Deputy A.G. McNulty Announces Resignation
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 14, 2007; 6:06 PM
Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty announced his resignation today, saying he is leaving the Justice Department later this summer to enter the private sector, officials said.
McNulty announced his plans to leave in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, citing the financial pressures of having children entering their college years, one official said.
McNulty is the latest senior Justice official to announce his departure amid the swirl of controversy over the firings last year of nine U.S. attorneys. Three other top aides to Gonzales have quit in recent months.
The removals of the prosecutors have sparked a furor in Congress over shifting explanations from Gonzales and other Justice officials.
McNulty acknowledged providing inaccurate information to Congress in February about the dismissals, but blamed the errors on inadequate preparation by others more deeply involved in the removals.
"It seems ironic that Paul McNulty who at least tried to level with the committee goes while Gonzales who stonewalled the committee is still in charge," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has asked Gonzales to resign. "This administration owes us a lot better."
McNulty got his start as a GOP staff lawyer on Capitol Hill and helped run the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations at the Justice Department. Although he had little trial experience, McNulty went on to become U.S. attorney in Alexandria, heading an office that became central to the department's terrorism-related prosecutions.
McNulty provided the Justice Department's first full accounting of the U.S. attorney firings during testimony in early February that turned out to be full of inaccuracies, including that the White House was only minimally involved.
In fact, subsequent documents showed, senior Gonzales aides had been working with the White House since early 2005 to identify and remove prosecutors deemed as disloyal to the Bush administration.