Sens.Request Documents from Department of Justice

Honorable Alberto Gonzales

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

As you know, the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating the circumstances surrounding the replacement of a number of U.S. Attorneys last year. Among the issues central to the ongoing inquiry is whether there was a plan to remove otherwise well-performing federal prosecutors, install relatively inexperienced political loyalists, and bypass the Senate's constitutional role in confirming such officials.

As the investigation has revealed, there is substantial evidence that this was the case with respect to the situation in the Eastern District of Arkansas. In that case, testimony and documents have demonstrated that the removed U.S. Attorney, Bud Cummins, was asked to resign for no performance reason whatsoever; that his replacement, Tim Griffin, was selected in part because it was important to Karl Rove; and that officials at the highest levels of the Administration intended in bad faith to "run out the clock" on his nomination under a newly-passed provision in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, which allows you to make indefinite U.S. Attorney appointments without Senate approval.

Department officials have suggested that, apart from the Arkansas situation, U.S. Attorneys were not removed with an eye towards possible replacements. Last week, for example, in response to questions from Senator Schumer, your former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testified that neither he nor anyone else at the Department had any replacements in mind for any of the other seven U.S. Attorneys who were recently forced to resign, nor was there a pool of identified possibilities for those spots. On the other hand, several of the former U.S. Attorneys have stated that they were specifically told they were being asked to resign to provide opportunities for replacements to serve in those posts. Many of the e-mails and other documents produced to the Committee have had significant portions redacted. The redacted content can shed light on Department claims about potential replacements.

In order to assist the Committee in its inquiry, we ask that you immediately provide unredacted copies of all relevant documents. In addition to unredacted copies of documents previously produced in redacted form, we request that you provide unredacted copies of relevant documents that have been withheld from production. We are not satisfied by your selective production and unilateral redaction decisions.

The Committee's investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the replacement of U.S. Attorneys is important. We are trying to get to the truth. Documents should be provided without restrictions on disclosure so that they may be used to question witnesses -- including yourself -- on any issue that is an important part of our inquiry.

To date, you have not provided any valid legal basis for your redactions, for your limitations on production, or for the restrictions you have unilaterally imposed on their public disclosure. The March 28, 2007 letter from Mr. Hertling, expressing concerns about disclosure of unredacted information, does not even attempt to make a legal argument justifying those restrictions.

As you know, the Committee's upcoming agenda includes authorizing the Chairman to issue subpoenas for these documents. We sincerely hope that we can work this out cooperatively with the Department. Because we expect additional Department witnesses to be interviewed in the very near future, it is essential that you provide the requested material without further delay.

Sincerely,

PATRICK LEAHY

DIANNE FEINSTEIN

CHARLES SCHUMER