The firings of U.S. Attorneys, even for political motivated reasons, have been generally dismissed in the mainstream media as being improper but nevertheless legal and within the discretion of the President. I’m not convinced that that is true. Perhaps the legal minds here can comment on whether the below federal criminal statutes apply, or may apply, to Attorney General Gonzales?
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 73 > § 1503
§ 1503. Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally
(a) Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States, or officer who may be serving at any examination or other proceeding before any United States magistrate judge or other committing magistrate, in the discharge of his duty, or injures any such grand or petit juror in his person or property on account of any verdict or indictment assented to by him, or on account of his being or having been such juror, or injures any such officer, magistrate judge, or other committing magistrate in his person or property on account of the performance of his official duties, or corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). If the offense under this section occurs in connection with a trial of a criminal case, and the act in violation of this section involves the threat of physical force or physical force, the maximum term of imprisonment which may be imposed for the offense shall be the higher of that otherwise provided by law or the maximum term that could have been imposed for any offense charged in such case.
(b) The punishment for an offense under this section is—
(1) in the case of a killing, the punishment provided in sections 1111 and 1112;
(2) in the case of an attempted killing, or a case in which the offense was committed against a petit juror and in which a class A or B felony was charged, imprisonment for not more than 20 years, a fine under this title, or both; and
(3) in any other case, imprisonment for not more than 10 years, a fine under this title, or both.
The term "corruptly" usually means acting with an improper purpose. Given the emails between Sampson and Miers, nobody can honestly argue that that these acts were for a proper pupose. U.S. Attorneys are "officer in courts of the United States." Although it is not clear (as yet) whether any or all U.S. Attorneys were threatened if they did not prosecute with an eye toward partisan politics, it’s clear that by firing some U.S. Attorneys who did investigate Republican officials and campaign contributors, the Attorney General "endeavored to influence" "the discharge of their duty."
In addition, according to Sydney Bluminthal’s article in Salon:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general -- all testified before Congress under oath that the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been removed for "performance" reasons, not because they had been insufficiently partisan in their prosecution of Democrats or because they would be replaced by those who would be. Yet another Sampson e-mail, sent to Miers in March 2005, had ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys on the basis of being "good performers," those who "exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or "low performers," those who "chafed against Administration initiatives, etc."
If so, the Gonzales, McNulty and Moschella also violated the perjury statue (TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 79, Section 1621)