By Robert Schmidt, Tues, March 13 2007 (Bloomberg)
The chief aide to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned amid new revelations about the Bush administration’s ouster of eight U.S. attorneys.
The Justice Department announced the resignation of Kyle Sampson, who was Gonzales’s chief of staff. Sampson may be called to testify by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are demanding to know more about the firings. Democrats have likened the dismissals to a political purge.
“U.S. attorneys have always been above politics, and this administration has blatantly manipulated the U.S. attorney system to serve its political needs,” Senator Charles Schumer of New York said at a news conference in Washington today. Schumer said Sampson’s departure “does not take the heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature.”
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