Documents: Lawmakers Complained of Drug Prosecution Rates in AZ

WASHINGTON - A powerful lawmaker raised questions about former Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton's prosecution of drug cases during a meeting last July with President Bush, according to Justice Department e-mail correspondence made public Tuesday.

At the time, the Justice Department strongly defended Charlton's handling of drug and immigration cases.

Federal prosecutors' resources on the Southwest border - particularly Arizona - were ``absolutely stretched to the limit,'' wrote Rachel Brand, an assistant attorney general.

But less than two months later, Charlton was on a list of federal prosecutors the attorney general's office and the White House were considering pushing out.

The e-mails between Justice Department and White House officials were released in the wake of congressional investigations into the firings of Charlton and seven other U.S. attorneys in recent months. They shed some light on - and raise other questions about - why officials decided to oust U.S. attorneys in Bush's final two years.

Justice Department officials have said under oath that the decision to oust several federal prosecutors was based on performance and policy disputes.

But the e-mails show the White House discussed firing and replacing U.S. attorneys by 2005.

Democrats have charged that the ouster was politically motivated and on Tuesday called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down. Their accusations are fueled by statements by some of the prosecutors that they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush politically sensitive investigations.

In a news conference, Gonzales rejected the call to resign. He acknowledged that mistakes were made and accepted responsibility for the way the prosecutors were fired, but he maintained that the dismissals were appropriate.

Last week, Charlton was one of six fired prosecutors to testify last week on Capitol Hill about their experiences.

Charlton, who now works for a Phoenix law firm, declined to comment Tuesday.

During the same hearing last week, Justice Department officials said Charlton was fired because he would not aggressively pursue death penalty cases and because of his insistence that taped confessions be used in some cases.

But the e-mails released Tuesday include no mention of the death penalty.

The exchanges also contain other inconsistencies. For example, Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson wrote that Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., was ``fine'' with the firings on the morning of Dec. 7, indicating he told Kyl of the plan to dismiss Charlton before calling the U.S. attorney himself.

``We will commence calling the (U.S. attorneys) in the next hour or so,'' Sampson wrote in the e-mail.

Throughout the controversy over the U.S. attorney firings, Kyl has staunchly opposed Democrats' attempts to rewrite the anti-terror USA Patriot Act. Democrats say the administration is using a provision that allows Bush to bypass the Senate confirmation process for U.S. attorneys and appoint political allies.

But Kyl spokesman Ryan Patmintra said Kyl did not support Charlton's firing. Kyl learned of Charlton's dismissal when Charlton called him about it, Patmintra said Tuesday. Kyl then called the attorney general's office and demanded they reverse their decision, Patmintra said.

The earliest e-mail references to Charlton are of complaints by then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who asked in a July meeting with President Bush why the assistant Arizona U.S. attorney in Nogales would not prosecute marijuana possession cases dealing with amounts less than 500 pounds.

The answer was a strong defense of Charlton by Brand, the assistant attorney general. Brand said Charlton's office was focusing on large cases because of the high number of border-related drug charges and the lack of resources to pursue all the cases.

Two months later, however, the attorney general's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, included Charlton's name on a list of prosecutors ``we now should consider pushing out.''

And a few days after Charlton appeared on the list, another Justice Department official, Obscenity Prosecution Task Force director Brent Ward, complained to Sampson that Charlton was one of ``two U.S. attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them.''

``What do you suggest I do?'' Ward asked in the message.

A spokeswoman for the Arizona U.S. attorney's office said that around the same time, an assistant U.S. attorney was assigned to the case, which involved adults. Ann Harwood said the office had wanted to focus its limited resources to prosecute child obscenity cases.

Democrats have suggested Charlton was targeted by the administration for his work on a public corruption investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. But the timing is unclear.

According to the e-mails, Charlton's name was being considered for dismissal by September, a month before news broke that Renzi was under investigation.