara and the AUSA “even though at that point it wasn’t explicitly 

stated.” 

Schools said he also discussed with Margolis whether Meyer’s allegation 

regarding Chiara’s and the AUSA’s relationship should be referred to the Office 

of the Inspector General (OIG) for investigation. Schools told us he considered 

it “a close question,” but that both he and Margolis believed the information 

furnished by Meyer was “too vague and insubstantial to merit referral to the 

OIG at that time.” In describing his decision not to refer the matter, Margolis 

told us that there was not a “threshold showing” that Chiara and the AUSA 

were engaged in an intimate relationship. 

4. Additional Incidents 

We found that Schools’s meeting with the three officials did not improve 

matters in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. On November 5, 2005, Gross sent Chiara 

a draft performance evaluation for the AUSA. Gross told us that the draft 

contained ratings for five job-related elements, and that he had given the AUSA 

a rating of “satisfactory” on four elements and “outstanding” on one element. 

Gross said that Chiara pressured him to give the AUSA a more favorable 

evaluation. According to Gross, Chiara told him that the evaluation did not 

reflect the quality of the AUSA’s work, and that the AUSA would give Gross a 

binder of materials that he should consider when revising her performance 

evaluation. Gross said that Chiara did not directly tell him to change two of 

the four “satisfactory” ratings to “outstanding” so the AUSA would receive an 

overall rating of “outstanding,” but Gross said he was “confident” that had he 

not done so, Chiara would have given the evaluation back to him again. 

Chiara told us that she believed that Joan Meyer drafted the AUSA’s 

evaluation, or that Meyer told Gross what to write. Chiara told us that she 

302
thought Gross’s draft evaluation was “outrageous” because the AUSA deserved 

an overall “outstanding” rating based on her work. Chiara said she told Gross 

to speak to judges and others who knew the AUSA’s work, but Chiara said she 

did not recall telling Gross that the AUSA would give him a binder of materials. 

Gross said that after reviewing the materials the AUSA gave him and 

talking to a federal magistrate and others who knew her work, he believed that 

he should revise one of the “satisfactory” elements to “outstanding.” However, 

he said he did not feel that he should raise any other “satisfactory” rating. 

Gross said he ultimately changed the rating for one additional element to 

“outstanding” because he wanted Chiara to sign off on Joan Meyer’s 

performance evaluation, who Gross had rated overall as “outstanding.” Gross 

said that he presented both the revised AUSA’s and Meyer’s evaluations to 

Chiara, put them on her desk, and told her they were “connected.” Chiara 

approved both evaluations. However, Chiara denied that her acceptance of the 

two evaluations was connected. 

In a second incident, on November 6, 2005, Joan Meyer sent Chiara an 

e-mail commenting on the fact that the AUSA was receiving travel 

reimbursements from the office travel budget for her trips back to Michigan 

from Washington, D.C., although as described above the AUSA was on detail at 

the time to EOUSA. Meyer stated in the e-mail that even though the AUSA was 

on detail, other AUSAs perceived that her travel expense reimbursements 

showed favoritism because the office travel budget was tight. Meyer also stated 

that the AUSA had received two case-of-the-year awards from the USAO, and 

the second award was not recommended by the Criminal Division supervisors 

or the First Assistant. Meyer told Chiara that “many cases went unrecognized 

that were more meritorious” and that the AUSA’s receipt of the second award 

was “perceived” to be the result of Chiara’s favoritism. We found no response 

by Chiara to Meyer’s e-mail. Chiara did not recall responding to this e-mail, 

but said she thought that if she responded it would have been orally. 

Two days later, on November 8, 2005, Chiara sent an e-mail to Schools 

reporting that “the situation here continues to deteriorate” and welcoming any 

suggestions he might have. Chiara said that she may have sent this e-mail in 

part because of Meyer’s e-mail to her 2 days earlier. 

We did not find a specific response from Schools to this e-mail. However, 

in December 2005, after Meyer had announced her impending departure for a 

detail in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Schools suggested to Chiara 

that she advertise the positions of First Assistant and Criminal Chief. 

5. The Relationship Rumors Spread 

In late January 2006, Joan Meyer stepped down as Criminal Chief and 

began a detail in Washington, D.C., as a Counselor in the Office of the Deputy 

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Attorney General. As noted above, her husband Lloyd Meyer had previously 

accepted a detail to OLP in July 2005, and the AUSA had accepted a detail to 

EOUSA in October 2005. 

Most senior Department officials we interviewed who were involved in the 

removal of the U.S. Attorneys said they were aware of the allegations about the 

turmoil in Chiara’s office and about an alleged relationship between Chiara and 

a female AUSA (though many did not know the identity of the AUSA). Several 

said they heard the allegations directly from Joan Meyer after she began her 

detail with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office in late January 2006.189 

Sampson told congressional investigators that he spoke to Margolis 

frequently about issues with U.S. Attorneys, and he had a “hazy recollection of 

him expressing or acknowledging concerns about Ms. Chiara.” According to 

Sampson, both Goodling and Elston also expressed concerns about Chiara 

“late in the [removal] process.” He said he remembered thinking at the time 

that the concerns raised by Elston – that Chiara’s office was “fractured . . . and 

Ms. Chiara was not able to manage the in-fighting” – might have been 

generated by Joan Meyer. 

In his interview with us, Sampson said that he heard from Goodling and 

Elston that “there were management difficulties and that [Chiara] was not the 

strongest of USAs.” He also stated that he was aware of an allegation that 

Chiara was engaged in a romantic relationship with a female AUSA in her 

office. Sampson said that allegation came to his attention either directly from 

Joan Meyer or indirectly from Meyer through Elston. In addition, Sampson 

said that after Chiara’s name had appeared on Sampson’s first two removal 

lists and after Meyer had started in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office, he 

had the “perception that the office was a disaster.” 

As discussed above, Margolis told us that he either recommended Chiara 

for removal or endorsed her removal in late 2004 or early 2005 when Sampson 

first raised her name. In addition, Margolis told us that Joan Meyer first 

broached with him the subject of the alleged relationship between Chiara and 

the AUSA sometime in early 2006, shortly after Meyer began her detail with the 

189 Joan Meyer denied spreading rumors about Chiara and the AUSA living together. 

However, we found numerous e-mails from Meyer in 2006 when she was in the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office in which she made such allegations. We found e-mails from Meyer to 

seven different people in the USAO and to her husband in which she alleged that the AUSA was 

Chiara’s “live-in girlfriend”; that Chiara’s conduct evidenced “unfair treatment, blatant 

favoritism and the promotion of [Chiara’s] live-in girlfriend’s career at the expense of a 

government budget”; that “[the AUSA] is either keeping her job or walking out of our office with 

bonuses, a salary history and awards that she received, not because she deserved them, but 

because she is living with and vacationing with the US Attorney who is her life partner 

(whatever that means);” and that there was “the substantial likelihood that Chiara is benefiting 

financially from the bonuses and salary increases she is awarding [the AUSA].” 

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Deputy Attorney General’s Office. According to Margolis, Meyer asserted that 

Chiara and the AUSA were living together. When Margolis asked Meyer how 

she knew this, she replied that Chiara and the AUSA would drive off together at 

the end of the day and that since Meyer knew that the AUSA lived too far away 

to commute, she inferred that the two must have been living together at 

Chiara’s house. According to Margolis, after Meyer disclosed her observations 

and conclusions, she told Margolis that he had to report it to the OIG. 

Margolis told us that he told Meyer he was not a messenger and that she would 

have to report it herself since she was the one who claimed knowledge of the 

relationship.190 

Other senior Department officials also became aware of the rumors 

surrounding Chiara and the AUSA before Chiara was removed. Goodling 

declined to speak with us, but as described in our previous report on politicized 

hiring by Goodling and others in the Office of the Attorney General, we found 

that Goodling was aware of the rumors of a sexual relationship between the 

AUSA and Chiara.191 In fact, Goodling acted on those rumors by terminating 

the AUSA’s detail at EOUSA after EOUSA had agreed to extend her detail for a 

second year. In addition, we found that Goodling attempted to prevent the 

AUSA from obtaining two other details in the Department. However, we did not 

find any evidence that Goodling recommended Chiara’s removal. 

McNulty also told us that he was aware of the allegations about Chiara 

and “a female employee.” McNulty said he could not remember the source of 

the rumor, but he “heard that Joan [Meyer] had made some comment that had 

come up in the office about the relationship.” 

Elston said he was aware of the allegation that Chiara and the AUSA 

were living together and that their relationship had caused problems in the 

office. Elston said the source of this information was “primarily” Joan Meyer. 

However, Elston told us their “living together” was not the important issue to 

190 Meyer did not report her allegations to the OIG. However, in August 2006 Meyer 

was interviewed in connection with an OPR investigation regarding anonymous allegations 

against former First Assistant Phil Green, which we discuss below. In her interview, Meyer 

raised with OPR the same allegations about Chiara and the AUSA even though they were 

unrelated to the pending investigation for which she was interviewed. She asked OPR to 

investigate or to refer the matter to the OIG. OPR informed Meyer that the allegations fell 

within the jurisdiction of the OIG and advised her to report the matter to the OIG if she 

believed that she had evidence to support the allegations. Meyer never did so. Meyer later told 

us that she never reported the allegations because “I was on [Chiara’s] payroll . . . She was in 

control of my bonuses, my salary levels . . . I wasn’t going to sign some sort of formal 

referral . . . while I was on her payroll.” Meyer also noted that she had reported the allegations 

to Schools and Margolis. 

191 See An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring’s by Monica Goodling and 

Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General, pp. 128-130. 

305
 

 

him with regard to Chiara. He said that the alleged favoritism in bonus awards 

was the important issue because of the effect it had on office morale. 

Rachel Brand, then Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal 

Policy (OLP), was also aware of the relationship allegations. Brand said that 

Lloyd Meyer, then on detail to OLP, had complained to her “many times” about 

Chiara’s leadership and had claimed that Chiara was engaged in an 

inappropriate relationship with a female AUSA in the office. According to 

Brand, Lloyd Meyer told her that “everyone” knew the two were living together 

and that the AUSA was receiving the largest bonuses in the office. Brand said 

she also discussed these issues with Joan Meyer, then on detail to the Office of 

the Deputy Attorney General. Brand said she thought it “possible” that she 

conveyed to Sampson what she heard from the Meyers.192 

Joan Meyer denied telling Sampson and McNulty her allegations about 

Chiara and the AUSA, but acknowledged having a conversation with Elston 

“sometime in 2006,” about the AUSA. She said she “may have even told 

[Elston] the story” about confronting Chiara about her living arrangements 

with the AUSA. Meyer told us that “I’ve never had extensive conversations with 

anybody in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General about Margaret Chiara.” 

She said she discussed the Chiara-AUSA relationship with Margolis “a little bit” 

in early 2006. 

6. Chiara’s Request for an OPR Investigation 

In June 2006, First Assistant Gross left the USAO for a detail to Iraq. He 

said that by the time he left the office “morale was bad.” Gross said he and 

some other managers had “lost faith in [Chiara’s] ability to lead the office.” 

Gross said that the use of the word “fractured” to describe the USAO was not 

unfair. He told us that by that time “the vast majority” of staff thought Chiara 

was doing “a poor job or at best an okay job.” 

In July 2006, three anonymous letters were sent to the Senate Judiciary 

Committee challenging the nomination of Green, Chiara’s former First 

Assistant, to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The 

letters were referred to OPR by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin. OPR 

subsequently initiated an investigation. 

192 In connection with his January 9, 2006, U.S. Attorney removal list, Sampson had 

proposed to Harriet Miers that Brand replace Chiara. In a subsequent e-mail to Deputy White 

House Counsel William Kelley on May 11, 2006, Sampson asked Kelley to call him to discuss 

“Rachel Brand for W.D. Mich.” Brand told us that sometime in 2006 Sampson broached the 

subject of her replacing Chiara as U.S. Attorney in Western Michigan. According to Brand, she 

and Sampson were good friends and he knew she had roots in Michigan and had previously 

expressed to him a general interest in becoming a U.S. Attorney. Brand eventually withdrew 

her name from consideration for the U.S. Attorney position for personal reasons. 

306
In August 2006, Chiara asked the Department to conduct an 

investigation into who had sent the anonymous letters to the Senate Judiciary 

Committee. Chiara and others believed Lloyd Meyer had sent them, and 

Chiara believed the statements in the letters were deliberate falsehoods. 

On October 2, 2006, after learning that the decision on whether to grant 

her request would be made by the Deputy Attorney General’s Office, Chiara 

sent an e-mail to Elston and Margolis inquiring into the status of her request 

for an investigation into the source of the anonymous letters. Chiara sent 

another e-mail on October 4 to Margolis, requesting an opportunity to meet 

with him in Washington, D.C., or Grand Rapids so that she and her “senior 

management team” could more effectively convey the “severity and import of 

our office and district situation.” In her e-mails to Margolis and others, Chiara 

said that this issue was important to her office because she believed one of her 

employees deliberately gave false and malicious information to the Senate, and 

because the anonymous letters were having an adverse effect on her office. 

On October 6, Margolis forwarded several of Chiara’s e-mails to Elston, 

Schools, and Moschella, among others. Elston responded to Margolis’s e-mail 

by stating: “Perhaps it is time for her to move on if she can’t manage her 

office.” 

On October 18, 2006, Margolis sent a lengthy e-mail to Chiara, denying 

her request for an investigation into the source of the anonymous letters. In 

explaining his decision, Margolis cited the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), 

5 U.S.C. § 2302, and pointed out that, given the investigation undertaken by 

OPR into Green’s alleged conduct, a parallel investigation into the source of 

those allegations would “serve little purpose other than to identify the 

individual possibly entitled to protection under the WPA.” Margolis also 

pointed out that because the Senate Judiciary Committee asked OPR to 

investigate the merits of the allegations against Green, the Committee might 

well view the Department as more interested in retaliating against an employee 

who disclosed misconduct to Congress than in ascertaining the truth about the 

misconduct allegations. Margolis informed Chiara that he had determined that 

the best interests of the Department would not be served by conducting the 

investigation she requested. 

Chiara was not satisfied with Margolis’s decision and asked to meet with 

McNulty, Margolis, and Schools in Washington, D.C. The meeting was held on 

the afternoon on October 19, 2006. Margolis’s decision was not altered. 

According to Elston, Chiara’s persistence in advocating for the 

investigation struck him as “weird.” He told us that “everyone” thought such 

an investigation was a bad idea, but that Chiara kept pushing for it anyway. 

307
Margolis told us that he had concerns about Chiara’s performance long 

before the issue of her request for an investigation arose, but he said he was 

troubled by her request because it seemed Chiara was more interested in 

finding and punishing the anonymous letter writer than in ascertaining the 

truth or falsity of the allegations. 

7. Chiara is Given Advance Notice of Her Removal 

In early November 2006, Chiara called Elston and broached the subject 

of taking a leave of absence from her U.S. Attorney position for a potential 

position as the interim dean of the Michigan State University Law School. After 

consulting with Sampson, Elston called Chiara on November 3 and informed 

her that a leave of absence was not an option, but that she should consider 

accepting the position anyway because the White House was likely to request 

her resignation shortly after the upcoming mid-term elections. According to 

Chiara, Elston stated to her that the mid-term election projections for 

Republican candidates were dim and that she was likely to be one of a number 

of U.S. Attorneys who would be asked to resign in order to accommodate 

unsuccessful Republican congressional candidates. According to Chiara, 

neither Elston nor any other Department official ever gave her any other 

explanation for the subsequent resignation request. 

Elston told us that he was “trying to do her a favor” when he told Chiara 

of the possibility that her resignation would be requested after the election. He 

said he knew that Chiara’s name was on Sampson’s removal list and that 

action was expected to be taken shortly. He said he learned from Margolis that 

a leave of absence from a U.S. Attorney position was not permissible, and he 

said he did not want to see Chiara pass up an opportunity when he knew what 

she did not know – that her removal was in the offing. Elston said he did not 

recall telling Chiara that her position would be needed for an unsuccessful 

Republican congressional candidate, but acknowledged that “he beat around 

the bush in a big way” when Chiara asked him why her resignation might be 

sought. Elston said he told her he did not know the answer but offered 

“hypothetical possibilities,” including political accommodation. Elston also told 

us that he was instructed by Sampson not to disclose the reason for the likely 

resignation request or to tell Chiara that her resignation would be requested. 

After speaking with Elston, Chiara sent an e-mail to McNulty on 

November 5, 2006, asking for an explanation as to the reasons for the 

anticipated resignation request and expressed her dismay about Elston’s “dire 

prediction.” In a subsequent e-mail on November 7, Chiara asked McNulty to 

tell her why she would be asked to resign “as soon as the ‘election dust 

settles.’” 

