US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several attorneys in a November meeting, according to newly released documents that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.
The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney-general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late on Friday.
There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week amid a political firestorm surrounding the firings.
The five-step plan involved notifying Republican home-state senators of the impending dismissals, preparing for potential political upheaval, naming replacements and submitting them to the Senate for confirmation.
The documents released on Friday indicated that the hour-long discussion, held in the attorney-general's conference room, was the only time Gonzales met with top aides who decided which prosecutors to fire and how to do it.
Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said it was not immediately clear whether Gonzales gave his final approval to begin the firings at that meeting.
Scolinos also said Gonzales was not involved in the process of selecting which prosecutors would be asked to resign.
On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.
"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers -- where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew," Gonzales said last week.
"But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos; was not involved in any discussions about what was going on," he said. "That's basically what I knew as the attorney-general."
"I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated," he added.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who is leading the inquiry into the firings, said: "If the facts bear out that Attorney-General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as attorney-general."
The documents were released a few hours after Sampson agreed to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight US attorneys last year.
Asked to explain the difference between Gonzales' comments and his schedule, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse sidestepped the question by saying Gonzales had relied on Sampson to draw up the plans on the firings.
"The attorney-general has made clear that he charged Mr. Sampson with directing a plan to replace US attorneys where for one reason or another the department believed that we could do better," the spokesman said. "He was not, however, involved at the levels of selecting the particular US attorneys who would be replaced."
Gonzales this week directed the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the circumstances of the firings, officials said. The department's inspector general also will participate in that investigation.
Democrats nonetheless pounced late on Friday.
"This puts the attorney-general front and center in these matters, contrary to information that had previously been provided to the public and Congress," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said.
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