White House started US prosecutor firings-reports

WASHINGTON, Mar 13 (Reuters) The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 US attorneys, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved the idea of dismissing a smaller group after taking office last year, two major newspapers reported today.

Eight prosecutors were fired after President George W Bush spoke to Gonzales about complaints he received that some of them had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told the Washington Post and The New York Times.

The New York Times, citing an administration official, said Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president.

The White House had no immediate comment on the reports.

Perino said president Bush did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, according to the Times.

She said she had ''no indication'' that Mr Bush had been personally aware that a process was already under way to identify prosecutors who would be fired, the Times said.

But Perino disclosed that White House officials had consulted with the Justice Department in preparing the list of United States attorneys who would be removed, the Times reported.

Citing officials it did not identify, The Washington Post reported a top aide to Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, resigned on Monday after acknowledging that he did not tell Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House.

Sampson's omission led Justice officials to provide incomplete information to Congress, the Post said.

E-mails and internal documents that the administration will submit to Congress today indicated that then-White House counsel Harriet Miers suggested to Sampson in February 2005 that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced, the Post said.

Lawmakers investigating whether the firings were politically motivated requested the documents, the report said.

While it was not clear whether the documents would answer Congress's questions, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more closely involved in the dismissals, and at a much earlier date, than previously acknowledged, the Post said.

Although most of ousted prosecutors had received positive job reviews, the Justice Department has said they were largely dismissed because of employment-related matters or policy differences.

REUTERS SB KP1140