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WASHINGTON - D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, testified Thursday that he had multiple discussions with his boss about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, and Gonzales' contrary statements are inaccurate.
The Utah native's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee appears to further erode Gonzales' credibility, which has prompted members of Congress from both parties to call for him to step down.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he wasn't involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate," Sampson said. "I feel like I kept him generally aware and as the process came to a decision point, he approved the idea of going forward."
Sampson verified that Gonzales took part in a 20-minute meeting in November when the final decision was made to dismiss the U.S. attorneys, but he does not recall writing any memos for his former boss.
The 37-year-old Brigham Young University graduate and former aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch resigned his post March 12. The next day, Gonzales told reporters he had no knowledge of details of the discussions to fire the U.S. attorneys.
The conflicting accounts from Sampson and Gonzales pose "a real question as to whether [Gonzales] is acting in a competent way as attorney general," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told The Associated Press.
Hatch, R-Utah, defended the attorney general, saying he had clarified his earlier remarks and they were not inconsistent with Sampson's testimony.
"For us to try to hang the man in the press and everywhere else for not understanding every aspect of this . . . I think is wrong," Hatch said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that she understands ''how people can have different recollections, and I'm going to have to let the attorney general speak for himself."
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Thursday that Gonzales had already clarified his earlier statements that he had no knowledge of the details of the plan to fire the U.S. attorneys.
In a March 26 interview, Gonzales said that Sampson gave him the impression "from time to time" that the process was ongoing. But Gonzales said he "was never focused on specific concerns about United States attorneys as to whether or not they should be asked to resign."
Sampson weathered a barrage of questions from senators. He maintained he was not the final authority on which U.S. attorneys to replace, but was an "aggregator" of information from various senior Justice officials. He identified Gonzales and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as the "decision-makers."
He repeatedly experienced memory lapses, explaining that he simply did not remember specific e-mails or meetings that senators had inquired about.
At one point, early in the hearing, Leahy lamented that "we're trying to find out what in Heaven's name he does remember."
But nearly eight hours after he raised his hand to take an oath as news photographers swarmed him, Sampson said that, "In hindsight, I wish the department hadn't gone down this road at all."
Sampson, the first official to testify under oath since documents showed the scope of the ouster of federal prosecutors, said, "This episode has been personally devastating to me and my family" and he hoped that by appearing before the committee he could put it behind him.
The bishop of his northern Virginia LDS ward sat at the witness table alone. Aside from his written testimony, Sampson answered questions without the benefit of notes.
Specter said the episode has left the Justice Department in disrepair and forced U.S. attorneys to question whether they will be asked to resign if they exercise their discretion.
Sampson's testimony showed that the White House closely followed the process for compiling the list. He said he had frequent discussions with Miers, whose office ultimately signed off on the firings. Sampson said he did not know if the president was personally notified.
Specter reiterated his wish to hear testimony from Miers, Rove and their aides, "candidly, sooner rather than later."
Sampson revealed for the first time Thursday that at one point in 2006 he suggested adding the name of the prosecutor handling the investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame to a list of U.S. attorneys who could be fired.
In a meeting with Miers and her deputy, "I said Patrick Fitzgerald could be added to this list" of U.S. attorneys who could be replaced, Sampson recalled. "Immediately after I did it, I regretted it."
Critics of the administration allege that Plame's CIA position disclosure was part of an effort to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, after Wilson challenged the Bush administration's evidence for claiming Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. Fitzgerald's investigation eventually led to the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, for lying to federal officials.
Sampson told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that as soon as he mentioned Fitzgerald's name, Miers and her deputy ''looked at me like I had said something totally inappropriate'' and he withdrew the idea. Nobody took it seriously or acted on it, he said.
On an earlier rating of all 93 U.S. attorneys, Sampson had not rated Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney for Illinois, at all. "I knew Mr. Fitzgerald was handling a very sensitive case and I didn't want to rate him one way or the other," Sampson said.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said even suggesting firing Fitzgerald was "really a hare-brained scheme that could have blown up even more than the firing of the U.S. attorneys has.''
Sampson said that, in his mind, there was never any connection between the firings and ongoing public corruption investigations that the prosecutors were handling.
But in at least the case of David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico, Sampson conceded that, based on the case presented at the hearing, he would not have made the decision to include him among the U.S. attorneys who were dismissed.
Iglesias had earlier been pegged by Sampson as a "diverse up-and-comer, solid." But he was added to the list of targeted U.S. attorneys late in the process, in October 2006, following complaints from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to the attorney general and other complaints passed on to Gonzales by Rove.