Goodling White House Contact Leaves Administration

During last week's hearing Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) asked Monica Goodling what Karl Rove knew about the firing of the US Attorneys. She responded that

There was an e-mail that Mr. Sampson forwarded to me, I think, on December 4, if I'm remembering correctly, that said that it had been circulated to different offices within the White House and that they had all signed off. I think it said that White House political had signed off. Political is actually headed by Sara Taylor but does report to Mr. Rove, so I don't know for sure.

Michael Roston reports that Sara Taylor has cleaned out her office and is said to be heading to the private sector. Taylor is on the short list of White House people facing a subpoena.

The blog Born at the Crest of the Empire speculates that Taylor may have resigned over Goodling's testimony concerning Tim Griffin and "caging."

Think Progess describes "caging" as an illegal voter suppression technique. The particular "caging" activity associated with Taylor and Griffin was aimed as suppressing the votes of African American service members living in Florida during the 2004 election.

"Voter suppression?" Hummmm. Where I have we heard that term lately?

I guess the holiday is over. Back to the Gonzales 9.

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Integrity Counts

I spent the last several minutes thinking about what to write this morning. There are a lot of topics out there. The Simpsons 400th episode trashes Fox News. (I might save that one for later). Jimmy Carter had a lot to say about George Bush and Tony Blair, none of it good. Voter suppression mastermind Mark "Thor" Hearne, a name known here in Missouri, has been featured in Slate and not in a good way.

All those stories are pretty obvious. I mean that Fox News doesn't do news, isn't news. Anybody who cares to look realizes it is Republican infotainment intended to keep the white masses content in their self-loathing and justified in their racial bigotry. Jimmy Carter has been assailed for his comments about Blair and Bush, but darned if I can see why. He simply told the truth. Mark Hearne, Brad Schlozman, Hans von Spakovsky are simply bit players carrying out Karl Rove's version of Nixon's old Southern strategy. Stop the blacks from voting and white Republicans win.

Then I saw a story of hope. David Iglesias is building a new life. I thought about it for a minute. Do you know who the winners are in the US Attorney scandal? The winners are the fired attorneys. Their lives have all been carefully examined by the media, and they have all been certified to be professional lawyers striving to achieve the highest ethical standards. Long after the many US Attorneys who knuckled under to Karl Rove are forgotten in their suburban practices the Gonzales 8 will be held up as models of how US Attorneys should act. Long after Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling are utterly forgotten, their careers in tatters, people like Carol Lam, Bud Cummins and John McKay will be building their futures and fully living their lives. Hell, who knows, one of those fired US Attorneys might run for senator, maybe in New Mexico.

James Comey has emerged as a hero in the Department of Justice scandal because he stood for what was right. So have all the people who stood with him. Even John Ashcroft, who doesn't even mention the episode in his book, looks better, so much better that Blue Girl had to remind us of just who we are talking about. I know who John Ashcroft is and what he has done, but darn if the image of him saying "NO" Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card hasn't forced me to give him a higher mark.

Today I choose to remember that integrity counts. People who display courage in the face of adversity are often rewarded. Good guys can finish first.

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Don't You Love It When A Plan Comes Together

On December 19, 2006, Kyle Sampson sent an email to Monica Goodling entitled "Another Griffin Article" concerning the status of Tim Griffin as US Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Apparently the press was raising questions concerning Griffin's status as United States Attorney. Was he an interim appointment or was he an appointment under the then existing Patriot Act? Sampson really didn't want to answer the question directly. He thought it best to "gum this to death" by first asking the Arkansas senators to give Tim a chance. If after delaying as long as possible the senators said, "no never", Sampson's plan was to run out the clock, taking their good sweet time to advertise for, find and nominate a replacement. He also indicated that he didn't mind Griffin being referred to as "interim US Attorney" in talking points with the understanding that he was appointed by the AG and hasn't gone through the normal confirmation process. Of course, the normal time limits for dealing with interim appointments would not apply since Griffin really was permanent.

So Sampson hatched a plan. Griffin was appointed under the Patriot Act. He could stay as long as Bush remained in office. To keep the natives happy the DoJ would pretend he was just another temporary Attorney General appointment. It would work with the local yokel senators, but it wouldn't work too hard. It would run out the clock finding a replacement. All in "good faith," of course.

