Senate investigators are shifting their focus to Missouri's former U. S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman as the probe into the firing of eight prosecutors continues.
An article in today's Boston Globe examines the actions taken by Schlozman after his predecessor, Todd Graves, was pushed out by the Bush Administration:
Then, in March 2006, Graves was replaced by a new US attorney -- one who had no prosecutorial experience and bypassed Senate confirmation. Bradley Schlozman moved aggressively where Graves had not, announcing felony indictments of four workers for a liberal activist group on voter registration fraud charges less than a week before the 2006 election.
Republicans, who had been pushing for restrictive new voting laws, applauded. But critics said Schlozman violated a department policy to wait until after an election to bring voter fraud indictments if the case could affect the outcome, either by becoming a campaign issue or by scaring legitimate voters into staying home.
Schlozman is emerging as a focal point of the investigation into the firing of eight US attorneys last year -- and as a symbol of broader complaints that the Bush administration has misused its stewardship of law enforcement to give Republicans an electoral edge.
My understanding is not that Schlozman violated a deparment policy, but more the unspoken policy of backing off these investigations close to the election to avoid appearances of intimidation.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as every time someone tries to do something about vote fraud, such as cleansing the rolls, or asking for Photo ID, a certain segment of the populace stands and and screams bloody murder, that makes sense from a political standpoint.
This is why the story really lacks legs - it's all hearsay and driven by people with an agenda looking for the appearance of something wrong.
The big question is why voter rolls consistently wrong in ways that help Democrats? That Republicans can't prove this in a court of law doesn't suggest it isn't happening, but rather that the people who control the levers of power locally aren't interested in cleaning up the system.
This story is being driven by TPM and other liberal blogs looking for the scalp of Karl Rove. Newspapers should be careful reviewing what these bloggers write before publishing.
I'm not so sure, Jim Durbin. If there was to voter fraud, why isn't nothing being done about it now....there are no elections, no body can claim undue influence.
ReplyDeleteIf "voter rolls consistently wrong in ways that help democrats" why are Sara Lampe and Charlie Norr the only democrats from SW Missouri?