Daily Press News Editor
MONTROSE — The firing of eight U.S. attorneys was poorly handled, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said. However, he was not convinced the terminations should necessarily lead to the resignation of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
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Suthers was in town to deliver the keynote address for the Montrose County Republicans’ annual Lincoln Day Dinner. He spoke to the Daily Press just before the dinner.
U.S. attorneys are appointed and serve at the sitting president’s pleasure. But Congressional Democrats are alleging eight attorneys sacked last December were dismissed for political reasons, not their performance.
According to the Associated Press, the White House initially claimed former Counsel and onetime Supreme Court nominee Harriet Meirs first floated the idea of the terminations. Friday, after e-mails revealing the role of political advisor Karl Rove surfaced, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said he wasn’t going to vouch for the suggestion’s origination.
A vote on whether to subpoena Rove, Meirs and others was pending Friday, while GOP support for Gonzales was slipping, the AP reported.
“I don’t necessarily think he should resign; I do think it was poorly handled,” Suthers said of Gonzales.
Suthers, a former U.S. attorney himself, said the targeted attorneys of his acquaintance were good at their jobs. “I knew every single second I was a U.S. attorney appointed by the president, the president could call me and say, ‘Hey. You’re done.’ Having said that, this was not well handled.”
Suthers said even if the White House felt it had cause to fire the attorneys, it apparently reacted badly to the handful who declined to go quietly.
“It does sound they had problems with some of them not marching to the drummer in terms of what the main justice was proposing...but where I think they really screwed up is ... in the reaction to the one or two of them who did not (accept termination), they suggested that all of them were under-performers.”
Suthers said that contention flew in the face of what an audit performed by the executive office of U.S. attorneys had found.
“Those audits showed some of these people were outstanding performers and they had no choice, in my opinion, but to defend themselves.” He said the audits furnished those attorneys with documentary evidence contradicting the White House’s stance.
“If they moved out a guy doing a good job just to put in Karl Rove’s lieutenant, I think that’s unfortunate,” Suthers said.
“I think they have a right to do it, but that’s not what the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be all about. You ought to be getting highly competent prosecutors and giving them adequate discretion.”
It’s only been since FDR’s time that the federal Attorney General has been given supervisory authority over U.S. attorneys, Suthers said.
“But it’s clear by the oath, these guys are supposed to be able to exercise an appropriate amount of discretion. I think over the last 50 years, not just with Bush, the main justice is starting to micromanage U.S. attorneys more and more and more.”
Suthers said the recent scandal could result in a reduction in such micromanagement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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