STATEMENT OF TASIA SCOLINOS, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, IN RESPONSE TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S HEARING TODAY ON THE U.S. ATTORNEY RESIGNATION MATTER
"This matter began as an inquiry into whether any of these 8 U.S. Attorneys were fired for improper reasons. After several hours of testimony by the Attorney General, over five thousand pages of documents released to Congress and hours of interviews with other senior DOJ officials, it is clear that the Attorney General did not ask for the resignation of any individual in order to interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain. The focus of most of today's hearing was not on whether the decisions were improper, but rather on the management of this process and misstatements the Attorney General has acknowledged he made about his involvement in this process.
The Attorney General himself has stated that this process was not as rigorous as it should have been and he has since taken steps to institute better management practices with respect to U.S. Attorneys.
He has taken full responsibility for his actions and in recent weeks has taken steps to leave the Department in a stronger and better place from the lessons learned from this matter."