Oh Look, They Really Were Lying
Apr 14th, 2007 at 10:09 am by Susie
This week’s Friday news dump was one worth waiting for:
WASHINGTON, April 13 — A Justice Department e-mail message released on Friday shows that the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed replacement candidates for United States attorneys nearly a year before they were dismissed in December 2006. The department has repeatedly stated that no successors were selected before the dismissals.
The Jan. 9, 2006, e-mail message, written by D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned last month as the top aide to Mr. Gonzales, identified five Bush administration officials, most of them Justice Department employees, whose names were sent to the White House for consideration as possible replacements for prosecutors slated for dismissal.
The e-mail message and several related documents provide the first evidence that Mr. Sampson, the Justice Department official in charge of the dismissals, had focused on who would succeed the ousted prosecutors. Justice officials have repeatedly said that seven of the eight prosecutors were removed without regard to who might succeed them.
Some of the new documents show the department’s acute awareness of individual United States attorneys’ political and ideological views. An undated spreadsheet attached to a Feb. 12, 2007, e-mail message listed the federal prosecutors who had served under President Bush along with their past work experience.
The chart included a category for Republican Party and campaign work, showing who had been a delegate to a Republican convention or had managed a Republican political campaign. The chart had a separate category indicating who among the prosecutors was a member of the Federalist Society, a Washington-based association that serves as a talent pool for young conservatives seeking appointments in Republican administrations.
Taken together, Democrats asserted, the e-mail supported their contention that the ousted prosecutors were dismissed to make room for favored candidates who were chosen on the basis of their political qualifications as much as prosecutorial experience.
UPDATE: There’s more.
What the Times doesn’t say: they had little or no prosecutorial experience. This is more lazy reporting.
Are the wheels finally beginning to fall off
this administration?
This is the Justice Department for Christ’s sake! These people are officers of the freakin’ court. Perjury, obstruction, Hatch Act violations, Presidential Records Act violations. If I were a defense attorney for someone charged over the past six years, I would so be looking into an appeal.
If the FBI wanted to pull its ass out of the sling, I’d suggest turning their vaunted digital forensic specialistas on the Justice Department, supoenaing everything about anything from anybody int he agency.
Melanie,
What the Times is reporting is evidence regarding the administration’s thought process. Apparently, prosecutorial experience was not a consideration the administration thought relevant.
And, oh yeah, if they lacked prosecutorial experience, why were they appointed in the first place?