A bipartisan group of senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Alberto Gonzales today, demanding a copy of the secret order Gonzales signed in March of 2006. The order, the existence of which was first reported by Murray Waas, gave authority over the hiring and firing of most political employees of the Justice Department to Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson and White House liaison Monica Goodling.
The senators also wondered why the order was not among the thousands of pages turned over to Congress over the past months — documents that were relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. Since the order would seem to affect the appointment of interim U.S. attorneys, it should have been among them, they write.