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8. Chiara’s Removal 

Like the other U.S. Attorneys, Chiara received a telephone call from 

EOUSA Director Battle on December 7, 2006, asking for her resignation. As he 

told the other U.S. Attorneys, Battle said that the Administration appreciated 

her service but wanted to give someone else the opportunity to serve. After 

Battle’s call, Chiara immediately asked McNulty for additional time beyond the 

January 31, 2007, resignation date proposed by Battle. Chiara was granted 2 

extensions, the first for 1 month, and the second for a shorter period. 

On February 1, 2007, Chiara sent an e-mail to McNulty in which she 

noted that news reports concerning other departing U.S. Attorneys indicated 

that they had been asked to leave for one of two reasons: failure to meet 

expectations or failure to follow Department directives. Chiara contended that 

she fit into neither category, and asked directly: “Why have I been asked to 

resign? The real reason, especially if true, would be a lot easier to live with.” 

McNulty did not respond to the e-mail. 

On February 23, 2007, Chiara announced her resignation, and she left 

office on March 16, 2007. 

III. Analysis 

Based on our investigation, we concluded that concern about Chiara’s 

management of the U.S. Attorney’s Office was the reason for her removal. 

Before Sampson created his first U.S. Attorney removal list in March 

2005, Margolis recommended to him that Chiara be replaced. Margolis said he 

had serious questions about Chiara because of her leadership and 

temperament, and because of the turmoil in her office. Margolis told us that he 

began having these questions when he was contacted by a former Department 

of Justice official who had recommended Chiara for the U.S. Attorney position 

in 2001. This official, who said he was aware of events within Chiara’s office 

and whom Margolis knew well and respected highly, told Margolis that Chiara 

was “divisive” and that her office was “in turmoil.” Margolis said that his 

questions about Chiara became more serious and his recommendation in favor 

of her removal became stronger as time went on. Based on Margolis’s 

recommendation, Sampson included Chiara on his first removal list, and she 

remained on every subsequent list until she was called by EOUSA Director 

Battle and told to resign on December 7, 2006. 

We also assessed the allegations about Chiara that came to the attention 

of the Department’s senior officials after she was first placed on the removal 

list, including an allegation that she showed favoritism toward a subordinate 

AUSA and a rumor that she was having a sexual or romantic relationship with 

that AUSA. We believe the allegation of favoritism by Chiara towards the AUSA 

309
in her office, and Chiara’s handling of the resulting turmoil, contributed to 

Margolis’s and other Department leaders’ concerns about her management. 

However, we did not conclude that the allegation that Chiara had a sexual 

relationship with the AUSA was the reason for her removal, as Chiara 

subsequently asserted. 

As part of our investigation into the reasons for Chiara’s removal, we 

examined how she and the Department handled the turmoil in her office. In 

September 2005, EOUSA General Counsel Schools traveled to her district to 

help resolve conflicts between herself and her principal managers, the First 

Assistant and Criminal Chief. After Schools’s intervention, however, the 

conflicts did not abate. Even after that, Chiara interceded in a supervisor’s 

performance evaluation of the AUSA she was alleged to be showing favoritism 

toward, and the conflicts in the office intensified. 

We found that Chiara did not adequately address allegations about 

favoritism towards the AUSA. Regardless of the nature of their relationship, 

Chiara had interactions with the AUSA – who on occasion stayed in Chiara’s 

basement apartment and sometimes walked Chiara’s dog when Chiara was on 

travel – that resulted in questions of favoritism between a supervisor and a 

subordinate. Chiara’s Criminal Chief, Joan Meyer, squarely confronted Chiara 

with the issue of favoritism and alleged that it was affecting Meyer’s ability to 

supervise the AUSA and causing serious division within the office. This was a 

management issue that Chiara should have addressed. However, Chiara 

refused to address the questions directly and did not take action to abate the 

favoritism concerns. 

Chiara had several opportunities to address this issue. She could have, 

for example, removed herself from significant decisions affecting the AUSA in 

order to quell the concerns about favoritism. She could also have discussed 

the allegations and an appropriate course of action to address them with 

Schools. She did not do so. Instead, Chiara exacerbated the favoritism 

concerns by intervening in the performance rating of the AUSA, and pressuring 

the AUSA’s supervisor to raise the AUSA’s overall performance evaluation from 

“satisfactory” to “outstanding.” 

We also found that shortly before Chiara was informed that she would be 

removed, Margolis and other Department officials concluded that she exhibited 

poor judgment in another matter. An anonymous source had made allegations 

against Chiara’s former First Assistant, Phil Green, after he was nominated for 

another U.S. Attorney position, and OPR initiated an investigation into these 

allegations. However, Chiara repeatedly insisted that the Department 

investigate the source of the anonymous allegations, who Chiara believed to be 

Lloyd Meyer. Margolis said he reached the conclusion that Chiara was more 

interested in punishing the anonymous source than in finding out the truth of 

310
the allegations, and he believed that Chiara’s actions in this matter raised 

further concerns about her judgment. 

While we do not believe the Department’s removal of Chiara was 

inappropriate, we also do not condone the rumors and allegations that Joan 

and Lloyd Meyer spread about Chiara and the nature of her relationship with 

the AUSA. Although both Meyers have left the Department, we believe that 

their conduct in spreading unproven rumors about a sexual relationship 

between a Department supervisor and subordinate, rather than report them to 

the OIG for investigation, was unprofessional. In addition, we believe it would 

have been better practice for the Department to have addressed the allegations 

of an inappropriate relationship and favoritism head on and asked for a review 

of them. 

In sum, we concluded that the Department’s action in removing Chiara 

was not based on inappropriate factors. Chiara was identified for removal as 

U.S. Attorney from the time Sampson developed his first list because of 

concerns raised about her management of the office, and those concerns 

intensified over time. While Department officials became aware of rumors of a 

sexual relationship between Chiara and a subordinate AUSA, which were 

inappropriately spread by the Meyers, we found that performance concerns, 

rather than these rumors, caused the Department to remove Chiara as U.S. 

Attorney. 

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312
Sep 2002

Sep 2004

Kevin Ryan Timeline

Ryan Events and 

Actions 

Apr 4, 2006 

Nov 22, 2006 

The special EARS report is delivered; 

the report attributes the morale problem 

to the management of Ryan and the 

First Assistant U.S. Attorney 

The EARS team leader prepares a 

“significant observations” memorandum 

noting high turnover and low morale in 

Ryan's office 

Dec 7, 2006 

Battles calls Ryan and tells 

him to resign 

Oct 23, 2006 - Oct 27, 2006 

A special EARS evaluation is 

conducted of Ryan's Office 

Oct 29, 2006 

EARS team leader confirms the 

previous EARS report’s finding of a 

“significant morale problem” 

Jul 2002 Aug 2002 Sep 2002 Sep 2004 Oct 2004 Mar 2005 Apr 2005 May 2005 Jun 2005 Jan 2006 Feb 2006 Mar 2006 Apr 2006 May 2006 Jun 2006 Jul 2006 Aug 2006 Sep 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 

Jul 26, 2002 

Sep 2004 

Northern District of California 

Chief Judge complains to 

Margolis about Ryan’s leadership 

Mar 2, 2005 

On Sampson's first removal list Ryan is 

included in the category: "recommend 

retaining; strong" 

Mar 21, 2005 Jun 2005 

Jan 9, 2006 

Ryan’s name appears on 

Sampson’s second removal list 

Mar 27, 2006 - Mar 31, 2006 

An EARS review is conducted 

of Ryan's office 

Apr 14, 2006 

Ryan’s name is absent from 

Sampson's third removal list 

Jul 14, 2006 

Ryan sends a letter to DOJ 

disagreeing with the draft EARS 

report’s conclusions 

Sep 13, 2006 

Ryan’s name is absent from 

Sampson’s fourth removal list 

Dec 4, 2006 

Based on Margolis's and 

McNulty's requests, Ryan’s 

name is added to Sampson's 

final removal list 

Feb 16, 2007 

Ryan leaves office 

Jan 16, 2007 

Ryan announces 

his resignation 

Margolis and Buchanan meet with Ryan 

and First Assistant U.S. Attorney to 

discuss complaints about morale and 

leadership in his district 

EARS administrators attempt to 

schedule an October 2005 

evaluation for Ryan's office; Ryan 

obtains a postponement 

Ryan is confirmed by the Senate as the 

U.S. Attorney, Northern District of California 

May 2006 

Draft EARS report notes 

significant morale problem in 

Ryan's office 

Nov 27, 2006 

A meeting is held in the AG’s conference room 

to approve U.S. Attorney removals; Ryan's 

name is absent from the list discussed DOJ and Other 

Events and Actions 
 

CHAPTER TWELVE 

KEVIN RYAN 

I. Introduction 

This chapter examines the removal of Kevin Ryan, the former United 

States Attorney for the Northern District of California. Ryan has not 

commented publicly about the reasons for his removal, and he did not 

cooperate with our investigation.193 

A. Background 

Ryan graduated from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 

1984. From 1985 to 1996, he served as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda 

County. In 1996, Ryan was appointed to be a Municipal Court Judge for the 

City and County of San Francisco. In 1999, Ryan became a California Superior 

Court Judge. 

On May 15, 2002, Ryan was nominated by President Bush to be the 

United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. He was 

confirmed by the Senate on July 26, 2002, and sworn in on August 2, 2002. 

B. The EARS Evaluations of Ryan’s Office 

Ryan’s office underwent an EARS evaluation in 2003, approximately 6 

months after he was sworn in as U.S. Attorney. The final report of the 

evaluation stated that “the overall evaluation was positive,” and that Ryan was 

“dedicated to the effective management of the office and to the priorities of the 

Attorney General.” The report described him as an effective leader in the 

District, and stated that “the judiciary was favorably impressed with the new 

United States Attorney.” 

The office was evaluated again in March 2006. The May 2006 draft of 

the final EARS report contained several negative comments, stating for example 

that “there are serious morale problems [among Criminal Division AUSAs] . . . 

193 Ryan was the only one of the nine U.S. Attorneys who did not agree to be 

interviewed by us. We first contacted Ryan in May 2007, at the same time we contacted the 

others. After telling us that he would consider our request for an interview, Ryan never 

responded to our follow-up calls and e-mails. On December 17, 2007, we sent Ryan a letter 

seeking his cooperation and asking him to inform us whether he would agree to be interviewed. 

In response, Ryan contacted us by e-mail requesting additional information on the procedures 

for the requested interview. After obtaining the information and saying he would consider the 

matter and get back to us with an answer, Ryan did not contact us and did not respond to 

follow-up telephone and e-mail messages. 

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caused by the perception that U.S. Attorney Ryan and [the] First AUSA/ 

Criminal Chief . . . poorly manage Criminal Division AUSA personnel in San 

Francisco.” The report stated that AUSAs perceived Ryan as inaccessible, 

uninterested in their work, unresponsive to their concerns, too “insulated and 

cloistered,” and that he “makes decisions with minimal input from the line 

staff.” The report also noted that some of the AUSAs had expressed concern to 

the evaluators that Ryan and the First Assistant “might retaliate against those 

AUSAs who disagree with their decisions.” 

The report stated that while Ryan “strongly disputed” the findings 

concerning his management style and attributed them to “a small group of 

‘disgruntled’ AUSAs,” the evaluation team found that “the concerns about . . . 

Ryan’s management style and practices . . . were expressed by a majority of the 

line AUSAs in the Criminal Division . . . and by line AUSAs in every section and 

unit . . . and every level of experience.” 

As a result of the negative assessment, in October 2006 Associate Deputy 

Attorney General Margolis and EOUSA Director Battle directed an EARS 

“Special Review Team” to conduct an additional evaluation to verify the morale 

issues identified in the earlier evaluation and to make recommendations to 

address them. 

On November 22, 2006, the Special EARS Team provided its findings to 

Margolis and Battle. The report concluded that there were significant morale 

problems attributable to the management styles and practices of Ryan and the 

First Assistant U.S. Attorney. The report stated that Ryan and the First 

Assistant were viewed as “being vindictive when they perceived disloyalty or 

when their decisions were questioned.” The report stated that despite the 

earlier EARS evaluation, Ryan continued to dispute the degree of the morale 

problem in the office. The report noted that “from all accounts, the style and 

practices of the top leadership has not changed” since the March evaluators 

briefed Ryan on the team’s findings. 

C. Status on the Removal Lists 

On Sampson’s initial removal list, which he e-mailed to Miers on 

March 2, 2005, Sampson characterized Ryan as a “strong” U.S. Attorney not 

recommended for removal. On the second list Sampson sent to the White 

House in January 2006, Ryan was one of seven U.S. Attorneys recommended 

for removal. 

Ryan’s name was not on the third list Sampson sent to the White House 

in April 2006, and Ryan did not appear on any subsequent removal list until 

the final list on December 4, 2006. 

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EOUSA Director Battle called Ryan on December 7, 2006, to ask for his 

resignation. Ryan resigned as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of 

California on February 16, 2007. 

D. Reasons Proffered for Ryan’s Removal 

In his closed briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 14, 

2007, McNulty stated that Ryan was asked to resign because of management 

failures documented in EARS evaluations of his office. 

We found no public statements by Department officials discussing the 

reasons for Ryan’s removal. However, in our interviews and in interviews with 

congressional investigators, Department officials consistently stated that the 

management problems associated with Ryan’s office were the reasons for his 

removal. 

II. Chronology of Events Related to Ryan’s Removal 

A. Concerns About Ryan’s Management 

Beginning in 2004, Department officials became aware of allegations that 

Ryan’s management was causing turmoil in his office. In 2004, several San 

Francisco newspapers reported on the departures of several experienced 

prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and on problems with Ryan’s 

management and the turmoil in his office.194 In the fall of 2004, the Chief 

Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sent 

Margolis copies of the articles and called him to complain about Ryan’s 

leadership. E-mail records between Margolis and EOUSA Director Mary Beth 

Buchanan in late October 2004 show that Margolis and Buchanan recognized 

the need to discuss the concerns with Ryan. 

On January 31, 2005, another experienced prosecutor left Ryan’s office. 

The day of his departure, the AUSA sent an office-wide “open letter” to Ryan 

complaining about long-standing morale and attrition problems in the office 

attributable to Ryan’s management. The letter was forwarded to AUSAs in 

other U.S. Attorney’s offices and to EOUSA. The Chief Judge in Ryan’s district 

sent Margolis a copy of the letter on February 4, 2005, and asked him to 

consider the complaints. Margolis and Buchanan decided to meet with Ryan 

and the First Assistant U.S. Attorney in mid-March 2005 to discuss these 

issues. 

194 See The Recorder, “Top Prosecutor Bolts from DOJ,” July 9, 2004; “Ryan’s Criminal 

Chief Steps Down,” September 29, 2004. 

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On March 21, 2005, Margolis and Buchanan discussed the concerns 

with Ryan and his First Assistant. According to Margolis, he “read [Ryan] the 

riot act” about his management style and the attrition in the office, and he 

suggested to Ryan that it would be wise for him to ask the Department to 

undertake a special review of these management issues. According to Margolis 

and to correspondence from Ryan to Sampson, Ryan did not request such a 

review. 

B. Sampson’s Discussions About Ryan in Early 2005 

At the same time that Margolis and Buchanan were discussing how to 

address the management issues regarding Ryan, Sampson began the process 

of categorizing the U.S. Attorneys to determine who should be recommended 

for removal. As noted above, on March 2, 2005, Sampson forwarded to Miers 

his first list of U.S. Attorneys, and he described Ryan as one of the strong U.S. 

Attorneys. Sampson told congressional investigators that he could not recall 

specifically why he rated Ryan positively on the March 2005 list. However, 

Sampson said that at the time, he considered Ryan to be “a really good guy and 

an honorable person who was working in a very difficult office . . . and he had a 

difficult time managing that office.” Sampson said he did not recall having 

conversations at that time with Comey, Margolis, or Buchanan in which they 

raised any concerns about Ryan. 

However, we determined that Margolis, Comey, and Buchanan separately 

told Sampson sometime in early 2005 that they did not view Ryan favorably. 

Comey told us that when he met with Sampson on February 28, 2005, he told 

Sampson he considered Ryan to be a weak U.S. Attorney based on the morale 

problems in the office.195 Comey said that he knew EOUSA was concerned 

about Ryan’s office and was working with Margolis to address the problems. 

Margolis told us he could not recall exactly when Sampson first broached 

the subject of removing underperforming U.S. Attorneys in early 2005, 

although Margolis said he strongly recommended to Sampson that Ryan and 

Dunn Lampton of the Southern District of Mississippi be removed. Margolis 

said he was aware of the management problems in Ryan’s office, and he 

questioned Lampton’s judgment after learning about several matters Lampton 

was handling. 

