A Blast From The Past. What a difference a month can make. I remember telling my daughter, the attorney, about the story when I first saw it in some local papers, including the Salt Lake City Tribune. She didn't think it was a big deal at the time. In any event, here is the cached article that piqued my interest. I don't give a shit if I copied and pasted too many paragraphs. Bite me.

Ashcroft left after the 2004 election, and Gonzales was picked to replace him. Sampson helped the nominee through the Senate, much as he later helped the president's Supreme Court nominees with their grueling confirmations.
About that time, the suggestion was floated that a number of U.S. attorneys could be replaced with Bush loyalists. Sampson opposed wholesale change but by March 2005 sent a list of targeted prosecutors to White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner announced in January 2006 he would become a federal magistrate, opening a spot Sampson had long sought.
An e-mail released Thursday suggests that Sampson may have tried to push Warner out of the job in early 2005 but was rebuffed by Hatch.
With Warner stepping aside in 2006, Sampson lined up the support of Gonzales and others, but Hatch recommended Brett Tolman, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Utah who was working for the Judiciary Committee at the time for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter.
Tolman, who ultimately got the job, had in March 2006 added language to the Patriot Act renewal, at the Justice Department's request, to allow the White House to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate consent.
By November 2006, Sampson had a final list of prosecutors to fire, a detailed plan how to proceed - including a script for dismissing the attorneys - and a warning to brace for political fallout. On Dec. 4, the White House signed off and three days later seven U.S. attorneys were let go.
When Democrats challenged the firings, Justice officials assured Congress the decisions were not politically coordinated with the White House and were based on "performance" issues.

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