JUSTICE DEPT. ATTEMPTED TO CURB FALLOUT
WASHINGTON — As the scandal over the firing of a select group of U.S. attorneys was building two weeks ago, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department tried to persuade one of those being removed that Washington was not out to ruin their reputations.
According to new documents released Monday, Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul J. McNulty told Margaret M. Chiara of Grand Rapids, Mich., that "our only choice is to continue to be truthful about the entire matter," and in an e-mail sought to explain the official Bush administration position that the eight federal prosecutors were being let go for performance reasons.
"The word 'performance' obviously has not set well with you and your colleagues," McNulty conceded. "By that word we only meant to convey that there were issues about policy, priorities and management/leadership that we felt were important to the department's effectiveness."
Chiara was complaining vigorously that she was not being given a reasonable answer for her termination. McNulty's attempts to calm the prosecutor came as the other U.S. attorneys were about to testify before Senate and House committees that they were not given sound reasons for their dismissals.
Chiara's complaints and McNulty's e-mail were found in more than 3,000 pages of new documents delivered late Monday night by the Justice Department to congressional panels, about 1,000 of which were made public. The remaining pages are expected to be made public today.
The documents show that Justice Department officials have been scrambling over the last two months to control the amount of damaging fallout and negative publicity from the widening scandal, even lamenting at one point that "we just want the stories to die."
Testimony on March 6 from the dismissed U.S. attorneys prompted charges from Democrats that the firings were politically motivated, and it has led to repeated calls for the resignations of McNulty and his boss, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.
On Monday, names began surfacing as possible replacements for Gonzales as speculation increased that he would not be in the post much longer.
People close to the administration said that any list of possible candidates would include Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft; and Theodore B. Olson, the solicitor general under Ashcroft.
