President Bush yesterday nominated interim U.S. Attorney Craig S. Morford in Tennessee as the next deputy attorney general, replacing Paul J. McNulty, who announced his resignation in May and will leave his post later this summer.
Mr. Morford, a career prosecutor who also headed the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force in Cleveland for three years, will take over as the department’s No. 2 official when his nomination is confirmed by the Senate.
“This is not the first time the department has called upon Craig for his proven leadership skills and experience,” said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. “With 20 years of experience as a Justice Department prosecutor, I am pleased to have a person of Mr. Morford’s exemplary character and integrity in this critical position at this time.”
Mr. Morford’s appointment had been expected since Nashville lawyer Ed Yarbrough was named last week to take over the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Mr. Morford had been brought in last year on an interim basis after a firestorm of criticism about management disputes within the Tennessee office.
In 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Mr. Morford to lead an internal review of how prosecutors had handled the case of three men accused of being part of a terrorist “sleeper cell” in Detroit. A judge later threw out the convictions owing to prosecutorial misconduct.
Two years earlier, he was the lead prosecutor in a case charging Rep. James A. Traficant, Jr., Ohio Democrat, on federal corruption charges. He won a conviction and an eight-year prison sentence for the former lawmaker.
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said Mr. Morford “seems like a good choice.”
“Given his two-decade background as a career prosecutor, who appears independent, apolitical and fair, and his experience as a Justice Department troubleshooter, Morford should be able to address certain problems, such as overpoliticization and declining morale, at Justice and to reach out to the 93 U.S. attorneys,” Mr. Tobias said.
Mr. McNulty, in his letter of resignation, said the “financial realities of college-age children and two decades of public service lead me to a long overdue transition in my career.” His announcement coincided with an investigation by Congress into the firing of several U.S. attorneys.
Mr. McNulty was the first to testify before a congressional committee that one of the fired U.S. attorneys was dismissed to make room for a replacement who was a friend of White House political adviser Karl Rove. Prior to that testimony, Mr. Gonzales had said the dismissed prosecutors were fired for performance-related reasons.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and a leader in the Senate effort to investigate the firings, said: “Mr. Morford starts out with one thing going for him: He’s a career prosecutor and not a politician.”
Prior to his September appointment as U.S. attorney in Tennessee, Mr. Morford served as the first assistant U.S. attorney in Ohio. From August 2004 to March 2005, he was the interim U.S. attorney in Michigan and served as a special counsel to the attorney general in that district from 2004 to 2005.
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