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On Dec. 7, 2006, a subordinate of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Michael Battle, executive director of the office that oversees the country's 93 U.S. attorneys, called seven to ask them to resign. He thanked them for their service and gave them until January to clear out. He was just delivering the message, and when pressed by the attorneys for a reason, he gave none that satisfied them.

U.S. attorneys are political appointees and, as such, have none of the due process rights that career civil servants have when faced with removal. Due process proceedings force managers to justify their actions and to explain why they want to fire an employee. But political appointees can't file a grievance through a union or submit an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. They serve at the pleasure of the president, which means that no reason needs to be given for their removal.

That at least is the way the law sees it. While the law might not care, the U.S. attorneys who were let go are human, and humans like to know why. For several months, the attorneys were unable to get answers from their bosses in Washington as to why they were let go. Political appointees might not have access to the federal employee appeals process, but they do have access to Congress. And that is where they took their why.

So it was on March 6 that three of the attorneys who received calls from Battle last fall -- Carol Lam of San Diego, David Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M., and John McKay of Seattle -- appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to wonder why, out loud, to a roomful of legislators, reporters and onlookers.

"I think the difficulty here," Lam told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former U.S. attorney himself, "was sort of the mystery that surrounded the calls we received on Dec. 7." As the attorney firings came to light this year, Justice Department officials explained they were dissatisfied with Lam's strategy for immigration and gun prosecutions, but Lam said no one above her had told her to shape up on those issues or ship out.

"Generally, I think if there were events that were going to lead up to a request for resignation, there would be some sort of ramp-up, some sort of transparency to what the issue was, at least between the United States attorney and the Department of Justice," she said. "I think the fact that the recipients of the call were all shocked and trying to inquire what the reason was, I think is what, for me, causes the greatest problem for the remaining United States attorneys, that there's no notice or awareness, and therefore, it becomes a guessing game as to how it is that the department is displeased."

The U.S. attorneys scandal revealed a basic tenet of good management, or perhaps the failure to adhere to it. It's the "no surprises rule." Managers should clearly explain what is expected of employees, measure their results, and reward or punish them accordingly. If an employee is surprised by a reward or punishment, then management hasn't been doing its job.

Justice actually has a formal evaluation system for U.S. attorneys. It is exhaustive, with teams of reviewers descending upon each office to examine how the attorneys prioritize and manage cases, deal with subordinates and stakeholders, and generally administer their offices. The reviewers assign ratings on a host of criteria. But the rankings through that system were not decisive in Justice's decisions on who to fire. Some of those who were asked to resign were among the highest ranked attorneys in the formal evaluation system.

Had they been poorly rated, the attorneys would have understood why they were let go. If they had been told why, they might have left the department quietly, even if they disagreed with the decisions. Even if some other formal process of evaluation had been used to make the personnel decisions, the attorneys would have been on notice that their days could be numbered.

Instead, as documents and testimony revealed -- more publicly than in any federal personnel matter in recent memory -- the out-of-the-blue calls on Dec. 7 followed an informal effort by Gonzales' deputies to identify U.S. attorneys to replace. At best, the ad hoc review relied on anecdote and impression, rather than a clear set of criteria, established beforehand, so the attorneys knew the expectations. The ad hoc approach left the decisions open to the allegations that short-term political gain, rather than professional administration of justice, was the deciding factor in the dismissals.

The no surprises rule is something of a corollary to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It was the Golden Rule that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., alluded to at an April 19 hearing, during which he questioned Gonzales about the firing of the attorneys. "Why would we not use the same standards to judge your performance in handling this event that you applied to these same individuals?" Coburn asked Gonzales.

"I've acknowledged mistakes," Gonzales said during the subsequent back-and-forth. "We all make mistakes."

Coburn, a hawk on management issues in the federal government, was not satisfied. "Mr. Attorney General, it's my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled," he said. "I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered. And I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation."

Coburn's call for resignation was the bombshell of the hearing, but given the events that led up to this, it was no surprise.

COMMENTS

• This was just posted: "But even the President is not entitled to publicly slander someone to hide his motives." Why not?-- You question such entitlement. Someone who would use others to attack the patriotism of a Vietnam War Hero in the middle of a political campaign when that person hid safely in the US not even serving his minimal duty. Such a person would have no problem lying about the performance of some AUSA. Such a person would have no trouble sending his lackey into a hospital room to get a signature on an unconstitutional order to spy on Americans. The question is not one of entitlement-- the question is one of simple human decency and core ethics. Seems a little late for everyone to have buyers remorse since the President was elected twice by just under and just over 1/2 the electorate and none of this was hidden from the voters. You get what you pay for. HR Specialist Posted June 26, 2007 8:09 AM
• This HR Specialist agrees with the other HR Specialist-- there now appears to be two of us with the label HR Specialist. Of course the President has the right to have his own policies pushed forward by his chosen US Attorneys and to have his own AG as he selects. We live in Republic-- So the President can select whom he wishes to serve him regardless of how incompetent and how blind that person is to the vow to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Of course it would be tough to be the AG at DoJ if he was stripped of his law license for violating the law. But removing political appointees for political reasons can't be a violation of the law-- just a violation of common sense and hopefully the voters will fix this problem in 2008. HR Specialist Posted June 25, 2007 2:27 PM
• Someone said something about previous administrations doing this. Wrong. No previous President has endeavored to remove US Attorneys he appointed himself as happened here. Previously, US Attorneys were only asked to resign when a new President was elected, and then usually only when the new President was from a different party than the last. Someone said the USAs were whining for explanations. Wrong. The USAs accepted the firings quietly. Congress didn't. Senators asked "why?" and DOJ officials offered explanations in testimony that have proved to be lies, including suggestions that credible performance reviews had taken place (hadn't) or that specific "performance related" issues drove the decisions (didn't). All the USAs have complained about is that DOJ chose to slander their professional reputations to protect individual DOJ managers and people at the White House. No USA has complained about the fact of being fired--cause they served at the pleasure of the President, and they know it. The President can fire them if he wants to, for any reason he wants to explain publicly or not explain at all. But even the President is not entitled to publicly slander someone to hide his motives. That is what happened in this case. Charles Posted June 20, 2007 11:21 PM