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USA TodayWASHINGTON — Former U.S. attorney Todd Graves says a top level Justice Department official instructed him in January 2006 to resign to make room for someone else. That would make him the ninth U.S. attorney in a wave of dismissals Congress is investigating.
"I clearly was a U.S. attorney who was given a push to leave the department," Graves testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Graves served as the U.S. attorney in the western district of Missouri from September 2001 until he resigned in March 2006. He said Michael Battle, the director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, told him in a January 2006 phone call that a decision had been made at "the highest levels of government" that he should resign to give another person a chance to serve.
Graves said that when he asked to stay long enough to prosecute a high-profile murder case, he was told to move on.
Congress is looking into whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his top aides dismissed prosecutors for political reasons. The probe has focused on eight U.S. attorneys whom Justice Department officials in testimony have said were asked to leave. As political appointees, U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president.
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