Reader Question: What's the Deal With Clinton's Fired U.S. Attorneys?

Brad in California asks, "Dan Bartlett today said that Clinton fired all U.S. attorneys but that the Bush administration chose only to fire eight. Is it possible that his comparison is between the beginning of Clinton's first term and the beginning of Bush's second term?"

We turned to U.S. News chief legal correspondent Chitra Ragavan for an answer:

"Yes," Ragavan says. "In 1993, Clinton fired all his U.S. attorneys, and there was a Republican outcry that it was motivated to suppress investigations into prominent Democrats, including Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, and into Clinton's own controversial financial dealings. But that was at the start of Clinton's first term. This time around, the firings are of Bush's own appointees, in his second term."

"Also, Kyle Sampson (who resigned this week) opposed then White House counsel Harriet Miers's idea of a mass purging, reminding her of what had happened in 1993 with Clinton and how angry the Republicans were," she adds. "He wanted to avoid a similar outcome, according to Justice Department E-mails."