Gonzales Lied: Documents show Gonzales approved firings
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070324/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutorsGONZALES: As we can all imagine, in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice, nor am I aware of all decisions.
As a general matter, some two years ago, I was made aware that there was a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the United States attorneys.
That was immediately rejected by me. I felt that that was a bad idea and it was disruptive.
GONZALES: What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not as strong performers and weak performers. And so, as far as 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.
But, again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department.
But that is, in essence, what I knew about the process.
I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general.
GONZALES: I just described the extent of the knowledge I had about the process. I never saw documents.
We never had a discussion about where things stood.What I knew was that there was an ongoing effort that was led by Mr. Sampson vetted through the Department of Justice to ascertain where we could make improvements in U.S. attorney performances around the country.