Make that 10 Fired U.S. Attorneys

The former U.S. Attorney for West Virginia, Karl K. "Kasey" Warner, now says that he, too, was asked by the Department of Justice to resign. And he, too, suspects that the reasons were strictly political. When the DOJ first told him to get lost, he refused, (saying that he took his orders from the president). He promptly got a letter from Harriet Miers, then the president's counsel, telling him he was fired. No explanation.

"The facts speak for themselves," Warner is quoted in a CBS News report as saying. "If they want to look at the cases I had and the corruption cases we have now, people can come to their own conclusions about why I was let go." The report goes on to note:

Some former U.S. attorneys such as New Mexico's David Iglesias said Republican politicians pressured them to rush public corruption investigations in election years. Warner would not comment on whether he received any such pressure and would not say who was being investigated when he was fired.

"Speaking generally," he said, "in my mind, if you want a good justice system, you don't remove U.S. attorneys to thwart ongoing criminal investigations."