Before things heat up at today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, let’s consider some of the other purge-related revelations from the last half-day. * In the latest document dump (how many are we up to now? four?), there’s a key White House email. Kyle Sampson prepared a letter to Congress in February, telling lawmakers that Karl […]
The prosecutor purge scandal is bound to get considerably more interesting today when Kyle Sampson, up until recently Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff, gives sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reporters have already seen his opening statement and have a sense of his intended direction. According to a copy of Mr. Sampson’s prepared testimony […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * I absolutely loved Speaker Pelosi’s response to Bush’s latest threat to veto funding for the war: “On this very important matter, I would extend a hand of friendship to the president, just say to him, ‘Calm down with the threats, there’s a new Congress in town. We respect your […]
I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I’m fascinated by John McCain’s hackery, which reached new depths this morning. To quickly recap, during an appearance on CNN yesterday, McCain confirmed his belief that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad” that Americans can walk through, today. He added, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day […]
New Mexico’s former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias has been one of the more hard-to-explain firings in the administration’s prosecutor purge. Everything about his record suggests he’d be the last federal prosecutor any sane administration would want to get rid of. As recently as 2004, he was up for a promotion. In 2005, former Deputy Attorney […]
As if the administration didn’t have enough problems, the controversy surrounding the politicization of the General Services Administration seems to be yet another debacle gone horribly awry. We learned on Monday that GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and White House Deputy Political Director Scott Jennings joined in a videoconference in January to discuss how the […]
I mentioned this in passing earlier, and hope you’ll forgive the redundancy, but the fact that White House officials are largely giving up on their email accounts is of growing significance. Over the last week or so, we’ve learned that White House deputy political director J. Scott Jennings communicated with Justice Department officials about the […]
When the president nominated [tag]Sam Fox[/tag], a major right-wing donor who gave $50,000 to the [tag]Swiftboat[/tag] Vets, to be ambassador to Belgium, it raised a few eyebrows. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Fox’s nomination, Sen. John Kerry, as one might imagine, wasn’t pleased to see him. Kerry wasn’t alone. For […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * In about a half an hour, the political arm of the National Organization for Women will endorse Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. A message posted on the NOW website says PAC Chair Kim […]
About two weeks ago, we started hearing about the panic and paralysis that had taken over the [tag]Justice Department[/tag] in the wake of the [tag]prosecutor[/tag] [tag]purge[/tag] [tag]scandal[/tag]. “You have no idea,” said one Justice official, “how bad it is here.” How’s the nation’s federal law-enforcement agency doing now? Apparently, it’s getting worse — the New […]