Paul Kiel March 13, 2007, 4:18 PM

In a press conference this afternoon, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) continued to express exasperation at the Justice Department’s firing of his nominee, U.S. Attorney for Nevada, Daniel Bogden.

He said that the attorney general “completely mishandled” the replacement of the prosecutors. But should he resign? Well…

QUESTION: Should the attorney general step down?

ENSIGN: Mistakes were made and changes need to be made in processes. Those changes are being made. And I believe that if we can come out of this with a better system that America will be better off for that.

And so the attorney general is taking steps. They have admitted the mistake to me that they made as far as the process was concerned. And as long as they are taking those steps and as long as folks follow through with what they said, I think that I will be satisfied.

QUESTION: It sounds as if you believe that the deputy attorney general (OFF-MIKE) in January either accidentally or intentionally mislead.

ENSIGN: The deputy attorney general — the conversations that I had — he was either ill-informed of the whole process or intentionally misled, one of the two….

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) do you continue to have confidence in Attorney General Gonzales’ ability to be in charge over this?

ENSIGN: I want to see how the attorney general leads the Justice Department in this time of crisis. He is presented with a very difficult challenge now.

I want to see if he’s wiling to make the changes that are necessary at the Department of Justice because things have been handled poorly up to this point.

U.S. Attorneys