The plan was apparently repudiated on January 18, 2007, when Alberto Gonzales testified "Let me publicly sort of pre-empt perhaps a question you're going to ask me, and that is, I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a providentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney.... I think a United States attorney,... as the law enforcement leader, my representative in the community;... has greater imprimatur of authority, if in fact that person's been confirmed by the Senate." On May 10, 2007, Murray Waas of the National Journal reported

A senior Justice Department official said that the (above) statement was truthful because by then Gonzales had abandoned the idea of using the PATRIOT Act to permanently install Griffin, and he was speaking about future appointments.

The dogged emptywheel has been working the Tim Griffin angle hard. So far she has uncovered nothing to indicate that Tim Griffin won't be the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas through the end of President Bush's term. According to emptywheel, Griffin's normal term as an interim would have expired on April 20, 2007. He's still working as US Attorney, and nobody has any idea when that will end.

Both Goodling and Sampson may have left the Department of Justice, but apparently Sampson's plan lives on. The DoJ is gumming the Griffin problem. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together.

Hats way off to emptywheel.

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Remember Paul McNulty--According To Alberto Gonzales It's All His Fault

ThinkProgress has just put up the C-Span Video of Alberto Gonzales throwing Paul McNulty under the bus this morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.. Simply amazing video. Here is a partial transcript

GONZALES: The Deputy Attorney General has a unique position at the DOJ. Most of the operational authority and decisions are made by the Deputy Attorney General. He is the chief operating officer — that’s the way I’ve structured the Department. And so he occupies a very central place in the work of the Department.

[…]

GONZALES: Mr. Sampson provided the recommendations. The one person I would care about would be the views of the Deputy Attorney General because the Deputy Attorney General as a direct supervisor of the United States Attorneys and in this particular case Mr. McNulty was a former colleague of all of these United States Attorneys and so he would probably know better than anyone else about the performance and qualifications of our United States Attorney community. So at the end of the day my understanding was that Mr. Sampson’s recommendations reflected the consensus view of the senior leadership of the Department — in particular the Deputy Attorney General. And the day of Mr. Sampson’s testimony, I had a conversation with the deputy as I testified where I went back to the Deputy Attorney General and I asked Paul did he still stand by the recommendations and he said yes. And so — for me that is the most important — his views would be the most important.

[…]

QUESTION: It seems clear that two relatively inexperienced Justice Department appointees Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling were intimately involved in these personnel issues. Why were such that young and unexperienced people put in charge of such matters?

GONZALES: Well again you have to remember at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the Deputy Attorney General. He signed off on the names and he would know better than anyone else, anyone else in this room. Again, the Deputy Attorney General would know best about the qualifications and experiences of the minds it’s a community and he signed off on the names.

What does Gonzales do all day?

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Murray Waas--Administration Withheld Emails About Rove

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.

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.

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."

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.

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Karl Rove's Shop Conducted Briefings At 15 Agencies

The Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith reports that last year Karl Rove's office

conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.

As you may recall earlier this month the Office of General Counsel launched an investigation into allegations that General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act by conducting one such briefing at her agency.

Of course, Doan is but another sad victim of partial memory loss epidemic among loyal Bushies appearing before Congress. Known as "Alberto Gonzales' Disease" this terrible malady affects loyal Bushies like Doan, D. Kyle Sampson, and Gonzales who have had recent contact with Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings. This tragic disease targets the memories of otherwise normal public officials depriving them of the ability to recall events occurring during their official duties.

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Todd Graves--US Attorney Target Number 10?

Pressrelease 365 reports the following:

Kansas City, MO 04/09/07 - Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari unearthed a US Department of Justice memo revealing the Office of the Attorney General had targeted not eight but ten US Attorneys including the former attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Todd P. Graves. The documents were obtained during Medical Supply Chain's discovery related to the civil antitrust action Medical Supply Chain, Inc. v. Novation LLC, et al, Western District of Missouri case #05-210-CV-W-ODS filed on March 9, 2005.

The e-mail dated January 9th, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to Harriet Miers and William Kelley at the White House, shows the ten U.S. Attorneys that were first selected to voluntarily resign or face termination. Attorneys that resigned were redacted. Todd P. Graves of Missouri resigned March 24, 2006.

