Sampson points finger at ex-boss
He says that Gonzales played a role in firings
Sampson testified that Gonzales was "inaccurate" in saying he was not involved in the Justice Department's plan to fire U.S. attorneys.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate," Sampson said.
And Sampson, the once rising star in the Bush administration, did not come away unscathed in his first public appearance since resigning in the wake of the political scandal.
Democrats blasted him even after Sampson admitted he botched the termination of eight U.S. attorneys.
"This is such serious stuff to fire U.S. attorneys, and to do it the way you did it, there is so little of a system, so little recollection by you, the center of it all," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "It's a pretty severe indictment of the Justice Department in which you served."
Sampson coordinated the plan to replace eight U.S. attorneys. While replacing the prosecutors is typically routine, this time it backfired when Democrats began asking whether the dismissals were justified and received conflicting statements on the White House's involvement.
Sampson said Gonzales not only knew about the list but was concerned that Sampson took the proper steps in compiling it.
"The decision makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president," Sampson told panel. "I made recommendations, some of them were adopted and some of them weren't."
The White House continued to support Gonzales Thursday, but Sampson's statements — or fading memory of past events — during the hearing made Democrats even more uneasy about what was going on at the Justice Department.
Schumer, who has called for Gonzales' resignation, referred to Sampson's system of managing the list of attorneys a "back-of-the- envelope operation."
Sampson said the firings "were properly made but poorly explained." He apologized for the "badly mishandled" response to Congress from the department, but he emphasized that there was no intention to mislead or withhold information.
Sampson repeatedly reminded the panel that he was only the "aggregator" of the list of attorneys to be terminated and that many others at the department knew of the process.
The Cedar City native and Brigham Young University graduate endured four rounds of questioning in which he was asked about everything from White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's involvement to how specific attorneys ended up on the list.
You can be the first to comment on this story.