Murry Waas of the National Journal is reporting that
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.Sampson's lawyer denies Sampson intentionally mislead congress when he testified about Rove's involvement. "Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate."
The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.
In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role.
Waas reports:
Several of the e-mails that the Bush administration is withholding from Congress, as well as papers from the White House counsel's office describing other withheld documents, were made available to National Journal by a senior executive branch official, who said that the administration has inappropriately kept many of them from Congress.It might be that the senior executive branch official has decided to come clean now out of love of country, maybe he has decided he would rather face the problem now than down the road, or (my favorite) the administration is setting Sampson up to take a very nasty fall. I know what you are thinking, the article makes Gonzales look bad, but considering Gonzales is the White House firewall, Kyle Sampson is the person most exposed by the disclosure. Given Gonzales' published testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Sampson might want to consider quietly approaching the Senate Judiciary Committee staff and making a proffer.
