Bloomberg reports: “Boyle declined an invitation last month by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to withdraw his nomination, said Lars H. Liebeler, a Washington lawyer and former Boyle law clerk who spoke on behalf of the judge. ‘The attorney general called Judge Boyle and told him that Haynes, Myers and Wallace had submitted letters saying their nominations should be withdrawn and asked Judge Boyle what he wanted to do,’ said Liebeler, who has been championing Boyle’s nomination. ‘Judge Boyle said, if the president didn’t want to renominate him, he would understand that decision but he was not going to quit.’ On Jan. 5, Gonzales telephoned Boyle to say that Bush’s advisers had concluded that the judge couldn’t win Senate confirmation and recommended Bush not resubmit his name to the Senate, Liebeler said. He said Boyle told Gonzales that he understood the political reality.”

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Will Evans is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal, covering labor and tech. His reporting has prompted government investigations, legislation, reforms and prosecutions. A series on working conditions at Amazon warehouses was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won a Gerald Loeb Award. His work has also won multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards, including for a series on safety problems at Tesla. Other investigations have exposed secret spying at Uber, illegal discrimination in the temp industry and rampant fraud in California's drug rehab system for the poor. Prior to joining The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2005, Evans was a reporter at The Sacramento Bee. He is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.