Buchanan told congressional investigators that her office had received 

complaints from a number of sources, including former staff members and 

195 Comey recalled, based on his calendar entries, that he spoke with Sampson on 

February 28, 2005, 3 days before Sampson e-mailed the chart to Miers. The chart with Ryan’s 

name in bold, however, was dated February 24, 2005, 4 days before Sampson met with Comey. 

Thus, it seems likely that Sampson did not revise the list based on Comey’s comments about 

Ryan. 

316
 

 

judges, about Ryan’s management, and she said she discussed the matter with 

Sampson in the “early spring” of 2005. 

C. Fall 2005 EARS Evaluation is Postponed 

According to Buchanan, she and Margolis decided to conduct a special 

EARS evaluation of Ryan’s office to better pinpoint and address the problems in 

that office. Ryan’s office was originally scheduled to undergo a regular EARS 

evaluation sometime in the spring of 2006. In light of the concerns about 

Ryan’s management and the morale of the office, in June 2005 EARS 

administrators attempted to schedule the regular evaluation for October 2005, 

earlier than the regular 3-year cycle. 

On June 10, 2005, Ryan’s office requested that the review be postponed 

until sometime in 2006 because the office was experiencing key administrative 

personnel shortages related to several recent retirements. Margolis 

recommended to EOUSA that the request be denied in light of the serious 

issues in Ryan’s office. EOUSA denied the request on June 23. Ryan 

telephoned the new EOUSA Director, Michael Battle, the following day to 

attempt to persuade him to postpone the evaluation.196 

Battle told congressional investigators that he agreed to Ryan’s request 

for an extension because Battle needed time to become knowledgeable about 

the issues in the district, and he wanted to give Ryan the chance to be able to 

“put his best foot forward.” The evaluation was rescheduled for late March 

2006. Margolis said that when Battle told him he had agreed to Ryan’s request 

to reschedule the evaluation, Margolis expressed his disappointment. 

According to Battle, even before he arrived at EOUSA he had heard that 

Ryan’s district was “embattled.” Battle told congressional investigators that 

Ryan was “in a siege and everybody was angry with him.” 

D. Events in 2006 

1. Ryan is on Sampson’s January 9, 2006, List of U.S. 

Attorneys Recommended for Removal 

Ryan was included on the list of U.S. Attorneys Sampson recommended 

for removal on January 9, 2006. Sampson told us that he believed he included 

Ryan at that time because by then he perceived that Ryan had “lost the office 

. . . the office turned on him.” Gonzales also told us that he was aware of 

“serious management problems” in Ryan’s office by January 2006. However, 

196 Battle became Director of EOUSA on June 6, 2005, when Buchanan left to return to 

her district as U.S. Attorney. 

317
Gonzales said he could not recall how or when he learned the information, and 

he speculated that it came from McNulty, Battle, or Sampson. 

2. Controversy Concerning the Methodology of the EARS 

Evaluation 

In mid-January 2006, the EARS Team slated to review Ryan’s office in 

March proposed interviewing former AUSAs as part of the evaluation in light of 

the allegations that numerous experienced prosecutors had resigned because 

of Ryan’s poor leadership. Correspondence between Ryan and the EOUSA 

Assistant Director who was in charge of the EARS program for the Department 

shows that the team leader discussed the issue with Ryan in late January and 

Ryan was unhappy about the proposed interviews. In February 2006, Ryan 

stated his opposition to the proposal and to other aspects of the review in 

correspondence to the team leader and to the EOUSA Assistant Director. Ryan 

also expressed concern that the EARS team had already prejudged the office 

and had been tainted by the accounts of disgruntled former AUSAs. The 

Department’s response to Ryan stated that the review would proceed as 

planned. 

On January 18, 2006, Battle received a letter from an AUSA in Ryan’s 

office containing the subject line “An Office in Distress – USAO, Northern 

District of California.” The letter described the mass “exodus” of experienced 

AUSAs during Ryan’s tenure and urged the Department to use the upcoming 

EARS evaluation to “investigate the causes underlying this unprecedented 

exodus of AUSAs and other personnel.” 

On March 8, 2006, a few weeks before the scheduled EARS evaluation, a 

San Francisco newspaper wrote an article about the letter, discussing at length 

the discord within the office and stating that “[c]riticizing Ryan’s management 

has become a cottage industry since he was appointed by President Bush in 

2002, with prosecutors, defense lawyers and at least one judge complaining 

about office management and the handling and selection of cases.” 

3. The March 2006 EARS Evaluation 

The EARS team conducted a 4-day on-site evaluation of the San 

Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office during the week of March 27, 2006. After its 

completion, Margolis sent an e-mail to Elston informing him that he had 

learned from EOUSA Director Battle that “staff and court comments were not 

positive.” Margolis’s e-mail informed Elston that the EARS team had originally 

planned to interview former AUSAs but had “temporarily backed off that plan 

at [U.S. Attorney] Ryan’s insistence,” so only current staff was interviewed. 

Margolis wrote that the complaints appeared to be “of the same nature as those 

that I brought to [U.S. Attorney] Ryan’s attention [last spring].” Margolis said 

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that “we can decide if further inquiry is needed” after the team produced its 

draft observations. 

On April 4, 2006, the EARS team leader prepared a preliminary 

memorandum to EOUSA highlighting his “significant observations” concerning 

the high turnover rate and low morale that line AUSAs attributed to Ryan’s 

poor management style and practices. The memorandum and a draft of the full 

report, which were submitted to Margolis in late May 2006, emphasized that 

“there is a significant morale problem among a number of AUSAs in the 

Criminal Division . . . caused, at least in part, by their perceptions that U.S. 

Attorney Ryan (and [the] First AUSA/Criminal Chief) poorly manages the 

Criminal Division AUSA personnel in San Francisco.” In a May 27, 2006, email to Mercer, Elston, and Battle, Margolis wrote, “I think this report 

furnishes the predicate for sending the team back to interview former AUSAs as 

well as any persons suggested by Ryan.” 

After reviewing the draft EARS report, Ryan wrote an 8-page letter, dated 

July 14, 2006, disagreeing with the report’s conclusions concerning his 

management of the office and asking that the sections criticizing his and the 

First Assistant’s management be deleted from the final version. Ryan 

described those sections as “personalized and unsubstantiated attacks.” He 

also complained that the EARS team was biased and the outcome of the 

evaluation seemed predetermined. Ryan stated that “Many of the morale 

issues . . . are the corollary of bringing much needed change to some of the 

longstanding policies and practices of this district.” 

4. The Special EARS Evaluation 

In September 2006, Battle informed Ryan that the Department had 

denied his request to delete portions of the evaluation and that he and Margolis 

had decided to send a “Special EARS Review” team to Ryan’s office to follow up 

on the March evaluation. The Special Review team planned to interview both 

current and former AUSAs. The team also planned to interview Ryan and the 

First Assistant, as well as individuals suggested by them. 

Ryan wrote Sampson a letter dated October 8, 2006, complaining about 

the Special EARS follow-up evaluation and characterizing it as “a distraction 

forced upon us [which] is not only unfair, disruptive, and counterproductive; it 

is also a waste of taxpayer’s money.” Ryan also stated that the Department 

was not considering the office’s “great work on some cutting edge cases . . . in a 

very difficult environment and with strained resources.” Ryan wrote that he 

felt he had been treated unfairly by Margolis and the EARS evaluators. Ryan 

stated, “In my opinion, this is becoming dangerously close to using the 

resources of the DOJ to pursue a personal agenda.” 

319
Sampson said he shared the letter with McNulty and asked him to figure 

out what should be done to address Ryan’s concerns. Sampson said he forgot 

about Ryan’s letter until late November 2006, when McNulty said he wanted 

Ryan added to the removal list. 

McNulty told us that the March 2006 evaluation of Ryan’s office was so 

negative that it demanded a substantial follow-up review. McNulty said that by 

October 2006 he was working closely with Margolis to address the “very 

significant management problems” the evaluation had identified in Ryan’s 

office. 

The special EARS evaluation was conducted during the week of 

October 23, 2006, as scheduled, with a team of eight veteran AUSAs who were 

also experienced EARS evaluators. Over a 3-day period, the team interviewed 

42 current and former AUSAs, in addition to Ryan and the First Assistant. The 

team also considered a 14-page memorandum the First Assistant had drafted 

concerning the office’s attrition rates, information concerning personnel 

decisions Ryan made between 2002 and 2006, and additional background 

information about current and former AUSAs whom the team had selected for 

interviews. 

By memorandum dated October 29, 2006, the team leader, Ken Melson, 

then the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the 

Eastern District of Virginia (and currently the Director of EOUSA), advised 

Margolis of the team’s significant observations. Among other things, Melson’s 

6-page memorandum confirmed the previous EARS report’s finding of a 

“significant morale problem” in the U.S. Attorney’s Office during Ryan’s tenure. 

Melson also wrote that the morale problem had contributed significantly to the 

mass departure of experienced AUSAs from the office, which he attributed 

directly to the management style and practices of Ryan and the First Assistant. 

Melson reported that both current and former AUSAs described Ryan as 

“elusive, isolated, removed from office life, retaliatory, explosive, noncommunicative, and paranoid.” Melson also found “little evidence that the 

management practices and styles of U.S. Attorney Ryan and [the] First 

AUSA . . . have changed” since the March EARS evaluation and concluded that 

those management styles and practices were “inappropriate and harmful to the 

office.” In closing, Melson summed up the morale of the office as “abysmal.” 

By memorandum dated November 22, 2006, addressed to Margolis and 

Battle, Melson provided the Special EARS Review 18-page formal report, which 

expanded on Melson’s observations in his October 29 memorandum. Melson’s 

final report was delivered 5 days before the Monday, November 27, 2006, 

meeting held in the Attorney General’s conference room to finalize and approve 

the removal plan for U.S. Attorneys. 

320
 

 

E. The Removal Lists 

As previously noted, after being on the January 2006 list, Ryan’s name 

was not included on the subsequent lists Sampson sent to the White House in 

April, September, and November 2006. When we asked Sampson why he had 

removed Ryan’s name from the lists after January 2006, he stated that it was 

likely he did so because he was aware that the evaluation process of Ryan’s 

office was ongoing. Sampson stated that while a U.S. Attorney can be removed 

“for any reason or no reason,” once the evaluation process has been initiated, 

“as a matter of policy” the U.S. Attorney should be given the benefit of the full 

evaluation before being removed. 

McNulty told congressional investigators that he was “a little confused” 

as to why Ryan was not listed for removal on the September 13 or November 7, 

2006, lists.197 McNulty acknowledged that when he learned about the removal 

plan in October 2006, he did not tell Sampson to add Ryan to the list for 

removal, but he told us that even without the removal process, at some point 

he would have told Sampson that Ryan should be removed. 

According to Elston, he and McNulty became aware of the problems in 

Ryan’s office sometime during the summer of 2006. Elston said that Margolis 

reported on the issues concerning Ryan’s management “with some frequency,” 

although Elston said he did not suggest that Sampson add Ryan to the list 

when he learned about the removal plan in October because Margolis was 

handling the issues with Ryan. Elston said that while he was aware of 

concerns, he did not know the facts and did not know who was at fault. 

As previously discussed, a meeting on the morning of November 27, 

2006, was held in the Attorney General’s conference room to finalize and 

approve the plan to remove U.S. Attorneys. Gonzales, Sampson, McNulty, 

Goodling, Moschella, and Battle attended. Elston was unavailable, and 

Margolis was not invited. 

At the meeting, the Attorney General approved the plan for removing the 

six U.S. Attorneys on Sampson’s November 7 removal list.198 The attendees 

told us there was little or no discussion about the reasons the named U.S. 

Attorneys were designated for removal or whether anyone else should be added 

to the list. 

197 We determined that McNulty did not see the September list until sometime after 

October 17, when Sampson forwarded to Elston the e-mail he sent Miers on September 13. 

198 The U.S. Attorneys on the November 7 list were Charlton, Lam, Chiara, Bogden, 

McKay, and Iglesias. 

321
 

 

Sampson told us that after the meeting was adjourned, McNulty 

approached him and said that “Ryan needs to be on the list.” McNulty told 

congressional investigators he had no personal memory of doing this, but he 

said it was “consistent with what I was dealing with at the time.” Elston told 

us that McNulty added Ryan’s name to the list in late November after the 

results of the special review were analyzed.199 

Although Sampson said he had no specific recollection, he said he 

believed that he conveyed McNulty’s views on Ryan to Attorney General 

Gonzales and received his approval to add Ryan’s name to the removal list. 

Gonzales told us that he did not know why Ryan was not on the November 27 

list. He said it was “bizarre” that Ryan’s name was not listed because he knew 

that Ryan was “probably the number one person Margolis wanted to go.” 

Margolis, who was not at the meeting, told us he was “astonished” when 

he learned that Ryan was not on the list. He said that he asked Sampson 

about it and Sampson gave Margolis the impression he would look into it. 

Sampson added Ryan’s name to the December 4 final list of U.S. Attorneys to 

be removed. 

Battle called Ryan on December 7, 2006, and told him to resign. Battle 

told congressional investigators that he “had trepidations” about making the 

call to Ryan because he knew Ryan was angry about the Special EARS 

evaluation. Battle said he told Ryan that the Administration was requesting 

his resignation by the close of business on January 31, 2007. According to 

Battle, Ryan did not ask why his resignation was being requested; he just said 

“thank you very much” and hung up. 

Ryan did not discuss his removal with anyone at the Department. On 

January 17, 2007, the night before Attorney General Gonzales was to testify at 

an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Elston contacted 

Ryan’s office to assure him that the Attorney General would not discuss Ryan’s 

removal at the hearing. According to e-mail records, Ryan’s First Assistant 

returned Elston’s call and told Elston that Ryan was not returning phone calls 

from Senator Feinstein and from U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who had also been 

told to resign. Elston stated that the First Assistant told him that Ryan 

199 Margolis said that he played an instrumental role in adding Ryan to the list. 

According to Margolis, the Chief Judge in Ryan’s district told him she had asked members of 

Congress from California to request that the Department provide the EARS evaluations for 

Ryan’s office. In an e-mail dated December 1, 2006, Margolis informed Elston and Moschella 

about his conversation with the judge. Elston forwarded Margolis’s e-mail to Sampson, who 

responded that the “EARS evaluations seem pretty deliberative to me.” Elston responded to 

Sampson, “I agree,” and he said that, “This may also become unlikely if the list is expanded by 

one as we discussed earlier.” Sampson replied, “The list is expanded” and that he was “still 

waiting for the green light from the White House.” 

322
“wanted us to know that he’s still a company man.” Ryan made no public 

statements about his removal, and he declined to cooperate with our 

investigation. 

III. Analysis 

In sum, we found nothing inappropriate about the Department’s decision 

to remove Ryan or about the process the Department used to reach its 

decision. The evidence was clear that Ryan was removed because of concerns 

about his management of his office and the two EARS evaluations that severely 

criticized the management of his office. These EARS evaluations were 

conducted by independent and experienced career attorneys. Ryan’s responses 

to the criticisms were considered, but the Department did not find his 

arguments persuasive and believed he should be replaced. 

The reasons proffered for Ryan’s removal are consistent with what our 

investigation found. In contrast to the process the Department used to decide 

whether to remove other U.S. Attorneys, the Department sought an objective 

evaluation of the allegations about Ryan’s performance, and Ryan was given an 

opportunity to respond to them. At the end of the process, the Department 

considered the reports and his responses, believed that Ryan’s office needed a 

change of leadership, and it implemented that change. 

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

CONCLUSIONS

Like other Presidential appointees, United States Attorneys can be 

removed by the President for any reason or for no reason, as long as it is not an 

illegal or improper reason. In the past, U.S. Attorneys normally were not 

replaced except in cases of misconduct or when there was a change in 

Administrations. Prior to the events described in this report, the Department 

of Justice had never removed a group of U.S. Attorneys at one time because of 

alleged performance issues. The way the Department handled the removal of 

nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006, and the after-the-fact reasons proffered for the 

removals of this group, resulted in significant controversy, concerns that the 

removals were undertaken for improper political purposes, and allegations that 

the reasons proffered by the Department for the removals were not accurate.200 

We therefore investigated in detail how each of the nine U.S. Attorneys 

was selected for removal and the process used to remove them. In addition, we 

examined the accuracy of the public statements and congressional testimony 

by Department officials justifying the removals. 

We concluded that the process the Department used to select the U.S. 

