POLICY IS JUST POLITICS PUT INTO EFFECT:

Former Justice official defends firings: The attorney general's former chief of staff testifies today before Congress about the role of politics in dismissals. (Richard B. Schmitt and Richard Simon, March 29, 2007, LA Times)

The former Justice Department official who orchestrated the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year plans to tell Congress today that such dismissals are appropriate when prosecutors prove ineffective from "a political perspective."

In his first public remarks on the firings, D. Kyle Sampson says the process of identifying underperforming U.S. attorneys "was not scientific nor was it extensively documented," according to testimony prepared for delivery to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

None of the prosecutors was asked to resign for "improper reasons," notes a copy of Sampson's statement obtained by The Times, but an unusually broad standard was used to decide on proper grounds for dismissing them.

"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," Sampson says, noting that a federal prosecutor who falls down on the job from a political perspective is "unsuccessful."

An employee of the Executive who refuses to follow the political line laid out for him is, by definition, not performing his job well.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 29, 2007 6:45 AM