David Fein (Wiggin and Dana LLP)

David Fein (Dartmouth College, New York University School of Law) is nominated to be U.S. Attorney for Connecticut. He would replace Kevin O’Connor, who was the district’s U.S. Attorney from 2002 to 2006. O’Connor resigned in order to become Associate Deputy Attorney General. The district’s current acting U.S. Attorney is Nora Dannehy.

His vitals:

• Born in New York, N.Y., in 1960.
• Has been a partner at Wiggin and Dana LLP in Stamford, Conn., since 1997.
• Has been a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School in New Haven, Conn., since 1999.
• Was Associate Counsel to President Bill Clinton in Washington, D.C., from 1995 to 1996.
• Worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1989 to 1995. Also served as deputy chief of the narcotics unit from 1992 to 1993, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division from 1993 to 1994 and counsel to the U.S. Attorney from 1994 to 1995.
• Was an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York, N.Y., from 1986 to 1989.
• Clerked for The Honorable Frank M. Coffin in Portland, Maine from 1985 to 1986.
• Was a summer associate at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Southern District of New York in 1985.
• Was a summer associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, N.Y., in 1984.
• Was a summer associate at Rosenman & Colin (now Katten Muchin Rosenman) in New York, N.Y., in 1983.
• Was a visiting lecturer at the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford, Conn., from 1997 to 1998.
• Has tried approximately 15 cases tried to verdict, of which he was chief counsel in approximately 10.

Click here for his full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure Fein reported earning $1.8 million from Wiggin and Dana in 2009 in distribution and bonuses.

UPDATE: On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure Fein reported assets valued at $4.5 million, mostly from his $2.8 million personal residence, and $978,000 in liabilities, mostly from a mortgage on the property, for a net worth of $3.6 million.

Rick Renzi

In 2006, then-Rep. Rick Renzi’s re-election was in serious jeopardy. Rumors were flying that Arizona Republican was the target of a federal criminal investigation. Reporters were picking up on them. Scott Jennings, a senior aide to Karl Rove, warned White House counsel Harriet Miers of the issue in 2006, according to according to emails released by the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Miers’s response? She called Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to ask him to issue a statement to dispel the Renzi rumors. The only problem: The rumors were true. Read Murray Waas’s report in The Huffington Post here.

Harriet Miers

Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, who was leading the investigation, already had found enough evidence of alleged criminal misconduct to warrant the Department of Justice approving a request  that Charlton seek an application from a federal judge to wiretap Renzi’s telephone.

In 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Renzi on 38 counts of money laundering, extortion, insurance fraud, and other alleged felonies. Renzi left office in January 2009, after announcing he would not seek another term in office.

Paul Charlton

Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration, told Waas in an interview Tuesday: “It’s a great disappointment that the White House not only would ask that the Justice Department comment about an ongoing investigation but also lie about that investigation. And it is even a greater disappointment that the Gonzales Department of Justice and would comment at all about an ongoing investigation let alone make untruthful comments about an investigation.”

Paul McNulty

In June, career federal law enforcement officials involved in the Renzi investigation told Waas they wanted Attorney General Eric Holder to initiate a formal investigation of the Miers intervention. (At the time it was unknown that at least three of Bush’s top aides were involved in the control effort to protect Renzi’s reputation and re-election chances).

In his interview with Waas, Charlton said he hoped Nora Dannehy, the special prosecutor investigating the U.S Attorney firings, also would investigate the Bush White House’s damage control efforts on Renzi. “”It is my understanding that the new information and documents are almost certainly in the possession of the U.S. Attorney [Dannehy] and I expect that she will take the appropriate next steps,” Charlton told Waas.

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove played a bigger part in the 2006 U.S. Attorney purge than previously known, The Washington Post reported this afternoon.

Karl Rove (Gov)

E-mails obtained by The Post give new insight into the former Bush official’s role in the purge. Two of the e-mails focus on then-New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and Timothy Griffin, who replaced then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Bud Cummins.

In an October 2006 e-mail, White House political affairs aide Scott Jennings informed Rove that then-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and his chief of staff, Steve Bell, wanted Iglesias out of office.

“I received a call from Steve Bell tonight. . . . Last week Sen. Domenici reached the chief of staff and asked that we remove the U.S. Atty. Steve wanted to make sure we all understood that they couldn’t be more serious about this request,” said the Jennings e-mail obtained by The Post.

Rove told The Post he was only a messenger. The former Bush official said he had “no recollection” of how he learned that Iglesias was fired.

“Yes, I was a recipient of complaints, and I passed them on to the counsel’s office to be passed onto Justice,” Rove told The Post.

In a February 2005 e-mail, Rove told deputy Sara Taylor that he wanted to replace a U.S. Attorney with his protege, Griffin.

“Give him options. Keep pushing for Justice and let him decide. I want him on the team,” said the Rove e-mail obtained by The Post.

Then, White House Counsel Harriet Miers contacted Taylor a month later.

“Sara, Karl asked me to forward you a list of locations where we may consider replacing the USAs…,” said the Miers e-mail obtained by The Post.

Rove personally suggested that Griffin should replace Cummins, according to The Post.

Assistant U.S. attorney Nora R. Dannehy and the House Judiciary Committee are investigating the purge. Today, the former White House deputy chief of staff wrapped up the second day of closed-door House hearings about the U.S. Attorney purge, The Post said. A transcript of the hearings could be made public in August, according to The Post.

“I certainly can confirm that Karl answered all of the committee’s questions fully and truthfully,” Rove attorney Robert Luskin told The Post. “His answers should put to rest any suspicion that he acted improperly.”

Acting Connecticut U.S. Attorney Nora R. Dannehy will question former Bush White House senior aide Karl Rove tomorrow as part of an investigation into the firing of nine Bush-era U.S. Attorneys, The Washington Post reported this afternoon.

Dannehy had been quietly obtaining documents on the firings since she was named to the investigation last year by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, but now she is interviewing former Bush aides, including former White House political director Sara Taylor and deputy director of political affairs Scott Jennings, The Post said.

In addition, the Post reported she has been in contact with advisers to former-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), who improperly called then-New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias, urging him to quickly push through Democratic corruption cases in New Mexico. A month after Iglesias refused the request, he was purged by the Bush administration.

The House Judiciary Committee also plans to interview Rove and former Bush aide Harriet E. Miers on the firings. The committee will hold a closed-door hearing with the two former advisers sometime in June, the Post said.