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35–115 PDF 2007

CONTINUING INVESTIGATION INTO THE

U.S. ATTORNEYS CONTROVERSY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 3, 2007

Serial No. 110–10

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOSEPH GIBSON, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California, Chairwoman 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

MICHONE JOHNSON, Chief Counsel 

DANIEL FLORES, Minority Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 3, 2007

OPENING STATEMENT 

Page 

The Honorable Linda T. Sa ́nchez, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Commercial and 

Administrative Law ............................................................................................. 1

The Honorable Chris Cannon, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Utah, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law ........................................................................................................... 3

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, and Member, 

Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law .................................. 5

WITNESSES 

Mr. James B. Comey, former Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 7

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Response to Post-Hearing Questions from James B. Comey, former Deputy 

Attorney General, Department of Justice .......................................................... 44

(1)

CONTINUING INVESTIGATION INTO THE

U.S. ATTORNEYS CONTROVERSY 

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCIAL

AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Linda 

Sa ́nchez (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Sa ́nchez, Conyers, Johnson, Lofgren, 

Watt, Cohen, Ellison, Cannon, Jordan, and Feeney. 

Staff present: Eric Tamarkin, Majority Counsel; and Daniel Flores, Minority Counsel. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. This hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary, 

Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, will come 

to order. 

I will recognize myself for a short statement. 

It has been nearly 5 months since an unprecedented number of 

U.S. attorneys were fired midterm, without cause and without explanation. Five months have passed since December 7, 2006, and 

we are still trying to understand why these talented and experienced U.S. attorneys were forced to resign. 

As the facts unfold, we are left with more questions than answers. What we have learned so far is troubling and warrants further inquiry. 

We have learned that the Bush administration exploited the 

change in interim appointment limits of U.S. attorneys by purging 

high-performing U.S. attorneys. 

When the fired U.S. attorneys received notification that they 

would be fired, several were in the midst of high-profile public corruption investigations involving Republican officials. 

We have learned that U.S. attorneys were rated on a removal list 

based in large part on whether they were loyal Bushies. 

However, after numerous interviews with Justice Department officials and reviewing of department documents, it is still unclear 

who within the Administration was responsible for placing those 

particular U.S. attorneys on the list. 

The Justice Department testified before this Subcommittee that 

the U.S. attorneys were removed for ‘‘performance-related reasons.’’

However, internal department evaluations, letters of commendation from department officials and numerous awards from outside 

groups clearly contradict that testimony. In fact, mounting eviVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:26 Jun 19, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\COMM\050307\35115.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35115
2

dence suggests that reasons set forth by the department are misleading, and that the U.S. attorneys were improperly dismissed. 

Although the president has a right to dismiss U.S. attorneys, he 

does not have the right to remove them in order to interfere with 

ongoing investigations, or to retaliate against a U.S. attorney for 

not prosecuting cases that would benefit a particular political 

party. Politics should not be injected into decisions to bring the full 

force of the law against an individual. 

If even a single U.S. attorney lost his or her job either for prosecuting Republicans or for refusing to prosecute Democrats, this 

would represent a serious threat to the very notions of fairness on 

which our justice system rests. 

In order to restore the American people’s faith in the administration of justice, we must know with absolute certainty that those 

who are charged with crimes are charged based on the evidence, 

and not because of political consideration. 

Despite our attempts to expedite the Judiciary Committee’s investigation, we have been barred from learning whether these U.S. 

attorneys were fired for an improper purpose. 

While we appreciate the Justice Department’s general cooperation with our investigation, the department has withheld materials 

that are clearly related to the mass firings and were requested by 

the Committee, including unredacted documents with key information. 

Chairman Conyers has issued a subpoena for their production 

and the deadline for their production has passed. 

Although the president has publicly pledged to get to the truth 

of the matter, the White House continues to be an obstacle in concluding this investigation. 

On March 9th, Chairman Conyers and I sent a letter to White 

House Counsel Fred Fielding requesting testimony and documents 

from White House officials with direct knowledge of the facts and 

circumstances in the U.S. attorneys controversy. 

Despite Chairman Conyers’ repeated attempts to reach an agreement on the terms under which White House testimony and documents will be shared with the Committee, the White House has refused negotiation. 

We continue to be hopeful that the White House will cooperate 

with this investigation. However, after nearly 2 months of 

stonewalling, we still have not received any information from the 

White House. 

Such tactics do not inspire public confidence in the Administration but serve only to increase public doubt in the Administration’s 

integrity and commitment to equal justice under the law. 

Our investigation has also revealed that Administration officials 

discussed firing U.S. attorneys while using Republican National 

Committee e-mail accounts. As a result, this Committee has also 

requested that the Republican National Committee produce copies 

of e-mails from White House officials concerning the issue. 

Instead of allowing the RNC to immediately comply with the request, the White House has slowed the production of documents by 

asserting a flimsy argument that they must review all of the documents for claims of executive privilege. 

3

It is my hope that this morning’s testimony from James Comey, 

the former Deputy Attorney General, will bring us one step closer 

to resolving this matter. 

I want to thank Mr. Comey for his gracious cooperation with our 

subpoena, and make clear that he is participating in this hearing 

under compulsion. 

I would now like to recognize my colleague, Mr. Cannon, the distinguished Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, for his opening 

remarks. 

Mr. CANNON. I thank the Chairlady. 

I would like to point out that from the beginning of this, we have 

heard the word ‘‘corruption’’ bandied about. We now have thousands and thousands of pages of documents, many interviews of 

people, and so far this seems to be a fishing expedition that has 

come up dry. 

I know the minority is—or the majority, unfortunately—is wishing or casting its nets and hoping to catch someone from the White 

House. But thus far, despite the complaints, there has been nothing, at least that I can see out there, that warrants the continued 

reference to stonewalling and corruption and other, I think, extreme statements by the majority. 

Nevertheless, the minority remains committed to ensuring that 

the material facts come out in this matter, the sooner the better. 

Some witnesses whom Committee staff has interviewed have 

suggested that Jim Comey was informed about the review of U.S. 

attorneys while he was deputy attorney general, knew of information pertaining to some of the U.S. attorneys whose resignations 

were ultimately requested or was consulted about some of those 

U.S. attorneys. 

We welcome Mr. Comey’s testimony so that he can answer our 

questions and add to the record of this investigation. 

We are not sure that Mr. Comey has all of the information that 

pertain to some of our questions. 

For example, we are not sure whether Mr. Comey knows that 

David Margolis, the top career official at the Department of Justice, indicated in an interview earlier this week that the idea of reviewing U.S. attorneys was a good one; that, based on his knowledge of the relevant information, he generally endorses the grounds 

offered for requesting the resignations; and that he would like for 

the department to be able to conduct this kind of review again, and 

hopes that it can, but fears the current clamor may chill future efforts. Heavy on the clamor. 

We also are not sure if Mr. Comey has a fair sense of the picture 

emerging from all the interviews, testimony and document reviewed thus far. We hope that his ability to offer testimony has not 

been limited or tainted by selective leaks of information from the 

private interviews that have occurred. 

Those leaks have generated the impression in the major media 

that we believe runs counter to the thrust of the information we 

have collected and reviewed to date. 

Nevertheless, we hope that this will be an informative hearing. 

And we do know that Mr. Comey has been identified as a witness 

who may have material information concerning the events that we 

are examining. Therefore, we welcome him today. 

4

In private discussions, I have indicated my admiration for Mr. 

Comey, who has performed a wonderful service for America. 

I hope that we can find out what he knows and do it very quickly, so that he can get back to his important work and this Committee can as well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WATT. Would the gentleman yield, just a second, before he 

yields back? 

Mr. CANNON. Certainly. Absolutely. 

Mr. WATT. I know this is out of regular order, but I wanted to 

just take exception to one thing that the gentleman said. 

I personally am hoping that there is nothing that we find at the 

end of this investigation. And your statement to the effect that we 

are hoping for some kind of sinister result, I don’t think I want to 

just let it pass quietly into the night. 

It would be a profound statement about our justice system if we 

found that political and presidential involvement in matters that 

should be outside politics and in the justice system were—that 

these matters were influencing the outcomes of prosecutions. And 

I think it would be devastating to all of us. 

This inquiry, from my personal perspective, is not about finding 

wrongdoing. I hope there is no wrongdoing. I think we have an obligation to get to the bottom of this, and to reassure the public that 

there is no wrongdoing if in fact that is the case. 

If it is not the case, then I think it is our responsibility to expose 

that. 

And I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me, because I personally took that——

Mr. CANNON. Well, I think the gentleman needed it. 

And reclaiming my time, as is almost always the case, I agree 

with the gentleman. And if there is any implication of any personal 

offense, I apologize for that. None was intended. 

Nevertheless, the course of this investigation has thus far turned 

up nothing. 

The gentleman can take, I think, great comfort from the interview that Mr. Margolis gave about the integrity of the system. And 

if we were fair and balanced in how we were reviewing this, I don’t 

think that I would necessarily be in a position to have to try and 

bring some balance back into it by pointing out that thus far nothing has occurred that should shake the confidence of people in the 

system. 

Mr. WATT. If the gentleman would——

Mr. CANNON. The balance of politics—I grant you a balance of 

politics and fairness, but we need to examine that. And that is why 

Mr. Comey, I think, will be an important witness. 

And I realize I am out of time, but I would ask for unanimous 

consent for an additional minute to yield to the gentleman. 

Mr. WATT. And I won’t take an additional minute. 

I just want to point out to the gentleman, that obviously hadn’t 

read the front page of this morning’s Washington Post, which suggests that the Justice Department is now doing an investigation of 

whether there were any illegal things taking place. And they are 

now believing that something illegal has taken place. 

5

So this notion that you have that nothing sinister has taken 

place is just not borne out by what appears to be coming to light 

here. 

Mr. CANNON. Well, reclaiming my time——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. CANNON. Madam Chair, I ask for an additional minute——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CANNON. The fact is this has been a trial by leaks. And the 

press has been, I think, a willing accomplice to try and taint the 

Administration because that sells newspapers. I don’t think that 

much as actually come out that is substantial in that sense. 

The fact that the Justice Department is doing an internal review 

has been known by, I think, Members of this Committee for some 

period of time. The fact that it appears in The Washington Post is 

not indicative of what we ought to be doing or where we ought to 

be going or justification for what we have done, especially since 

those kinds of stories have typically been subject to leaks that I 

thought we agreed we would not do in the course of this investigation. 

And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 

And I would now like to recognize Mr. Conyers, a distinguished 

Member of the Subcommittee and the Chairman of the Committee 

on the Judiciary. Mr. Conyers? 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Committee Chairman 

Sa ́nchez. 

I first begin by commending the Subcommittee on Commercial 

and Administrative Law for the excellent way that you have comported yourself and moved forward in this investigation. 

I wish we could assure everybody that this will be a very brief 

meeting, and that this matter will be over quickly. I have no idea 

how long we are going to take. 

I am very pleased, I can tell you, that James Comey, the former 

deputy attorney general of the Department of Justice, is here with 

us today. And so we take another important step at getting at the 

truth in our investigation of the recent mass firings of U.S. attorneys. 

And we have learned something. We know that the firings were 

apparently part of a long-laid plan involving the highest levels of 

the Department of Justice and the White House. 

We are also aware that misstatements were made concerning the 

reasons for the firings by high-ranking members of the Department 

of Justice, up to and including the Attorney General. 

We know that several department officials have resigned in connection with this matter—certainly not the witness with us today—

and that at least one such official has asserted her fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. 

We have also found that numerous questionable, if not improper, 

communications were made by Members of Congress to several of 

the United States attorneys concerning pending prosecutions before 

they were fired, and that efforts were made after the firings to discourage United States attorneys from cooperating in our inquiry. 

6

We are aware that thousands of e-mails relating to this matter 

have been lost, misplaced, or destroyed in potential violation of 

Federal law. 

We are also aware that the department has opened up two separate internal inquiries related to these matters. 

But what we don’t know, as we meet this morning, is who actually made the decision to place the U.S. attorneys on the firing list. 

The attorney general, Mr. Gonzales, has told us that it was not 

him. Mr. Kyle Sampson has denied making the substantive judgments. We have interviewed other senior officials in the department, and all deny making the actual decision to place the names 

on the list. 

The role of the White House remains elusive, in large part due 

to their failure, as referred to by the Chairwoman, to cooperate 

with the Committee’s inquiry. 

And so, against this backdrop, we are fortunate to have today’s 

witness, who has a unique perspective on the recent firings of the 

eight United States attorneys by the Bush administration because 

he worked closely with many of them as fellow United States attorneys and he supervised them and their offices for substantial periods of time. 

Mr. Comey has a superb reputation as a career Federal prosecutor and an effective deputy attorney general and is generally regarded by all as a straight-shooter who has always embodied the 

highest and best traditions of the Department of Justice. 

And so, we proceed on today’s hearings, knowing that we owe the 

American people the duty to learn, to share with them the true 

reasons for these firings, because the Department of Justice and 

the prosecutorial integrity of our Nation is coming under scrutiny. 

We expect that we will be able to assess what is true and what 

isn’t. 

And it is in this spirit that I come to the hearing to congratulate 

the Subcommittee and its Chairman and also the witness that is 

before us today. 

And I thank the gentlelady. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the gentleman for his statement. 

Without objection, other Members’ opening statements will be included in the record. 

Without objection, the Chair will be authorized to declare a recess of the hearing. 

I am now pleased to introduce the witness for today’s hearing. 

James Comey is a former deputy attorney general of the United 

States, serving in President George W. Bush’s administration. As 

deputy attorney general, Mr. Comey was the second-highest ranking official in the United States Department of Justice and ran the 

day-to-day operations of the department. 

He was appointed to the position in 2003, after serving as the 

U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Prior to that, 

Mr. Comey served as managing assistant U.S. attorney in charge 

of the Richmond division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

In August 2005, Mr. Comey left the Justice Department, and he 

is currently general counsel and senior vice president of Lockheed 

Martin. 

7

We welcome you for your appearance today. 

I want to remind Subcommittee Members that you will be permitted to ask questions, subject to the 5-minute limit. And we will 

hopefully have two rounds of questioning, depending on how many 

questions remain after the first round. 

And I want to note also to the Members and to our witness, we 

are expecting the Hate Crimes Bill on the floor this morning. So 

there may be interruptions. And we want to apologize ahead of 

time for those interruptions. 

I will begin the first round of questions myself, subject to the 5-

minute rule. 

I would ask our witness to please state your name for the record. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. JAMES B. COMEY, FORMER DEPUTY 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. COMEY. My name is James Comey. I go by Jim Comey. And 

as you said, Madam Chairman, I am currently the general counsel 

of Lockheed Martin and served as the deputy attorney general from 

2003 to 2005. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. What were your responsibilities as deputy attorney 

general concerning U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. COMEY. I was the direct supervisor of all the U.S. attorneys, 

and so dealt with them quite frequently on a variety of matters: 

resolving disputes, talking with them about resources, trying to 

support them in any way that I could. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And both in your role as deputy attorney general 

and as a U.S. attorney serving on the attorney general’s advisory 

committee under Attorney General Ashcroft, how familiar are you 

with the work and the performance of the six former U.S. attorneys 

who testified before this Committee last month, including David 

Iglesias, Carol Lam, John McKay, Paul Charlton, Dan Bogden and 

Bud Cummins? 

Mr. COMEY. I knew each of those people from being a colleague 

of theirs when I was U.S. attorney of Manhattan and as their supervisor. I interacted with them and their districts in different degrees. 

I would say that I knew five of the six better. Mr. Cummins I 

didn’t have much contact with. I had quite a bit of contact with, 

for example, Mr. Bogden, Mr. Iglesias and Mr. Charlton, because 

they were implementing a violent crime initiative that I was in 

charge of in their districts. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. And are you familiar with Attorney General 

Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Mr. Sampson has testified to the Senate and 

to the House that he was involved beginning in early 2005, when 

you were deputy attorney general, in an effort that involved the 

White House and the Department of Justice and that culminated 

in the termination of the eight U.S. attorneys in 2006. 

In particular, he has stated that he consulted you in 2005, that 

he asked, ‘‘If you wanted to ask a handful of United States attorneys to resign, who would you have on your list?,’’ and that he 

shared with you that this inquiry had come from the White House. 

8

Do you recall Mr. Sampson telling you that about the White 

House and asking you that question? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not. I remember meeting with Mr. Sampson, a 

date that I couldn’t peg until I went through my old calendars and 

now I believe was February 28th of 2005. 

It was a 15-minute meeting. Two topics were covered, as I recall. 

And one was him asking me, as best I can recall, who did I think 

were the weakest U.S. attorneys. I have some recollection of him 

giving me a preamble, something like, ‘‘If there is ever an opportunity to replace weak people or if we ever look at our U.S. attorneys, who do you think are the weak ones?’’

I am quite certain he didn’t mention the White House. I think 

that would have stuck in my mind. 

And in response to the question, which was an echo of a question 

that the prior chief of staff, Mr. David Ayres, for John Ashcroft had 

asked me a year earlier, I gave him, off the top of my head, my 

reactions, some people that I thought were weak managers and 

were among our less productive, less effective U.S. attorneys. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Was Kevin Ryan of San Francisco one of the 

weak performers that you identified in that conversation? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And other than Mr. Ryan, were there any other 

U.S. attorneys that were terminated in 2006 included among the 

weak performers that you identified in that conversation? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t believe so, no. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

I would like to ask you some specific questions, Mr. Comey, 

about what Mr. Sampson has testified was the first list that he 

compiled of possible U.S. attorneys to be terminated, which was 

sent to Harriet Miers at the White House in early March of 2005, 

shortly after your meeting with him. 

I want you to look at the document that was produced by the Department of Justice in response to our request and bears the identifying numbers of OAG-511. Do you have that document in front of 

you? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I do. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Let me just grab it, so that I have it readily available in front of me. 

You will see that some information has been redacted from the 

document, and that it doesn’t show that copies were sent to anyone 

inside the Department of Justice. 

Do you recall seeing this document or any other versions of it in 

2005? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I never saw it or any version of it. 

I guess I should have said this in response to your earlier question: I was not aware that there was any kind of process going on 

or that my very brief conversation with Mr. Sampson was part of 

some process to figure out a group of U.S. attorneys to fire. So I 

was not aware of a list. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. But have you seen it since then? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, ma’am. I saw it for the first time when Committee investigators interviewed me, and then I looked at it briefly 

again this morning. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

9

Looking at the bottom of the first page, which is OAG-5 of the 

document, as we understand it, U.S. attorneys whose names are in 

bold were identified as those that Mr. Sampson was recommending 

retaining as strong U.S. attorneys who have produced, managed 

well, and exhibited loyalty to the president and the attorney general. 

U.S. attorneys whose names were stricken out or had a line 

drawn through them were being recommended for removal as weak 

U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, et cetera, and 

while—there was no recommendation with respect to other U.S. attorneys who were described as not having distinguished themselves 

either positively or negatively. 

Is that your understanding of this chart as well? 

Mr. COMEY. That is what it says. And I don’t know any independently of how they put this together, but you have read it accurately. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Thank you. 

My time has expired. 

Mr. CANNON. Madam Chair, may I just suggest that every 5 minutes or so, if there are questions I really want to ask, I will—if you 

just run the clock, I will turn back in. But let me ask unanimous 

consent from everyone we have, Republicans and Democrats here, 

that you just be given the next 10 minutes to ask questions, if you 

would like. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Any objections from the Subcommittee? We can 

continue in that manner. 

And just jump in any time, Mr. Cannon, that you would like to 

ask a question. Are you seeking time at this moment? 

Mr. CANNON. No, I actually—I think that if you, yourself, do the 

questioning, I think that would make it a much more coherent 

presentation, and you guys are the ones that are looking for information. 

So perhaps after—if you take 10 minutes, like I suggested in my 

unanimous consent, then we will take a look and see if there are 

things we need to ask. Otherwise, I am inclined to just have you 

continue to——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Well, I would also like to give the other Members 

of the Subcommittee——

Mr. CANNON. Certainly there are other people that do. That is 

why I limit it to 10 minutes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

Mr. FEENEY. Madam Chairman? 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Yes? 

Mr. FEENEY. And it is certainly up to the discretion of the Chairman and the Ranking Member. I do have votes in the Financial 

Services Committee, and did have a few questions if it was possible. But I certainly, obviously understand the Chairman is conducting the meeting. 

Mr. CANNON. I am only interested in having this work as quickly 

and as efficiently for Mr. Comey as possible. And if the Chair 

would like to recognize Mr. Feeney so he can ask questions and go, 

I am happy with that. 

10

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Certainly. Let me just continue with one last question, and then we will—if there is, sort of, a natural break in the 

questions, and then I will recognize Mr. Feeney for questions. 

Did you have any idea that this chart existed and was being 

transmitted to the White House at this time concerning the U.S. 

attorneys who you supervised and were familiar with? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I did not. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Thank you. 

I will now recognize Mr. Feeney for 5 minutes of questioning. 

Mr. FEENEY. Thank you. I sure appreciate the courtesy of the 

Chairwoman. 

Mr. Comey, did anybody ever, during discussions about review of 

performance of attorneys or removal of attorneys, suggest to you 

that impacting ongoing investigations was one of the considerations 

in who to remove or how to review their performance? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. FEENEY. Did anybody suggest that in order to reward or 

punish somebody for their political affiliation or their political 

leanings that they should be dismissed? Or was that suggested as 

a criteria for review of their performance? 

Mr. COMEY. Not in any discussion I was ever present for. 

Mr. FEENEY. I have no further questions. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Is the gentleman yielding back his time? 

Mr. FEENEY. I do. And I once again want to thank the Chairwoman and the Ranking Member. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. At this time, because we do have our Chairman of 

our full Committee joining us here this morning, I would like to 

give him an opportunity to go next and ask 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. Conyers, you are recognized. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Thanks for your appearance here, Mr. Comey. We appreciate it 

very much. 

The testimony so far in this matter is that no one from the Department of Justice has taken responsibility for suggesting the dismissals of Ms. Lam or Mr. Iglesias, Bogden, Charlton or McKay. 

You have known all of them. Do the reasons offered by the department for their terminations ring true to you? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, that I know all the 

reasons that have been offered. 

My experience with the U.S. attorneys just listed was very positive. For example, Mr. Bogden in Las Vegas did a bang-up job on 

the violent crime program that we asked him to help with. And I 

had numerous positive interactions with the others. 

So the ones that I have read in the newspaper have not been 

consistent with my experience. But, again, I have been gone since 

August of 2005. But I had very positive encounters with these 

folks. 

Mr. CONYERS. Any particular recollections of your associations 

with Ms. Lam? 

Mr. COMEY. I dealt with Ms. Lam as a colleague as U.S. attorney 

in Manhattan; I dealt with Ms. Lam as the deputy attorney general. I visited her office, talked to her troops. 

11

The only substantive interaction I recall with her was I, at one 

point, talked to her about gun cases and spoke to her about the importance of that priority in the department. 

But my interactions with her were always positive. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Now, about Ms. Monica Goodling, have you heard concerns from 

anyone in the department about efforts by Ms. Goodling or anyone 

else to take political or ideological considerations into account in 

the hiring of line-level U.S. attorneys or other career applicants? 

Mr. COMEY. I had heard rumors to that effect, and I have read 

in the newspaper most recently about an investigation on that subject. But, again, when I say I had heard rumors—after I left the 

Government, in the last 6 months or so. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, let me ask you just a little bit more specifically about several of the U.S. attorneys whose names were stricken and were recommended for removal on the list of March 2005, 

and who testified before the Committee. 

If you turn to the chart OAG-N6, the second page in this document—again, a number of names have been redacted from this 

version of the chart. But what I would like to find out is, can you 

identify any names of U.S. attorneys on this page who have been 

stricken and recommended for removal? 

Mr. COMEY. It looks like, if I understand the code correctly, that 

the crossing out of Bud Cummins’s name and Carol Lam’s name 

means that they are people who were recommended for removal. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. Thank you. 

Let’s start with Ms. Lam. Was she included among the weak performers who you identified to Mr. Sampson? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t believe so, no. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. Did you, in 2005 or any time, consider 

Ms. Lam a weak U.S. attorney who was an ineffectual manager or 

prosecutor? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I didn’t. 

Mr. CONYERS. Or did you perceive her to be one who chafed 

against Administration initiatives? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I didn’t. 

Mr. CONYERS. Did you communicate any negative assessment of 

her to Mr. Sampson, or recommend that she be removed? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. CONYERS. I will stop at that point. Thank you. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. Cannon, questions? 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. Actually, I do have one follow-up there. 

I personally thought Ms. Lam was a very competent human 

being. You have mentioned that you talked to her once about guns. 

Can you tell us the substance of what you said to her at that time? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, certainly. Attorney General Ashcroft—this 

would have been, I think, in 2004—asked me to speak to each of 

the U.S. attorneys who were in the bottom 10, in terms of gun 

prosecutions—and I think it was calculated per capita, to take into 

account the size of districts. 

And so I spoke to each of those 10 U.S. attorneys that included 

Ms. Lam and told her what I told all the others, and that is that 

12

this is a priority of the Department of Justice, that if there is a 

contribution to be made by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in reducing 

gun crime in the district, that is if criminals with guns are not getting the kind of time that they ought to in the State system, for 

example, that we as Federal prosecutors wanted to make an impact 

there, and it was a priority of the department. So I needed those 

U.S. attorneys to focus on why their gun numbers were where they 

were and whether there was a contribution to be made that they 

weren’t making. 

I said to each of them, ‘‘I am not asking you to make gun cases 

for the sake of pumping your numbers. But if there is a contribution to be made in your district, please focus on it and see if you 

can lend a hand in prosecuting gun crimes.’’

So that was the conversation I had with Ms. Lam, as well as the 

other nine. 

Mr. CANNON. So was it by way of admonishment, to some degree? 

Mr. COMEY. I guess to a certain extent. My tone wasn’t admonishing, but I learned that it is a big deal any time the deputy attorney general calls and wants to talk to you about your cases. 

And I wasn’t threatening or beating up on them. I was simply 

saying, ‘‘Look, you are in the bottom 10. Maybe that is where you 

should be. Maybe your local prosecutors are really hammering gun 

possession crime; they don’t need you. But figure out whether you 

are needed, and focus on it.’’

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Margolis apparently said in his interview that 

Ms. Lam was a bit insubordinate, and even suggested that she 

might agree with that characterization. 

My view of her—and I only met her in the hearing here—was 

that she was pretty tough-minded and pretty clear. And she had 

some pretty good ideas about what she ought to do with guns. 

I take it from your statement here that you were asking her to 

look at it. So this is early in the history of the gun issue with her. 

And you were saying, ‘‘Look at what is happening in the State, 

with local prosecutions, and then decide whether you need to adjust your priorities.’’

So you were not mandating that adjustment, I take it, right? 

Mr. COMEY. Correct. I was urging a very close look, because her 

district, along with the nine others, were in the bottom group, to 

make sure there wasn’t a contribution that we were missing the 

opportunity to make. 

And I don’t know what happened thereafter to the gun numbers. 

It never came back to my attention. So I don’t know whether there 

was a response in some way in her district that changed the number of cases they did. 

Mr. CANNON. Right. 

