From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW, Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

The Administration of Justice and partisan politics.

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues, Americans care about most. The Bush Justice Department fired eight U.S. attorneys last December without telling them why.

Yesterday, six testified before Congress. Two said they'd been approached by Republicans about cases

that might have embarrassed Democrats. On to the point, were they fired for political reasons,

as Democrats claim? Or is this an overblown personnel matter as insisted today in an editorial by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez? Who are the U.S. attorneys? How much power do they have in the federal justice system? On reporters' notebook later on, videotape violence in France, go to jail. First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio

International Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D. and

Catherine T. McArthur Foundation. Hello again, Mormon-Aulney, back with To the Point, the firing Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation.

Hello again, Mormon-Aulay, back with To the Point. The firing of eight U.S. attorneys has raised

questions about the Bush Justice Department in partisan politics. On To the Point, did a congressional

hearing reveal why they were let go? Are routine personnel matters being overblown?

On reporter's notebook, in France, ordinary citizens

can now be jailed for doing what journalists do all the time, videotape violence. First,

this was this news update. There was a funeral today for another Russian journalist who died

mysteriously, reportedly while working on a story that could have upset relations between the

U.S. and Israel. The reporter died after falling from a window between the fourth and fifth

floors of a building. Fred Weir reports from Moscow for the Christian Science Monitor. Fred,

good to have you with us.

Good to be here. I take it there are suspicions that this was a murder.

What was the nature of the story that Ivan Sophronov was working on?

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