United States Attorney

When Daniel G. Bogden was named by President Bush to be the U.S. attorney for Nevada, it was the culmination of a career dream for a man steeped in public law -- he had worked as a judge advocate general for the Air Force, a deputy district attorney in Reno and chief of the U.S. attorney's branch office in Reno. But his five-year tenure came to what Bogden describes as a "sudden, shocking" end in December, when he took a phone call from Michael A. Battle, director of the executive office of U.S.

The White House reaffirmed its support Saturday for embattled Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales after a newly released Justice Department memo showing he joined in a meeting about plans to fire several U.S. attorneys. Gonzales' participation in the November meeting could indicate he played a larger role in the dismissal process than he has said. Some Democrats have therefore intensified calls that Gonzales resign.

Not long after President Bush was first sworn in, White House political guru Karl Rove and his lieutenants met with officials of nearly every Cabinet agency to brief top officials on the latest polling data and issues that could influence voters and key constituencies. But the departments of Justice, Defense and State were exempt.

As a U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., Margaret Chiara, who once studied to become a nun, appealed several times to the Justice Department against having to seek the death penalty. In hindsight, for her it was a risky business. No prisoner has been executed in a Michigan case since 1938, but the Bush administration seemed determined to change that. Under Attys. Gen. John Ashcroft and Alberto R.

Three Republican senators joined Democrats on Sunday in saying that the credibility of Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales had been badly undercut by his confused and seemingly contradictory statements on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. "He has said some things that just don't add up," Senate Judiciary Committee member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "The attorney general has been wounded. He's going to have to come to the Senate to reestablish his credibility."

Saying he wanted to be "more precise" about what he had done, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales acknowledged Monday that he had a role in approving an aide's recommendation to dismiss several U.S. attorneys last year, but he denied that he was involved in the process of identifying which individual prosecutors should be replaced.

The former Justice Department official who orchestrated the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year plans to tell Congress today that such dismissals are appropriate when prosecutors prove ineffective from "a political perspective." In his first public remarks on the firings, D. Kyle Sampson says the process of identifying underperforming U.S. attorneys "was not scientific nor was it extensively documented," according to testimony prepared for delivery to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Three years ago, D. Kyle Sampson took some time off as a top Bush administration lawyer to try his first and only criminal case. It was a federal drug prosecution in South Florida, where the defendant also was cited as a felon with a firearm. Earlier, as a junior lawyer in a Salt Lake City law firm, Sampson assisted in a "handful" of civil cases, usually taking a second chair to more seasoned trial attorneys.

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Friday defended his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys following damaging testimony from his former chief of staff that Gonzales gave inaccurate accounts of his involvement in the matter. In Boston to attend an event on preventing sexual exploitation of children, the attorney general told reporters that he wasn't involved in talks over which individual prosecutors to dismiss.

The White House on Sunday called on Senate Democrats to move up the appearance of Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying the longer the scandal continued over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the more damage would be done to federal law enforcement operations around the country.