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Replacing U.S. attorneys stretches back to Reagan


By David G. Savage
March 23, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Three weeks ago, Justice Department officials settled on a “talking point” to rebut the chorus of Democratic accusations that the Bush administration had wrongly injected politics into law enforcement when it dismissed eight U.S. attorneys. Why not focus on the Clinton administration’s having “fired all 93 U.S. attorneys” when Janet Reno became attorney general in March 1993? The idea was introduced in a memo from a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The message has been effective. What’s followed has been a surge of complaints on blogs and talk radio that it was the Clinton administration that first politicized the Justice Department. The facts, it turns out, are more complicated.

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“On the issue of Clinton [U.S. attorneys], we called each one and had them give us a timeframe. Most were gone by late April. In contrast, Clinton [Justice Department] told all but a dozen in early March to be gone immediately,” McNulty said. The difference appears minor. Both McNulty and Sampson acknowledged that the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, brought in a new slate of U.S. attorneys within a few months of taking office.

But historical data compiled by the Senate show the pattern going back to President Reagan. Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years. In a similar vein, the Justice Department recently supplied Congress with a district-by-district listing of U.S. attorneys who served prior to the Bush administration.

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