Ashcroft's Way
America's top cop has been demonized and lionized. He's a complex guy all right, just not the guy everyone thinks he is
Some of Ashcroft's difficulties may be the result of his management style. Like a CEO of a major corporation, the attorney general believes his job is not to micromanage but to offer big-picture, results-oriented leadership--what he likes to call "noble inspiration." But the hierarchical structure his political aides have instituted to accommodate that style has isolated Ashcroft from his employees, several Justice officials say. Says a former career official who worked for Reno and Ashcroft and respects both: "It's like forgetting your customers." The implications, however, are real. When Ashcroft took office, his political aides, chief of staff David Ayres and deputy chief of staff David Israelite, known as "The Davids," instituted a system of using mainly phones and E-mails to seek information from career staff, then funnel that information to Ashcroft. But he was so overworked, especially after 9/11, that fewer and fewer career attorneys ever saw the AG, and many say decision making within the department became increasingly opaque. "You didn't know how the decision was made," says the former career official. "You couldn't challenge it because there was no one to talk to."
As Ashcroft has settled into his job, however, those who have had the opportunity to get close to him have been impressed. Last year, prosecutors working in Roscoe Howard's office in Washington were exhausted by a 10-month trial of a violent drug kingpin. "Ashcroft learned about it," Howard recalls, "and he made a personal call to each one of them." An ardent sports fan who owns a Michael Jordan bat from the superstar's brief baseball career, Ashcroft regularly organizes basketball matches with visiting U.S. attorneys in the FBI gym across the street. Despite his age, says Chertoff, the former criminal division chief, "he's strong under the boards." A fierce competitor on the court, Ashcroft is a softie off it, aides say, springing for ice cream for the losing side. "What's frustrating is that some of the public perception is exactly wrong," says his colleague Dan Bryant, assistant attorney general for legal policy. "The reality is that he has a fundamental regard for people."
But few have had a chance to see that side of Ashcroft. What junior staffers saw was what they considered politicization of the civil servant ranks. Ashcroft's aides announced that they would personally sign off on all career staff bonuses and on new attorney hires. "The assumption," says the former official, " is that they were going to fill the vacancies with attorneys who were Republicans." Even the interns were vetted for Republican pedigree, sources say. Veteran career staffers perceived as loyal to Reno were pushed out or detailed to what they joked were "re-education camps," U.S. attorneys' offices in remote locations. In a letter to the Washington Post late last year, a former career manager, Richard Ugelow, said Ashcroft had "summarily removed and transferred five career managers, including myself," and accused the attorney general of "disdain and utter contempt for career Department of Justice attorneys."
Ashcroft says he is just being a tough manager. "In computers, they say `garbage in, garbage out.' Well, frankly, we need to get the very best possible people," Ashcroft said. The antipathy bubbled over when the department's most senior career official, Stephen Colgate, retired and delivered an emotional farewell address, praising Reno. "A lot of people had a poker face. But inside, they were saying, `You go, Steve!' " says a former official.
advertisement
