Targeted U.S. attorneys defend their records

18 May 2007 // A U.S. attorney in Florida whose name appeared on a Justice Department firing list received commendations from the Justice Department and White House even as he was being targeted for removal.

U.S. Attorney Gregory Miller of Tallahassee said Friday that the awards and praise he'd received over the years showed that his job performance couldn't have caused him to be targeted for dismissal. When controversy over the firings of U.S. attorneys erupted earlier this year, Justice Department officials initially said the dismissals were justified by the attorneys' performances.

"During the entire time period, I didn't hear anything negative from the Justice Department," Miller said.

Instead, he got an award presented by the Justice Department's No. 2 official and a December 2004 letter from then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card for "contributions you have made to this administration and this country."

"The President and Mrs. Bush and the Vice President and Mrs. Cheney are grateful for the countless hours you have devoted to serving the American people," Card wrote.

A year later, Justice Department officials put him on a list as someone they might fire. Miller said he didn't know why he was targeted nor why he was spared.

Congressional investigators are looking into whether U.S. attorneys were targeted because they didn't weigh partisan politics when deciding whether to pursue sensitive prosecutions involving allegations of public corruption or voter fraud. At least two of the eight U.S. attorneys whom the administration fired last year have said they thought that their decisions not to prosecute voter-fraud cases may have led to their firings. Several of them were overseeing corruption probes into the conduct of Republican officials when they were fired.

Most of the fired U.S. attorneys had positive job reviews.

Others, like Miller once targeted but who remain in their jobs, are as puzzled as he is about why they were on the list.

Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said there was "no logical reason" that her name would appear on the firing list. She said "it also makes no sense considering the Department of Justice has called upon me often during the past five years to serve in a variety of noteworthy positions."

David L. Huber, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, expressed support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales even though Huber was on the list too.

"I have not been asked to resign," he said in a statement. "As a matter of fact, I have never had at any time a conversation of any sort, including e-mail or written correspondence, with anyone in the Department of Justice about my job performance or being on any type of list - period."

Miller's office handled three voter-fraud cases, but he said his office was never pressured to pursue such cases. Federal agents had brought the cases forward after they discovered that immigrants had illegally registered to vote.

"We weren't telling agents to dig up voter-fraud cases," he said.

Ion Sancho, the supervisor of elections in Tallahassee, Fla., told McClatchy Newspapers on Thursday that Miller's office had asked for a copy of a database of registered voters. But Sancho corrected himself Friday, saying an immigration official had requested the database last August, not a federal prosecutor.

Next week, Democrats will push the House of Representatives and the Senate to vote for resolutions of "no confidence" in Gonzales. On Monday, Reps. Artur Davis, D-Ala., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., both former assistant U.S. attorneys, will introduce a resolution of no confidence in Gonzales before the House.

Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, a former Colorado attorney general, added his voice Friday to those calling for Gonzales to resign.

He hailed Gonzales as representative of "the American dream" because he's the child of poor immigrants. But in a phone call Friday, Salazar said, he told the attorney general that "I no longer had the confidence in his ability to lead."