On the March 13 edition of CNN Newsroom, during a report on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in December 2006, White House correspondent Ed Henry stated as “fact” that President Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales they had heard “complaints” that several U.S. attorneys were “allegedly not performing well.” However, according to a March 13 Washington Post article, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that Bush and Rove complained to Gonzales in October 2006 about some prosecutors' lack of zeal on a specific topic -- voter fraud. As the Post reported, since the 2000 presidential election, Republicans have repeatedly alleged that “convicted felons and other ineligible voters have been permitted to cast ballots to the benefit of Democrats.”

The Post also reported that Justice Department officials said Gonzales chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned in the wake of the most recent disclosures, added New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in October to a list of prosecutors who might be fired, “based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete V. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases.” As Media Matters for America has noted, Iglesias has claimed he was terminated after resisting pressure from two members of Congress to accelerate his investigation prior to the 2006 elections. Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) have admitted calling Iglesias but have asserted that they did not “pressure” him. As noted by the weblog Talking Points Memo, a March 11 McClatchy Newspapers article reported that, according to Perino, Rove “specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to [Gonzales].” More broadly, the McClatchy article reported, “Rove relayed ... concerns among Republican Party officials in various jurisdictions” -- in particular, New Mexico and Washington state -- “that the Justice Department was not being aggressive in pursuing allegations of election fraud by Democrats.”

Republicans in Washington state had heavily criticized one of the fired U.S. attorneys, John McKay, for ending his investigation into their allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election, which was won by Democrat Christine Gregoire. In a March 13 article also noted by Talking Points Memo, The Seattle Times reported: “McKay insist[ed] that top prosecutors in his office and agents from the FBI conducted a 'very active' review of allegations of fraud during the election but filed no charges and did not convene a federal grand jury because 'we never found any evidence of criminal conduct.' ” The Times article also noted that, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, McKay stated that he had received calls in either late 2004 or early 2005 from Rep. Doc Hastings' (R-WA) chief of staff, Ed Cassidy, “about the status of ongoing investigations of voter fraud.”

In describing Bush and Rove's complaints as having been about the U.S. attorneys' “performance,” Henry echoed the position that he noted was the White House's: that the prosecutors were fired “because of performance reasons, not political reasons.”

In addition, in limiting Rove's role to merely passing along complaints, Henry omitted other reports noting Rove's apparently deeper involvement in the controversy, particularly his apparent concern with making sure J. Timothy Griffin, a trial counsel for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps at the time, was appointed to replace one of the fired U.S. attorneys. Griffin is a former aide of Rove's and a former Republican National Committee research director. As the weblog TPMmuckraker.com noted, the March 13 Post article reported that emails turned over to Congress “show that Rove was interested in the appointment of [Griffin] as an Arkansas prosecutor.” In particular, Sampson wrote in a December 19, 2006, email that “getting [Griffin] appointed” as a U.S. attorney “was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” As Media Matters has noted, Griffin replaced H.E. “Bud” Cummins III as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty admitted in a February 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that performance played no role in Cummins' termination. Instead, McNulty stated, it was “more related to the opportunity to provide a fresh start with a new person in that position.”

From the 1 p.m. hour of the March 13 edition of CNN Newsroom:

DON LEMON (co-host): The question is, did the White House or President Bush himself have a hand in firing those U.S. attorneys? New details, new questions, new suspicions in the Justice Department shake-up that has some lawmakers calling for the resignation of the attorney general. Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff resigned last night over his role in dismissing several federal prosecutors since December. The Bush administration insists it's a routine personnel matter linked to poor performance. But critics say the U.S. attorneys were fired for not being hard enough on Democrats.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY): Attorney General Gonzales has either forgotten the oath he took to uphold the Constitution or just doesn't understand that his duty to protect the law is greater than his duty to protect the president. He's a nice man. You meet the attorney general and you say, “He is not one of these sort of, you know, political warriors.” But there's too much at stake here. And to have somebody who is going to let this happen or be part of it happening is just no longer -- we can't countenance it any longer.

LEMON: Well, the White House has plenty to say about the controversy. CNN's Ed Henry is traveling with the president in Merida, Mexico. Ed?

HENRY: Well, Don, you're right. Because of this political firestorm, the White House that wanted to be talking about immigration reform, other key issues affecting the United States, but also neighbors here such as Mexico, where the president is wrapping up a seven-day tour, all of a sudden that is being overshadowed by this political firestorm.

What we now know, the details dribbling out. That, in fact, the president, at some point in all of this, did talk to the attorney general, Gonzales, about complaints he was hearing, we're told Karl Rove was hearing, other White House aides, about some of these U.S. attorneys allegedly not performing well. And that some of those concerns and complaints were passed on from the White House to the attorney general, but they're insisting that the president did not direct this.

But what we are learning today, and in fact, CNN has confirmed, is that Harriet Miers, the White House's top lawyer at the time, in early 2005 was speaking to the attorney general's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. He resigned yesterday over all of this. And his recollection is that Harriet Miers came to him and basically said, in early 2005, she wanted to remove all 93 U.S. attorneys across the country. Kyle Sampson's recollection, at the Justice Department, is that he said this is not a good idea.

And what's also important is that we're learning today that Karl Rove remembers a conversation with Harriet Miers in which he said this is not a good idea. So, then, move forward to November 2006, the Justice Department comes up with a list of only seven -- not 93, but seven U.S. attorneys to be removed. Again, they claim, the White House claims, this is because of performance reasons, not political reasons.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying, quote, “We continue to believe the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was appropriate and within our discretion, and we stand by DOJ's” -- Department of Justice's -- “assertion that they identified the seven U.S. attorneys who were removed for performance and managerial reasons.”

But the question then becomes, if all of this was appropriate, if there was nothing wrong, why did Kyle Sampson step down? As you heard, Democrat Chuck Schumer there, they're raising questions about whether he is, in fact, the fall guy here.