John Walsh (Hill & Robbins, P.C.)

The Republican former U.S. Attorney in Colorado is pushing Denver lawyer John Walsh for the state’s top federal prosecuting job, The Denver Post reports.

Troy Eid, who served as U.S. Attorney during the Bush administration, wrote Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that Walsh is “ethical and a person of unimpeachable character and integrity.”

Walsh, a white-collar criminal and civil attorney with the Hill & Robbins law firm, has re-emerged as a candidate for U.S. Attorney after President Barack Obama’s original nominee, Stephanie Villafuerte, withdrew on Monday, citing “political attacks” by Republicans.

Walsh and Villafuerte were recommended to the White House earlier this year by Udall and then-Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who is now Interior secretary. Their other recommendation was Bill Thiebaut, a district attorney for Pueblo, Colo.

Stephanie Villafuerte (handout via Denver Post)

In his letter to the senator, Eid said: “I know from my own experience that United States Attorneys are entrusted with tremendous power over life and property,” adding, “Colorado’s chief law enforcement leader must act in an ethical and nonpartisan way that’s beyond reproach. Our civil rights and community safety are at stake.”

Walsh also had worked previously for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Former state Sen. Norma Anderson (R) also reached out to Udall on Walsh’s behalf. Anderson told The Post she has known Walsh for a number of years and believes he is “unbiased (and) open- minded and works well with both parties.” She added, “We’re not going to get a Republican appointed, so why not take the best of the Democrats?”

In a Wednesday email to The Post, Walsh wrote, “I was deeply honored to be on the list sent by Sen. Udall and then-Sen. Salazar to the President in January to be considered for nomination as U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado,” adding,  “I am deeply honored to be considered now.”

Bill Thiebaut (gov)

Thiebaut, also in a Wednesday email to The Post, wrote that “everyone has a reason to support or to not support their favorite candidate.” He added, “I am sure that the President will make the right decision in selecting a new nominee after vetting potential candidates.”

Udall spokeswoman Tara Trujillo told The Post she does not expect that anyone other than Walsh and Thiebaut will be recommended to Obama.

Villafuerte, a longtime aide to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D), was nominated Sept. 30. She withdrew from consideration following a controversy about whether she accessed a law enforcement database in connection with Ritter’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Villafuerte has denied the allegations.

Anwar al-Aulaqi

A federal arrest warrant issued in Colorado for radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was withdrawn in 2002 because prosecutors ultimately lacked evidence that he had committed a crime, interim U.S. Attorney Dave Gaouette told the Denver Post last week.

Awlaki has emerged as a key figure as investigators look into the Nov. 5 shooting deaths at Fort Hood. He was an imam at a suburban mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour. Awlaki praised suspected Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan on his blog last month.

ABC News first reported that Colorado prosecutors had issued but then withdrawn a warrant for his arrest on passport fraud charges.

Gaouette, who was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the office in 2002, told the Denver Post that he and other federal prosecutors in his office held a meeting and decided there was insufficient evidence to present a passport fraud case to a grand jury.

“We asked the court to dismiss the complaint and withdraw the warrant in the interest of justice,” Gaouette told the Post. “There is no sense putting a person through an indictment when the government knows all along that we don’t have evidence or that we can prove the violation beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Gaouette’s term as interim U.S. Attorney for Colorado was set to expire on Tuesday, but has been extended by judicial decree until a new U.S. Attorney is appointed, according to his office. President Obama’s nominee for the position, Stephanie Villafuerte, is awaiting confirmation from the Senate. The Colorado Republican Party chairman and other conservatives have pressed the nominee over allegations she used a restricted federal database to help the 2006 campaign of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

Gaouette also said his office never received information about the cleric’s possible ties to terrorists, contrary to what sources told ABC News.

“Even if there was information to us at the time that he associated or communicated with other people, that would not be a basis to get a criminal charge unless those communications were violations of criminal law,” Gaouette told the Post. “That has never been done, and that will never be done, and prosecutors make their decisions on the facts at the time.”

Anwar al-Awlaki

The interim U.S. Attorney for Colorado, David Gaouette, rescinded a felony arrest warrant in 2002 for the radical Islamic cleric who has emerged as a focus of investigators in the Nov. 5 shooting deaths at Fort Hood, according to ABC News.

Gaouette was an assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of terror cases in the state when the warrant for Anwar al Awlaki was rescinded, ABC said.

The day after the warrant was canceled, federal authorities detained the U.S.-born Awlaki at New York’s JFK airport as he arrived on a flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After questioning, Awlaki was released and continued on his way to Washington, D.C., where he was an imam at a suburban mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour.

Awlaki also had met in 2000 with Alhamzi and another future 9/11 hijacker, Khalid Almihdhar, at a mosque in San Diego.

Members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, speaking anonymously, told ABC News they were “disappointed and shocked” by Gaouette’s decision not to arrest Awlaki in 2002. “This was a missed opportunity to get this guy under wraps so we could look at him under a microscope,” a JTTF source told ABC. It isn’t clear why the warrant was canceled. A spokesperson for Gaouette said he was “unfamiliar with the particulars of the Awlaki case, and would have to research it before he could comment,” ABC reported.

The cleric had first come under FBI scrutiny in 1999. The Bureau found that Awlaki had been in contact with an associate of “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, whose followers were convicted of attempting to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, ABC News said. Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, runs a Web site that promotes violent jihad against the West. He was in email contact last year and this year with Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

After looking into the email contacts, the FBI decided they didn’t merit further investigation. The Bureau missed information in Hasan’s training file at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington that would have shown his colleagues were troubled by views the Army psychiatrist expressed about Muslim conflict with the West. The apparent failure to connect the dots — reminiscent of pre-9/11 intelligence lapses — is the subject of congressional investigations.

Awlaki praised suspected Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan on his blog earlier this month.

Read the full report here: How Anwar Awlaki Got Away – ABC News.