Why would Samuel Lipari be in a position to unearth this tidbit. Well, it seems that his company Medical Supply Chain, has been actively engaged in a civil anti-trust suit against Novation, LLC, Volunteer Hospital Association (VHA), University Health System Consortium (UHC) and Neoforma, Inc. Lipari claims the companies "were involved in a scheme to monopolize hospital supplies to defraud Medicare through payments to administrators and kickbacks. The scheme resulted in almost all of Kansas City, Missouri St. Luke's hospital's one hundred million dollar supply budget being purchased through Novation LLC. St. Luke's merged with University of Kansas Hospital after Irene Cumming, CEO of the University of Kansas Hospital was given a job by University Health System Consortium (UHC) on March 19, 2007."

It appears that Todd Graves had been investigating and prosecuting Medicare fraud cases. Lipari claims that "Bradley Schlozman failed to prosecute public corruption related to the Medical Supply Chain litigation."

I have long suspected Todd Graves was one of the targeted, but redacted, prosecutors, but that is because a Graves family member was implicated in a separate scandal involving Matt Blunt and state fee offices. A scandal later investigated by Bud Cummins. ePluribusMedia's mit2174 published an article making the connection entitled Heffelfinger, Graves, and the U.S. Attorney "purge" on Thursday, March 15, 2007. Thomas Heffelfinger "resigned February 28, 2006 to return to the private sector. At the time, he cited "personal" and "financial" reasons for his resignation. (sources: Pioneer Press, 2/15/06; Star Tribune, 2/15/06)." He was replaced by Rachel Paulose.

What is new is the implication that Schlozman was not brought in to engage in voter suppression or to clean up after Grave's problems with the Fee License Scandal, but to squelch a particular medicare fraud investigation. I don't know whether to believe Lipari's assertion, but it bears watching. Lipari might simply be trying to stir the pot to help his civil suit.

On a possibly "related" note Minnesota Campaign Report's mswsm has written an interesting report entitled Why the Deception about Paulose's Work History and Residency? that seems to imply Paulose, who had been active in health care litigation, was sent from Washington to protect one of her former clients, a Minneapolis base health care company. Again a stretch, but given the way the Department of Justice has been politicized one that doesn't seem as far fetched as it would have a few years ago.

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New Document Dump

TPMmuckraker is hosting a Friday Document Dumpster Diving party. You might want to go over there and take a look. So far just a bunch of redacted emails taking showing the post firing evolution of the "reasons" the various DoJ staffers were going to give the Congress. A long Kyle Sampson memo saying that the administration could fire folks, but nothing "pre firing" about why the administration was interested in firing anybody.

Its a 1000 page dump. I bet they come up with something.

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US Attorney--Patronage Opportunity?

The Next Hurrah points to an interesting email exchange between Kyle Sampson and Bill Kelley on December 7, 2006. You will recall that December 7 was the day the Gonzales 7 were fired. It was also the day Rachel Paulose and other US Attorneys were to be approved.

11:19, Kelley emailed Sampson in a panic.

Our leg folks are all up in arms that we are doing this on the last day when things can be gummed up by unhappy Senators. There's no way to pull back til tomorrow, is there? I should have flagged the timing for them earlier -- but they never raised the issue of timing until things were underway.

To which Sampson replied:

Too late, right? Calls to USAs are happening as we speak. And Sens. Kyl and Domenici already have been notified (and are ok). Do they think Sen. Ensign will be concerned (I don't)? And none of these USAs has been promoted by a House member.

To which Kelley responded:

I told them it is too late, but I said I would confirm with you. I think it is clear that they are overreacting, and I've told them that. I don't know if Ensign is close to the Nevada guy, but I would think he'd welcome a new patronage opportunity.

White House to US Attorneys, you are not performing important public service, your job is just another patronage office. Heck of a job gang.

