WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, facing another tough week amid calls for his ouster, has offered a mea culpa to the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys for the way the Justice Department fired eight of their colleagues.
| He's toast. He'll be gone next Friday. |
During the conference call Friday, planned as a pep talk to raise morale at a Justice Department tainted by the firings and the FBI's misuse of the Patriot Act, Gonzales apologized for how the dismissals were handled and for suggesting there were problems with the prosecutors' job performances, according to an official familiar with the conversation. But the official said Gonzales did not apologize for firing the eight U.S. attorneys, a decision he and President Bush have defended.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Saturday the call was set up to allow Gonzales to reiterate ``how important the U.S. attorneys are to him as his representatives in the communities they serve and as prosecutors charged with protecting their communities from violent criminals, drug dealers and predators.'' |