McClatchy: Administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys last year before paring its list to eight

More would have been fired, two left of their own accord.

From McClatchy News:

Congressional sources who have seen unedited internal documents say the Bush administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys before paring down its list to eight late last year. The four who escaped dismissal came from states considered political battlegrounds in the last presidential election: Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Two of the four said they resigned voluntarily before the mass firings of U.S. attorneys on Dec. 7. Two continue to serve as federal prosecutors.

The latest revelation could provide new evidence to critics who contend that politics, not performance, played the determining role in the firings. The White House and the Justice Department have repeatedly denied that politics played any role.

Congressional sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly, Friday confirmed two additional names to McClatchy Newspapers: U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo., and U.S. Attorney Thomas Marino of Scranton, Pa.

Graves resigned in March to return to private legal practice. Marino kept his job as the chief federal prosecutor in central and eastern Pennsylvania.

McClatchy had previously identified two other prosecutors who dropped off the final "hit" list - former U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger of Minneapolis and U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic of Milwaukee.

Heffelfinger resigned in February to go into private legal practice. Biskupic remains at his federal post in Wisconsin.

You remember Biskupic:

Before the 2004 election, he went after state employee Georgia Thompson for awarding a contract to a contributor to the campaign of her boss, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Thompson was sent to jail. Republicans cried corruption and made great hay with the Thompson charges in campaign advertising. Doyle won anyway. When Thompson appealed her conviction, judges on the Seventh Circuit last week sprung her from prison, immediately after oral argument and even before issuing a ruling.