Gonzales's Statements Differ From Former Chief of Staff's, Documents Show
In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, will contradict key Gonzales statements, including Gonzales's characterization of him as a lone wolf who withheld from him and other senior leadership the deliberations that led to the controversial U.S. attorney firings.
"I always carried out my responsibilities with respect to U.S. attorneys in an open and collaborative manner," Sampson will say in his written testimony, a copy of which was obtained by U.S. News. "Others in the department knew what I knew about the origins and timing of this enterprise."
Sampson's testimony is crucial to unraveling the truth behind the prosecutor firings, because he is the principal "who" in this convoluted whodunit, engaging in extensive conversations with White House lawyers; developing a strategy for firing the U.S. attorneys and for using a special provision to enable his boss, Gonzales, to pick interim replacements without the Senate's OK; selecting and finalizing those who were to be axed; and devising and managing the internal communications campaign to respond to congressional inquiries about the firings.
Today, Sampson will try to quell the suspicions that the Bush administration fired the U.S. attorneys in order to improperly slow, squelch, or otherwise interfere with politically sensitive public corruption cases, even as he offers up a mea culpa over how the congressional inquiry was mishandled.
The decision to fire the prosecutors was "properly made but poorly explained," Sampson will say. "This is a benign rather than sinister story," Sampson will testify, "and I know that some may be indisposed to accept it."
Sampson will also say that the department's response to Congress was "badly mishandled" through "an unfortunate combination of poor judgments, poor word choices, and poor communication and preparation."
Sampson will apologize for turning what should have been a routine process of assuring members that "nothing untoward occurred" into "an ugly, undignified spectacle" that resulted in "confusion, misunderstanding, and embarrassment." And he'll apologize to his former colleagues, including the fired U.S. attorneys.
However, Sampson will justify the reasons for firing the U.S. attorneys, saying that while the prosecutors are "good people," the president has the right to ask for their resignation "for almost any reason, with no public or private explanation."
Gonzales and his senior aides have vacillated over whether the firings resulted from politics or the prosecutors' performance. Sampson will say that the distinction between the two is, in his view, "largely artificial." A prosecutor who is "unsuccessful from a political perspective," says Sampson, because of alienating bosses at headquarters, or who "cannot work constructively" with agencies and law enforcement partners, "is unsuccessful."
Sampson will say that he honed his list over two years, after extensive consultations with senior Justice officials, and took potential names off the list if any of these officials felt that they ought to be removed. None of the prosecutors were made to resign, Sampson will emphasize, or was asked to do so for "an improper reason."
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