Residency Clause Adds Fuel To Dispute Over U.S. Attorneys

One Prosecutor Gets an Exemption, Another Gets Fired

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page A03

On Nov. 10, 2005, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sent a letter to a federal judge in Montana, assuring him that the U.S. attorney there, William W. Mercer, was not violating federal law by spending most of his time in Washington as a senior Justice Department official.

That same day, Mercer had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews