This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Karl Rove, the top political adviser to the president. Alberto Gonzales, attorney general of the United States. Harriet Miers, former White House counsel. D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff for Gonzales. That's the list, for starters. Congress needs to line them up and march them in and get to the bottom of what's going on at the Department of Justice.

The preliminary evidence gathered in a burgeoning congressional investigation seems to indicate collusion between the White House and the Department of Justice in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

It appears, according to testimony at Senate Judiciary Committee hearings last week and documents requested by Congress, that the firings were politically motivated. It looks like Gonzales and his gang, instead of being independent champions of the Constitution and fearless enforcers of federal law, are little more than political hacks for the Bush administration.

It began in February 2005, when then-White House counsel Miers suggested to Sampson, who was Gonzales' chief of staff, that the Justice Department clean house by replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys, mimicking a mass-firing engineered by the Clinton administration in 1993. The idea was rejected by Gonzales and Sampson as being too disruptive, but it was not forgotten.

Nearly a year later, in January 2006, Sampson wrote Miers offering to "work together" to target a "limited number" of U.S. attorneys for "removal and replacement."

A list was drafted and redrafted and drafted again, seemingly, as judged by Department of Justice-generated performance rankings from March 2005, without regard to ability or performance.

A common denominator among some, it would appear, was a tendency to act independently, without regard for Bush administration and Republican Party priorities like prosecuting border enforcement infractions and voter registration fraud.

A Seattle-based prosecutor who was fired was asked by Miers why he "mishandled" a voter fraud case. A New Mexico attorney was added to the list after Rove, at the request of GOP lawmakers, relayed complaints about failure to indict Democrats for voter fraud. An Arkansas attorney was removed to make space for a former Rove aide.

Congress needs to keep on digging. It needs to draft a list of its own, a witness list, and issue subpoenas if necessary. And if the early evidence turns out to be true, Gonzales and company should be buried in the political graveyard.