ACT permitted the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without a term limit in office, and avoid a confirming vote by the Senate. The change in the law undermined the confirmation authority of the Senate and gave the Attorney General greater appointment powers than the President, since the President's U.S. Attorney appointees are required to be confirmed by the Senate and those of the Attorney General did not require confirmation. The Senate was concerned that in dismissing the seven U.S. Attorneys which had been confirmed, the administration planned to fill the vacancies with its own choices, bypassing Senate confirmation and the traditional consultation with senators in the selection process. Congress rescinded this provision on June 14, 2007, and President Bush promptly signed the bill into law. Administration rationale unclear The reasons for the dismissal of each individual U.S. Attorney were unclear. Two suggested motivations were that the administration wanted to make room for U.S. Attorneys who would be more sympathetic to the administration's political agenda, and the administration wanted to advance the careers of promising conservatives. Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democratic politicians, for failing to prosecute claims of election fraud that would hamper Democratic voter registration, as retribution for prosecuting Republican politicians, or for failing to pursue adult obscenity prosecutions. The administration and its supporters said that the attorneys were dismissed for job-performance reasons "related to policy, priorities and management", and that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. However, at least six attorneys had recently received positive evaluations of their performance from the Department of Justice. In September 2008, the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation concluded that the dismissals were politically motivated and improper. The Bush administration issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings. The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear. In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Nora Dannehy as special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress. Her investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with perjury. Politicization of hiring at the Department of Justice Attorney General Gonzales, in a confidential memorandum dated March 1, 2006, delegated