U.S. Attorneys Scandal—West Virginia

By Scott Horton

During his testimony on Thursday, one of the questions to which Gonzales offered the most downright weasely answers was simple: so how many U.S. attorneys were fired as a part of this plan? The initial count was eight. But every week or so we have learned of another case. It may now be time to move the count on the number of U.S. attorneys involved in the Rove–Miers scam to thirteen.

Yesterday, former U.S. Attorney for West Virginia Karl “Kasey” Warner publicly acknowledged that he had also been forced from office under factual circumstances which closely matched those of the initial eight. Warner was in the midst of a high-profile political corruption investigation involving vote-buying by a Republican politician when the decision came. He said when he was told to leave by the Justice Department, he balked, saying he served “the president.” The Associated Press reports:

“Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president’s counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I’d been fired, no reason given,” Warner recounted in a telephone interview…

“Sometimes soldiers catch a bullet. If you’re truly out there doing your job, if you’re truly a leader, sometimes you catch a bullet,” he said. “It might not be fair, it might not be right, it might be sad, but that’s part of what you do. I caught a bullet. It’s not something you cry about or complain about.”