At this point, I think that is all the questions I have. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. Comey, the conversation that you had with the 10, including 

Ms. Lam, about the relatively low number of Federal gun prosecutions in her district, did that indicate any dissatisfaction by you 

with her? 

13

Mr. COMEY. Not personally. I think the fact that I was calling 

was designed—I mean, I intended it to really energize the U.S. attorney to focus on the issue. 

But as I have explained to people a bunch of times, when I was 

running the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Richmond, Virginia, there 

was a real need for a Federal impact on gun possession crimes. Because people weren’t getting the kind of time they needed to reduce 

violent crime in the State system. 

When I moved to being U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Bob Morgenthau and his office were all over gun possession crimes, and 

doing it very aggressively. So my approach changed. That is why 

I didn’t want to mandate to a U.S. attorney, ‘‘Do X number of gun 

cases.’’ What I wanted them to do was to focus on it and figure out 

where they could make a contribution. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Nothing in that conversation or about that conversation would be meant to suggest that her performance was deficient and that she should be terminated. Is that a fair characterization? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a fair characterization. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Of the other 10 U.S. attorneys who you called who 

had relatively low prosecution numbers, how many of them were 

terminated in 2005 or 2006? 

Mr. COMEY. None of them, to my knowledge. 

Mr. JOHNSON. In your opinion, would the number of such gun 

prosecutions be a reliable indicator of whether a U.S. attorney was 

performing well or should be terminated? 

Mr. COMEY. No. It tells you nothing in a vacuum. 

As I said, just comparing my experience in Manhattan to my experience in Richmond, my gun numbers per capita dropped off dramatically when I became U.S. attorney in Manhattan. And I 

thought I was doing an okay job. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Overall, what was your evaluation of Ms. Lam as 

a U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I thought she was a fine U.S. attorney. I never had 

experience with insubordination with her. My encounters were perfectly pleasant. My only substantive encounter, as I said, was in 

connection with our gun discussion. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Does your assessment of her include an understanding and an appreciation of her work on immigration? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think I ever focused on her work on immigration. At least I don’t remember discussing it or understanding what 

her work was on immigration. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you have any information or idea from whom, 

whether in the department, the White House or elsewhere, Mr. 

Sampson got his evaluation and recommendation to terminate Ms. 

Lam? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not. And as I said, I was not aware there was 

a process going on, frankly. I thought it was a casual comment in 

the course of a very brief meeting. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you have any information, one way or the 

other, as to whether the decision to terminate her was related in 

any way to her work on the public corruption cases involving Duke 

Cunningham or others? 

Mr. COMEY. I have no information about that. 

14

Mr. JOHNSON. Let’s turn to Mr. Cummings. Was Mr. Cummings 

included among the weak performers who you identified to Mr. 

Sampson? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Did you, in 2005 or at any time, consider Mr. 

Cummings a weak U.S. attorney who was an ineffectual manager 

or prosecutor or who chafed against Administration initiatives? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Did you communicate any negative assessment of 

Mr. Cummings to Mr. Sampson or recommend that Mr. Cummings 

be removed? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Mr. JOHNSON. What was your view of Mr. Cummings? 

Mr. COMEY. I didn’t have much of a view of Mr. Cummings. I 

knew him, knew he was a very pleasant fellow. But he and his district had not crossed my radar screen, which, from the deputy’s 

perspective, is actually a very good thing. Bad things tend to reach 

the deputy, and so, if you didn’t reach me, you must be doing okay. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And you pretty much considered him to be competent. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, that was my sense. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you have any information or idea from whom 

or whether in the department, the White House, or elsewhere that 

Mr. Sampson—well, let me rephrase this question. 

Do you know of how Mr. Sampson received his information and 

came to the conclusion after an evaluation to recommend termination of Mr. Cummins? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Let me ask you to turn to page three of the chart, 

page OAG-N8. Can you identify the names, after you have reached 

that page? 

Are you there? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Can you identify any names of U.S. attorneys on 

this page who have been stricken and recommended for removal? 

Mr. COMEY. There is only one name, and it has been stricken. 

That is John McKay’s. So according to the legend here, he has been 

recommended for removal on this chart. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Cannon? You still have time. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. I appreciate that. At this point I don’t 

have any questions. And if you want to just continue with your 

side, that would be fine. 

Mr. Jordan, I don’t think, has questions either. He indicated to 

me he hasn’t. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. We will continue forward. Mr. Watt, the 

gentleman from North Carolina, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WATT. Thank you. 

And thank you for being here, Mr. Comey. 

You identified Mr. McKay as one of the people who was recommended for removal, and he was, in fact, removed. Was Mr. 

15

McKay included among the weak performers who you identified to 

Mr. Sampson? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. WATT. Did you consider him an effectual manager or prosecutor or someone who chafed at Administration initiatives? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. WATT. Did you communicate any negative assessment about 

Mr. McKay to Mr. Sampson? 

Mr. COMEY. No, sir. 

Mr. WATT. It was suggested that concerns had been raised about 

Mr. McKay while Larry Thompson was the deputy, relating to a 

murder of an assistant U.S. attorney named Thomas Wales in 

which Mr. McKay had requested some action by the department; 

that Mr. Sampson would have checked with you as the current deputy about that before using that as a basis for recommending Mr. 

McKay be placed on the termination list; and that this may have 

been a reason he appeared on the list in March of 2005. 

Do you have a response to that suggestion? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t remember discussing that tragedy with anyone other than Mr. McKay. And it was simply briefly to talk to him 

about how awful it was, and for him to express his—he cared very 

passionately about finding the person who killed his AUSA. And I 

don’t remember any other discussion besides that. 

Mr. WATT. Were you aware of any impropriety or inappropriate 

behavior by Mr. McKay in connection with that death? 

Mr. COMEY. None. 

Mr. WATT. Okay. 

Some concerns were expressed about Mr. McKay after you left as 

deputy attorney general, and after the March 2005 list was put together, concerning the LInX information-sharing system, and some 

suggestions that this may have had something to do with his staying on the removal list. 

How would you respond to that? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether that played a role on him ending up with a line through his name. 

I guess I wasn’t supposed to have favorites, but John McKay was 

one of my favorites, because he is a very charming and, as I said, 

passionate person. And he cared about something I cared an awful 

lot about, which was information-sharing. 

And he and I both believed that it was absurd that our children 

could Google and touch billions of pieces of information, but someone chasing a serial rapist could only find out if other police departments had seen a green car by calling every police department 

and asking if they had seen a green car. 

And we both had this vision that we ought to leave a legacy of 

law enforcement being able to Google and catch bad guys. And that 

is what LInX was, an effort to put that technology in place. 

So I worked with him pretty closely. I was inspired by him, and 

thought he had a terrific idea and was making a real difference 

with this LInX program. 

Mr. WATT. So the characterization that the Seattle Times reported, and which it quoted you as saying that Mr. McKay was a 

person of ‘‘passion and energy and could wear his heart on his 

16

sleeve, but never had any issues with him being insubordinate,’’ 

would be a correct assessment? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Mr. WATT. And I take it, then, that your overall view of Mr. 

McKay was that he was a strong performer. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir, very favorable. 

Mr. WATT. Do you have any information or idea from the source 

of the department, the White House or elsewhere that Mr. Sampson may have gotten his evaluation or recommendation to terminate Mr. McKay? 

Mr. COMEY. I have no idea where it came from. 

Mr. WATT. Out of the three U.S. attorneys who were terminated 

who testified before this Committee and were recommended for termination on the 2005 list, would you disagree that performance 

justified termination of any of the three of those individuals? 

Mr. COMEY. As of the time I left, I was not aware of a performance-related reason that the three folks we have discussed should 

be terminated. 

Mr. WATT. And in contrast, if you turn back to page one of the 

chart, that is OAG-N6, is there a U.S. attorney whose name is listed in bold on that page as someone recommended to be retained 

as a strong U.S. attorney who had ‘‘produced, managed well, and 

exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general,’’ can you 

find that person? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. Mr. Ryan. 

Mr. WATT. And is that the same Mr. Ryan who you had identified just a few minutes earlier as one of the weak performers that 

you identified? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir, I had. 

And a lot of people have been hurt in this process, and I don’t 

mean to hurt Mr. Ryan by revealing that I made that recommendation. He is a fine guy. He just had management challenges in that 

office that were fairly serious. But I hope he has landed on his feet 

and is doing well. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. WATT. Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Cannon? 

Mr. CANNON. Madam Chair, I don’t think our side has questions. 

But my two Members have other commitments. If we could just 

have an agreement that I will take 5 minutes—or have the opportunity to take 5 minutes after each of your witnesses, they may 

want to leave. And I don’t have any questions at this point. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I am amenable to that suggestion. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

We will continue. Mr. Cohen is recognized, the gentleman from 

Tennessee, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Firstly, Mr. Comey, I have, kind of, perused some of this material here. And I don’t know who you knew at the New York magazine, but I would pay for that article. That was great. 

Mr. COMEY. I think my mother wrote it. [Laughter.] 

17

Mr. COHEN. Well, she is a good writer. And I think she has good 

judgment. 

You have got a good vitae. I am impressed. 

I read that at one point that Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers had suggested replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys. Did you have knowledge of 

that plot or plan at one point? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I had never heard of it before I read about it in 

the newspaper. 

