Salazar 'troubled' but not calling for Gonzales to resign

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WASHINGTON — Sen. Ken Salazar said today he is troubled by allegations that have "blemished" the Department of Justice, but so far he is not joining the parade of Democrats calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

"I think we need to know the facts first," Salazar, D-Denver, told reporters during a conference call.

"I am troubled by the allegations here, that the arm of the law in the Department of Justice would somehow be used to further a particular political end," Salazar said. "That would be a misuse of the prosecutorial powers of the Department of Justice, in my view."

Several prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have called for Gonzales to follow his chief of staff's lead and resign over a series of prosecutor firings that critics claim were politically-motivated.

Gonzales is in the center of a firestorm over the way eight U.S. Attorneys were replaced late last year.

Some of the fired prosecutors have said that, prior to their firings, they received inappropriate communications from congressional Republicans pressing them to take action on investigating voter fraud allegations against Democrats.

Justice Department officials had denied that the White House was involved in the decisions. But Gonzales was forced to admit some mistakes on Tuesday, after the release of e-mails showing that his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, had repeated communications with former White House legal adviser Harriet Miers over plans to replace U.S. attorneys.

Sampson resigned earlier this week. On Tuesday, Gonzales' acknowledged "mistakes were made" in the handling of the case, but he defended the president's right to replace U.S. attorneys and said he had no plans to step down.

Despite Gonzales' public explanations, the list of Democrats calling for his resignation continues growing, including Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and others.

So far, Salazar has not joined the resignation calls, but he said he also is troubled by recent reports about federal investigators' widespread use of controversial "National Security Letters" to obtain information in terrorism investigations.

"I don't think things are looking very bright in the Department of Justice," Salazar said. "The DOJ at the end of the day should be the one department of our nation's government that really is viewed by the American people as standing up for the rule of law. Right now, it appears that the Department of Justice and its role in upholding the rule of law has been blemished."

Salazar has had close ties with Gonzales since his earliest days in the U.S. Senate. After taking the oath of office in January 2006, one of Salazar's first official acts was to escort Gonzales to his Senate confirmation hearing.

In introductory remarks, Salazar said they shared similar backgrounds as children raised in large, working class families. He called Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court Justice, "better qualified" than many recent attorneys general.

Salazar's endorsement angered Democrats who had just helped elect him, since they wanted to hold Gonzales accountable for his role in crafting the Bush administration's policies on torture prior to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

In the end, Salazar was one of only six Democrats to vote for Gonzales, and today the two men are among the highest-ranking Hispanics in U.S. government.

Last month, Gonzales joined Salazar and fellow Coloradans, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, on a tour of the Supermax prison in Florence.