WASHINGTON, March 13 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff rated U.S. attorneys as bold,strikeout and nothing in a 2005 memo, a report says. Kyle Sampson said that those in the strikeout classification should be dismissed, CNN reported. While they were described as ineffectual managers and prosecutors, they were also said to have chafed against administration initiatives, while the bold had shown loyalty to President Bush and Gonzales. The series of e-mails show how closely Sampson worked with White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Miers originally proposed replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys after Bush won re-election in 2004.Sampson resigned this week, while Gonzales acknowledged Tuesday that the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys was mishandled.In one memo to Miers, Sampson said that wholesale removal would be disruptive to the Justice Department. He said that removing individual U.S. attorneys could cause problems with the senators from their home states. Copyright 2007 by UPI