Mr. COHEN. Had that ever happened in history, that there was 

this, like, ‘‘wipe them all off the ship’’? 

Mr. COMEY. Again, my history doesn’t go back that far. I have 

some recollection that at the beginning of the Clinton administration, the sitting U.S. attorneys were asked for their resignations. 

Mr. COHEN. But they were taking out the Bush guys. 

Mr. COMEY. Right. But in terms of during a term, at least not 

in my experience. 

Mr. COHEN. Do you have any reasonable idea in the ideas of justice and promoting the American way that that would happen, why 

that would occur or why they would think about that? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t. I don’t know what folks would be thinking 

who would suggest that. It would be very disruptive. And that may 

be why it was not done. I hope it was why it was not done. 

Mr. COHEN. Did you ever have any dealings with Mr. Rove or 

Ms. Miers? 

Mr. COMEY. Never with Mr. Rove. I don’t think I have ever met 

him. 

Ms. Miers, yes, when she was White House counsel and I was 

deputy attorney general. 

Mr. COHEN. And what was her role as far as personnel and politics at the Department of Justice? 

Mr. COMEY. I never had any interaction with her on either of 

those subjects. We would talk primarily about issues, legal issues 

that needed input, that related, for example, to pardons. It was a 

direct contact between the deputy attorney general and the White 

House counsel to discuss pardon recommendations, for example. 

But never about politics or hiring at the Department of Justice. 

Mr. COHEN. One of the criterias that were laid out for looking at 

who would be considered worthy of keeping strong and weak was 

exhibited loyalty to the president. What do you think that term 

means, in terms of the Department of Justice? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a very good question. I don’t know exactly 

what they meant by that phrase. 

The Department of Justice, in my view, is run by political appointees of the president. The U.S. attorneys are political appointees of the president. 

But once they take those jobs and run this institution, it is very 

important, in my view, for that institution to be like any other in 

American life, that—because my people had to stand up before juries of all stripes, talk to sheriffs of all stripes, judges of all stripes. 

They had to be seen as the good guys, and not as either this Administration or that Administration. We just couldn’t get our work 

done if we were seen that way. 

So the trick in the Department of Justice was to have an organization run by political appointees who recognize that they have a 

18

special trust to protect this institution and to make sure it remains 

an other in American life so it can serve all Americans. I mean, 

that is what the Department of Justice does. 

Mr. COHEN. That is what I see it as. And I couldn’t understand 

and don’t understand exhibited loyalty to the president. I mean, 

that doesn’t—seems like not even a factor. It is so political. And I 

am not sure what that means. And that raises a question. 

Do you have any idea—when you left the Department of Justice, 

how would you rate the morale there? 

Mr. COMEY. I guess I can’t speak for my own staff, but I think 

it was fairly high. 

I mean, the Department of Justice is made up of 110,000 people 

who you don’t see if you are in Washington. That is why I traveled 

so much as the DAG, because my troops were all over the place: 

in Federal prisons guarding prisoners, executing search warrants, 

protecting victims. And they do it out in the field primarily in the 

Department of Justice. 

And when you visit those people, they are a fired-up group. They 

love doing good for a living. It is a pretty neat thing to get paid 

to do good for a living. And they treasure it. 

And whenever people talk about morale, the great hope for the 

Department of Justice, even as morale may have been hurt by this, 

is that those fired-up people who love what they do still love it and 

are not going to let anything get in the way of that. 

Mr. COHEN. Do you have any idea what the morale is at the Department of Justice now from contacts with others based on information and belief? 

Mr. COMEY. I think folks are having a tough time now. This is 

a tough period of time for the department. 

Mr. COHEN. You loved the Department of Justice, and it is obvious from your testimony if anything was done to—it has been 

weakened, has it not, because of this situation, this controversy? 

Mr. COMEY. I sure hope not. Because when I think of the department, again, I think of the whole, all 110,000 people. 

Certainly, it has caused a morale hit here at main Justice, the 

mothership. But I hope it doesn’t affect that which is essential 

about this institution, and that is the ability to do good every day 

and to protect people and to help people. 

And I just count on the fact that I know how good the people are 

out there doing the work, that FBI agents executed a search warrant, I am sure, someplace in the country this morning and risked 

their lives. And they are doing it because they love to do it, 

and——

Mr. COHEN. If somebody that was the head of this department 

took actions that may weaken the department, would they be put 

on the weak list, that might be those that, you know, should go? 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired, but we will 

allow the witness to answer. 

Mr. COMEY. I would hope the time expiring would help me as 

well. [Laughter.] 

Mr. COHEN. I would like to ask for 30 extra seconds. [Laughter.] 

Mr. COMEY. You know, in many ways I miss the department terribly, but in other ways I enjoy being a private citizen. 

19

I don’t think that is for me to say. I didn’t put together any lists. 

I don’t understand this code, frankly. And so, if I could, I would 

like to take a pass on that one. 

Mr. COHEN. You will take it. Thank you, sir. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Mr. Cannon is recognized. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. 

It is obvious that you love the department. And may I just, without asking a question, just make the point that what the department does is vitally important to America, and we agree on that. 

It is a wonderful institution. It is an institution that has developed wonderful processes, that are complicated, over a long period 

of time. 

And that I am hopeful that we can get through this investigation 

as quickly as possible so that the danger you have referred to that 

may be happening to the morale and institution of what you called 

the mothership is very important to America and that we need to 

solve this problem, get through it, and then let the Administration 

deal with how they adjust after we get through. 

And with that, Madam Chair, I would yield back. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

We do have substantially more questions to get through, so we 

will begin a second round of questioning. And I will recognize myself to begin that second round. 

I want to go back—I believe Mr. Watt had started to ask you a 

series of questions about Mr. McKay. 

Are you aware of the fact that in connection with the 2004 election, just a few months before the March list was prepared, that 

there were concerns raised by Republicans and others in Washington about Mr. McKay not pursuing an alleged voter-fraud case 

in an election in the State? 

Mr. COMEY. I had never heard that, and know of it only what 

I have seen in the newspaper. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you have any information, one way or the 

other, as to whether complaints about Mr. McKay’s actions or lack 

of actions on these vote-fraud allegations went to the White House 

or anybody else at the Department of Justice? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Thank you. 

I would like to now ask you some questions about Mr. Charlton 

and Mr. Bogden. Those two were both terminated, and testified before this Committee, but were first identified for possible termination in early 2006, shortly after you left the department. And I 

realize that. 

Did you ever indicate to Mr. Sampson anything negative about 

Mr. Charlton——

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ [continuing]. Or his performance? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. What was your view of Mr. Charlton as a U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I thought he was a very strong U.S. attorney, one 

of the best. And I had dealt with him as a colleague when I was 

U.S. attorney. And I had dealt with him in particular on the vioVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:26 Jun 19, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\COMM\050307\35115.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35115
20

lent crime impact initiative that we had in his district and 

Iglesias’s and Bogden’s. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Well, there has been some suggestion that one of 

the reasons why he was placed on the termination list or was 

maintained on the termination list was because of his decision to 

ask the attorney general to reconsider a decision to seek the death 

penalty in a death penalty case. 

What is your reaction to that claim? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t have any personal knowledge of that. There 

wasn’t much—in fact, I don’t think there was anything more important that I did as deputy attorney general than make recommendations on death penalty cases, whether to seek the ultimate sanction 

for somebody. I always welcomed U.S. attorneys talking to me 

about it, giving me input. 

I remember—and I can’t remember all the details—Mr. Charlton 

once calling me to talk to me about a case to give me input that 

wasn’t in the papers that I had seen. And he turned me around on 

a particular case and how to approach a case, as I recall, when Attorney General Ashcroft was there. 

Paul Charlton was a very experienced, still is, very smart, very 

honest and able person. And I respected him a great deal and 

would always listen to what he had to say. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So that was a case that you recall, not the details 

of where presumably you guys wanted to seek the death penalty, 

he had talked to you about that case and managed to actually convince you that perhaps that wasn’t the sanction that was warranted in that case? 

Mr. COMEY. I think it was a case where we had sought the death 

penalty, and the defendant wanted to plead guilty to life without 

parole. I think in the first instance we had rejected that. 

And, as I recall, Mr. Charlton called me and talked to me and 

said, ‘‘I have got to get you to take another look at that; let me explain why,’’ and made a very convincing case. And my recollection 

is that he turned me around on it. 

And I concluded that his concern was particularly for the victim’s 

family, and that he was concerned they would be traumatized 

again. And they were passionate that they wanted to resolve this 

on a life plea. 

So he turned me around on it. And my recollection is I changed 

my recommendation. And I think I convinced John Ashcroft to turn 

around on it. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So based on the fact that he had successfully 

brought new information to your attention which made you change 

your mind on a case, would that be a legitimate basis in the future 

for them saying, ‘‘He deserves to be fired because he tried to talk 

to us about another isolated case in which we were seeking the 

death penalty and perhaps he felt that wasn’t warranted’’? 

Mr. COMEY. All I can do is speak about myself. I would never not 

only not discourage that kind of thing, I would encourage it. Because I needed to hear from the people in the field who knew these 

cases, because I am trying to make these decisions off a notebook 

in Washington, D.C., and I can’t feel the pain of the victim’s families. And he can. And you always want that input. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate that. 

