Alberto Gonzales said this morning that the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year was “not politically motivated.” “They were not done in retaliation or to interfere with a public corruption case.”
But in an appearance on CBS’s “The Early Show” today, the attorney general acknowledged that the Justice Department pressured U.S. attorney Carol Lam — the San Diego-based prosecutor who brought charges against Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham — not to focus so much on corruption cases. “We advised Ms. Lam of these other priorities — that she needed to focus on other issues as well,” Gonzales said. “A U.S. attorney can’t just focus on one particular problem. A U.S. attorney has to focus on all the needs of the community.”
