and Harriet Miers and because the White House refused to hand over its documents related to the firings. On July 21, 2010, Dannehy concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to establish that persons knowingly made material false statements to [the Office of Inspector General] or Congress or corruptly endeavored to obstruct justice" and that no criminal charges would be filed against Sampson or Gonzales. Replacement of the U.S. Attorneys Initial planning On January 6, 2005, Colin Newman, an assistant in the White House counsels office, wrote to David Leitch stating, "Karl Rove stopped by to ask you (roughly quoting) 'how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them or selectively replace them, etc.'". The email was then forwarded to Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In reply, Kyle Sampson, then Department of Justice counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft, wrote that it would be "weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term", that they "would like to replace 15–20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys" and that the rest "are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc." In March 2005, Sampson ... came up with a checklist. He rated each of the U.S. Attorneys with criteria that appeared to value political allegiance as much as job performance. He recommended retaining 'strong U.S. Attorneys who have ... exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General.' He suggested 'removing weak U.S. Attorneys who have ... chafed against Administration initiatives'. Sampson wrote in January 2006 to Miers that he recommended that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys, and that by limiting the number of attorneys "targeted for removal and replacement" it would "mitigat[e] the shock to the system that would result from an across-the-board firing". On February 12, 2006, Monica Goodling sent a spreadsheet of each U.S. Attorney's political activities and memberships in conservative political groups, in an email to senior Administration officials, with the comment "This is the chart that the AG requested". Sampson strongly urged using changes to the law governing U.S. Attorney appointments to bypass Congressional confirmation, writing in a September 17, 2006 memo to Harriet Miers: I am only in favor