21

Are you aware of Mr. Charlton’s work with respect to charges 

concerning alleged improper actions by Representative Renzi, based 

on media reports or other sources? 

Mr. COMEY. I have read some about it in the newspaper. I knew 

nothing about it when I was in the Government. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you have any information, one way or the 

other, about whether that work played any role in the decision to 

remove him as a U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Let me ask you about another U.S. attorney who 

was placed on the termination list in early 2006, Dan Bogden. Did 

you ever indicate to Mr. Sampson anything negative about Mr. 

Bogden or his performance as a U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you believe that he lacked energy in his handling of his office, as has been claimed by some? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. My time has expired. I would like to recognize Mr. 

Johnson for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

With respect to Mr. Bogden, what was your view of Mr. Bogden 

as a U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I thought he was a very good U.S. attorney. He is 

as straight as a Nevada highway, and a fired-up guy. 

And we had this violent crime impact team program that we 

asked ATF to lead, and we chose places to do it that were experiencing a spike in violent crime. But not every place that was experiencing a spike in violent crime; we wanted to put it where we had 

a fired-up U.S. attorney who could watch over it and make it work 

and had great relations with State and local law enforcement. 

That is why we chose Mr. Bogden’s district in Las Vegas, because 

they were experiencing a spike in violent crime. But that is the 

kind of U.S. attorney he was. He was loved in that community. 

And I went once to announce the program with him and 6 

months later to give a report card to the people of Las Vegas, and 

he had made tremendous strides on violent crime. I thought he was 

very good. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you know anything about his performance that 

would have justified his removal? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I don’t. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you have any idea as to where or from what 

source Mr. Sampson got his information upon which he evaluated 

and then recommended termination of Mr. Bogden? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not. 

Mr. JOHNSON. With respect to Mr. Iglesias, who testified before 

this Committee, going back to the 2005 chart, you will note that 

his name was bolded as a strong U.S. attorney who should be retained. Is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I see it in bold on page ‘‘multiple zero’’-seven. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you agree with that assessment? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I am not sure what the criteria are, so I am 

not sure I could agree or disagree about loyalty to the president 

and attorney general. 

22

But I thought he was a very effective U.S. attorney. He was, sort 

of, the Bogden of New Mexico: very straight, very able. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So you would agree that he was a strong U.S. attorney who should have been retained? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And can you give us any other information about 

his performance? Apparently you saw him as being—I mean, you 

just said that. Anything else you would like to say about his performance? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I had contact with it again through the Violent 

Crime Impact Team program, where he did it in Albuquerque and 

did it very, very effectively. Albuquerque experienced dramatic 

drop in homicides in particular and shootings, as I recall, in their 

most problem-plagued neighborhoods as a result of that program. 

I thought he was very effective. I, obviously, as with the others, 

I knew him as a colleague first and then as his boss, and had a 

very positive view of him. 

Mr. JOHNSON. When Mr. Iglesias, as you may know, was added 

to the list to be terminated in November of 2006, the only performance-related criticism that we have heard of him was that he delegated too much to his first assistant and that he was an absentee 

landlord, if you will, too hands-off. 

What is your reaction to that criticism? 

Mr. COMEY. It had never reached my ears when I was deputy. 

I have read in the paper that he was supposedly away to do service in the Navy, because he was a reservist. I knew that and knew 

the famous story about him being the model for Tom Cruise, and 

used to tease him about not being as cute as Tom Cruise. [Laughter.] 

But all I know is what I have read in the paper. 

And if a U.S. attorney was away to serve his country as a Navy 

reservist, it is not something that I as DAG would have held 

against him, certainly. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, depending on the strength, I guess, of his 

first assistant, would you consider delegation of some management 

tasks to that first assistant, assuming that that first assistant was 

competent, would that not be a strength, as opposed to a weakness? 

Mr. COMEY. Certainly, so long as it is reasonable. 

And I had a very effective first assistant when I was U.S. attorney in Manhattan. He followed me as U.S. attorney, David Kelley. 

And I used to give him all the hard stuff to do. [Laughter.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am sure that many of the staffers around here 

could relate to that. [Laughter.] 

So would it be fair to conclude that Mr. Iglesias was considered 

to be very engaged in his job as U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I certainly thought so. It was my impression from 

dealing with him when I was there. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Now, I want to read to you a brief excerpt from 

the last year’s evaluation report on Mr. Iglesias. 

It states, ‘‘The United States attorney was experienced in legal, 

management and community relations work and was respected by 

the judiciary, agencies and staff. The first assistant United States 

attorney appropriately oversaw the day-to-day work of the senior 

23

management team, effectively addressed all management issues, 

and directed the resources to accomplish the department’s and the 

United States attorney’s priorities.’’

Now, does that suggest to you that Mr. Iglesias improperly or inappropriately delegated tasks? 

Mr. COMEY. No. That sounds like an A-grade review. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Mr. Cannon is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

We talked about a couple of U.S. attorneys with some particularity, from your perspective. And I just want to point out that 

that—your working with an understanding of them happened at a 

relatively significantly earlier stage, and you have, what, a year 

and a half or so where you were not overseeing them, is that not 

the case? 

And, first, I liked Bogden. I thought he was a very competent 

guy. I don’t know what was going on there. 

But my experience with Mr. Iglesias was actually, sort of, startling. We talked about—I think we had Mr. McKay and Ms. Lam 

who had both reported contacts from Members of Congress to the 

department. And when I asked Mr. Iglesias about his reporting of 

contacts that he had claimed in the press, he said, yes, he had reported those contacts to the department. And I asked him when. 

And he said by talking to the press about them, by telling the 

press. I was absolutely astounded at that approach. He could have 

said ‘‘no’’ as easily. 

And then he went on to talk about or try to make a distinction 

between announcing indictments after he was asked to resign and 

announcing that there was going to be action when everybody 

knew that there was an investigation going on, and making some 

hollow distinction that those were not indictments that he was announcing. 

I think that what I have just said is a fair characterization of the 

record that he made here before us. Is that consistent with the Mr. 

Iglesias that you knew and thought was a qualified U.S. attorney? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know what exactly he means by, as you said, 

‘‘I disclosed it to the department by telling the media that.’’

Mr. CANNON. I didn’t know either, but, apparently, he had not 

called his supervisor at the Department of Justice and said, ‘‘I have 

had a call or a contact and it consisted of the following,’’ which is, 

I think, what the department manual requires. 

Mr. COMEY. That is what a U.S. attorney is supposed to do. It 

sounds to me like he screwed up in that instance, and should have 

made the call and reported the contact. 

It doesn’t necessarily change my view of him that he was a competent U.S. attorney. And in my experience, like I said, he was a 

very fired-up guy and a competent guy. 

Mr. CANNON. I don’t mean to niggle here, but the fact that he 

was a competent guy in your perspective, and that would not be 

diminished by his failure to call, if he did what I suggested to you, 

which is say that he actually had complied with the requirement 

by telling the press, would that cause you to question his judgment? 

24

Mr. COMEY. It just strikes me as curious. 

Mr. CANNON. Yes, it was odd. 

Mr. COMEY. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. 

Mr. CANNON. I guess what I—I don’t mean to put you on the 

spot. You are here rethinking a lot of stuff, and I think you have 

answered these questions very, very well that have been put to 

you. 

But the point is, people change. And there was a time lag here. 

Mr. COMEY. Absolutely. 

Mr. CANNON. And as I think your testimony—and the record 

should reflect that you are nodding at this point—is based upon 

your knowledge at the time that you were here and not a rethinking of the judgment made by people subsequent in the department. 

Mr. COMEY. That is absolutely the case, and I should make that 

clear. I don’t know what happened after August of 2005. I wasn’t 

consulted to get updates on how people were doing, so I really can’t 

speak to it. 

And I don’t intend my testimony to be a criticism of my successor. I don’t know what the encounters were between the DAG 

who followed me and the U.S. attorneys. I have read some stuff in 

the paper, but I don’t have any personal knowledge of that. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. I really appreciate that. 

And just before I yield back, let me point out that what is happening I think so far in this questioning is a rethinking, a grasping 

at straws, rather than looking at a process that actually, over thousands and thousands of documents and now over more than a half 

a dozen interviews, has shown itself to be actually a fairly thoughtful, competent process. 

Mr. CANNON. And perhaps Mr. Watt’s hopes will be achieved 

here soon, and then we can get beyond this and let the department 

do its work. 

Thank you, Madam Chair——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Does the gentleman yield on that point? 

Mr. CANNON. Yes, I yield——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. All right. 

I just want to respond to something you said before we lunch. 

There are still more questions outstanding. We would like to do a 

third round of questioning. 

But when you say there is a grasping at straws, this is an investigation where we are trying to find out the circumstances under 

which these U.S. attorneys were fired. Nobody at the DOJ seems 

to know who created the list or who put the names on the list. 

And that is the purpose of this hearing today, is to try to elicit 

some of the information regarding the performance—because performance was at one point given as the justification for the firing 

of some of these U.S. attorneys. 

Mr. Comey has——

Mr. CANNON. Reclaiming my time, which is about to expire, let 

me just point out that performance—we have been through the 

issue of the use of the term ‘‘performance.’’ And Mr. McNulty was 

very careful about saying that performance meant meeting the criteria of the Administration. 

