Sampson says attorney general, White House counsel decided on firing prosecutors

WASHINGTON — D. Kyle Sampson, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, insisted that there was no concentrated effort to ask U.S attorneys to resign based on cases they were working on or any other inappropriate reasons.

Sampson, who resigned as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff earlier this month, took responsibility for the mismanagement of the Justice Department's communications with Congress on why it fired eight attorneys last year. But Sampson repeatedly reminded the panel that he was only the "aggregator" of the list of attorneys to be terminated.

Sampson said he collected information from senior officials at the department and the White House, and they looked at which attorneys had regular four-year terms that were expiring.

"I don't remember ever hearing or observing anything about, that connected the notion of asking a U.S. attorney to resign with influencing a particular case for political reasons," Sampson said.

The attorney list, as well as Congressional testimony about the firings that is also under congressional scrutiny, were circulated through the Justice Department and the White House, he said.

Sampson also said Gonzales was aware of the plan to get rid of some attorneys. He characterized Gonzales' previous statements that he was not involved in any of the discussions as "inaccurate."

"The decision makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president," he told panel. "I made recommendations, some of them were adopted and some of them weren't."

Sampson, a Utah native, appeared voluntarily before the committee today where he is still undergoing tough questioning by panel's member about what happened as the department compiled this list of attorneys to be fired — and the White House's involvement in the situation.

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