WASHINGTON — U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales last year gave two of his aides who now are embroiled in the U.S. attorneys affair the power to select dozens of political appointees in the Justice Department, documents show.
In a previously undisclosed move, Gonzales approved an order in March 2006 that delegated to his chief of staff and the department's White House liaison broad authority over 135 department positions designated for political appointees, a copy of the order obtained by The Times shows.
Their authority did not cover high-level positions that required Senate confirmation, such as the 93 U.S. attorneys.
Gonzales' chief of staff at the time was D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned in March after it became known that he was the point man on the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.
Not long after the order was signed, the position of White House liaison was filled by Monica M. Goodling, a former Justice Department public affairs officer. She recently resigned because of disclosures about her role in the firings.
Some Democrats on Capitol Hill, where two committees are investigating allegations of improper political interference at the Justice Department, said they were troubled by the disclosure and how Sampson and Goodling might have exercised their powers.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said the Gonzales memo should have been turned over to Congress as part of document requests made in the U.S. attorney inquiry.
The order, first reported Monday by the National Journal, was downplayed by the Justice Department and other observers. They said it merely made official a long-standing department practice of involving staff members in filling the political ranks that ebb and flow with changing administrations.
Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said the attorney general remained responsible for the staff appointments.
"The order gives the chief of staff and the White House liaison the authority to execute certain decisions regarding hiring and termination of some noncareer employees with, as the memo states, the approval of the attorney general," he said.
Others said it was unremarkable that politics would come into play in the selection of political appointees.
