WASHINGTON, D.C.: WEEK IN REVIEW

Sunday, March 11, 2007 | 7:41 a.m.

E-mail describing threats among week's bombshells

WASHINGTON - Testimony from six of the fired U.S. attorneys before congressional panels last week produced scenes of great political theater on Capitol Hill.

First came the allegation of a high-ranking senator, Pete Domenici, R-N.M., hanging up the phone on a U.S. attorney whom the senator believed wasn't working fast enough on a political corruption case involving Democrats. As it happens, Domenici had once been the prosecutor's mentor.

Then came word of an e-mail recounting not-so-veiled threats from the Justice Department that the fired attorneys should keep quiet or have their names dragged through the mud.

All of this came from a handful of the nation's top law-and-order types in appearances before House and Senate committees. They testified in no-nonsense tones about the mystery of their dismissals, often by the very administration that appointed them.

Nevada's fired U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden was among those who would not appear without the force of a subpoena because he said he preferred to go away quietly after a long career with the government. It became obvious why: Bogden unloaded a doozy when he testified under oath that he was told he was being let go so the Bush administration could pad the resume of a newcomer.

That was Tuesday.

The next day, as the attorneys' riveting stories captivated Washington, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales weighed in with a USA Today op-ed piece downplaying the whole thing as an "overblown personnel matter."

"They simply lost my confidence," the attorney general wrote, even after publicized personnel evaluations showed most of them performing just fine.

But the push back from Congress had begun, and will continue into the weeks ahead. Even the Republicans were joining in.

Republican Sen. John Ensign, the administration's point man in Nevada, expressed outrage that he had been misled by Justice about the reasons for Bogden's dismissal.

Ensign had been told in December that Bogden was being turned out for "performance-related" reasons, but a Justice official testified last week there was "no particular deficiency" and the department just wanted "renewed energy and vigor" in the office.

Ensign is "very concerned about ... Bogden's treatment," said Carl Tobias, a former UNLV law professor now at the University of Richmond.

Ensign had already been bruised by the administration's decision to can the man he had nominated for the job in 2001.

He wasn't the only Republican feeling jilted by his party. By the time Gonzales agreed to meet with senators later in the week, Justice was clearly "under siege," as one Senate Democratic aide said. "These people rarely criticize," the aide said about Ensign and other Republicans.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have been concerned that the firings were linked to a little-noticed change in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act that lets the Justice Department appoint a new attorney if nominations fail to clear the Senate in 120 days.

With that, the administration now has a direct link to the job openings, without Senate oversight. That unsettled some senators, particularly after the Justice Department admitted last month that the Arkansas attorney's dismissal was done to make way for a Republican former aide to Bush administration adviser Karl Rove. By Friday, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein tried, as she has repeatedly since the new Congress took over in January, to roll back the law. She was blocked again by Republicans.

Democrats ended the week by insisting on more interviews and documents about the firings from Justice Department officials and the White House.

Tobias said as the story continues, the administration's intentions will become clear when Nevada gets its permanent replacement for Bogden. And Las Vegans should be paying attention.

"The chief federal prosecutor in Nevada should be someone in whom everybody has great confidence - that person is fair, fair-minded, seeks to uphold justice. They have enormous power to prosecute people, and we want that to be done in a professional, independent manner.

"That's why it's important to anyone in Las Vegas, or anywhere else."