I attended a breakfast this morning that featured former U.S. Attorney John McKay. John was one of the attorneys Alberto Gonzales summarily fired. He is a familiar face in these parts and he has spoken at other meetings I've attended in the past.

While his talked focussed primarily on terrorism and the role of the Justice Department, he spoke quite eloquently about the circumstances surrounding his firing. He said he was told the reason he was fired was because of a Seattle newspaper's article that quoted him as saying that his office needed more financial resources to investigate and prosecute matters associated with terrorism (he prosecuted the Ahmed Ressam case here). Apparently, the Bush administration doesn't like its appointees asking for more money in the media.

Of course, there is one big problem with this explanation for his firing...the article in question was published ten days after Gonzeles had already decided to fire him...in otherwords, he was lied to. To date, John has never been given any other explanation for his firing.

A very interesting talk. Very illuminating about the whole U.S. attorney's firing debacle.