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Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Al Gonzales, wrote an urgent note to White House Counsel Bill Kelly on May 11, 2006, warning that it was time to find potential replacements for U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. In the note, Sampson referred to “[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires,” wrote Sampson, whose recent resignation and testimony have fueled the controversy that may cause Gonzales’ downfall.

DiFi Busted on Carol Lam March 30, 2007   RUSH: Folks, you gotta hear this. I'm going to briefly touch here on the so-called scandal of the fired US attorneys. Dianne Feinstein making a huge stink about whether US attorney Carol Lam was fired mistakenly or unfairly because she's making a case here about how great Carol Lam was on immigration cases.  This is yesterday during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with the former chief of staff to Gonzales, Kyle Sampson. It's just a portion of what Di Fi said.   FEINSTEIN: An accumulation study done by USA Today places Carol Lam as one...

Despite reports and irresponsible statements to the contrary voiced by the media and some Democrats in Congress, concerns about U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's performance in prosecuting serious border crimes were bipartisan, substantive and long-standing. I first wrote to the U.S. attorney about border crimes more than three years ago after learning from a reporter that her office had declined to prosecute an alien smuggler apprehended while transporting a car loaded with undocumented immigrants near Temecula... I sought information from sources in the Border Patrol, and others in the law enforcement community, about what was really happening with border prosecutions. They...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday challenged assertions by a former top Justice Department official that Carol Lam was fired from her job as U.S. attorney in San Diego because of a mediocre record in prosecuting immigration cases. During a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the California Democrat produced a recent letter from a top federal immigration official in San Diego praising Lam's record in combating immigrant smuggling. ... “It is a real surprise to me that you would say here that the reason for her dismissal was immigration cases,” Feinstein told Sampson during the hearing. ... In an interview, the...

Daniel R. Dzwilewski Age: 53 Job title: Special agent in charge, FBI, San Diego Division Education: Bachelor's degree in English, University of Notre Dame; law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich. Hometown: Springfield, Mass. Family: Married, no children Years as chief of San Diego office: 4 years Years with FBI: 27 Special awards: 2006 Presidential Rank Award, for sustained meritorious service, presented last month Last day: April 30 New job: Director of security, Sempra Energy San Diego FBI chief Dan Dzwilewski, who became embroiled in the national controversy over U.S. attorney firings when he publicly defended...

On April 6, 2006, a Florida Republican lambasted former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam during a House Judiciary Committee meeting. The rebuke earned nary a peep in the San Diego media. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was on Capitol Hill testifying before the group of lawmakers. While the media focused on Gonzales' lengthy testimony about a secret wiretap program, U.S. Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., took Lam to task. "Here's some straight talk," he told Gonzales. "The pathetic failure of your U.S. Attorney in San Diego to prosecute alien smugglers who've been arrested 20 times is a demoralizing slap in the face to...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the year before her dismissal as San Diego's U.S. attorney, Carol Lam's Justice Department bosses griped about her in snide e-mails and strategized about putting her "on a very short leash." Yet they gave no explanation when they finally kicked her out in December, Lam testified last month. The e-mails, among more than 3,000 pages of documents released this week by the House Judiciary Committee, suggest officials grew frustrated by a prosecutor who had her own priorities and views. In one exchange last July, a Justice Department official wrote that he was sad a top agency...

There was a perception that the less experienced attorneys assigned to the team that processed all immigration and border cases needed more support and instruction before, during and after court proceedings and during plea negotiations. In June 2006, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to express concerns about Carol Lam's performance in office:“It has come to my attention that despite high apprehension rates by Border Patrol agents along California's border with Mexico, prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District of California appear to lag behind. . . . It is my understanding that the...

SAN DIEGO -- It's an odd twist that ousted San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam is the focal point of a growing controversy over the way the Bush administration fired her and seven of her colleagues. The low-key litigator who made her name prosecuting health care fraud got the job in 2002 because she was seen as a safe choice following a protracted search for a top federal prosecutor in the nation's eighth-largest city. Democrats investigating the firings have questioned whether Lam's dismissal was linked to her office's corruption prosecution of now-jailed former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. That investigation...

Senate Democrats signaled Sunday that of the eight U.S. attorneys abruptly fired by the Bush administration, the case in San Diego is emerging as the most troubling because of new allegations that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired in a direct attempt to shut down investigations into Republican politicians in Southern California. ...Lam spearheaded the case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., who pleaded guilty to bribery and income-tax evasion. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.

Lamming Into Attorney General Gonzales The Pasadena Pundit - Feb. 19, 2007 Former Democratic U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, Alleges she was terminated in retaliation, For investigating Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham, In the middle of her prosecutorial chase, There is only one small remediation, Cunningham's in jail for an 8 year span, I rest my case. See here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-na-usattyb19mar19,0,5490447.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The Justice Department announced temporary replacements Thursday for two recently ousted U.S. attorneys in San Diego and San Francisco. Outgoing San Diego chief federal prosecutor Carol Lam will be succeeded by Karen Hewitt, a career federal prosecutor who is currently the executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. In San Francisco, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan will be replaced by Scott Schools, a career federal prosecutor who currently works for the Justice Department overseeing legal guidance and personnel matters for all 94 U.S. attorney's offices across the country. Hewitt's appointment was announced as staff and local law enforcement...

Senators to seek answers about U.S. attorneys' exits A national political storm is brewing over the departures of several top prosecutors, including San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. Lam has not commented since reports surfaced last week that she was asked to resign as the chief federal law enforcement officer in San Diego. Sources told The San Diego Union-Tribune that superiors in the Justice Department are unhappy with decreased prosecutions for gun and immigration violations. Lam, a political independent, was appointed by President Bush in 2002. In recent months, at least four other U.S. attorneys have announced their departures, two...