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By Leah Nylen

A George W. Bush U.S. Attorney who is the Republican nominee for a House seat in northeast Pennsylvania was on the list of prosecutors who were slated for removal in 2006, Times-Shamrock newspapers reported Thursday.

Tom Marino (Tom Marino for Congress)

Former U.S. Attorney Tom Marino of the Middle District of Pennsylvania “was not leading his office,” Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said in a Justice Department report obtained by the newspapers. Sampson then put him on the controversial purge list. Nine U.S. Attorneys were ousted in late 2006, but Marino was not among the group. He resigned in September 2007 and went to work as an attorney for DeNaples Management, owned by Pennsylvania businessman Louis DeNaples.

Sampson said he couldn’t recall exactly why he put Marino on the list. The former DOJ official also said he couldn’t remember if Marino’s inclusion on the list had to do with the former U.S. Attorney’s relationship with DeNaples, who sought a casino license while Marino was the top federal prosecutor in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Marino allowed himself  to be a business reference on the casino application for DeNaples, who the U.S. Attorney’s office was investigating at the time. Marino told a radio station in April that the DOJ permitted him to be a reference for DeNaples. But the DOJ doesn’t have any record of the authorization. Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), who is running against Marino, has made the former U.S. Attorney’s business reference a major campaign issue.

“It’s ancient history,” Sampson told the Times-Shamrock newspapers. “Obviously he wasn’t removed [in 2006], and I wish him all the best.”

According to the report, Sampson decided against calling for Marino’s resignation because he said he wanted to avoid a “brush fire” with then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.

Jason Fitzgerald, Marino’s campaign spokesman, dismissed the disclosures in the report.

“We’re really not going to play in the mud on this stuff,” Mr. Fitzgerald told the Times-Shamrock newspapers. “Those claims are totally without merit. Tom Marino was a distinguished prosecutor.”

Full post as published by Main Justice on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).