Washington – A former high-ranking Justice Department official offered effusive praise Thursday for most of the U.S. attorneys who were dismissed last year, saying he considered some of them to be among the department’s most able prosecutors.
The testimony of James Comey, who served as deputy attorney general from 2003 until he left office in August 2005, often contradicted explanations by the White House and the Justice Department that the eight U.S. attorneys who were removed from office were ousted for performance reasons.
Comey told a House Judiciary subcommittee that six of the former prosecutors were doing a good job and that only one of the eight was among those he considered weak performers.
Comey, now a senior vice president and general counsel for Lockheed Martin, said he had “very positive encounters with these folks” and that while it had been nearly two years since he left the department, the explanations given for their departures were not “consistent with my experience.”
The testimony of the career prosecutor and one-time GOP political appointee was among the most devastating yet for the White House and Justice Department and appeared to complicate administration efforts to defuse a controversy that has threatened the two-year tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Comey’s comments added fuel to suspicions among Democrats in Congress investigating whether the purge was partisan.
“James Comey is a respected prosecutor who served the American people well …,” said House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich. “Today, we further confirmed that the department’s stated reasons for firing the six U.S. attorneys who testified before this committee had little or no basis in fact.”
Comey testified that he had no information to suggest the firings were designed to disrupt pending corruption probes. But he also said that even though as deputy attorney general he was responsible for directly supervising U.S. attorneys, he was never informed a plan was afoot to fire multiple federal prosecutors.
