Almost exactly two months apart, two different Justice Department officials (one current, one former) appeared before the same House subcommittee in the same room in the Rayburn office building to talk about the same topic -- the performance of U.S. attorneys.
On March 6, William E. Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney general, laid out the official reasons for the firings of six of the eight U.S. attorneys who were dismissed last year.
Yesterday, former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, whose job for more than two years included overseeing the U.S. attorneys, also appeared before the Judiciary subcommittee conducting the investigation into the firings and painted a dramatically different picture of those U.S. attorneys.
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Here are Moschella's explanations for the firings, followed by Comey's impressions of the prosecutors:
On DANIEL BOGDEN OF LAS VEGAS
Moschella: "The general sense in the department about Mr. Bogden is that, given the importance of the district, in Las Vegas, there was no particular deficiency. There was interest in seeing renewed energy and renewed vigor in that office, really taking it to the next level."
Comey: "He is as straight as a Nevada highway, and a fired-up guy. ... We chose places to
that were experiencing a spike in violent crime. But not every place that was experiencing a spike in violent crime; we wanted to put it where we had a fired-up U.S. attorney who could watch over it and make it work. ... he had made tremendous strides on violent crime."
more:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/05/doj_vs_doj_two_views_on_fired.html#more