And unfortunately that was taken—and there are a number of 

communications to indicate that people took particular offense at 

25

that idea of having their performance, their capability questioned. 

It seems to me——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. CANNON. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So ordered. 

Mr. CANNON. If the gentlelady’s argument is that we are trying 

to find out where this list came from, Mr. Comey actually may be 

relevant in a very narrow sense to that question, because he was 

there early in the discussions. 

I think what we have heard so far is that he wasn’t really involved in that, but that I think if we ask the gentleman we would 

find that he believes there was a process that was a significant 

process that generated a review. And that may be helpful. I don’t 

know that much else would be. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. The time of the gentleman has expired. And I will 

take the first few seconds of my third round of—oh, I am terribly 

sorry. I apologize. It is Mr. Watt’s turn to speak. 

Mr. Watt is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WATT. If the Chairlady would prefer me defer to her, I am 

happy to do that. But I was about to go exactly where Mr. Cannon 

has invited me to go——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Lead the way, Mr. Watt. Lead the way. 

Mr. WATT [continuing]. Which was to ask Mr. Comey whether, 

during the time that you were the deputy, did it ever occur that 

U.S. attorneys were terminated or asked to resign? And, if so, without identifying the individuals involved, could you describe what 

the process was that you followed? 

Mr. COMEY. Certainly. 

I remember two occasions on which we asked U.S. attorneys to 

resign. Both had engaged in what I considered serious misconduct. 

And one was when John Ashcroft was attorney general. The other 

was when Alberto Gonzales was the attorney general. 

In each instance, my recollection is that I spoke to the attorney 

general about the misconduct, laid it out. We discussed it and how 

serious it was and got his approval to have my senior staff member, David Margolis, who has been mentioned, place a call to this 

individual and suggest that he resign. 

And in both cases, that is what we did. I talked to my staff about 

it quite a bit, talked to the attorney general, then had Mr. Margolis 

place a call and tell the U.S. attorney that it was time to leave and 

explain why; that, given what had been found and the conduct that 

had been discovered, that it was not appropriate for them to remain in office. 

And one U.S. attorney resigned in response to that call. The 

other insisted on being fired by the president. And so we had the 

president actually fire him by letter. 

Mr. WATT. And in the course of that process, who would have the 

contact with the U.S. attorney? Would it be you at the deputy 

level? Would there be any discussions with the U.S. attorney who 

was being considered for termination about the allegations? 

Mr. COMEY. It was, in both instances, Mr. Margolis, who was associate deputy attorney general, and this was within his portfolio. 

He handled—used to call him the Turk. He handled discipline matVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:26 Jun 19, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\COMM\050307\35115.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35115
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ters and problematic appointees and investigations. And so, he 

spoke in each instance to the U.S. attorney, explained why we were 

asking for the resignation, went through it in some detail. 

Mr. WATT. So if in fact in October of 2006—or, it was reported 

that Senator Domenici, who, interestingly enough, had recommended Mr. Iglesias for his job, then decided that Mr. Iglesias 

was not ‘‘up to the job,’’ is what I understand he said—would there 

have been a discussion in this process that you had historically followed with Mr. Iglesias about that before a termination occurred? 

Or would you just up and fire Mr. Iglesias 1 day without that kind 

of discussion taking place? 

Mr. COMEY. I guess all I can speak to is what my experience was. 

And that is, in both of the cases where I was involved with doing 

that, terminating a U.S. attorney, there were extensive discussions 

with the U.S. attorney so they understood why we wanted them 

out. 

And the two I was involved with were—I am not going to go into 

it here—but were not close calls. I mean, these were, as soon as 

you read about it, you said, ‘‘This guy has got to go.’’

But we explained it, through Mr. Margolis, to both people in the 

two cases I was involved with. 

Mr. WATT. I will be happy to yield the balance of my time to the 

Chair. And she is next anyway, I believe, so she can just tack it 

on to her 5 minutes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate your yielding time, Mr. Watt. 

If a U.S. attorney was, in fact, fired for not following Administration priorities on some subject, but neither the U.S. attorney nor 

the first assistant or successor were told the reasons for the firing, 

would you expect that the firing would create a change in the priorities of that office, if neither one were informed of the reasons for 

the firing? 

Mr. COMEY. If they didn’t know about the concerns about the priorities? 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Yes, if somebody was just summarily dismissed, 

and there was no discussion that took place with the U.S. attorney 

nor their first assistant, who presumably would be the person in 

charge in the interim, if the reasons for their dismissal were never 

discussed, would you expect that there would be any change in priority in that office or ability to do better in the areas that were deficient of the person who was on the way out the door? 

Mr. COMEY. I suppose it would be hard for them to respond if 

they didn’t know what the message was that was being sent. So I 

guess the answer is, if I were the U.S. attorney being let go, I 

wouldn’t know what priorities to pass along to my first assistant. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Just recently, the Seattle Times reported that you 

had informal discussions with Attorneys General Ashcroft and 

Gonzales about underperforming U.S. attorneys. Is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I am going to offend my friends in the press. It 

was a bit of a garble by that reporter. 

I spoke to each of those attorneys general, their chiefs of staff, 

briefly about it. Mr. Ayres asked me in 2004, said, ‘‘Who do you 

think are the weakest U.S. attorneys?’’ I answered off the top of my 

head. And then Mr. Sampson in February of 2005 asked me basiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:26 Jun 19, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\COMM\050307\35115.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35115
27

cally the same question, almost in the same words, and I answered 

again off the top of my head. 

I never spoke to either Mr. Ashcroft or Mr. Gonzales about that 

subject. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So you spoke with their chiefs of staff. Did you 

identify to those chiefs of staff any of the U.S. attorneys who were 

fired in 2006 as underperforming, other than Mr. Ryan? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I don’t believe so. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Now, we all know, because it has been stated multiple times in many of the hearings that we have had, that the U.S. 

attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed by him as he sees fit. Is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. That is my understanding, yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Great. But in your view, would it be proper to seek 

the removal of a U.S. attorney in order to retaliate or to influence 

the bringing or the failure to bring cases to benefit a particular political party? Would that be proper? 

Mr. COMEY. In my view, it would not be. It ought not to be something that we do. And I don’t have any reason to believe that was 

done here. I don’t know the facts. But I would be concerned about 

that if that happened. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Right. We understand. Because you have stated, 

I think, previously that you didn’t have any information, one way 

or the other, to whether or not that played a role in the decision 

to terminate the six U.S. attorneys who testified before the Subcommittee earlier this year. 

Mr. COMEY. Correct. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. But in your view and to the best of your 

knowledge, were there valid, performance-based reasons to terminate any of these six U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. COMEY. Not in my experience with them. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So during your time——

Mr. COMEY. During my tenure, no. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Comey, returning to that 2005 list that we have been discussing this morning, although it is not reflected on the redacted 

version of the chart that you have in front of you, it has been reported that Patrick Fitzgerald of Illinois was listed on that chart 

in the middle category as someone who had not distinguished himself positively or negatively. 

What is your reaction to that rating? 

Mr. COMEY. I have never thought much of him. [Laughter.] 

No, I am just kidding. He is a very close friend of mine——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I think he will be shocked to hear that. 

Mr. COMEY. He is a very close friend of mine. I think he is one 

of the finest Federal prosecutors that there is and maybe has ever 

been. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So you would disagree with the assessment on 

that list that he hasn’t distinguished himself either positively or 

negatively? 

Mr. COMEY. Although I have enjoyed teasing him about it, it 

would not be where I would put him on the list. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay, thank you. 

28

It has also been reported that Steve Biskupic—I hope I pronounced that correctly—of Wisconsin was on an early list of U.S. 

attorneys for termination. Did you identify him to Mr. Sampson as 

a weak performer? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I think very highly of him. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

And in your view, what has been the message sent to and the 

effect on the morale of other U.S. attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys, in the Department of Justice as a result of the firing of the 

six U.S. attorneys who have testified before this Committee? 

Mr. COMEY. It is a big group, so it is hard to characterize in one 

sweeping statement. But, as I said, this is a hard time for folks at 

the department for a whole lot of reasons. And I think it is a time 

of great uncertainty and pain for people who love the Department 

of Justice. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

My final question. I want to actually just read you a part of an 

e-mail that has been provided to the Committee and that was apparently sent to you by Bud Cummins on March 8th relating to the 

firings. 

According to the text that we have been provided, you stated the 

following to Mr. Cummins: ‘‘You are a good man and have handled 

this maelstrom with great dignity. Watching it causes me great 

pain for the USAs whom I respect and the department which I 

love. Regardless, I will not sit by and watch good people smeared. 

What is that quotation about, ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent’?’’

[The e-mail follows:]

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Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Did you, in fact, tell Mr. Cummins that? 

Mr. COMEY. I did. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Comey. 

I have no further questions. 

Mr. Cannon? 

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Comey, I appreciate your humor there. [Laughter.] 

You have mentioned Mr. Margolis as a very competent person. 

Mr. CANNON. I am going to read some of the things that he has 

said recently, and I will think you will get another chuckle out of 

this as well. 

I don’t know if you are familiar with this at all, but Mr. Barrera 

to Mr. Margolis: ‘‘Do you have an understanding as to what Mr. 

