McNulty: Performance Not Reason for Firing

<-- From TPM:

In a phone conversation last December, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told then-U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden that Bogden's performance "did not enter into the equation" as a reason for his firing.

That's at odds with what McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath in February -- that Bogden and others had been fired for "performance related" reasons.

The account of the phone conversation comes from Bogden himself, in written answers to questions from the House Judiciary Committee. The committee will release correspondence with Bogden and others today.

Remember that McNulty had written in an email two days before the firings that he was "skittish" about firing Bogden -- a concern that was apparently allayed by a 90 second meeting during which McNulty and others decided that it wasn't so bad to fire him since Bogden is a bachelor and has only himself to feed.