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House panel subpoenas ousted U.S. attorneys

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Times Staff Writer

A House subcommittee voted Thursday to subpoena four recently replaced U.S. attorneys as part of a widening probe into whether the Bush administration was politicizing the appointment of top prosecutors around the country.

The action marked the first major use of subpoena power by the new Democratic-controlled Congress, and begins to fulfill a pledge of the Democratic leadership to scrutinize administration policies.

The prosecutors, directed to appear at a hearing Tuesday, were among at least eight who were abruptly removed in recent months by the Justice Department. Officials have said they dismissed the lawyers primarily because of concerns over their performance, as well as policy differences over whether they were pursuing department priorities such as cases of immigration fraud and child exploitation.

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But the lawyers -- all appointees of President Bush -- have not gone quietly. They are publicly disputing the characterization the department has offered for their departures.

The result has been a political embarrassment for the White House and the Justice Department, and an odd spectacle of Democrats giving aid and comfort to Republican appointees.

The move by a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee came a day after the former U.S. attorney in Albuquerque said he believed he was dismissed for political reasons. David Iglesias said that two members of Congress had pressured him to bring corruption charges against a Democratic official in New Mexico before the November election but that he had resisted.

Also subpoenaed was Carol Lam, former U.S. attorney in San Diego, who oversaw the bribery case against former Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of Rancho Santa Fe. Lam’s office brought charges against two others in that case, including a former senior CIA official, two days before she left her job last month.

The other former prosecutors subpoenaed are John McKay of Seattle and H.E. “Bud” Cummins of Little Rock, Ark. The four prosecutors were first appointed by Bush in 2001 and 2002.

The subcommittee said all four had agreed to appear, and the Justice Department said it would send a top official to the hearing.

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The vote to issue the subpoenas illustrated a partisan divide: Republicans boycotted the proceeding; the seven Democrats present unanimously endorsed the move.

“The former U.S. attorneys are alleging very serious charges against the administration, and we need to hear from them,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “We want to hear their stories, and we want the administration to address the charges head-on.”

Conyers said the subpoenas were to be issued Thursday night.

“We decided to issue subpoenas only as a last resort,” said Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood), who chairs the commercial and administrative law subcommittee, which authorized the subpoenas and will hold the hearing. “We need to get to the bottom of whether competency in upholding the law is being sacrificed for political ideology.”

Democrats also fear that the Justice Department is trying to exploit a little-noticed change in federal law that gives U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales the power to appoint interim federal prosecutors through the end of the Bush administration without Senate confirmation.

The Justice Department has said that it had no intention of bypassing the confirmation process and would submit the names of replacements to the Senate for every vacancy that occurs. But legislation has been introduced in both houses to repeal the provision, which was included in legislation last year reauthorizing the Patriot Act.

Democrats also released a Congressional Research Service report surveying the reasons that U.S. attorneys did not serve out their terms. The report studied 54 cases of prosecutors who were appointed between 1981 and 2006. The bulk left to take other official positions such as judgeships or to pursue careers in private law practice.

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The report identified five cases in which attorneys were forced to resign. The dismissed included a prosecutor in Florida who was caught on videotape grabbing a Jacksonville television reporter by the throat, and another Florida prosecutor who, the report said, allegedly “bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club after losing a big drug case.”

rick.schmitt@latimes.com

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