Attorneys for removal was fundamentally flawed, and the oversight and 

implementation of the removal process by the Department’s most senior 

leaders was seriously lacking. In particular, we found that Attorney General 

Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty failed to 

adequately supervise the U.S. Attorney selection and removal process, and they 

were remarkably unengaged in the process. Instead, Chief of Staff to the 

Attorney General Kyle Sampson, with very little input from other Department 

officials, designed, selected, and implemented the removal process, with little 

supervision or oversight. In addition, after the removals became public the 

statements provided by the Attorney General and other Department officials 

about the reasons for the removals were inconsistent, misleading, and 

inaccurate in many respects. 

The most serious allegations that arose were that the U.S. Attorneys were 

removed based on improper political factors, including to affect the way they 

handled certain voter fraud or public corruption investigations and 

prosecutions. Our investigation found significant evidence that political 

partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several of 

200 The nine U.S. Attorneys removed in 2006 were: Todd Graves, W.D. Missouri; H.E. 

“Bud” Cummins, E.D. Arkansas; David Iglesias, D. New Mexico; Daniel Bogden, D. Nevada; 

Paul Charlton, D. Arizona; John McKay, W.D. Washington; Carol Lam, S.D. California; 

Margaret Chiara, W.D. Michigan; and Kevin Ryan, N.D. California. 

325
the U.S. Attorneys. The most troubling example was David Iglesias, the U.S. 

Attorney in New Mexico. We concluded that complaints from New Mexico 

Republican politicians and party activists about Iglesias’s handling of voter 

fraud and public corruption cases caused his removal, and that the 

Department removed Iglesias without any inquiry into his handling of the 

cases. 

However, we were unable to fully develop the facts regarding the removal 

of Iglesias and several other U.S. Attorneys because of the refusal by certain 

key witnesses to be interviewed by us, as well as by the White House’s decision 

not to provide internal White House documents to us. Therefore, we 

recommend that counsel specially appointed by the Attorney General work with 

us to conduct further investigation and ultimately to determine whether the 

totality of the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed. 

In this chapter, we first provide our analysis of the process used by the 

Department to remove the U.S. Attorneys. We then provide our findings 

concerning the conduct of each of the senior Department officials most involved 

in the removals, including an assessment of the accuracy of their statements 

explaining the removals. 

I. Removal Process 

A. Oversight of the Process 

Shortly after the 2004 Presidential election, White House Counsel Harriet 

Miers raised with Sampson the idea of seeking resignations from all 93 U.S. 

Attorneys. Sampson, who at the time was Counsel to the Attorney General, 

told Miers he thought that it was not a good idea to ask for the resignations of 

all U.S. Attorneys. Sampson suggested as an alternative that the White House 

replace a much smaller number of U.S. Attorneys when their 4-year terms 

expired. 

As noted, U.S. Attorneys are appointed for a term of 4 years. Typically, 

however, they remain in office beyond the expiration of their terms. Sampson 

wrote in a January 2005 e-mail to a White House official that “the vast majority 

of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal 

Bushies, etc., etc.,” and he proposed developing a plan to remove 

approximately 15 to 20% of “underperforming” U.S. Attorneys. 

Sampson discussed this proposal with Gonzales when Gonzales was 

White House Counsel. After he became the Attorney General in February 

2005, Gonzales authorized Sampson to proceed with a review to identify those 

“underperforming” U.S. Attorneys who should be removed. While both 

Sampson and Gonzales told us and stated in their congressional testimony that 

the President can remove U.S. Attorneys for any reason or for no reason, it 

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appears that the original plan was to evaluate the performance of each U.S. 

Attorney and make recommendations to the White House as to who should be 

removed based upon that assessment. 

We found that Gonzales delegated the entire project to Sampson and 

provided little direction or supervision. According to Gonzales, he told 

Sampson to consult with the senior leadership of the Department, obtain a 

consensus recommendation as to which U.S. Attorneys should be removed, 

and coordinate with the White House on the process. However, Gonzales 

acknowledged to us that he did not discuss with Sampson how to evaluate the 

U.S. Attorneys or which factors to consider. We found that Gonzales eventually 

approved the removals of a group of U.S. Attorneys without inquiring about the 

process Sampson used to select them for removal, or why each name was on 

Sampson’s removal list. Gonzales also did not know who Sampson had 

consulted with or what these individuals had said about each of the U.S. 

Attorneys identified for removal. Instead, Gonzales told us he “assumed” that 

Sampson engaged in an evaluation process, that the resulting 

recommendations were based on performance, and that the recommendations 

reflected the consensus of senior managers in the Department. Each of those 

assumptions was faulty. 

Gonzales also said he had little recollection of being briefed about 

Sampson’s review process as it progressed over a year and a half. He claimed 

to us and to Congress an extraordinary lack of recollection about the entire 

removal process. In his most remarkable claim, he testified that he did not 

remember the meeting in his conference room on November 27, 2006, when the 

plan was finalized and he approved the removals of the U.S. Attorneys, even 

though this important meeting occurred only a few months prior to his 

testimony. 

This was not a minor personnel matter that should have been hard to 

remember. Rather, it related to an unprecedented removal of a group of highlevel Presidential appointees, which Sampson and others recognized would 

result in significant controversy. Nonetheless, Gonzales conceded that he 

exercised virtually no oversight of the project, and his claim to have very little 

recollection of his role in the process is extraordinary and difficult to accept. 

We also found that Deputy Attorney General McNulty had little 

involvement in or oversight of the removal process, despite his role as the 

immediate supervisor of all U.S. Attorneys. McNulty was not even made aware 

of the removal plan until the fall of 2006. When McNulty learned about the 

plan, he thought it was a bad idea. However, he deferred to Sampson and did 

not raise his concerns with regard to the plan itself or, except in a couple of 

cases, the evaluation of specific U.S. Attorneys to be removed. Rather, he 

distanced himself from the project, both while it was ongoing and after it was 

implemented. 

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Moreover, we found that there was virtually no communication between 

Attorney General Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General McNulty about this 

important matter. Even when McNulty learned about the plan in the fall of 

2006 (more than a year after Gonzales and Sampson initiated the removal 

process), he did not discuss any of his concerns about the plan with Sampson 

or Gonzales. 

In addition, as discussed in the chapter on Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney 

for the Southern District of California, in the summer of 2006 Gonzales and 

Sampson suggested a plan to address concerns they had with Lam’s 

prosecutive decisions in gun and immigration cases, and asked the Deputy 

Attorney General’s Office to execute the plan. Yet, McNulty and his staff did 

not implement the plan, and the Attorney General and his staff never followed 

up with the Deputy Attorney General about the outcome of the plan before Lam 

was removed. 

After the U.S. Attorney removals, poor communication persisted between 

Gonzales and McNulty. For example, Attorney General Gonzales testified 

before Congress on January 17, 2007, that all the U.S. Attorneys were removed 

for performance reasons. However, Deputy Attorney General McNulty testified 

before another congressional panel less than 3 weeks later that H.E. “Bud” 

Cummins III, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was 

removed to provide a position for Tim Griffin, the Deputy Director of Political 

Affairs at the White House. Gonzales was upset by McNulty’s testimony 

because, he told us, up to that point he believed that Cummins had been 

removed for poor performance. However, according to both Gonzales and 

McNulty, they never discussed Cummins’s removal or McNulty’s testimony. 

B. Implementation of the Removal Plan 

We found no evidence that Gonzales, McNulty, or anyone else in the 

Department carefully evaluated the basis for each U.S. Attorney’s removal or 

attempted to ensure that there were no improper political reasons for the 

removals. 

Sampson was primarily responsible for creating the plan, selecting the 

U.S. Attorneys to be removed, and implementing the plan. He said he 

consulted with Department officials in informal settings to get their “frank 

assessments” of U.S. Attorneys, and Sampson described himself as the 

“aggregator” of their views. Sampson also testified that he had “no independent 

basis” for removing any U.S. Attorney and that he relied on other Department 

officials, such as McNulty, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA) 

Directors Mary Beth Buchanan and Michael Battle, and Associate Deputy 

Attorney General David Margolis to make recommendations about who should 

be removed. He said, “[i]n my mind, they were the Department officials who 

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would have reason to make informed judgments about who might be added to 

such a list.” 

This claim was misleading. Neither Sampson nor anyone else in the 

Department ever engaged in a systematic assessment of the performance of 

U.S. Attorneys to determine who was underperforming and should be replaced. 

Instead, Sampson’s evaluation process was casual, ad hoc, and anecdotal, and 

he did not develop any consensus from Department officials about which U.S. 

Attorneys should be removed. 

For example, when Sampson asked Margolis for his input in early 2005, 

Margolis recommended that Kevin Ryan, Margaret Chiara, and Dunn Lampton 

from the Southern District of Mississippi should be considered for removal 

because of performance issues. He also suggested the names of about eight 

other U.S. Attorneys that deserved a “closer look.” After that, Margolis – the 

long-term career Department official with the most knowledge about U.S. 

Attorney matters – had little input into the process, except in November 2006 

when Sampson read him a list of names of U.S. Attorneys who would be 

removed. EOUSA Director Battle received an initial inquiry from Monica 

Goodling in the fall of 2005 about whether he had concerns about any U.S. 

Attorneys, but he was not consulted again about the performance of any U.S. 

Attorney as part of Sampson’s process. Sampson even acknowledged to us 

that he did not make it clear to some of the people he consulted about the 

purpose for asking what they thought about particular U.S. Attorneys. 

Sampson’s process for documenting the assessments he received of U.S. 

Attorneys was similarly arbitrary, disorganized, and unsystematic. He said he 

kept a chart listing all the names of the U.S. Attorneys on which he made notes 

based on conversations he had with others. Sampson said he would keep the 

annotated chart until it became “dog-eared” and then he would throw it away 

and start over. While Sampson said he sometimes made notes during his 

conversations with other Department officials, a lot of the information he 

gleaned from others he “just remembered.” Sampson described the 

discussions he had with Department officials about U.S. Attorneys as “largely 

an oral exercise” with “some really rough tracking.” Sampson did not keep any 

of these lists with his notes, and as a result we were forced to rely on 

Sampson’s vague and conflicting memories of the reasons for the removals of 

the U.S. Attorneys. 

Neither Sampson nor anyone else involved in the removal process 

reviewed the performance evaluations of U.S. Attorneys’ Offices conducted by 

EOUSA’s Evaluation and Review Staff (EARS), except for the evaluations of 

Ryan’s office. Yet, Sampson told Miers and later told congressional staff that 

the selection of U.S. Attorneys to be removed was based in part on the results 

of EARS evaluations. 

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While Presidential appointees can be removed by the President at will 

and do not have the notice and due process protections afforded civil service 

employees, Sampson was supposed to determine which U.S. Attorneys should 

be removed based on an evaluation of their performance. Sampson told us 

that the removal plan was in accord with the management theory that 

removing a percentage of underperforming employees constitutes good 

management. However, if the purpose was to remove U.S. Attorneys who were 

underperforming, one would have expected Sampson to engage in a more 

systematic assessment of the U.S. Attorneys’ performance, including a review 

of all EARS evaluations and direct and forthright conversations with senior 

officials in the best positions to assess the performance of U.S. Attorneys. 

None of that occurred. 

In addition, neither Sampson nor anyone else in the Department asked 

several of the removed U.S. Attorneys for an explanation about the complaints 

that allegedly justified their removal. As a consequence, the telephone calls 

from Battle to the U.S. Attorneys telling them to resign were stunning to most 

of them. It is not surprising that the removals led to criticism from the U.S. 

Attorneys when the Department later stated publicly that they were removed 

for performance-related reasons after they had been told otherwise. 

Moreover, as discussed in more detail in the chapters on the individual 

U.S. Attorneys, we found conflicting testimony about the reasons each U.S. 

Attorney was recommended for removal. In some cases, neither Sampson nor 

any other Department official acknowledged recommending that the U.S. 

Attorney be placed on the removal list. In other cases, the Department’s senior 

leaders did not even know why Sampson placed the U.S. Attorney on the list. 

Sampson’s repeated assertion that “underperformance” was the decisive 

factor in the removal process was misleading. In fact, Sampson acknowledged 

that he considered whether a particular U.S. Attorney identified for removal 

had strong support from their home-state elected Republican officials. 

According to Sampson, a U.S. Attorney was considered for removal not merely 

if he was “mediocre,” but if he was perceived as both mediocre and lacking 

political support. Conversely, Sampson acknowledged deleting from his 

removal list the names of several U.S. Attorneys whom he considered 

“mediocre” because he believed they had the political support of their homestate Senators and he did not think the Administration would want to risk a 

fight with the Senators over their removal. 

While U.S. Attorneys are Presidential appointees who may be dismissed 

for any reason or for no reason, Department leaders failed to ensure that the 

removals were not undertaken for improper reasons. We believe that removing 

U.S. Attorneys based on their lack of political support could affect the integrity 

and independence of the Department’s prosecutive decisions and the public’s 

confidence that such decisions are insulated from political considerations. 

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U.S. Attorneys should make their prosecutive decisions based on the 

Department’s priorities, the law, and the facts of each case, not on a fear of 

being removed if they lose political support. 

We recognize that U.S. Attorneys are selected in part based on the 

recommendations of state and federal political officials. But once they assume 

office, U.S. Attorneys should leave politics behind and make their prosecutive 

decisions divorced from partisan political considerations. For Department 

officials to recommend the removal of U.S. Attorneys even in part because they 

do or do not have political support undermines the public’s confidence that 

Department of Justice prosecutive decisions are based on the facts and the law 

and not on political considerations. 

In short, we believe that senior Department officials – particularly the 

Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney – abdicated their responsibility to 

safeguard the integrity and independence of the Department by failing to 

ensure that the removal of U.S. Attorneys was not based on improper political 

considerations. 

C. Reasons for the Removals of Individual U.S. Attorneys 

In Chapters Four through Twelve, we analyzed the reasons proffered by 

Department officials for the removal of each U.S. Attorney. Those chapters 

demonstrate how flawed the removal process was, and the evidence in those 

chapters also contradicts the Department’s initial claims that U.S. Attorneys 

were removed for performance reasons. 

In January 2006, Missouri U.S. Attorney Todd Graves was the first U.S. 

Attorney told to resign. As described in detail in Chapter Four, while our 

investigation into Graves’s removal was hindered by the refusal of Goodling and 

key officials in the White House to be interviewed, the evidence showed that the 

primary reason for Graves’s removal was complaints from the staff of Missouri 

Senator Christopher S. “Kit” Bond. Bond’s staff urged the White House 

Counsel’s Office to remove Graves because he had declined to intervene in a 

conflict between Senator Bond’s staff and the staff of Graves’s brother (a 

Republican Congressman from Missouri). Thus, it appears that Graves was 

told to resign because of a political dispute among Missouri politicians, not 

because of an objective assessment of his performance as U.S. Attorney. 

Yet, we found that no one in the Department accepted responsibility for 

the decision to remove Graves. Each senior official we interviewed claimed that 

others must have made the decision. EOUSA Director Battle, who placed the 

call telling Graves to resign, said he did so at the direction of Goodling, and 

that Goodling did not provide him with the reasons for Graves’s removal. 

Goodling stated in her congressional testimony that she would have instructed 

Battle to make the call to Graves only at Sampson’s direction. Sampson said 

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that he had no recollection of the matter, that he believed Goodling had 

handled it, and that he assumed Graves’s removal was based on a finding of 

misconduct by Margolis. Margolis told us there was no misconduct finding 

against Graves and that he played no role in Graves’s removal. 

In addition, according to Sampson and Gonzales, it is not clear whether 

anyone consulted with the Attorney General about Graves’s removal. Gonzales 

told us he did not remember being told why Graves was asked to resign, 

although he said “can’t imagine it didn’t happen.” He said, “I’m sure I was told 

and I don’t remember.” 

In June 2006, Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins was the second 

U.S. Attorney told to resign. Contrary to Gonzales’s initial statement that the 

U.S. Attorneys had been removed after an evaluation showed they were 

underperforming, Cummins was not removed for any performance reasons. 

While Sampson stated that he thought Cummins was “mediocre,” Sampson 

never assessed Cummins’s performance and later agreed with McNulty’s 

testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Cummins was not removed 

for performance reasons. Rather, the evidence shows that the main reason for 

Cummins’s removal was to provide a position for former White House official 

Tim Griffin. 

The other seven U.S. Attorneys were all told to resign on December 7, 

2006. The most controversial case was the removal of New Mexico U.S. 

Attorney David Iglesias. As discussed in Chapter Six, we were unable to 

uncover all the facts pertaining to his removal because of the refusal by key 

witnesses to be interviewed, including Rove, Miers, Goodling, New Mexico 

Senator Pete Domenici, and Domenici’s Chief of Staff. As a result, we believe 

important gaps remain in the evidence regarding Iglesias’s removal as U.S. 

Attorney. 