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A Few Dumb Lawyers

This is too perfect not to mention. Remember David Iglesias, the role model for Tom Cruise's character in the movie A Few Good Men and the US Attorney fired for not helping the Heather Wilson campaign by indicting Democrats. Well it seems that Justice Department official William Moschella was asked during a Congressional hearing why the Department had fired Iglesias. Pointing to his repeated absences from the office, Moschella answered by saying “Iglesias had delegated to his first assistant the overall running of the office. And, quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office.” Moschella was right because Iglesias did, in fact, leave the office for 45 days each year. Of course, as the DoJ knew full well Iglesias is a captain in the Navy Reserve and spent 45 days each year fulfilling his reserve duty. Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker citing a Newsweek story, notes that

the Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether Iglesias was wrongfully terminated due to his reserve duty, Newsweek reports. It is against the law for employers to discriminate against members of the U.S. military.

Now, as Kyle Sampson admitted last week, there was no real performance reason to fire Iglesias. And in fact, it's indisputable at this point that Iglesias was actually fired because he didn't indict enough Democrats.* So the "absentee landlord" line was just a cover story -- but one that seems to have gotten them into some trouble now.

Apparently the guys at Main Justice running the hiring and firing of US Attorneys, Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, William Moschella, and Monica Goodling, are not competent to concoct a phony cover story that doesn't involve a violation of the law. I sure wouldn't ask any of them for legal advice. I doubt if other Loyal Bushies would.

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Curious Phrasing

The Kansas City Star (a McClatchy newspaper) is reporting this morning that "Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006, that she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who'd resigned two days earlier as the No. 3 official at the CIA."

As you might recall, on May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales' chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." Curious phrasing.

I wonder if Mr. Sampson would be willing to talk under oath about why Justice and the White House had a problem with Ms Lam and not with her high profile Republican targets--Dusty Foggo or Rep. Lewis. It is pretty obvious that Sampson's solution to the Lam problem was to fire Lam.

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Subpoenas of Justice Department Officials Approved

The AP is reporting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved subpoena for 5 DoJ officials or former officials. The people who will be given a chance to throw themselves on their swords for Alberto Gonzales are Michael Elston, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Bill Mercer and Mike Battle. Sampson, the AG's former Chief of Staff, who with Harriet Miers, orchestrated the firings, quit the Department of Justice on Monday. Michael Elston is the Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. Mercer is acting associate attorney general. Gooding is officially Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison, has acted as a spokeswoman for the DoJ. A 1999 Regent University Law School graduate, she is rumored to have close ties to Karl Rove. Battle, who is also departing the DoJ, is the director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.

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And What About Tim Griffin?

Lest we forget Tim Griffin is currently ensconced as the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. He was appointed under the Specter amendment to the US Patriot Act. Kyle Sampson gave detailed instructions on how Justice should deal with the two Democratic senators now clamoring to nominate a permanent replacement for Bud Cummins.

The New York Times reports:

In a Dec. 19 e-mail message, Mr. Sampson wrote: “Getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,” a reference to Ms. Miers and Mr. Rove.

Mr. Sampson’s e-mail message, sent to the White House and Justice Department colleagues, suggested he was hoping to stall efforts by the state’s two Democratic senators to pick their own candidates as permanent successors for Mr. Cummins.

“I think we should gum this to death,” Mr. Sampson wrote. "Ask the senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say ‘no never’ (and the longer we can forestall that the better), then we can tell them we’ll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All this should be done in ‘good faith’ of course."

Of course.

Senators are you reading. What is all this about Senator Reid giving deference to Senator Kyl's hold on the Feinstein Amendment again?

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"The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam"

Yesterday I speculated that the entire prosecutor firing dust up might be a smoke screen for the removal of Carol Lam. Apparently Josh Marshall had the same thought. This morning Josh points to language in a May 11, 2006 email Kyle Sampson, Gonzale's chief of staff, urged Harriet Miers to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." It seems that just then the Wilkes Foggo investigation was really heating up. Porter Goss had resigned as CIA director and Rep. Jerry Lewis had been implicated in the scandal. On May 12, 2006, FBI agents executed search warrants on Foggo's office and home.

Note the phrasing "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." Carol Lam and not Dusty Foggo's corruption is the problem. What is an obvious solution to the "Carol Lam problem," fire her, and that is exactly what they did.

Read Josh's timeline. This line of inquiry has to be explored.

Ron Hutcheson, Marisa Taylor and Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers report that "In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he wants to know whether Lam was fired for the Cunningham case or because "she was about to investigate other people who were politically powerful." You are not alone Senator, you are not alone.

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