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Six U.S. Attorneys Given 2nd Posting in Washington
Michael J. Sullivan, U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, left, seen here with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in Boston in March, also serves as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
(By Stephan Savoia -- Associated Press)
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At the moment, at least six sitting U.S. attorneys, including Mercer and Sullivan, also hold senior spots at Justice. Each prosecutor continues to draw a regular U.S. attorney's salary and is not paid extra for the executive position, Roehrkasse said.
The most prominent example is Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who was named special prosecutor in the CIA leak case in December 2003. Others include U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh, also the acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, and U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor of Connecticut, who is also an associate deputy attorney general in Washington coordinating anti-gang policies.
The most recent addition is U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria, who was named last month as the new chief of staff to the attorney general. Gonzales's previous chief aide, D. Kyle Sampson, resigned in the fallout over the U.S. attorney firings, which he coordinated.
Mercer currently wears two hats as the U.S. attorney in Montana and as third-in-command at Justice, behind Gonzales and his deputy, Paul J. McNulty. Mercer has been pulling double duty since June 2005, when he was first appointed to a different executive position at Justice headquarters.
His regular absence from the U.S. attorney's office in Billings has caused severe friction between Mercer and U.S. District Chief Judge Donald W. Molloy, a Clinton appointee. Molloy wrote a letter to Gonzales in October 2005 demanding that Mercer be replaced.
Molloy wrote that Mercer's absence had led to "a lack of leadership" in the Montana office and created "untoward difficulties for the court" and for career prosecutors. The judge also questioned whether Mercer complied with residency requirements.
Gonzales wrote back the next month that Mercer was handling both jobs admirably, and suggested that Mercer's absence would be short-lived.
Relations between Mercer and Molloy have not improved since. Molloy berated Mercer during a court hearing last year, accusing him of bringing weak cases to court to pump up statistics and telling him: "You have no credibility -- none."
"Your lawyers are not getting their briefs in on time," Molloy said. "You're in Washington, D.C., and you ought to be here in Montana doing your work. Your office is a mess."
Molloy declined to comment last week.
Mercer has figured prominently in the U.S. attorney firings, in part because he told prosecutors in Arizona and Nevada they were being removed to make way for new Republican loyalists.
Roehrkasse said Mercer has "effectively served" in his simultaneous postings but that "Congress should move forward quickly to confirm his nomination, which has been pending for eight months." Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated they will not proceed on the appointment until after the panel's probe of the U.S. attorney firings is completed.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
