a performance review process for these attorneys before they were fired. Records released on March 23 showed that on his November 27 schedule "he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge". Executive Privilege claims Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy stated that Congress has the authority to subpoena Justice Department and White House officials including chief political advisor to the president Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. On March 20, President Bush declared in a press conference that his aides would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoenaed by Congress. Bush explained his position saying, The President relies upon his staff to provide him candid advice. The framers of the Constitution understood this vital role when developing the separate branches of government. And if the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served ... I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials ... My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for Presidents to get good decisions. Despite the President's position against aides testifying, on March 21 the House Judiciary Committee authorized the subpoena of five Justice Department officials, and on March 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas as well. Goodling resignation Sampson's replacement as the Attorney General's temporary chief of staff was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg. Rosenberg initiated a DOJ inquiry into possibly inappropriate political considerations in Monica Goodling's hiring practices for civil service staff. Civil service positions are not political appointments and must be made on a nonpartisan basis. In one example, Jeffrey A. Taylor, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to hire a new career prosecutor, Seth Adam Meinero, in the fall of 2006. Goodling judged Meinero too "liberal" and declined to approve the hire. Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency, was serving as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office. Taylor went around Goodling, and demanded Sampson's approval to make the hire. In another example, Goodling removed an attorney from her job at the Department of Justice because she was rumored to be a lesbian, and, further, blocked