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Heffelfinger: Change needed at Justice Department
For Tom Heffelfinger, life in private practice keeps getting more public. The former U.S. attorney spoke the Hennepin County Bar Association Thursday ? a speech that had been planned for a while ? and found himself, once again, addressing the ongoing controversy at the Department of Justice. "It's extraordinarily disappointing and sad," he said. He told the crowd at the bar association luncheon that something at the justice department is "fundamentally broken." The speech gave Heffelfinger a forum for discussing Monica Gooding's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said there were concerns about Heffelfinger spending "an extraordinary amount of time" on Native American issues. Heffelfinger stepped down as U.S. attorney last year and later learned his name had been placed on a list of attorneys to fire. "I am upset. I'm really upset," Heffelfinger told KARE11 News after the speech. He declined to say whether Gonzales should resign, as the probe into his department's hiring and firing practices continues. "I have an opinion," he said, about the attorney general's future. "I'm not going to share it." But Heffelfinger did say, "If there isn't a change within the Department of Justice, ultimately, the deterioration of morale and effectiveness will lead to a lack of effectiveness in enforcing the law." When asked why he thought the justice department would want to fire attorneys for concentrating on Native American issues, he said, "I don't know to what degree Indian Country was a factor. What I do know is that five of nine U.S. attorneys who were fired, were amongst the leaders of the Native American issues committee." Heffelfinger was asked by former Attorney General John Ashcroft to head that committee. Heffelfinger also talked about Joan Humes, the lawyer who had been in charge of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota, and said he had recommended her as his interim replacement when he stepped down. "She's an amazing lawyer, a great leader of people, and was the perfect person to serve as acting U.S. Attorney," he said. Humes's name came up at the hearing in Washington, when Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democrat from Minneapolis, asked if she had been considered to replace Heffelfinger. "You knew she was a Democrat, right?" he asked Goodling. "I actually don't know she was a Democrat," Goodling said. "I did hear she was a liberal." The job went to 33-year-old Rachel Paulose. Heffelfinger has not taken issue with that choice ? what he questions is why the people making the choices, like Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, didn't seem to know the lawyers they wanted to fire. "Mr. Sampson makes the following statement," Heffelfinger said at the bar association speech, reading a copy of an email from Gonzales's former chief of staff. "Moreover, McKay, Heffelfinger, Iglesias, etc., had no federal prosecution experience when they took the job," Heffelfinger read. The crowd laughed. When Tom Heffelfinger "took the job," he already had served as U.S. attorney once before. KARE11 asked Rachel Paulose to be included in this story. She said no, through an assistant, because "we're focused on the mission of the office."
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