Bogden suspects politics as reason for his ouster

Sam Skolnik, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, March 2, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

Ousted U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said Thursday that he suspects he was fired for political reasons.

Speaking one day after being forced from office, Bogden said he placed a half-dozen phone calls to high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington after being told on Dec. 7 that he had to step down.

Those officials told him that "my performance, and that of my office, was not the reason," he said in a telephone interview from his home. "I suspected it was political at that point," Bogden said.

The last official he spoke with told him that the decision was reached at the highest levels of the Justice Department.

"I can speculate as to different ideas," he said, "but I've never been given a definite answer."

But Bogden would not elaborate Thursday, or name the Justice officials with whom he had spoken.

Bogden is one of seven U.S. attorneys, most from Western states, who are being forced from office for reasons the Bush administration will not disclose.

U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. Nonetheless, congressional Democrats have argued that the administration targeted prosecutors who were aggressively pursuing white-collar crime or crimes involving Republican lawmakers.

Democrats in the House and the Senate have called for hearings into the dismissals.

Bogden disclosed Thursday that he received a letter Tuesday asking him to testify at a hearing next Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on commercial and administrative law.

The subject: House Resolution 580, a measure that would limit "interim" U.S. attorneys appointed by the U.S. attorney general to serving no more than 120 days.

The House bill Bogden was asked to address would modify a USA Patriot Act provision that authorizes the attorney general to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for indefinite periods.

Critics contend that the little-noticed provision was installed to allow the White House to sidestep congressional confirmation hearings for the U.S. attorneys.

Bogden said he declined to appear voluntarily, but added that he will appear if compelled to by subpoena. (He told the Sun in an earlier interview that as a longtime Justice Department employee, he wound find it difficult to testify.)

Although the Justice Department named interim replacements for most of the departing U.S. attorneys before they left office, that has not happened in Nevada.

Late Wednesday, however, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre received a call from a Justice Department official asking him to serve, starting Thursday, as acting U.S. attorney for Nevada, said Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for the office. Myhre agreed to take the post, she said.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse did not return two calls to his Washington office Thursday.

Bogden, and presumably the other fired U.S. attorneys, could end up being asked to testify before both the Senate and House. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said that she would likely subpoena them to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Although a Justice Department official testified before a Senate committee that the firings were made because of poor job performance, Bogden had plenty of reason to believe otherwise.

Over a five-day period in March 2003, a team of Justice Department officials conducted an evaluation of the office's workings, its leadership and its relationships with other federal agencies such as the FBI.

"The overall evaluation was very positive," the report said.

Indeed, the report concluded that Bogden and his top assistants were respected by the other attorneys in the office and by federal agencies in Nevada, and that the office enjoyed "an excellent reputation and excellent relations" with all levels of the federal judiciary.