However, the evidence we uncovered showed that Iglesias was removed 

because of complaints to the Department and the White House by Senator 

Domenici and other New Mexico Republican political officials and party 

activists about Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases in 

the New Mexico. We concluded that the other reasons proffered by the 

Department after Iglesias’s removal – that he was an “absentee landlord,” that 

he delegated too much authority to his First Assistant, and that he was an 

underperformer – were after-the-fact rationalizations that did not actually 

contribute to his removal. 

We also found that the Department never investigated the complaints 

about Iglesias’s decisions on voter fraud or public corruption cases, or even 

asked Iglesias about them. Rather, based upon the complaints about Iglesias 

and Senator Domenici’s “loss of confidence” in him, Sampson placed Iglesias 

on the removal list. By accepting complaints from New Mexico political officials 

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as a basis for Iglesias’s removal without investigating their validity, we believe 

Department leaders abdicated their responsibility to ensure that prosecutorial 

decisions would be based on the law, the evidence, and Department policy, 

rather than political pressure related to the handling of specific cases. 

With regard to Nevada U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden, as with Graves, we 

were unable to identify the person responsible for recommending that he be 

placed on the removal list. Bogden first appeared on the September 2006 

removal list, shortly after Sampson received vociferous complaints from the 

head of the Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force that Bogden would 

not assign a prosecutor to a Task Force obscenity case. Yet, neither Sampson 

nor any other senior Department official asked Bogden for his response to this 

complaint. No one inquired about competing resource needs in Bogden’s 

district, his view of the strength of the obscenity case, or his offer to provide 

assistance to the Task Force with office space, grand jury time, secretarial 

support, and prosecution advice. 

It also appears that some Department officials believed that voter fraud 

was an issue in Nevada. However, no one complained about Bogden’s handling 

of any allegations of voter fraud, and we found no evidence to support any 

speculation that Bogden’s removal related to any voter fraud issues. 

Department officials testified and told us that Bogden was considered to 

be a “mediocre” U.S. Attorney and lacked energy and leadership. Yet, we found 

no evidence that Department managers ever raised concerns about Bogden’s 

performance with him before he was removed, and they also did not ask 

Department officials who would likely be most knowledgeable about Bogden’s 

performance, such as Battle or Margolis, before placing Bogden on the removal 

list. 

Moreover, except for Goodling, no one involved in the removals said they 

recommended that Bogden be removed, and Goodling denied that her 

recommendation was the cause of his removal. While Sampson acknowledged 

that he must have physically placed Bogden’s name on the list, Sampson 

denied that he made the decision to do so and said that he did not remember 

who made the recommendation. Attorney General Gonzales stated that he did 

not know why Bogden was removed. 

Sampson also acknowledged to us that there may have been other 

“mediocre” U.S. Attorneys whose performance was worse than Bogden’s, but 

they were not removed because they had the right political connections. This 

admission is another example of the consideration of political factors in the 

removal process by the Department. 

The reason for the removal of John McKay, the U.S. Attorney for the 

Western District of Washington, was difficult to determine. McKay was 

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included on Sampson’s first removal list in March 2005 during a controversy 

about his handling of voter fraud allegations in connection with the contested 

2004 Washington State gubernatorial election. However, Sampson stated that 

he did not believe he placed McKay’s name on this removal list because of 

McKay’s handling of voter fraud allegations, and none of the other Department 

officials we interviewed said they recalled hearing any concerns about the way 

McKay handled voter fraud allegations related to the election. 

Sampson took McKay’s name off the next removal list in January 2006, 

after Deputy Attorney General James Comey spoke highly of McKay’s 

performance. Sampson subsequently placed McKay back on the list in 

September 2006. McKay told us that White House Counsel Miers and Deputy 

White House Counsel William Kelley told him at a meeting in August 2006 – a 

few weeks before McKay’s name reappeared on the removal list – that 

Washington State Republicans were displeased with his handling of voter fraud 

complaints. Because Miers and Kelley, as well as Rove, declined to cooperate 

with our investigation, and because we were denied access to internal White 

House documents, we cannot rule out the possibility that McKay’s handling of 

voter fraud complaints played a part in the decision to remove him from office. 

Based on the available evidence, however, we believe that the main 

reason McKay’s name was placed back on the list in September 2006 was his 

clash with Deputy Attorney General McNulty over the LInX information-sharing 

program, which McKay zealously advocated. Sampson told us that McNulty 

was irritated by McKay’s August 30, 2006, letter urging McNulty to adopt LInX 

as the Department’s sole information-sharing program. McKay’s letter was 

signed by 17 U.S. Attorneys in addition to McKay and was disseminated both 

inside and outside the Department. 

However, McNulty told us that he did not instruct Sampson to put 

McKay on the removal list and that he was prepared to work with McKay to 

resolve the information-sharing issue. While McNulty said he did not initiate 

McKay’s removal, he also stated that he did not object when he saw McKay’s 

name on the removal list because he had questions about McKay’s judgment in 

light of the way McKay handled the LInX matter. 

With regard to Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, we found no 

evidence, as some speculated, that Charlton was removed because of his 

office’s investigation and prosecution of an Arizona Congressman. Rather, we 

found that the Department was displeased with Charlton’s implementation of a 

policy in his district that required that interrogations be tape recorded. 

Charlton’s unilateral action in implementing the policy, without consulting 

Department leaders and in direct opposition to the FBI’s policies, was 

counterproductive and inappropriate. Yet, the Deputy Attorney General’s 

Office and Charlton agreed to address the issue by considering a pilot taping 

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program. Moreover, after the dispute about the taping policy, which occurred 

in February 2006, Charlton was not included on Sampson’s next removal list. 

We concluded that the most significant factor in Charlton’s removal was 

his actions in a death penalty case. Charlton persistently opposed the 

Department’s decision to seek the death penalty in a homicide case, and he 

irritated Department leaders by seeking a meeting with the Attorney General to 

urge him to reconsider his decision. We are troubled that Department officials 

considered Charlton’s actions in the death penalty case, including requesting a 

meeting with the Attorney General, to be inappropriate. We do not believe his 

actions were insubordinate or that they justified his removal. 

With regard to Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of 

California, we also found no evidence to support speculation that Lam was 

removed in retaliation for her prosecution of certain public corruption cases. 

Rather, she was placed on the removal lists because of the Department’s 

concerns about the low number of gun and immigration prosecutions 

undertaken by her office. These concerns were raised in the EARS evaluation 

of Lam’s office in 2004, and Department officials expressed these concerns to 

her. In response, Lam argued to the Department that the low number of gun 

prosecutions resulted from various factors in her district, including strong 

state gun laws and effective state and local law enforcement of gun laws. With 

regard to immigration cases, Lam explained that her office decided to prosecute 

the more serious offenders with charges bringing longer sentences, and that it 

took more resources to investigate and prosecute these types of cases. 

These explanations did not persuade Department leaders or assuage 

their concerns about her prosecutorial priorities. It is the President’s and the 

Department’s prerogative to remove a U.S. Attorney who they believe is not 

adhering to their priorities or not adequately pursuing the types of 

prosecutions that the Department chooses to emphasize. This is true for any 

U.S. Attorney, even one such as Lam who was described by Margolis as 

otherwise “outstanding,” “tough,” and “honest,” and who was described in the 

EARS evaluation as “an effective manager . . . respected by the judiciary, law 

enforcement agencies, and the USAO staff.” 

However, what we found troubling about Lam’s case was that no one 

examined her response to the concerns about her prosecution of immigration 

and gun cases, and the Department removed her without implementing the 

plan outlined by Sampson, at the direction of the Attorney General, to address 

the Department’s concerns about Lam’s prosecutorial priorities. The plan 

called for the Deputy Attorney General (or his staff) having “a heart-to-heart” 

talk with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement; 

working with her to develop a plan to address the problem; and removing her if 

she “balk[ed]” or otherwise did not perform in a measurable way. Yet, we found 

no evidence that anyone in the Deputy Attorney General’s office took any of the 

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steps outlined in the plan, or that anyone in the Attorney General’s Office 

inquired about the outcome of the plan before Lam was removed. 

With regard to the remaining two U.S. Attorneys – Margaret Chiara from 

the Western District of Michigan and Kevin Ryan from the Northern District of 

California – we found that the Department had reasonable concerns about 

their performance and management, and that they were removed for those 

reasons. We concluded that, contrary to Chiara’s claim, she was not removed 

because of rumors concerning an alleged sexual relationship with a 

subordinate Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

The evidence was clear that Ryan was removed because of concerns 

about his performance and the two EARS evaluations that severely criticized 

his management of the office. In contrast to the process the Department used 

to decide whether to remove the other U.S. Attorneys, the Department sought 

an objective evaluation of concerns about Ryan’s performance, and Ryan was 

given an opportunity to respond to those concerns. At the end of the process, 

the Department considered the evaluations and his responses, concluded that 

Ryan’s office needed a change of leadership, and implemented that change. We 

found nothing inappropriate with that decision. 

D. Notification to the U.S. Attorneys 

We also concluded that the way the U.S. Attorneys were told to resign 

was poorly handled. EOUSA Director Battle was instructed to inform the U.S. 

Attorneys to submit their resignations without providing them the reasons for 

their removals. 

According to Sampson, at the November 27, 2006, meeting at which the 

removal plan was approved, the group discussed whether McNulty should 

notify the U.S. Attorneys in person while they were in Washington, D.C., for a 

conference. McNulty said that he did not recall being asked to notify the U.S. 

Attorneys and said having Battle make the calls was consistent with the notion 

of keeping the removals “in a lower key.” 

We believe a better practice would have been for the Attorney General or 

the Deputy Attorney General, who was the U.S. Attorneys’ direct supervisor, to 

personally inform the U.S. Attorneys of their removal. Several of the U.S. 

Attorneys said they were stunned by Battle’s call and were confused about why 

they were asked to resign. Moreover, the U.S. Attorneys were told that they 

were being removed because the Administration wanted to give someone else a 

chance to serve. That was not true, except in the case of Cummins. Moreover, 

we found no evidence that the Department had other candidates in mind to 

replace most of those who were removed. And when some U.S. Attorneys 

inquired about the reason they were being removed, they received no other 

response. 

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The decision not to disclose to the U.S. Attorneys why they were being 

removed led to speculation by them, and eventually by others, about the true 

reasons they were being removed, including speculation in some cases that 

they were removed for improper political reasons. Further, no one adequately 

considered what would happen once it became known that multiple U.S. 

Attorneys had been asked to resign at the same time without being told why. 

McNulty indicated that the working assumption was that the U.S. Attorneys 

would see it in their best interest to deal with their removals quietly because 

they would not want to admit they had been fired. However, that assumption 

failed to account for speculation about the real reasons for their removal, 

particularly when it became known, as it inevitably would, that seven U.S. 

Attorneys were removed on the same day. In addition, in light of what Battle 

told them about the Administration wanting to give someone else a chance to 

serve, the U.S. Attorneys were understandably angry when Gonzales and 

McNulty later testified that the removals were based on performance. 

It is within the President’s power to remove U.S. Attorneys for any reason 

or for no reason as long as the removal is not for improper or illegal purposes. 

However, we believe the better practice would be to ask each of the U.S. 

Attorneys to address the concerns or complaints related to them and, after 

evaluating their responses and other information, inform them in a 

straightforward and professional manner why they were being asked to resign. 

II. White House Involvement in the Removal Process 

While our investigation could not fully determine the role of White House 

officials in the removals of the U.S. Attorneys, for at least three of the removals, 

the evidence indicates the White House was more involved than merely 

approving the removal of Presidential appointees, as Department officials 

initially stated. 

First, with regard to Cummins the evidence shows that the White House 

sought to give former White House official Griffin a chance to serve as U.S. 

Attorney, and that both Rove and Miers supported Griffin’s appointment. 

Second, as discussed above, we found evidence that the White House 

may have directed Graves’s removal because of conflicts with Senator Bond’s 

staff that were unrelated to Graves’s duties as U.S. Attorney. However, no one 

at the Department questioned the basis for Graves’s removal or attempted to 

ensure that it was not undertaken for an improper political purpose. 

Third, we found evidence that complaints to Rove and others at the 

White House and the Department by New Mexico Republican political officials 

and party activists about how Iglesias was handling voter fraud cases and a 

public corruption case led to Iglesias’s removal. 

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We recognize that some White House involvement in the removals is not 

remarkable because U.S. Attorneys are Presidential appointees. However, 

because Miers, Rove, Deputy White House Counsel Kelley, and Associate White 

House Counsel Klingler refused to cooperate with our investigation, and 

because the White House declined to provide internal documents to us, we 

were unable to determine the role the White House played in these removals. 

Nevertheless, the evidence we found shows that Gonzales, McNulty, and 

other Department officials acquiesced in the replacement of Iglesias and several 

other U.S. Attorneys without scrutinizing or even questioning the basis for their 

removals. Moreover, the Department failed to ensure that the removals were 

not undertaken for an improper political purpose. Instead, after the removals, 

Gonzales, McNulty, and others simply asserted that the removals were 

performance-based, which the evidence showed was inaccurate and misleading 

with regard to several of the U.S. Attorneys. 

III. The Attorney General’s Interim Appointment Authority 

Another allegation we examined was whether the Department intended to 

avoid the formal Senate confirmation process by appointing Interim U.S. 

Attorneys to the vacant positions for an indefinite period of time. A provision 

contained in the Patriot Reauthorization Act that took effect in March 2006 

authorized the Attorney General to appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney until the 

vacancy was filled by a confirmed presidential appointee. Previously, the 

Attorney General could appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney for only 120 days. 

In mid-September 2006, Sampson e-mailed Miers with a list of “U.S. 

[Attorneys] We Now Should Consider Pushing Out,” and recommended that the 

Administration use the Attorney General’s authority to make Interim U.S. 

Attorney appointments to fill the resulting vacancies in lieu of going through 

the formal nomination and Senate confirmation process. Sampson wrote: “By 

not going the PAS [Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed] route, we can 

give far less deference to home-State Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred 

person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less political 

cost to the White House.” We found no record of Miers’s response to this email, and she declined our requests for an interview. 

Both Sampson and Gonzales told us that Gonzales opposed Sampson’s 

idea to bypass the Senate confirmation process using the interim appointment 

authority, and the evidence shows that Sampson abandoned the idea as a 

general matter. On November 7, 2006, Sampson forwarded to Elston and 

McNulty a copy of his proposed plan for the U.S. Attorney removals, and Step 4 

of that plan stated that the Department and the White House would “obtain 

recommendations from Senators and other state political leadership,” and 

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“have [the] President make nominations and work to secure confirmation of 

U.S. Attorney nominees.” 

However, when faced with Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor’s continued 

opposition to Griffin’s nomination after Cummins resigned in mid-December 

2006, Sampson again advocated using the Attorney General’s interim 

appointment authority to place Griffin in the position indefinitely without 

Senate confirmation. He wrote in a December 19 e-mail to the White House, “I 

think we should gum this to death,” and suggested in his e-mail that if either of 

the Democratic senators from Arkansas would not agree to support Griffin’s 

nomination the Department could “run out the clock” to the end of the Bush 

Administration while appearing to act in good faith by asking the Senators for 

recommendations, interviewing other candidates, and pledging to “desire” a 

Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. Sampson’s e-mail also stated that “our guy 

[Griffin] is in there so the status quo is good for us.” 

When questioned about this e-mail during his congressional testimony, 

Sampson characterized his discussion of using the interim appointment 

authority to bypass Senate confirmation as a “bad idea at the staff level.” 

Gonzales told us he could not recall whether he discussed use of the interim 

appointment authority in Griffin’s case with Sampson at that time, but said he 

thought it was a “dumb idea” as a general matter. We found no evidence that 

Gonzales ever supported this idea, and in fact he pledged to Senator Pryor in a 

telephone conversation that he would not recommend that the President 

nominate Griffin if Pryor could not support the nomination. Eventually, Griffin 

withdrew from consideration for the permanent U.S. Attorney position, and the 

Department nominated another candidate. 

In sum, the evidence shows that Sampson, on his own initiative, 

advocated using the Attorney General’s authority to appoint an Interim U.S. 

Attorney to bypass the formal Senate confirmation process, an admittedly “bad 

idea” that was not supported by Gonzales. However, we believe that Sampson’s 

suggestion was not simply a ‘bad idea,” it was a bad faith recommendation to 

keep Griffin in the position without Senate confirmation. 

IV. The Conduct of Senior Department Officials 

In this section, we assess the actions of each of the Department’s senior 

leaders who were most involved in the U.S. Attorney removal process, and we 

also examine the accuracy of their public statements about the removals. 

A. Alberto Gonzales 

We believe that Attorney General Gonzales bears primary responsibility 

for the flawed U.S. Attorney removal process and the resulting turmoil that it 

created. This was not a simple personnel matter that should be delegated to 

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subordinate officials – it was an unprecedented removal of a group of high-level 

Department officials that was certain to raise concerns if not handled properly. 

