6 of 7 Dismissed U.S. Attorneys Had Positive Job Evaluations

[Catchme]

Bush administration eroding of the US democratic process continues along with subverting investigations about public corruption.

All but one of the U.S. attorneys recently fired by the Justice Department had positive job reviews before they were dismissed, but many ran into political trouble with Washington over issues ranging from immigration to the death penalty, according to prosecutors, congressional aides and others familiar with the cases.

Two months after the firings first began to make waves on Capitol Hill, it has also become clear that most of the prosecutors were overseeing significant public-corruption investigations at the time they were asked to leave. Four of the probes target Republican politicians or their supporters, prosecutors and other officials said.

The emerging details stand in contrast to repeated statements from the Justice Department that six of the Republican-appointed prosecutors were dismissed because of poor performance.

... the assertions enraged the rest of the group, some of whom feel betrayed after staying silent about the way they have been shoved from office.

Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, who was asked to resign earlier than the others to make way for a former White House aide, said Justice Department officials crossed a line by publicly criticizing the performance of his well-regarded colleagues.

"They're entitled to make these changes for any reason or no reason or even for an idiotic reason," Cummins said. "But if they are trying to suggest that people have inferior performance to hide whatever their true agenda is, that is wrong. They should retract those statements."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7021701509.html