Officials Rebuked For Disclosing Rove’s Connection To Firing of U.S. Attorney
WASHINGTON - The White House’s former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday.
Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn’t fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn’t seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned.
“Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up,” Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. “This is not good for his long-term career.”
The Taylor e-mail was among 46 pages of documents that the Justice Department turned over to Congress Tuesday as part of the investigation into the firings of at least nine U.S. attorneys.
The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees said the documents showed greater White House involvement in the firings than previously known.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the documents “provide further evidence that White House officials like former political director Sara Taylor were deeply involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors.”
The White House disputed those characterizations, saying the e-mails deal only with the aftermath of the firings, not what led up to them, and that there was nothing inappropriate about wanting to promote Griffin, whom the administration considered “exceptionally” qualified.
“I know this is becoming terribly frustrating for Democrats, but once again documents show no wrongdoing in the decision to replace U.S. attorneys,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.
Fratto said some documents also undercut Democrats’ assertions that the White House wanted to abuse a change in federal law to keep interim U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.
In an e-mail exchange from early January, then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers asked Sampson how the department wanted to handle replacement candidates. Sampson replied that “in no case” did he want to use the new law unilaterally to “jam senators” because “that will only result in the Congress taking that authority away from us.”
The newly released e-mails also showed that:
-The White House counsel’s office thought in January that the ousted prosecutors had “disloyally stirred up the senators” but argued against criticizing them publicly because they hadn’t “fired any shots” at the administration.
-Taylor called Cummins “lazy” and said that was “why we got rid of him in the first place.” Cummins, reached Tuesday, said, “I don’t know how Sara Taylor would have any information about my work ethic.”
© 2007 McClatchy Newspapers
yet another reason for a dual impeachment.
If Tim Griffin did nothing wrong why would he resign knowing that the White House would defend his innocence? Why would Sara Taylor lament that Griffin was “hung out to dry w/no heads up” if she also knew that there was nothing wrong being done? Sampson’s statement that he “in no case” wanted to use the new law (allowing Bush to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation) unilaterally as a good example of feigning truth early on in order to cya if the real truth came out later. Why would you quietly insert a law into a bill that you had no intention of using? Of course now it’s obvious that they did intend to use it.
“Doing a heck of a job, Gonzo”
go to gregpalast.com for detailed information on this matter. very interesting information is disclosed.
It seems that the heat is on now, the Democrats in Congress are asking too many questions. General Pace has been sent out to retirement, avoiding confirmation questions concerning accountability on the Iraq.
Tim Griffin won’t seek confirmation either. The Democrats have thrown a monkey wrench into the Republican party’s power agenda leaving the White House on the defensive.
Stay tuned!
“’I know this is becoming terribly frustrating for Democrats, but once again documents show no wrongdoing in the decision to replace U.S. attorneys,’ said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.”
–White House Stonewalling 101–
aremagen asks:
“If Tim Griffin did nothing wrong why would he resign knowing that the White House would defend his innocence?”
I suspect the reason he resigned was the same reason he said he didn’t want the job if he would have to go through a Senate confirmation hearing: further scrutiny would likely reveal his criminal activity on behalf of the GOP’s effort to suppress the vote, especially since suppressing the vote of likely Democratic voters is ultimately the main point of the whole purging and replacement of U.S. attorneys is all about.
Greg Palast has done an excellent job of covering this part of the story. I would quot from his articles and provide you with links to them, but interestingly enough, Comcast (my ISP), or some server between me and gregpalast.com is blocking the entire site. Here, however, is a page that provides the links to the background material about Griffin and his connection to the Fred Thompson campaign, which is being headed by well connected Bushies:
http://scoobiedavis.blogspot.com/2007/06/buh-bye-tim-griffin-greg-palast.html
Additionally, note that Monica Goodling testified under oath that Griffin was involved in using “caging lists,” but when asked what caging lists were, she deflected attention from their illegal nature by claiming they were a common direct mail technique. Here is a mirrored copy of Greg Palast’s article about that:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594
Is anyone else being blocked from Palast’s site? I am just wondering how widespread this is. He seems to be the only journalist closely and directly reporting on this story so I find it highly suspicious that his site seems to be blocked.
I’m just wondering why is it not posible to give these attorneys their jobs back? some of them, notably Carol Lam among others, were busy with some major investigations which is why they got canned. the wheels of justice move way too slow to allow time for them to complete their work when they get reinstated in 2009. Also need to expose Rove again.
With a nose and chin like that, Sara Taylor is one ugly bitch. The white House is probably the only place a dog like that would be employed, as was Harriet Miers. Where does Bush get all these “toe the line” losers?
Shhh! Money talks.
Tim Griffin was ‘outed’ as being the guy in charge of 2004 voter “caging” - as reported by Greg Palast
here’s the URL to bring you up to speed: http://www.gregpalast.com/bushs-new-us-attorney-a-criminal/
JESS JUNE wrote;
“Where does Bush get all these “toe the line” losers?