Such an undertaking warranted close supervision by the Attorney General, as 

well as the Deputy Attorney General. Gonzales did not provide such 

supervision, nor did he ensure that the Deputy Attorney General provided the 

necessary oversight. 

Gonzales described himself as a delegator and said it was not in his 

nature to micromanage the “good people” to whom he delegated responsibility. 

According to Gonzales, he told Sampson to consult with the senior leadership 

of the Department, obtain a consensus recommendation as to which U.S. 

Attorneys should be removed, and coordinate with the White House on the 

removal process. Yet, Gonzales acknowledged that he did not discuss with 

Sampson how to evaluate the U.S. Attorneys or what factors to consider. 

According to Gonzales, while Sampson provided him “periodic” and “very brief 

updates” about the U.S. Attorney removal plan over time, they had no 

discussion of “substance” in terms of the reasons underlying the proposed 

removals, and Gonzales said he did not know who was “going on and off the 

list.” 

Gonzales also stated that while it was his decision to approve the 

removals, he did so based on Sampson’s recommendations and what he 

thought was the consensus of Department leaders. Yet, he said that he never 

asked Sampson or anyone else how they arrived at their recommendations or 

why each particular U.S. Attorney warranted removal. Instead, he said he 

“assumed” that Sampson engaged in an “evaluation process,” that the 

recommendations were based on performance issues, and that they reflected a 

consensus of senior Department managers. 

Even after the removals, Gonzales said he still did not know why certain 

of the U.S. Attorneys had been removed. For example, Gonzales told us that he 

had no recollection of being consulted about Graves’s removal. Gonzales also 

told us he did not recall having any discussions with Sampson about Griffin 

replacing Cummins, who was the second U.S. Attorney told to resign. 

Most remarkably, Gonzales told us he had “no recollection” of the 

November 27, 2006, meeting in his conference room during which he approved 

the plan to request the resignations of the U.S. Attorneys on December 7. At 

the meeting, the other participants discussed the steps necessary to implement 

the plan. Gonzales was present, received a copy of the 3-page implementation 

plan, and gave his approval to proceed. Yet, only a few months later Gonzales 

stated that he did not remember this critical meeting. 

While delegation in many matters is understandable given the wide range 

of matters demanding an Attorney General’s attention, we believe that Gonzales 

failed to exercise appropriate leadership and supervision throughout this entire 

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process. While he described himself as a delegator who does not micromanage, 

he allowed a subordinate who had little prosecutorial or managerial experience 

to design the plan and select for removal Presidentially appointed Department 

officials with virtually no supervision, oversight, or accountability. 

Gonzales failed to take action even in the case of Iglesias where he had 

notice that partisan politics might be involved in the requests for his removal. 

Gonzales received three telephone calls from 2005 to 2006 from Senator 

Domenici raising concerns about Iglesias. During the fall of 2006, Gonzales 

also discussed with Rove and with the President allegations of voter fraud in 

New Mexico. Gonzales said he asked Sampson to look into Senator Domenici’s 

complaints, but he never inquired about the outcome of any review or ensured 

that the complaints were fairly assessed. Gonzales told us that he would have 

expected that someone would have looked into the complaints. According to 

Gonzales, “you can’t have, you know, a member of Congress calling and 

making an allegation and not checking it out and seeing whether or not there’s 

anything there to it.” But that is exactly what happened with Domenici’s 

complaints, and Gonzales failed to ensure that the allegations were examined 

before Iglesias was removed. 

Gonzales also made a series of statements after the removals that we 

concluded were inaccurate and misleading, as we discuss in the following 

sections. 

1. Gonzales’s Statements at the March 13 Press Conference 

On March 13, 2007, Gonzales held a brief press conference concerning 

the U.S. Attorney removals, partly in an attempt to respond to the perception 

that the Department was withholding information about the removals. During 

this press conference, Gonzales made several statements about his own role in 

the removal process, including that he “was not involved in seeing any memos, 

was not involved in any discussions about what was going on.” Gonzales also 

stated, “I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where 

things stood.” 

As the facts described in Chapter Three demonstrate, these statements 

were inaccurate and misleading. Sampson had periodically briefed Gonzales 

about the status of the removal process as it progressed. Moreover, at the 

meeting in his conference room on November 27, 2006, Gonzales received a 

copy of the 3-page implementation plan and approved the removal plan. Even 

if he did not recall the November 27 meeting, it is unclear why Gonzales would 

claim that he “never had a discussion about where things stood” since he had 

been briefed by Sampson periodically. 

While it is clear that several of Gonzales’s statements at the press 

conference were untrue, it is difficult to determine whether Gonzales 

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deliberately provided false information. Gonzales stated that prior to the press 

conference he had not gone back to look at his calendars or other documents 

to prepare, that the press conference was a hurried reaction to the controversy, 

and that he simply did not remember the November 27 meeting at which he 

approved the final removal plan. As noted, we found his alleged failure of 

memory about a key meeting in his office to remove a group of Presidential 

appointees extraordinary, no matter how hurriedly the press conference was 

arranged. More importantly, such inaccurate statements from the Attorney 

General significantly damaged his credibility and the Department’s credibility 

in its response to this controversy. 

As a general matter, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the removals were 

not undertaken for an improper or illegal purpose. However, he could not have 

known whether that was true because he did not ask Sampson why the U. S. 

Attorneys were being removed. Although it is understandable that the Attorney 

General would rely on the representations of others in important matters he 

had delegated to them, in this situation he was aware that political concerns 

may have motivated at least one of the removals. Political leaders in New 

Mexico had expressed concerns to him directly about Iglesias regarding his 

handling of voter fraud and public corruption matters. Yet, he did not question 

whether improper political considerations had resulted in Iglesias’s or any 

other U.S. Attorney’s removal. 

2. Gonzales’s Conversation with Goodling 

Another serious allegation regarding the Attorney General’s statements 

after the removals concerned a conversation he had with Monica Goodling in 

his office on March 15, 2007. The conversation took place after Congress had 

indicated to Gonzales that it proposed to subpoena Goodling and others to 

testify about the removals, and after Gonzales had directed the Department’s 

Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the circumstances of the 

removals. In congressional testimony in April and May 2007, Gonzales 

repeatedly asserted that out of deference to the ongoing internal investigation 

he had not discussed the facts of the removals with anyone in the Department. 

This turned out to be untrue. When Goodling testified before the House 

Judiciary Committee on May 23, 2007, pursuant to a grant of immunity, she 

disclosed her March 15 conversation with Gonzales. Goodling testified that the 

conversation with Gonzales had made her uncomfortable because she was 

concerned at the time that she and Gonzales might have to testify about the 

U.S. Attorney removals at some point. Goodling testified that she was 

distraught and went to the Attorney General to seek a transfer to another 

component of the Department. Goodling said that after that part of the 

conversation, Gonzales was “just trying to chat” and said “‘let me tell you what 

I can remember.’” According to Goodling, Gonzales laid out his general 

recollection of some of the events concerning the U.S. Attorney removals, and 

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then asked her if she had any reaction to what he said. Goodling said that 

Gonzales also mentioned that he thought that everybody who was on the 

removal list was there for performance-related reasons, and Gonzales said he 

had been upset with McNulty because he thought McNulty wrongly testified 

that Cummins was removed only to give Griffin a chance to serve. Goodling 

said that while there was more to her discussion with Gonzales, she could not 

recall anything further. Goodling also said she did not believe that Gonzales 

was trying to shape her recollection of events. As noted above, we were not 

able to interview Goodling about this or other matters. 

Gonzales emphatically denied to us that he had tried to influence 

Goodling’s testimony. He said that Goodling came to his office in an extremely 

distraught state, saying that she was paralyzed and could not do her work. 

Gonzales said he asked her why and she said something about having had the 

same information that Sampson had (referring to information that the White 

House was involved with the removal process earlier than had been disclosed 

by the Department). Gonzales said he tried to console Goodling and said that 

no one intentionally had done anything wrong. He said he wanted to reassure 

her and began to tell her what he knew about what had happened with regard 

to the U.S. Attorney removals, although he said he did not remember 

specifically what he told Goodling about the removals. Gonzales told us he 

could not recall discussing McNulty and Cummins with Goodling, but did not 

deny that he did. 

Gonzales said that Goodling asked for a transfer to another component 

in the Department, and he told her he would consider her request and assured 

her that they would get through the current situation. Gonzales said it seemed 

that Goodling felt better when she left his office. 

We do not believe the evidence is sufficient to conclude that Gonzales 

attempted to influence the recollection of a witness in a pending investigation. 

Goodling testified that she did not believe Gonzales was trying to shape her 

recollection of events. Moreover, Gonzales did not seek out Goodling to relay 

his version of events; rather, she came to see him because she was distraught. 

In addition, several witnesses confirmed Goodling’s distraught state of mind at 

the time of her conversation with Gonzales. When we asked Gonzales whether 

he considered that it might have been inappropriate for him to discuss his 

recollections with Goodling, he told us that he did not give it any thought at the 

time because he was just trying to help Goodling. 

We believe that Gonzales was, in fact, trying to console Goodling during 

this meeting. However, even in his attempt to console her, he should not have 

recounted his recollection of the substantive facts of the matter to Goodling. 

Regardless of his motive, we question Gonzales’s judgment in recounting what 

he believed the facts to be with someone whom he knew to be a prospective 

witness in both a Congressional investigation and an internal Department 

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investigation. We also question why he stated to Congress that he had never 

discussed the facts of the removals with anyone in the Department, which was 

not true. 

B. Paul McNulty 

As noted above, we found that Deputy Attorney General McNulty had 

little involvement in the removal process despite his role as the immediate 

supervisor of U.S. Attorneys. McNulty was not even informed about the 

removal plan until mid to late October 2006. McNulty said he was surprised 

when he learned about the plan, but he did not object to it. McNulty stated 

that the removal process was an initiative of the Office of the Attorney General 

related to a “personnel matter” that was within the province of the Attorney 

General, and therefore he deferred to the Office of the Attorney General in the 

matter. 

Yet, like Gonzales, McNulty did not ask questions as to how Sampson 

came up with the names on the removal list. McNulty told congressional 

investigators that even though he was aware of concerns about each of the U.S. 

Attorneys targeted for removal, he was “a softie” when it came to addressing 

such concerns with the U.S. Attorneys directly, and said the removal plan was 

contrary to the way he would have addressed such concerns. However, 

McNulty said he did not express his reservations about the plan to Sampson or 

the Attorney General. 

We believe the Deputy Attorney General, the second in command of the 

Department of Justice and the immediate supervisor of the U.S. Attorneys, 

should have raised his objections forcefully and not been so deferential about 

such a significant personnel action involving U.S. Attorneys under his 

supervision. 

This is especially true with regard to Iglesias’s removal. As discussed in 

Chapter Six, Senator Domenici called McNulty in October 2006 to criticize 

Iglesias’s handling of public corruption cases and told McNulty that Iglesias 

was “in over his head.” McNulty said he had no specific recollection of 

discussing Senator Domenici’s telephone call with Gonzales or Sampson, but 

told us that it is the type of contact he would have passed along to them. 

However, like Gonzales, McNulty never investigated the accuracy of 

Senator Domenici’s complaints, or the possibility that these complaints could 

be related to partisan political considerations and that Iglesias could have been 

handling these cases appropriately and in accord with Department policy, the 

law, and the evidence. Instead, McNulty distanced himself from the decision to 

remove Iglesias, labeling it a “personnel” matter which he considered outside 

his “bailiwick.” 

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Moreover, we also believe McNulty should have disclosed Senator 

Domenici’s call during his congressional briefing. McNulty said that he did not 

want to raise Senator Domenici’s involvement because he was “concerned 

about . . . putting the Senator in a bad light or in a difficult position” and that 

he wanted to keep the conversation between Domenici and him about Iglesias 

“confidential . . . [I]t was just a courtesy.” McNulty defended his action by 

noting that he had disclosed in his briefing generic “congressional concerns” 

about Iglesias. We disagree and do not believe that Senator Domenici’s calls 

should have been kept confidential or that the Department owed the Senator 

any “courtesy” with regard to his complaints about Iglesias, which had led to 

Iglesias’s removal. Rather, McNulty owed Congress and the public full and 

accurate testimony regarding the matter, and McNulty failed to provide such 

testimony as a result of his misguided attempt to shield Senator Domenici from 

criticism. 

We also examined the claim raised by Goodling in her congressional 

testimony that she believed McNulty had greater knowledge about the history 

of the White House’s involvement in the removal than McNulty had told 

Congress. Goodling said she had briefed McNulty in the summer of 2006 

about the White House’s involvement in Griffin’s appointment. 

McNulty testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6, 

2007, that while he was aware in the summer of 2006 that Griffin was 

scheduled to replace Cummins, he did not know how Griffin came to the 

Department’s attention.201 He also stated in his closed briefing of the Senate 

Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2007, that the removal process began 

within the Department in September or October 2006. McNulty also said at 

the briefing that the Department had sent the list to the White House Counsel’s 

Office in October 2006 and asked if they had any objection to the names, and 

the White House voiced no objections. In fact, as discussed above, this was not 

an accurate description of the timing of the removal process or the White 

House’s role in the process. 

Because Goodling declined our request for an interview, we were unable 

to question her concerning what she told McNulty regarding Griffin or the 

White House’s involvement in the removal process. However, we concluded 

that McNulty did not intentionally mislead Congress in his testimony. At the 

201 McNulty later clarified this statement in his testimony before the House 

Subcommittee on the Judiciary on June 21, 2007. He stated that he had known for months 

that “Cummins was asked to move over so that Mr. Griffin would have a chance.” However, he 

stated that he did not know exactly how Griffin came to the Department’s attention, and he 

noted that Goodling said she was not even particularly aware of how he came to the 

Department’s attention. McNulty said, “I just didn't know the specifics of how he came to be 

recommended to us. We later learned that Ms. Miers contacted Kyle Sampson, and that's the – 

the way.” 

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time he testified in February 2007, he was unaware of the White House’s 

earlier involvement in the removals. He stated what he believed about the 

process at the time: that the Department came up with the names in the fall of 

2006 and the White House did not object. While that was not correct, McNulty 

did not know that at the time. 

We also noted that while Goodling was supposed to accompany McNulty 

to the closed briefing, McNulty instructed her to remain outside the room 

because he was concerned that her status as the Department’s White House 

Liaison would raise questions by the Senators. Goodling testified that she 

believed McNulty had done so in order to discourage the Senators from asking 

questions about the White House’s role in the removals. McNulty said his 

concern at the time was that Goodling’s presence would make the removal 

process seem “more political” given the fact that Goodling’s position at the 

Department was uniquely associated with the Department’s political 

appointments. We believe the decision to exclude Goodling was troubling and 

reflected an inappropriate focus on appearances. Besides Sampson, Goodling 

was the only other person who had in-depth knowledge about the removals and 

the level of the White House’s involvement in the process. Had Goodling been 

present, it is likely that McNulty would not have provided misleading 

information to the Senate about the timing and substance of the White House’s 

involvement. 

Moreover, although we determined that McNulty did not intentionally 

mislead Congress, he stated in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary 

Committee that “we never have and never will” seek to remove a U.S. Attorney 

to interfere with an ongoing investigation or in retaliation for prosecution. 

However, McNulty did not question Sampson concerning the basis for the 

removal recommendations. Especially with respect to Iglesias’s removal, 

McNulty should have inquired about the reasons for the removals to ensure 

that they were not improper before providing testimony to Congress implying 

that he had done so. 

C. Kyle Sampson 

As discussed above, Sampson was the person most responsible for 

creating the removal plan, selecting the U.S. Attorneys to be removed, and 

implementing the plan. Yet, after the controversy over the removals erupted, 

Sampson attempted to downplay his role, describing himself as the 

“aggregator” and denying responsibility for placing several of the U.S. Attorneys 

on the list. 

We concluded that from start to finish Sampson mishandled the removal 

process. And, as discussed above, he inappropriately advocated bypassing the 

Senate confirmation process for replacing U.S. Attorneys through a strategy of 

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“gum[ming] this to death” and “run[ning] out the clock” while appearing to act 

in good faith. 

We were also troubled by Sampson’s claims that he did not recall the 

reasons for many of the removals or who had recommended that certain U.S. 

Attorneys be removed. For example, while Sampson said he did not place 

Iglesias on the list at the request of the White House, his recollection on this 

issue was varying and vague. We question why Sampson could not recall the 

precise reason why he placed Iglesias on the removal list, given the relatively 

short passage of time since the incident, and the fact that Iglesias’s name alone 

was added, for the first time, to the November 2006 list. Moreover, other 

misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the list 

caused us to further doubt the candor of Sampson’s explanations. In the end, 

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. 