Comey’s opinion of the performance of Mr. Iglesias was as a U.S. 

attorney? 

‘‘Mr. Margolis: Only by reading a quote from him’’—that is from 

you—’’in the newspaper. Mr. Barrera: Do you have an opinion on 

whether or not Mr. Comey as deputy attorney general—’’ Mr. 

Margolis interrupts and says, ‘‘I sense a softball coming. Just throw 

it out there.’’ [Laughter.] 

‘‘Mr. Barrera: Do you have an opinion on Mr. Comey’s evaluation 

of Mr. Iglesias as U.S. attorney? Mr. Margolis: Jim is very fair’’—

referring to you, Mr. Comey—‘‘very decent. I have to admit he is 

softer than I am on personnel judgments, but he certainly had a 

better basis to judge this guy than I did.’’

‘‘Mr. Barrera: Did you ever have any conversations with anyone 

in which you recall, prior to December 6, 2006, that Mr. Iglesias 

had any performance or conduct issues? Mr. Margolis: I don’t believe so, no.’’

‘‘Mr. Barrera: Did you at any time prior to December 7, 2006, understand that any elected officials, including Senator Domenici or 

Heather Wilson, had expressed concerns of any sort about Mr. 

Iglesias?’’

‘‘Mr. Margolis: No, I learned that subsequently. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that I am furious at Mr. Iglesias for not 

reporting this. And I don’t think I would be sitting here answering 

questions if he had reported that. Because the way we react at the 

department when something like that comes up is we run the other 

way to make sure nobody thinks we are fixing the case. So that is 

unforgivable. And his explanation was unforgivable. His explanation was, ‘Oh, this guy was my mentor.’ That is what we hold 

out as an independent U.S. attorney to the public. To say, ‘Oh, 

well, I am not going to follow the rules if I like this guy,’ or something like that, I am furious about that. Now that doesn’t mean I 

am not furious at the other party to the conversation, either. But 

I don’t expect as much of him. And I will just say that I know the 

other two parties very well, and I don’t believe that they would 

ever have done a phone call the way Mr. Iglesias characterized it.’’

So I think Mr. Margolis represents himself remarkably well as 

an advocate for the Department of Justice. I believe that you are 

laughing and I am laughing because here is a guy who actually 

loves an institution, doesn’t like to see it hurt as it is being hurt, 

is angry about the improper actions of at least one individual there. 

32

I don’t really expect a comment from you on this, although I 

think that it was worth a chuckle. And I think it helps put in perspective where we are going on this. 

And, in the end, what we are talking about is the major justice 

system in America; not the judiciary, which is important and independent, but the major process whereby we identify crime and 

prosecute significant crime in America. 

That is the important thing, and that is what justified, I think, 

the humor but also the anger. I used the term ‘‘furious’’ twice because it goes to the core of what we are doing as a society here. 

This is an issue I hope we can resolve quickly. 

And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back the time with the 

great hope that we can get to the core issues and all of us yield 

back our time and move on. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate the gentleman yielding back the balance of his time. 

Before we adjourn, because we have just been called to vote, I 

know Mr. Johnson has a series of questions very quickly he would 

like to run through. 

But before that, I am going to ask unanimous consent to enter 

into the record the e-mail from Kyle Sampson to Harriet Miers that 

we discussed in questioning this morning, the list in question of the 

U.S. attorneys who were evaluated, and also the e-mails from Mr. 

Comey to Mr. Cummins and the e-mail from Mr. Comey to Mr. 

Charlton. 

And without objection, so ordered. 

[The e-mail follows:]

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Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I will now recognize Mr. Johnson for final questions that he may have. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Comey, the Department of Justice has recently confirmed 

that the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Professional 

Responsibility are investigating whether partisan political tests 

were applied to the hiring of assistant United State attorneys in 

offices that were headed by interim or acting United States attorneys. 

If, in fact, there was partisan political tests that were applied in 

the hiring of those U.S. attorneys, what impact do you believe that 

would have on career professionals in the department, on the fair 

and impartial administration of our Federal criminal justice system? And what impact would it have on the public’s confidence in 

Federal criminal prosecutions, particularly in the area of political 

corruption? 

Mr. COMEY. That is, in my view, the most serious thing that I 

have heard come up in this entire controversy. If that was going 

on, that strikes at the core of what the Department of Justice is. 

You just cannot do that. 

You can’t hire assistant U.S. attorneys based on political affiliation, again, because it deprives the department of its lifeblood, 

which is the ability to stand up and have juries of all stripes believe what you say, and have sheriffs and judges and jailers and 

the people we deal with trust the Department of Justice. 

It just—that concerns me a great deal. I hope that didn’t happen. 

I hope the investigation turns out that it didn’t happen. But that 

is a very serious thing. 

U.S. attorneys are political appointees, as the Chairman said. 

They can be terminated for any reason. And I understood that I 

was a political appointee. But these AUSAs, they are the ones on 

whom the whole system rests. And we just cannot have that kind 

of political test. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, let me ask you, if it is established that assistant United States attorneys over the last few years have been 

hired on a partisan political basis, what remedies do you think 

should be implemented to eliminate or minimize the adverse impact of those improperly based hirings? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t have a suggestion at this point. I don’t. It is 

very troubling. I don’t know how you would put that genie back in 

the bottle, if people started to believe we were hiring our AUSAs 

for political reasons. I don’t know that there is any window you can 

go to get the department’s reputation back if that kind of stuff is 

going on. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Has any U.S. attorney expressed concerns to you 

about this problem since you left the department or even before 

you left the department? 

Mr. COMEY. A couple have said to me—when I said I had heard 

about it, rumors, a couple of them had said they had heard secondand third-hand that this was going on, and shared my concern. But 

I don’t have—and no one I spoke to had first-hand knowledge of 

it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Would you care to identify those who you had 

those discussions with? 

41

Mr. COMEY. I would love not to, because they were private conversations. I am not going to refuse the Committee’s request if it 

becomes important, but these are people who were talking to me 

about their concerns about the department. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Well, I am sure that that can be handled 

in a more sensitive way. 

But I have one last question: What kind of leadership and actions will have to take place at the department to ensure that future prosecutions are not tainted by improperly based hirings? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know the answer to that. A whole lot of time 

and a whole lot of good work will be necessary to heal that kind 

of wound. We have already seen some of it. 

I have said nice things about Steve Biskupic, the U.S. attorney 

in Milwaukee, who is an absolutely straight guy, but because of 

this controversy, people have questioned whether he prosecuted 

people who were Democrats for partisan reasons. And without even 

knowing the cases, I would absolutely know that wasn’t the case. 

But people started to doubt it, because of this controversy. 

So I don’t know what, other than time and people just in individual encounters doing it well and doing it well over and over 

again, will heal a wound like that. I hope there is not a wound like 

that. But if there is, it will be hard to fix. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Does the gentleman yield back? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, I yield back. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I would like to recognize Mr. Cannon, very briefly, 

because we have just under 10 minutes to get across for our vote. 

Mr. Cannon? 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I would just like to thank you for coming, Mr. Comey. I think you 

have put perfect balance on the importance of the Department of 

Justice, the effect of this inquiry on the morale of the Department 

of Justice, and the need to understand the issues—which, by the 

way, the gentleman has laid out very well. I appreciate those comments. That is where we ought to be going and deciding if those 

issues have been violated. 

And point out that, well, I don’t think we have made any 

progress at all on identifying the White House’s role in all this. I 

appreciate the directness and candor of your testimony, but it did 

not lead to where I think the majority was going on that. 

And what we have here is a consensus process of dealing with 

political appointees that happened over a significant period of time 

at a very senior level at the Department of Justice, and perhaps 

at the White House. And I suspect that, in the end, if there is a 

fair reporting of that, that is what the meaning of this hearing 

was. 

I would also hope that the press would pick up on not only your 

loyalty to the Department of Justice and your view of that as a 

very important institution in America, but also on the importance 

of what the department does and why it is important that we get 

beyond this inquiry. 

If there is wrongdoing, let’s find it, let’s find it quickly, and let’s 

identify it. And the minority has been very supportive in the process of doing that. 

42

But if that is not the case, let’s let people understand that we 

have great prosecutors in America who are not bent, who are not 

going to give Republicans or Democrats who are corrupt a break, 

and who will go forward and assure that our public institutions are 

institutions of integrity. 

I want to thank you for coming, Mr. Comey. I appreciate it very 

much. 

And yield back, Madam Chair. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Comey. I want to thank you for 

your testimony today. I think it has been very educational, understanding your evaluation of the U.S. attorneys and how that conflicts with the evidence on the list of those who were to be dismissed or to be retained. 

And I want to thank you for your service to this country at the 

Department of Justice. It is clear to me that you have earned the 

very stellar reputation that you have as being fair and just, and 

speaking up when you see things that need to be corrected. 

We are going to head across the street for votes. 

But, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit any additional written questions, which we will forward to 

the witness and ask that you answer as promptly as you can to be 

made a part of the record. 

Without objection, the record will remain open for 5 legislative 

days for the submission of any additional materials. 

Again, I want to thank everyone for participating, for their time 

and their patience. 

And this hearing of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

44

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS FROM JAMES B. COMEY,

FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE


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