"Now, let me say that this committee has spent $250,000 of the taxpayers' money basically investigating the replacement of U.S. attorneys whose terms had expired," he said. "...It seems to me that with this fishing expedition, there ain't no fish in the water. And we've spent an awful lot of time and an awful lot of money finding that out."It's just that the committee hasn't hooked one yet. Some of them seem to have faulty memories.
That "terms had expired" reference is another kind of fish that's commonly known as a red herring. The question under discussion is why they were replaced. The answer is not that their terms had expired.