As discussed in the sections that follow, we also concluded that Sampson 

made various misleading statements about the U.S. Attorney removals to the 

White House, Congress, and other Department officials. 

1. Misleading Statements to the White House 

Sampson’s misleading statements about the U.S. Attorney removals 

began as the selection process was unfolding. He misrepresented to the White 

House how the selections occurred. In an e-mail to Harriet Miers in January 

2006 forwarding a list of names to the White House, Sampson wrote, “I list 

these folks based on my review” of the EARS evaluations, and “my interviews 

with officials in the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General, and the Criminal Division.” Sampson thus created the general 

impression that the EARS evaluations and his “interviews” of senior 

Department officials, including officials in the Criminal Division, formed the 

basis of his identification of specific U.S. Attorneys for removal. 

However, Sampson admitted to us that he did not remember speaking to 

anyone in the Criminal Division about the performance of U.S. Attorneys, 

except “only in the most general terms.” He also acknowledged that he never 

reviewed any EARS evaluations. He told us that it would have been better if he 

had stated in the e-mail to Miers that it was based on his understanding of 

somebody else’s understanding of the reviews of the offices.202 We believe that 

Sampson’s misleading statements to Miers gave the impression that the 

202 However, even that would have been inaccurate because, as we noted in each of the 

U.S. Attorney chapters, with the exception of Ryan’s March 2006 EARS evaluation (which had 

not yet taken place), each of the EARS evaluations of the removed U.S. Attorneys was largely 

positive. 

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Department had engaged in a far more systematic and structured evaluation 

process to determine which U.S. Attorneys should be removed. 

2. Misleading Statements to Congress 

Sampson similarly misled congressional staff in his January 12, 2007, 

briefing that the removals were based on EARS evaluations. At this meeting, 

Sampson and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative 

Affairs Richard Hertling briefed staff for Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne 

Feinstein about the removals. Sampson told the Senators’ staffs that the 

Department had been engaged in a process to identify underperforming U.S. 

Attorneys and that the process included a review of the EARS evaluations. The 

two staff members for the Senators told us that Sampson initially explained 

that the terminations were based on the EARS evaluations, but backtracked 

when Feinstein’s counsel pressed him for copies. According to both staff 

members, Sampson then explained that some of the removals were based on 

EARS evaluations, and some on other factors such as caseloads and 

responsiveness to Department policy initiatives. 

According to Hertling, who said he knew little about the controversy at 

the time, Sampson attempted to impress upon the congressional staff that the 

removals were the result of a process the Department undertook to identify 

U.S. Attorneys who were the “weakest performers,” and that the process 

included a review of EARS evaluations. Hertling told us that one of the things 

that stuck in his mind was Sampson’s “specific reference” to EARS evaluations 

as a basis for identifying these particular U.S. Attorneys for termination. 

However, Sampson claimed to us that he mentioned the EARS 

evaluations only in connection with Ryan’s removal. He said that he doubted 

he would have suggested that the other removals were based on the EARS 

evaluations because “that wouldn’t have been accurate.” Yet, based upon the 

recollection of the other witnesses at the briefing, including Hertling, we believe 

that Sampson misled the congressional staff that EARS evaluations played a 

more significant role in the Department’s decision-making process than they 

actually did. 

Second, Sampson included misleading statements in the Department’s 

response to a February 8, 2007, letter from several Senators asking for 

information about the circumstances of Cummins’s resignation and Griffin’s 

appointment. Sampson, who drafted the response and circulated it in the 

Department and the White House for comment, had the final sign-off on the 

language in the response. 

The response, which was sent on February 23, 2007, contained three 

misleading statements. The first was the statement that “it was well-known, as 

early as December 2004, that Mr. Cummins intended to leave . . . .” As we 

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noted in Chapter Five, we found evidence that in drafting the response 

Sampson discovered a small news item in a free weekly Arkansas tabloid 

reporting that Cummins might begin exploring career options before the 

expiration of President Bush’s second term. However, Cummins told us he did 

not intend to resign at that time and was not looking for other employment. 

We also found no evidence that anyone at the Department was aware of the 

article until February 2007. 

The second misleading statement in the Department’s response was that 

“the decision to have Mr. Griffin replace Mr. Cummins was first contemplated 

in spring or summer of 2006 [and] the final decision to appoint Mr. Griffin . . . 

was made on or about December 15 . . .” This statement is directly 

contradicted by the January 9, 2006, e-mail Sampson sent to Miers in which 

Griffin is listed as a replacement for Cummins. The second part of the 

statement, that the final decision to appoint Griffin was made around 

December 15, is also misleading. As noted in Chapter Five, Sampson informed 

Goodling on August 18, 2006, that the Attorney General would appoint Griffin 

Interim U.S. Attorney following Griffin’s return to the Department. 

The third misleading statement in the Department’s response was that 

“The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to 

appoint Mr. Griffin.” This statement is contradicted by Sampson’s e-mail on 

December 19, 2006, to Associate White House Counsel Christopher Oprison in 

which Sampson wrote, “I’m not 100 percent sure that Tim was the guy on 

which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him appointed was 

important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” While Sampson later explained this e-mail by 

stating that he “assumed” but did not know that Rove was involved in the 

decision to appoint Griffin, we found this explanation unpersuasive and belied 

by the evidence. 

3. Misleading Department Officials 

Sampson also misled Department officials and allowed them to mislead 

others about several aspects of the U.S. Attorney removals. 

First, in mid-December 2006 after media reports began questioning the 

circumstances of Griffin’s appointment, Sampson drafted talking points for the 

Department’s Office of Public Affairs to use to respond to media inquiries. In 

these talking points, Sampson wrote that “Griffin was appointed Interim U.S. 

Attorney because of the timing of Cummins’s resignation.” 

In fact, as Sampson knew, Cummins had been removed so that Griffin 

could take his place. The Department’s talking points left the misleading 

impression that Griffin was appointed as Interim U.S. Attorney because of the 

unexpected timing of Cummins’s resignation, when in fact Cummins was told 

to resign to create a position for Griffin. 

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Second and more important, Sampson’s failure to disclose what he knew 

about the White House’s involvement in the removals caused McNulty and 

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella to provide 

inaccurate testimony to Congress. Both McNulty and Moschella testified that 

based on what they knew at the time, the White House was not involved in the 

removals until October 2006 and at that point became involved only to sign off 

on the process. 

Sampson was present at staff preparation sessions before both McNulty’s 

and Moschella’s congressional testimony where the group discussed what they 

should say in their testimony. Several other participants told us that the 

question about the White House’s involvement was raised during at least one of 

McNulty’s preparation sessions, and McNulty indicated that he would tell 

Congress that the White House was involved to sign off on the process because 

U.S. Attorneys are Presidential appointments. This was a misleading 

statement about the extent and timing of the White House’s role, which 

Sampson knew. However, Sampson did not correct McNulty’s mistaken belief 

or inform him of the full extent of the White House’s involvement. 

Consequently, in a closed briefing session on February 14, 2007, 

McNulty told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the U.S. 

Attorney removal process began within the Department in September or 

October of 2006, and that the Department sent a list to the White House 

Counsel’s office in October and asked if they objected to the names. Similarly, 

Moschella testified incorrectly before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on 

March 6, 2007, based on what he had learned during the preparation sessions 

and from McNulty’s testimony, that the process to remove the U.S. Attorneys 

began in early October 2006 and that the White House eventually became 

involved in the removals, but only to sign off on the proposal because the U.S. 

Attorneys were Presidential appointees. 

When we interviewed Sampson, he rationalized his not correcting the 

misimpression left at the preparation sessions by arguing that there were two 

separate phases of the process – the earlier “thinking” phase and the later 

“action” phase, and he said he was focused on the later action phase during 

the preparation sessions. We found Sampson’s testimony on this point not 

credible. Sampson sent three separate lists of U.S. Attorneys for removal to the 

White House for consideration before the fall of 2006. We believe that 

Sampson should have been more forthcoming at the preparation sessions 

about the White House’s involvement to ensure that McNulty and Moschella 

were aware of the facts and did not mislead Congress. Sampson’s failure to do 

so resulted in inaccurate and misleading testimony about a critical aspect of 

the controversy. 

We concluded that Sampson engaged in misconduct by making 

misleading statements and failing to disclose important information to the 

350
White House, members of Congress, congressional staff, and Department 

officials concerning the reasons for the removals of the U.S. Attorneys and the 

extent of White House involvement in the removal process. 

D. Monica Goodling 

Because Goodling refused to be interviewed by us, there are potential 

gaps in our investigation of the reasons for the removal of certain U.S. 

Attorneys. As the Department’s White House Liaison, Goodling had significant 

contact with White House officials about Department personnel matters, and 

Goodling was involved to some extent in the selection of the U.S. Attorneys for 

removal. For example, it appears that Goodling instructed EOUSA Director 

Battle to call Graves and direct him to resign. As noted above, she said she did 

so based on Sampson’s instruction, a claim Sampson denied. Consequently, 

we were unable to determine how Goodling came to order Graves’s removal, or 

determine the White House’s role in Graves’s forced resignation. 

Based on our investigation, we also found that, like Sampson, Goodling’s 

failure to fully disclose what she knew about the White House’s involvement in 

the removals contributed to McNulty’s and Moschella’s inaccurate statements 

to Congress. Goodling was present for at least part of McNulty’s preparation 

sessions and his Senate testimony, as well as Moschella’s preparation session 

where the issue of the White House’s involvement was raised. Both McNulty 

and Moschella told us that no one at the preparation sessions provided them 

with all the facts about the White House’s involvement with the removal plan. 

Like Sampson, Goodling never corrected their misimpressions, and 

consequently McNulty and Moschella both led Congress to believe the White 

House was involved later in the process and only to sign off on a list of names, 

which was not true. However, Goodling did not inform them, or anyone else, 

that their testimony was incorrect until Sampson’s e-mails surfaced. 

In addition, the evidence shows that Goodling was aware that she had 

been less than forthcoming in failing to disclose the White House’s involvement 

to other Department officials. For example, when she learned that the 

Department planned to provide Sampson’s documents to Congress that showed 

earlier and more substantive involvement by the White House in the removals 

than Moschella and McNulty had testified to, she became distraught and told 

Margolis that her career was over because she had the same information as 

Sampson. As noted above, Goodling also met with Gonzales and, according to 

Gonzales, indicated that she had the same information that Sampson had, 

referring to the information about the timing of the White House’s involvement. 

We also concluded that Goodling was partly responsible for creating the 

false impression that Griffin was chosen to replace Cummins because the 

USAO’s First Assistant was unavailable because she was on maternity leave. 

This information was provided to Senator Pryor’s office and to Brian 

351
 

Roehrkasse, a Department of Justice spokesperson. Sampson told us that 

Goodling told Gonzales in December 2006 about the First Assistant being on 

maternity leave. However, Goodling clearly knew that the First Assistant’s 

maternity leave had nothing to do with Griffin’s appointment as Interim U.S. 

Attorney, but she did not correct this misimpression, which was conveyed by 

the Department to Senator Pryor. 

We concluded that Goodling engaged in misconduct by failing to disclose 

important information and to correct Department officials who were providing 

what she knew was misleading information to Congress and the public 

concerning the extent of the White House’s involvement in the U.S. Attorney 

removal process, and for providing misleading information to Congress and the 

Department concerning Griffin’s appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney. 

E. David Margolis 

We found that Associate Deputy Attorney General Margolis had little 

involvement in the selection of which U.S. Attorneys to remove, despite his 

position, experience, and knowledge about many U.S. Attorneys. 

In early 2005, Sampson informed Margolis about Miers’s suggestion to 

replace all U.S. Attorneys, an idea that both Margolis and Sampson considered 

unwise. Margolis endorsed the idea of replacing weak or mediocre U.S. 

Attorneys, noting to us that in the past U.S. Attorneys were generally removed 

only for misconduct or gross incompetence tantamount to misconduct. 

At that time, Sampson asked Margolis for his opinion concerning the 

weakest U.S. Attorneys. Margolis told us that two U.S. Attorneys should be 

removed on performance grounds – Ryan and Lampton. In addition, Margolis 

said that at that time he also either recommended Chiara for removal or 

endorsed her removal. Margolis also gave Sampson the names of 

approximately eight additional U.S. Attorneys who warranted a closer look, 

either because of general performance, specific conduct, or both.203 

After discussions in 2005, Margolis was not consulted again on which 

U.S. Attorneys should be removed until November 2006, just before the 

removal plan was finalized and approved. Margolis was not asked, and did not 

follow up with Sampson, about what criteria should be considered in 

determining who should be removed or the evaluation process that should lead 

to the selections. In addition, although Sampson later claimed that he 

understood that Margolis regularly reviewed EARS evaluations, Sampson never 

discussed with Margolis what the evaluations revealed about any of the U.S. 

Attorneys, except Ryan. 

203 However, none of these eight was among the ones directed to resign in 2006. 

352
In November 2006, when Sampson advised Margolis about the 

impending removals, he either showed Margolis a list or read from a list of six 

U.S. Attorneys that Sampson indicated were to be removed. Margolis told us 

that he was struck more by the names Sampson did not mention than the ones 

he did. Margolis asked Sampson why Ryan and Lampton were not on the 

removal list, and Sampson responded that he would look into it. Based on 

Margolis’s and McNulty’s suggestion, Ryan was subsequently added to the list. 

However, Margolis told us that he did not think to question Sampson 

about the six U.S. Attorneys who were on Sampson’s list. Margolis said he was 

more focused on the names that were omitted and assumed Sampson had valid 

reasons for the six slated for removal. 

Margolis is the senior career attorney in the Department and someone 

who had significant knowledge about U.S. Attorneys and their performance. 

He was involved in panel interviews for the selection of most U.S. Attorneys, 

and as part of his duties handles misconduct allegations involving U.S. 

Attorneys. He is highly respected within the Department, and his opinion was 

valued because of his experience and stature. 

Yet, prior to the removals, he never questioned Sampson concerning why 

the specific U.S. Attorneys slated for removal were chosen or what process was 

used to select them. We believe that under these circumstances – an 

unprecedented dismissal of a group of U.S. Attorneys at one time allegedly for 

performance reasons – Margolis should have raised questions about the list 

and the process used to identify the names to ensure there were no improper 

reasons and that the Department was following a defensible process for the 

removals. But Margolis never raised those issues, and instead focused solely 

on seeking to ensure that Ryan was added to the removal list. 

It is noteworthy that while Margolis had endorsed the idea of removing 

weak U.S. Attorneys, by his own testimony he was struck by the fact that two 

weak performing U.S. Attorneys he had recommended for removal on 

performance grounds were not on Sampson’s November 2006 list. Moreover, 

none of the other eight U.S. Attorneys who he had originally suggested 

warranted a closer look were included on the list. Instead, Sampson’s removal 

list contained the names of six other U.S. Attorneys and Margolis did not know 

the reasons why as to five of them. 

We recognize that the decision to remove the U.S. Attorneys was not 

Margolis’s to make. But given his position, we believe he should have asked 

Sampson, McNulty, or other senior Department leaders about the removal 

process. This is particularly true given that this removal of U.S. Attorneys was 

unprecedented, and it did not appear from the names on Sampson’s list that 

the U.S. Attorneys Margolis thought were weak had been included. 

353
 

In his testimony to congressional investigators, Margolis acknowledged 

that he should have taken additional steps when he learned about the removal 

plan. Margolis stated: 

I should say that I am a bit exasperated by my role here because 

I’m the only one of all the people involved who knows how to fire a 

United States Attorney or a Marshal based on experience. And I 

was not aggressive enough or vigilant enough, and I should have 

done a number of things, I should have inserted myself. I was too 

passive, and I’d like to, I think—and I hold myself accountable for 

this—that if I had stepped in and said something, that maybe this 

would have been - we would have handled this better . . . . And I’d 

like to think that I know how far a career guy should go and when 

he should defer to the political appointees. But in this case, 

ironically, I think my tentativeness and lack of aggressiveness – 

which I’m not known for lack of aggressiveness. I think it did my 

masters a disservice, and I accept that. That does not mean that 

I’m excluding everybody else from their own responsibility. That’s 

a different issue. 

Margolis added that he had become side-tracked by ensuring that certain U.S. 

Attorneys such as Ryan were on the removal list, and that he was not vigilant 

enough in ensuring that no one was removed for an improper reason. 

Moreover, Margolis said he should have asked for the reasons why each of the 

U.S. Attorneys was being removed. 

