Class Action

Another US Attorney is questioning his dismissal.

Attorney Karl Warner of West Virginia apparently wasn't a real honest guy, but he also apparently wasn't dishonest enough.

Warner said he was fired by the White House in 2005 "in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation" without being told why.

Warner said he refused to resign when asked by the Justice Department, responding that he took his direction from President Bush.

"Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I'd been fired, no reason given," Warner recounted in a telephone interview.

A state legislative audit later revealed e-mails in which Warner had offered to secretly contribute to a 2004 county political campaign.

"Let me try to steer some contributions your way (gently) and perhaps use a family member with a different last name to make my contribution," Warner wrote in one July 2003 e-mail, according to the audit.

Warner said he never followed through on the offer and discounted that as a reason behind his departure.

Oh, I don't know. I imagine they would have frowned on his offer not being acted upon.

Warner was nominated by Bush in 2001 to serve as the top federal prosecutor in southern West Virginia. The heavily Democratic district is the center of the state's coal industry. Bush carried the state in both 2000 and 2004.

Almost immediately Warner made public corruption and vote-buying cases a priority, sometimes to the ire of Democrats who accused him of targeting them for political purposes. Warner's brother Kris was the Republican state party chairman, and his brother Monty ran for governor.

Yeah. I think the simple answer to his canning is that he didn't provide that contribution. You?

Warner said that, if asked, he would cooperate with any investigation. But he said he has made peace with his termination and is not trying to become part of the Capitol Hill story line. That's why the former Army officer said he has not approached investigators.

"Sometimes soldiers catch a bullet. If you're truly out there doing your job, if you're truly a leader, sometimes you catch a bullet," he said. "It might not be fair, it might not be right, it might be sad, but that's part of what you do. I caught a bullet. It's not something you cry about or complain about."

So why's he reporting it now? Sounds like whining and complaining to me. Feeling left out of the publicity maybe. Maybe hoping to make people think he was a good attorney that got canned for no reason like the others.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.