When Gonzales was asked about the potential abuse of the loophole, Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman quotes him as responding:

``We are fully committed to ensuring that with respect to every position we have a Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed U.S. attorney,'' Gonzales told editors and reporters during an interview Tuesday.

``We in no way politicize these decisions,'' he added.

U.S. District Court judges, Gonzales said, tend to appoint friends and others not properly qualified to be prosecutors.

[But] Better that judges do the hiring than the White House, say Democrats, who have introduced legislation to return the appointment process to the courts.

Driven in part by the recent brouhaha over the number, orchestration, and apparently forced nature of the recent U.S. Attorney resignations, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. has indeed introduced a bill in the Senate to close the loophole in the Patriot Reauthorization Act and restore the Senate's oversight.  Other bills seek to restore the language to pre-Patriot Reauthorization Act verbiage.

So in addition to those of Griffin and Cohen, what are the "terms" of the others on the list of 14 U.S. Attorneys who have neither been officially nominated by President Bush nor confirmed by the Senate?

One (Maine's U.S. Attorney, Paula Silsby) may have been serving as long as six years without confirmation; another (Tennessee Eastern's James Dedrick) has been Acting/Interim U.S. Attorney since July 2005.  He was sequentially appointed acting, and when the 210 days ran out, appointed interim U.S. Attorney for a fresh 120 days.  Before the 120 days expired, the Patriot Act was reauthorized, rendering the term limitation moot.

Others on the list are heading up their districts in either an acting or interim capacity until someone is officially appointed.   Several, including Griffin, have been described in DOJ press releases as appointed until the end of Bush's term. In an 01-17-07 interview, Gonzales acknowledged that 10 to 11 U.S. Attorneys have resigned since March 2006.   The Gonzales Seven (Lam, Charlton, Bodgen, McKay, Iglesias, Ryan, and Cummins) received the most press, partially because six were contacted and asked, according to a Dan Eggen article in the Washington Post, to resign.

There are four others that have resigned since March 2006 for reasons other than promotion to another government position or retirement: Central California - Debra Wong-Yang; Western Missouri - Todd Graves; Puerto Rico - Humberto S. Garcia; and Middle Tennessee -James K. Vines.  Except for Garcia, where President Bush just nominated Rosa E. Rodriguez on 1-16-07, an acting or interim is now running the district.  

The remaining names either replace U.S. Attorneys who have been promoted or retired. In Iowa,  Interim U.S. Attorney Matt Dummermuth replaces Charles Larson who retired December 31^st, 2006.  In the District of Columbia, Interim U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor replaces Ken Wainstein who resigned on September 27^th, 2006 to take a new position as the first Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. In Nebraska, Interim U.S. Attorney Joe Stecher replaces Michael Heavican who resigned effective October 2^nd, 2006 when he was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court.

It's notable that of the 14, four were identified by a McClatchy Washington Bureau article that listed new appointees with  administration ties.

The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

• Tim Griffin in Arkansas, replacing Bud Cummins, forced out on December 16^th, 2006
• Jeff Taylor in DC, sworn in as interim on September 29^th, 2006, replacing Ken Wainstein (promoted to the first Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division)
• John Wood in Western Missouri, nominated January 17^th, 2007,taking over from the interim Schlozman to fill the vacancy created by Todd Graves
• Matt M. Dummermuth in Iowa who replaces retiring Charles Larson on December 31^st, 2006

The Process

The "old" process for "hiring" a new U.S. Attorney to head up any of the 93 districts is traditionally a 3-parter:  The Senators from the state in which the district is located provide a list of suggestions to the President, the President appoints the nominee, and the Senate confirms the appointment.

The President customarily takes the recommendation of the senators from the nominee's home state who are of the same party as the President.  If there are no senators from the President's party, the President gets recommendations from party leaders in the state.

Indeed, the tradition of "senatorial courtesy," as it is called, has at times been so entrenched that if the President disregarded these nominations, the individual would never make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

These are critical appointments because the U.S. Attorney in each district office is in charge of staff and the numerous Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) who work in them.  The Washington D.C. office has 350 AUSAs alone.

The Playing Field

There are 93 U.S. Districts, each state has at least one district, though some states have more.  The 93 U.S. Districts are grouped into 9 circuits, based loosely on geography.

Each U.S. Attorney's district wields tremendous prosecutorial power, especially in criminal cases brought by the Federal government and in the prosecution and defense of civil cases in which the United States is a party. The vast majority of these replacements have occurred in the 8th and 9th circuits.

Yet in several of these cases, the acting U.S. Attorney has operated for years without Senate confirmation.  In others, the situation bears watching, such as the January 31^st appointing of Daniel Knauss to step in as acting Arizona U.S. Attorney, while Republican Senators Kyl and McCain recommended Diane Humetewa to Gonzales and President Bush.

Who, What, When, Where and How about the 14 so far

We've compiled what is known about each of the fifteen who are currently serving without subject to the Senate's confirmation process.  Note that, perhaps coincidentally, eight (8) of the replacements are in the 8th and 9th circuit. The information is here: What We Know about 14 Acting, Interim or Serving U.S. Attorneys

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