We agree. We believe that given Margolis’s experience, position, and 

stature he was too deferential to others on this important and unprecedented 

removal of U.S. Attorneys. Had he raised questions, as he acknowledged he 

should have, the damage to the Department by the fundamentally flawed 

removal process might have been mitigated.204 

F. Michael Elston 

One of the most serious allegations stemming from the controversy was 

that Michael Elston, the Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General McNulty, 

attempted to threaten and intimidate three of the fired U.S. Attorneys in order 

to keep them from publicly discussing their removals. 

As discussed in more detail in Chapter Three, on January 17, 2007, the 

day preceding Attorney General Gonzales’s testimony before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, Elston telephoned McKay and Charlton. According to 

204 We also recognize, however, that Margolis could not have done anything about the 

first two removals – Graves and Cummins – because he was neither asked for his opinion nor 

informed of the removals at the time. 

354
Elston, McNulty asked him to make the call to let McKay and Charlton know 

that the Attorney General was not going to testify about who had been removed 

or the basis for the removals. 

According to McKay, Elston began the conversation by stating that 

people in the Department were surprised they had not seen any “incendiary 

comments” from McKay in the press. McKay said that Elston then stated that 

the Attorney General would make only general statements in his Senate 

testimony about the resignations, would not state that the U.S. Attorneys had 

been fired, and would not disclose the reasons for their removal. McKay told 

us that he believed that Elston was offering him a quid pro quo: “You keep 

quiet, we won’t say anything.” McKay said he replied to Elston that he would 

stay quiet not because the Attorney General would not disclose why he had 

been fired, but rather because he believed it was his duty to do so. 

Charlton told us that he viewed a similar phone call from Elston as a 

veiled threat. Charlton said that Elston told him that the Department’s senior 

management had noticed that he had not been commenting in the media, and 

he wanted Charlton to know that the Attorney General was not going to 

comment on why Charlton had been asked to resign. 

Elston denied calling McKay and Charlton in an attempt to threaten 

them to remain silent, and denied offering them any quid pro quo in exchange 

for their silence. 

Approximately 1 month later, after a Washington Post article quoted 

Cummins as criticizing the Department for stating that the removals of the U.S. 

Attorneys were based on their performance, Elston called Cummins. According 

to Cummins, Elston expressed dismay that the U.S. Attorneys might appear 

before Congress to testify about their removals, which would force the 

Department to publicly disclose the reasons for the removals. Cummins 

subsequently sent an e-mail describing this conversation with Elston to McKay, 

Charlton, Lam, Bogden, and Iglesias, characterizing it as a threatening call. 

Elston disputed Cummins’s characterization of the call. Elston told 

congressional investigators he believed that Cummins had misinterpreted his 

remarks, which Elston said were more along the lines of saying that it was a 

shame that the reasons for the U.S. Attorneys’ removals were being discussed 

in the media because it was tarnishing the Department as well as the 

reputations of the individual U.S. Attorneys. Elston said he never intended to 

send Cummins or anyone else a threatening message. 

While we understand why McKay, Charlton, and Cummins may have 

interpreted Elston’s phone calls as a threat, we do not have sufficient evidence 

to conclude that Elston intended to threaten them. In an interview with a 

reporter the day before he testified before Congress, and his congressional 

355
 

 

testimony, Cummins did not characterize Elston’s call as a threat. Elston’s 

comments appear close to the line, and we do not believe it unreasonable for 

McKay, Charlton, and Cummins to have reached the conclusions they did. 

Nevertheless, we do not believe the evidence is sufficient to show that his intent 

was to threaten or intimidate the three U.S. Attorneys. 

G. William Moschella 

Moschella testified before the House Judiciary Committee in March 2007 

about the reasons for the removal of each U.S. Attorney. He did not become 

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General until October 2006, and we found 

no evidence that he was consulted about the removals prior to the 

November 27, 2006, meeting at which the Attorney General approved the 

removal plan. 

As we discuss above, Moschella’s congressional testimony misstated both 

the timing and the nature of the White House involvement in the removal 

process.205 However, Moschella did not know that his testimony about the 

timing or the extent of the White House’s involvement was inaccurate. 

Moschella only reiterated publicly what he had been told about these issues 

and what McNulty had previously told the Senate Judiciary Committee. No one 

at the Department – in particular Sampson and Goodling – informed Moschella 

that what McNulty said was incorrect. When Moschella subsequently learned 

about the inaccuracies in his testimony, after Sampson retrieved his e-mails 

and showed them to Moschella and other Department officials, Moschella was 

understandably upset and recognized the need to correct the inaccuracies. 

Under these circumstances, we concluded that Moschella’s inaccurate 

testimony was not his fault and that he should not be criticized for it. 

V. Conclusion 

In sum, we believe that the process used to remove the nine U.S. 

Attorneys in 2006 was fundamentally flawed. While Presidential appointees 

can be removed for any reason or for no reason, as long as it is not an illegal or 

205 In his testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee, Moschella inaccurately 

testified that Iglesias’s EARS evaluation had criticized him for “delegating to his First Assistant 

the overall running of the office.” However, as previously noted, Moschella obtained this 

misimpression from the chart prepared by Goodling for McNulty’s closed briefing of the Senate 

Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2006, which contained after-the-fact rationalizations for 

many of the removals. In Iglesias’s case, it contained the notation that Iglesias was “an 

absentee landlord.” However, the EARS evaluation does not criticize Iglesias; rather it states 

that the “First Assistant appropriately oversees the day to day work of the USAO’s senior 

management team . . . .” We concluded that this was an honest mistake by Moschella, 

attributing the criticism to the EARS report when it was actually contained on the Goodling 

chart. 

356
improper reason, Department officials publicly justified the removals as the 

result of an evaluation that sought to replace underperforming U.S. Attorneys. 

In fact, we determined that the process implemented largely by Kyle Sampson, 

Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, was unsystematic and arbitrary, with 

little oversight by the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, or any 

other senior Department official. In choosing which U.S. Attorneys to remove, 

Sampson did not adequately consult with the Department officials most 

knowledgeable about their performance, or even examine formal evaluations of 

each U.S. Attorney’s Office, despite his representations to the contrary. 

We also determined that the U.S. Attorneys were not given an 

opportunity to address concerns about their performance or provided the 

reasons for their removal, which led to widespread speculation about the true 

reasons for their removal, including that they were removed for improper 

partisan political reasons. And to make matters worse, after the removals 

became public the statements and congressional testimony provided by the 

Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Sampson, and other 

Department officials about the reasons for the removals were inconsistent, 

misleading, and inaccurate in many respects. 

We believe the primary responsibility for these serious failures rest with 

senior Department leaders – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy 

Attorney General Paul McNulty – who abdicated their responsibility to 

adequately oversee the process and to ensure that the reasons for removal of 

each U.S. Attorney were supportable and not improper. These removals were 

not a minor personnel matter – they were an unprecedented removal of a group 

of high-level Department officials that was certain to raise concerns if not 

handled properly. Yet, neither the Attorney General nor the Deputy Attorney 

General provided adequate oversight or supervision of this process. We also 

concluded that Sampson bears significant responsibility for the flawed and 

arbitrary removal process. Moreover, they and other Department officials are 

responsible for failing to provide accurate and truthful statements about the 

removals and their role in the process. 

We believe our investigation was able to uncover most of the facts 

relating to the reasons for the removal of most of the U.S. Attorneys. However, 

as described in this report, there are gaps in our investigation because of the 

refusal of certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, including former White 

House officials Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and William Kelley, former Department 

of Justice White House Liaison Monica Goodling, Senator Pete Domenici, and 

his Chief of Staff. In addition, the White House would not provide us internal 

documents related to the removals of the U.S. Attorneys. 

The most serious allegation that we were not able to fully investigate 

related to the removal of David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, and 

the allegation that he was removed to influence voter fraud and public 

357
corruption prosecutions. We recommend that a counsel specially appointed by 

the Attorney General assess the facts we have uncovered, work with us to 

conduct further investigation, and ultimately determine whether the evidence 

demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed with regard to the 

removal of Iglesias or any other U.S. Attorney, or the testimony of any witness 

related to the U.S. Attorney removals. 

The Department’s removal of the U.S. Attorneys and the controversy it 

created severely damaged the credibility of the Department and raised doubts 

about the integrity of Department prosecutive decisions. We believe that this 

investigation, and final resolution of the issues raised in this report, can help 

restore confidence in the Department by fully describing the serious failures in 

the process used to remove the U.S. Attorneys and by providing lessons for the 

Department in how to avoid such failures in the future. 

358
APPENDIX A 
THE WHITE HOUSE 

WASHINGTON 

September 18, 2008 

Dear Messrs. Jarrett and Fine: 

I am writing to follow-up on our discussions of the last several months. Your offices (the 

Department of Justice's ("DO]" or "the Department") Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and 

Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR» have requested documents from the White House 

for use in the U.S. Attorneys inquiry you are conducting jointly. The White House has provided 

some ofthe requested materials and has declined to provide others. Thank you for the 

opportunity to set forth the White House rationale and position on the question of why we have 

not thought it appropriate to provide your offices with certain ofthe materials you requested. 

Your inquiry, as we have always understood it from our discussions, is not directed to the White 

House (over which your agencies do not have jurisdiction) but as a factual matter involves the 

White House to the extent that the factual scope of your inquiry includes communications to and 

from the White House . Your office has sought to interview a number of former White House 

employees and the White House has encouraged all the identified employees to cooperate with 

your inquiry. Additionally, as discussed below, the White House has been willing to make 

certain kinds of documents available to your inquiry, but has declined to provide your offices 

with unqualified access to all White House U.S. Attorneys-related materials you have requested. 

I. Documents in Possession of the White House 

The White House provided to OIG/OPR copies of email communications between the White 

House and the Department relating to the Department's decision to seek the resignations of 

certain U.S. Attorneys. The White House also provided copies of email communications 

between the White House and non-DOl third parties on the subject of the U.S. Attorneys 

resignations. 

The White House has declined to provide internal documents relating to the U.S. Attorneys 

resignations. Those materials, by their very nature, implicate White House confidentiality 

interests of a very high order, and such interests are well-established in law. The President needs 

confidential advice from those who advise and assist him in the performance of his duties . Their 

communications must be candid, and confidentiality is necessary to preserve that candor. 

Without it, the advising and decisionrnaking processes of the White House must be expected to 

suffer. See In re Sealed Case, 121 F.3d 729, 750, 762 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (discussing "critical role 

that confidentiality plays" in the advice of presidential advisors and noting "public and 

constitutional interest in preserving the efficacy and quality of presidential decisionrnaking"). 

Such concerns are only heightened where, as here, the subject ofthe inquiry - the removal and 
nomination of U.S. Attorneys - is committed by the Constitution to the discretion of the 

President. U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2; Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 163-64 (1926). 

It is important to note that, in declining to make White House internal documents available, the 

White House did not assert executive privilege against OIG and OPR (which are components of 

DOl, an executive branch agency). However, the White House internal communications not 

provided to OIG/OPR are, in our judgment, covered by the deliberative process and/or 

presidential communications components of executive privilege in the event of a demand for 

them by Congress. 

II. White House Review Chronology 

In the course of your investigation, OIG/OPR became aware that the Office ofCounsel to the 

President had created a draft chronology ofthe events relating to the U.S. Attorney resignations. 

That chronology developed as a series of drafts in the period beginning March 9,2007 and 

ending March 16, 2007. OIG/OPR asked the White House to provide a complete copy ofthe 

draft chronology for its investigation. 

The White House declined to make the complete draft chronology available to OIG/OPR. The 

draft chronology was prepared immediately after the U.S. Attorneys matter became a major news 

story, in order to try to gather, on a preliminary basis, facts and information surrounding the 

matter. It was prepared by the Counsel's office for the purpose of assisting and advising senior 

White House officials of the facts as we knew them and about how to respond to the controversy. 

The draft chronology reflected both preliminary factual information obtained by the Counsel's 

office in the course ofits review and preliminary judgments by members ofthe Counsel's office 

concerning the relative significance ofthe gathered information. 

Again, although the White House believed (in light of prior DOl published guidance in a 

somewhat comparable setting) that the draft chronology would be covered by the presidential 

communications, deliberative process, attorney-client and work-product components of 

executive privilege in a dispute with Congress, see Assertion ofExecutive Privilege Regarding 

White House Counsel's Office Documents, 20 Op . O.L.C. 2, 3 (1996), the White House did not 

assert executive privilege against OIG/OPR as a basis for not providing the draft chronology. 

Rather, the White House position on the draft chronology was as follows: the White House 

recognized and maintained a very strong confidentiality interest in not releasing the draft 

chronology. That interest was anchored in the confidentiality concerns noted in Part I above: 

those who assist and advise the President must be able to communicate confidentially on subjects 

falling within the scope ofthat service. Additionally, the draft chronology was prepared by 

members ofthe Counsel's office for the express purpose of providing advice about the U.S. 

Attorneys controversy as part ofthe Office's function of advising and assisting in response to a 

public, ongoing, and significant controversy. 

In our view, to make available to OIG/OPR a draft chronology ofthis sort, prepared under the 

circumstances described above, would threaten a very significant chilling effect for counsel and 

White House officials, and complete disclosure would have an adverse impact on the effective 

provision oflegal advice within the White House. That impact, as we perceived it, was not 

outweighed by OIG/OPR's stated need for the information, at least not to the extent we 
understood that need as articulated in our discussions with your offices. Accordingly, we did not 

make the draft chronology available in its entirety . 

At the same time, the White House recognized that OIG and OPR - which are components of an 

executive branch agency - had a genuine, and potentially significant, interest in reviewing those 

factual portions of the draft chronology for which OIG/OPR had a substantial need and no other 

available source. With these competing interests in mind, the White House attempted to strike a 

balance respectful of both concerns. In view ofthe draft chronology's origins and purpose, we 

viewed the situation as in some sense analogous to civil discovery efforts to obtain an opponent's 

attorney work-product material. See Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947); Fed. R. Civ. P. 

26(b)(3). Accordingly, after several meetings with OIG/OPR to discuss the question of our 

respective offices' interests in this matter, the White House provided for OIG/OPR review a 

redacted copy ofthe draft chronology. The unredacted portions made available to OIG/OPR 

contained factual information for which the White House understood OIG/OPR to have 

expressed a substantial need and for which OIG/OPR had no alternative available source that 

could provide the same or equivalent information. As to portions not made available, the 

decision not to provide them resulted from our not receiving from OIG/OPR a focused showing 

of substantial need for the non-disclosed portions and an understanding that the undisclosed 

material (or its equivalent) was unavailable from another source. 

In this partial disclosure, as noted above, we sought to balance the needs of your investigation 

with the White House's confidentiality interests. Our disclosure was necessarily partial because, 

in our judgment, total, unqualified disclosure of all factual portions ofthe entire draft chronology 

would have an adverse impact on the effective provision of legal advice within the White House. 

That impact, as we perceived it, was not outweighed by OIG/OPR's need for the undisclosed 

information, at least to the extent we understood that need as articulated in our discussions with 

your office. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to state our position on this matter. In the event your final 

report discusses the White House position on document disclosures, I respectfully request that 

you include this letter in its entirety as an attachment to the final report. 

Sincerely, 

(5tw.!--/71Do~

Emmet T. Flood 

Deputy Counsel to the President 
The Honorable Glenn A. Fine 

Inspector General 

U.S. Department ofJustice 

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 

Washington, DC 20530 

The Honorable H. Marshall Jarrett 

Counsel, Office of Professional Responsibility 

U.S. Department of Justice 

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 

Washington, DC 20530 
APPENDIX B 
iii 
 
APPENDIX C 
Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 

Month J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F 

Attorney General John Ashcroft Alberto Gonzales 

Feb 2001 - Feb 2005

 Feb 2005 - Sept 2007 

Kyle Sampson Counselor to the Attorney General Dep. Chief of Staff Chief of Staff 

Aug 2003 - Feb 2005 Feb 05 - Sept 05 Sept 2005 - Mar 2007 

Monica Goodling 

Feb 2002 - Aug 2004 

DOJ Press Office Special Assistant

EOUSA 

Deputy Director 

Mar 05 - Oct 05 

Counsel to White House Liaison 

USAO East. Dist. VA the AG Counsel to the AG 

Sept 04 - Mar 05 Oct 05 - Apr 06 April 2006 - April 20

Deputy Attorney General James Comey 

Dec 2003 - Aug 2005

Paul McNulty

Acting Nov 05 Confirmed Mar 06 - Ap

Deputy Attorney General Chief of Staff 

Michael Elston 

Nov 2005 - Jun 2007

Associate Deputy David Margolis Attorney General May 1993 -Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General 

William Mercer

Jun 05 - Jul 06

Wi

Director of EOUSA Mary Beth Buchanan Michael Battle 

Jun 2004 - Jun 2005 Jun 2005 - Mar 2007

Department of Justice Management 

January 2003 - December 2007