WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, seeking to clear the air surrounding the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, is expected to face tough new questions today on Capitol Hill about the Justice Department's replacement of top prosecutors in two other battleground states.
Among other topics, members of the House Judiciary Committee are expected to ask Gonzales about turmoil in the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, where a young lawyer, Rachel Paulose, has generated controversy since she was named in 2006 to replace a department veteran, Tom Heffelfinger, who had served under both President Bush and his father.
Lawmakers also want to know whether another former U.S. attorney, Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo., was forced out last year for not endorsing a voter-fraud lawsuit against Missouri in November 2005. That suit was launched by his successor, a conservative voting-rights advocate from Justice Department headquarters. It was dismissed by a court as baseless.
Heffelfinger, who resigned in February 2006, has said he did so voluntarily and was not aware of any pressure to leave. But congressional staffers confirm that his name appeared at one point on the list of U.S. attorneys to be removed.
Graves departed the following month, and has declined to discuss the circumstances of his departure. "What is going on now in D.C. is a three-ring circus, and I don't want anything to do with it," Graves said in a statement.
Neither man was among the eight U.S. attorneys whose dismissals last year have sparked allegations of political meddling by the White House and Justice Department in corruption investigations and voter fraud cases.
But both worked in states that had close Senate elections in November. Some Democrats have suggested that the Bush administration tried to manipulate Justice Department prosecutions to help tilt close races toward Republicans.
And both were apparently facing pressures from Washington late in their tenures. Justice Department e-mails released to congressional investigators in recent weeks indicate that other U.S. attorneys, who were not identified, would have been recommended for dismissal -- if they had not resigned first.
Justice Department officials had unspecified "concerns" about Heffelfinger, according to a lawyer familiar with testimony given to congressional investigators who declined to be identified because the testimony is sealed.
