Washington – Todd Graves, the former U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., said Wednesday that he was asked to step down by a senior Justice Department official in January 2006, months before eight other federal prosecutors would be fired by the Bush administration.
Graves said he was told simply that he should resign to “give another person a chance.” He said he had already been planning to return to private practice, but he did, however, appeal to Missouri’s senior senator to try to persuade the White House to allow him to remain long enough to prosecute a final, important case – involving the murder of a pregnant woman and the kidnapping of her fetus. Justice officials rejected the request.
The former prosecutor’s disclosure, in an interview on the eve of a second appearance today by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before lawmakers investigating the firings, means that the administration began moving to replace U.S. attorneys five months earlier than previously known.
It also means that at least nine prosecutors were asked to resign last year, a deviation from repeated suggestions by Gonzales and other senior Justice officials in congressional testimony and other public statements that the firings did not extend beyond the eight prosecutors already known to have been forced out.
