It looked for a while as if the Bush administration had already identified its scapegoat. Kyle Sampson, who was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff before resigning a week ago, looked as though he’d get the bulk of the blame — he helped orchestrate the purge and he neglected to share the information with his superiors. When DoJ officials gave false information to Congress, it was because Sampson hadn’t informed them of the truth.
From the outset, Dems saw the telegraphed punches. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “Kyle Sampson will not be the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy.”
Over the weekend, Sampson decided to take the “kick me” sign off his back and started pushing back against the administration’s narrative.
D. Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department official who resigned this week after bipartisan criticism of the firing of several federal prosecutors, said he bore no more responsibility than several others in the department for misleading statements that its top officials made to Congress about the firings.
“Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. attorneys,” Mr. Sampson’s lawyer, Brad Berenson, said in a statement late Friday. “The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department’s testimony to Congress.”
If Sampson hadn’t been caught lying or withholding information, why’d he resign? According to his lawyer, Sampson stepped aside because, “as Chief of Staff, he felt he had let the Attorney General down in failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective political response” to the controversy.
As Paul Kiel put it, “Looks like Sampson doesn’t like playing the fall guy.”
Of course, Sampson’s former colleagues have a very different interpretation of events.
[A] pair of senior Justice officials gave accounts to lawmakers that were, at best, incomplete. At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, William Moschella, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, vigorously defended the firings of the U.S. attorneys as a purely managerial move that had originated within the Justice Department. He said nothing about any nudging from the White House. McNulty had earlier given similar testimony, saying the attorneys had been let go for “job performance” reasons, an assertion that infuriated the fired prosecutors.
But the two Justice officials have told colleagues that when they saw the e-mail accounts showing the attorney-purge idea had originated in the White House, they were surprised and appalled. “I felt sick,” Moschella told NEWSWEEK. “I basically saw my professional life flash before my eyes.” Moschella and McNulty blamed Sampson. The attorney general’s chief of staff had sat in as they prepped for their testimony and “never said a word,” according to a Justice Department official who wished to remain anonymous discussing a private meeting.
To hear Sampson tell it, all of his colleagues knew. Gonzales blamed Sampson publicly for his “mistake” of not sharing “information that he had” with DoJ officials testifying before Congress, but Sampson insists they’re all lying.
Obviously, someone is fibbing. Sampson has an incentive to lie (if he knowingly withheld information from Justice Department officials who, in turn, misled Congress, he may have committed a crime) and all of those who are accusing Sampson also have an incentive to lie (if they knew about the purge details all along, they deliberately gave false information to Congress, while under oath).
Fortunately, Sampson, Moschella, McNulty, among others, will get to flesh out these details in congressional hearings very soon. Pass the popcorn.