Did former White House Counsel force US Attorney to resign?
 Closed-door testimony reveals former White House Counsel Harriet Miers discussed firing a US Attorney who was investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) last fall and may have forced her resignation, reports a New York Times editorial observer column.
US Attorney Debra Yang resigned in October to take a $1.5 million job offer from Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, a well-connected Republican firm that is defending Lewis in the investigation. Yang insisted that the timing was coincidental and she accepted the job after months of looking for a more lucrative private sector post because she is a single mother, according to "The Hill."
Yang resigned just before the Justice Department fired eight US Attorneys, several of whom were leading investigations of high-profile Republicans. Congress is investigating whether the attorneys were fired for strictly political reasons, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been plagued by calls for his resignation over the scandal.
Miers was originally selected by President Bush to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, but was forced to withdraw her nomination after conservatives revolted and charges of political cronyism were made against the president, due to his longtime friendship with the onetime Texas State Bar president.
Excerpts from the New York Times:
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Ms. Yang says she left for personal reasons, but there is growing evidence that the White House was intent on removing her. Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department staff member in charge of the firings, told investigators last month in still-secret testimony that Harriet Miers, the White House counsel at the time, had asked him more than once about Ms. Yang. He testified, according to Congressional sources, that as late as mid-September, Ms. Miers wanted to know whether Ms. Yang could be made to resign. Mr. Sampson reportedly recalled that Ms. Miers was focused on just two United States attorneys: Ms. Yang and Bud Cummins, the Arkansas prosecutor who was later fired to make room for Tim Griffin, a Republican political operative and Karl Rove protégé.
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The new job that Ms. Yang landed raised more red flags. Press reports say she got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties. She was hired to be co-leader of the Crisis Management Practice Group with Theodore Olson, who was President Bush’s solicitor general and his Supreme Court lawyer in Bush v. Gore. Gibson, Dunn was defending Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation.
Several issues bear investigating. First, did Ms. Yang know or suspect that she might lose her job, and jump ship to avoid being fired? That is not hard to believe because Ms. Miers and Mr. Sampson were exchanging e-mail about dismissing her in mid-September, and she announced her departure in October. Ms. Yang served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, which Mr. Gonzales has called “a small group of U.S. attorneys that I consult on policy matters.” That may have put her in a position to be tipped off in advance.
A second possibility is that Gibson, Dunn dangled a rich financial package before Ms. Yang to get her out, and to disrupt the investigation of Mr. Lewis. Ms. Yang, who says she left her job purely for personal reasons, may not have known she was being lured away by people with close ties to Mr. Lewis and the White House, who were hoping to replace her with a more partisan prosecutor.
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