The Justice Department’s former second-ranking official offered effusive praise Thursday for many of the U.S. attorneys fired in a shake-up last year.
In one example, former Deputy Atty. Gen. James Comey said the department decided to scrap a recommendation to seek the death penalty in an Arizona case after the top federal prosecutor there argued that sparing the man would be in the interests of justice, particularly for the victim’s family members.
The prosecutor, Paul Charlton, was among eight U.S. attorneys whose dismissals have put the White House and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales on the defensive, with Congress alleging that the firings were carried out for partisan reasons.
In Charlton’s case, the Justice Department even alleged insubordination, citing his refusal to follow recommendations from department headquarters in death penalty cases.
But Comey, deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee that he welcomed the views of Charlton and other prosecutors in death cases. “You always want that input,” he said.
Comey said he was asked by Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Gonzales who helped orchestrate the firings, to identify weak-performing U.S. attorneys. He said only one of the names he gave Sampson, former U.S. Atty. Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, ended up on the final dismissal list.