Folks, I’m from Texas and I have no clue how the hallowed halls of the White House and our Legislative body can be ruled and run with such fraud and ineptness. These are not rocket scientists from Texas we are sending to Washington D. C. This is a State that ranks 46th in education and educational achievement, 49th in overall healthcare for its citizens. These Texans running Washington are an extension of well heeled and funded corporate interests including the military industrial machine which is deeply, deeply, wedded to such fraudulent organizations as NASA, and the massive and fraudulent evangelical movement. I just posted the following on SCIFRAUD the other day.
_______________________________________________________
To the list and Mr. Peterson.
The Bush Administration was successful long ago in politicizing the entire Federal Gov’t and the various agencies. His legion of appointees are under qualified for the appointments. Family, friends, close associates, religious zealots, and industry advocates make up the bulk of his appointments. Several months ago, after finding out an expert witness had committed what amounted to perjury, I received a letter from a Federal Judge encouraging us to “bring the parties back in to his Court” if we felt there was wrong doing and fraud with issues related to the meteorite project. Not surprisingly, and luckily for ” you the public”, this Judges’ appointment predates the greedy, racist, fraudulent, current administration. We can bring the parties in at any time, and the main party to this Federal inquiry is a NASA-JSC employed scientist.
Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first seek to deceive.
That was the comment from an Attorney (Jackie S.) several years ago in a case involving a multi-billion dollar corporation and well…….me. After more than $200,000.00 in attorneys fees and almost four years later and approaching the eleventh hour of litigation, the defendant attorney came in to court and this was the open discussion. The crux of the case was a large corporation “adopting a different set of standards” by identifying and targeting minorities for unequal treatment. This is just to provide a background for what I’m about to reveal with respect to the secret NASA meeting of April 10, 2007 and the destruction of evidence related to that meeting.
Judge to Defendant Corporation: OK. Present your case.
Corp. Attorney: Your honor, we are going to assert a first amendment free speech claim against Mr. DeRusse. That he is violating our first amendment rights………….in this matter …and…………
Judge: (Interrupting the Attorney). You mean to tell me that you are going to assert that Mr. DeRusse is violating your rights to free speech……and that’s gonna be your defense for your conduct?
Attorney: Your Honor if I may, just hear me out, and, I promise I will be brief and we have a right to present our evidence and argument……………..
Judge: (Interrupts Attorney)…..You’re gonna stand in this courtroom and tell me that a man with limited resources is violating the free speech rights of a multi-billion dollar corporation, who can buy every billboard along every major highway, full page newspaper ads in every major city and newspaper in this country? Is that gonna be your defense? Well, I’m gonna let you present your case but I can tell you right now, this defense is not gonna fly in this courtroom …..or any courtroom that I can think of ……go ahead.
Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first seek to deceive.
BCC Meteorites has assembled the evidence to show the following.
A) NASA embedded republican appointees including the IG’s office had been conducting a surreptitious investigation into our numerous claims, going back to late 2006.
B) This investigation concluded in March of 2007.
C) The investigation revealed that our numerous claims are valid. (Scientific and scientific misconduct)
D) A meeting was called with all NASA centers by video conference in which:
1) The IG’s office in conjunction with NASA HQ established BCC Meteorites policy
2) This policy was disseminated to all centers.
3) The policy is intended to by formal means, tighten the grip on scientists with a propensity of acting outside the scope of official policy.
4) This policy includes narrowing the information and limiting the channels from which it flows.
E) The secret basement meeting was conveyed as a vote of confidence on the Inspector General which amounted to a cover for the actual events and purpose of the meeting.
F) All evidence and information from the meeting was collected and destroyed for the purpose of concealing the aforementioned.
Finally, there was no need to call all of the NASA centers for a secret video conference in a matter supposedly involving only the Inspector General and NASA headquarters in Washington D. C. Was there? NASA has absolutely no oversight authority over the IG, does it? So why the secret meeting and subsequent destruction of evidence?
Just goes to show, Corporations including Federal Agencies backed into a corner will resort to anything and everything to shift the balance of their position.
Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first seek to deceive.
Cordially,
S. Ray DeRusse
www.bccmeteorites.com
This is another aspect that I have not seen Greg Palast investigate:
In December 2005, the administration, via Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter’s (R-PA) chief counsel (Brett Tolman), slipped a provision into the Patriot Act reauthorization bill that made it possible to replace U.S. Attorneys permanently without Senate confirmation.
Alberto Gonzales’ just-resigned Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and Specter staffer Brett Tolman were both up for the US Attorney Utah job in February 2006. Sampson was the White House’s favorite. Tolman was Specter, Frist, McConnell and DeWine’s favorite.
This all leads to proof that the 2004 election was fraudulent and that the planning is in place to steal the 2008 election.