It had been the administration's story that the only replacement already in mind was Karl Rove buddy Tim Griffin, who replaced Bud Cummins in Arkansas. Now it seems that a list had already circulated via e-mail with five replacements...months before the firings took place:
These documents uncover one of the most central and disconcerting contradictions we've seen so far," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "We have been told that there were no backups in mind to replace the fired U.S. attorneys, and these documents make it clear that there were."
Sampson's attorney and a Justice spokesman said yesterday that the candidates listed were only tentative suggestions and were never seriously considered. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the list "reflects Kyle Sampson's initial thoughts" and "in no way contradicts the department's prior statements" about the lack of a candidate list.
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As noted below, the big concern is how are the remaining "loyal bushies" US Attorneys, who did not get fired, performing their duties and how are they being "loyal".
These remaining "loyal bushie" US Attorneys are sleeper cells we should be concerned about.
From 3-15-07, as reported earlier on ABC News, here is the email that shows that Karl Rove was involved in the whole U.S. attorney purge scheme from the beginning of 2005.* It was released this evening by the Justice Department.
In the email, which has the subject line "Re: Question from Karl Rove," Kyle Sampson, who was then at the Justice Department, discusses with then-deputy White House Counsel David Leitch the idea of replacing "15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys," because "80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc."
"[I]f Karl thinks there would be policitical will to do it, then so do I," Sampson concludes.
Sampson's email was in response to Leitch's relaying of Rove's query about how the administration would handle the U.S. Attorneys. As paraphrased by Colin Newman, a legal aide in the White House counsel's office, Rove asked "how we planned to proceed regarding US Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc."
Many people repeat the mantra that Clinton replaced all 93 US Attorneys. What is also a fact is that GW Bush, at the start of his administration in 2000, replaced all Clintons appointments. What the problem now is that GW is replacing his own appointments for what they publicly have called poor performance. And using a little known provision of the latest iteration of the Patriot Act, allow the executive to appoint US Attorneys with no Congressional oversight or "advise and consent".
The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage writes about the fall gal and the breeding grounds for the widening Justice Department scandal:
Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.
But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.
One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
Meanwhile, Gonzales has one week left to prepare for his April 17 appearance before Congress, amid growing calls - even from Republicans - for his resignation. George W. Bush has little choice but to stand by his friend, but as former U.S. Attorney for Idaho Betty Richardson noted in a recent op-ed, the administration is doing itself no favors by pretending all is peachy at the DOJ:
The White House argues that these firings are normal and ordinary. They are not. Both President Clinton and President George W. Bush made a wholesale dismissal of U.S. attorneys upon taking office. That was not remarkable; but the termination of eight U.S. attorneys appointed by a sitting president during the term of his administration is unprecedented.
The Congressional Research Service has reported that, of the 478 U.S. attorney confirmations made by the Senate over the 25 years from 1981 to 2006, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration. ...
... Ever since this troubling matter came to light, the Bush administration has bobbed and weaved, first refusing to answer questions, then offering Congress serial answers that have proved misleading and inconsistent.
Now the administration says it will allow high-ranking officials to talk to Congress about the firings, but only if they meet behind closed doors, without a record, and without taking an oath to tell the truth. All of this simply fails the smell test. It is too early in the investigation to see the complete picture, but if the claims of the fired U.S. attorneys prove true, I trust the American people won't stand for it.
Incompetency and cronyism have been the hallmarks of the George W. Bush administration. Most Americans have long since stopped expecting anything else. But it may well be that the DOJ scandal will do what Don Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, Michael Brown, Harriet Meiers, and countless other hacks couldn't do: seal W's historical fate as the worst chief executive we've ever had.
The poltically motivated DOJ has been at work in Missouri too. Last week a federal judge called them either poltically motivated or incompetent in their misguided lawsuit against Robin Carnahan. Also, some DOJ staff members publicly lobbied for photo ID laws across the country, including Missouri.
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