Haven't heard much from Attorney General Ashcroft lately--but his spin machine was at work today. He conducted a conference call with all 93 U.S. Attorneys last week, urging them to be vigilant because of pre-election day terror threats.

Ashcroft and Comey reiterated concerns that top U.S. officials have been voicing since the spring -- that al Qaeda may try to attack the United States in the run up to the November election. "Given that the intelligence was pegged to an attack between now and the election, the closer we get to the election, obviously the smaller the window gets and the greater our concern gets," said the official.

"We are engaged in a full-court press in every corner of the country to try to detect and disrupt the attack that we're worried about. And this is part of that -- enlisting the U.S. attorneys."

The official said Ashcroft was concerned that some prosecutors and law enforcement officials may have let their guard down because there had been so many terror alerts. "It was a pep talk," he said. "We're pushing energy into the system."