impact on details?
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/09/AR2007040901
227.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
Six U.S. Attorneys Given 2nd Posting in Wa****ngton
By Dan Eggen
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 10, 2007; Page A03
A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney
General
Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Wa****ngton postings, performing
tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for
months
or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.
Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been
effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two
years -- prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his
removal
and call Mercer's office "a mess."
Another U.S. attorney, Michael J. Sullivan of Boston, has been in
Wa****ngton
for the past six months as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is awaiting confirmation to head the
agency permanently while still juggling his responsibilities in
Massachusetts.
The number of U.S. attorneys pulling double duty in Wa****ngton is the
focus
of growing concern from other prosecutors and from members of the federal
bench, according to legal experts and government officials.
The growing reliance on federal prosecutors to fill Wa****ngton-based jobs
also comes amid controversy over the firings of eight other U.S. attorneys
last year. One of them, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, was publicly
accused by the Justice Department of being an "absentee landlord" who was
away from his job too much.
"I can't think of a time when there's been this many U.S. attorneys doing
double duty at one time," said Dennis Boyd, executive director of the
National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, which
represents
current federal prosecutors.
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse characterized the fact that U.S.
attorneys were filling other Wa****ngton-based Justice jobs as both
unremarkable and beneficial. He cited four examples of chief prosecutors
who
also served stints in the deputy attorney general's office during the
George
H.W. Bush administration, and two similar examples during the Clinton
years.
"Having U.S. attorneys serve at the department ensures that a local
perspective is brought to policy-making decisions," Roehrkasse said in a
statement. ". . . U.S. Attorneys assigned to the Department's headquarters
also gain a national perspective and can bring this perspective and
national
focus to their districts."
But Boyd said the prolonged absence of a chief prosecutor can lead to a
lack
of direction and leader****p in U.S. attorneys' offices. The Justice
Department made a similar argument in defending the firing of Iglesias,
alleging that he had entrusted too much responsibility to his first
assistant.
"Quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office, not their
first
assistants," William E. Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney
general, told the House Judiciary Committee last month.
Iglesias filed a complaint with federal investigators last week, alleging
that his dismissal amounted to discrimination based on his status as an
officer in the Navy Reserve, which took him away from the job for 40 to 45
days a year. Alleged absenteeism has been the Justice Department's main
public criticism of Iglesias, although officials have more recently added
concerns about his handling of voter fraud and immigration cases to their
arguments about him.
"It's a double standard and it's hypocritical," Iglesias said. "Not one
judge from my district wrote a letter to main Justice saying I was gone
too
much. . . . Most of my absences were military-related."
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