When it comes to the prosecutor purge scandal, we’ve known for months about what some refer to as the Gonzales Eight — seven U.S. Attorneys who were fired on Dec. 7, 2006, and one who was fired shortly beforehand.
But noted purge-ologists have long suspected that there were others who “resigned,” but were actually forced from their prosecutor positions. At the top of the list has been former Kansas City U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, who gave up his post last year, and whose name appeared on an internal DoJ list of prosecutors to be purged.
Graves has been reluctant to talk about the unusual circumstances that led him to quit, but Josh Marshall has been putting the puzzle pieces together and feels confident that Graves is the ninth U.S. Attorney to have been purged.
The first revelation in the story is that staffers for Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), though supposedly not the senator himself, approached the Bush administration in 2005 and suggested that it might be wise to remove Graves from his post after his four year term expired because of his wife’s involvement in a controversial ‘fee office’ patronage scheme in Missouri. The fee office story is a whole complicated can of worms in itself. But for present purposes it appears that these concerns had nothing to do with Graves’ resignation in March 2006. Graves says no. Bond’s office says no, etc.
But here’s the key. The article says that Bond did become directly involved in Graves’s situation in early 2006. Bond’s spokesman Shana Marchio said in a statement: “Senator Bond … upon (Graves’) request personally called the White House to gain Todd extra time to wrap up case work before his departure.”
Now, though it’s not said directly, I think there’s no way to interpret this statement other than to conclude that the White House and/or the Justice Department fired Graves and Bond, at Graves’s request, tried to intercede on his behalf for a little more time.
In the KC Star piece that Josh cites, Graves said his “independence” may have made him a target for removal. “When I first interviewed (with the Department)…I was asked to give the panel one attribute that describes me,” Graves said. “I said independent. Apparently, that was the wrong attribute.”
Wait, it gets better.
In a statement released last night, Graves said it was better to leave his post and “take a graceful exit than to do something that you should be ashamed of.” It’s kind of a cryptic comment, but given the context, it seems as if this was a U.S. Attorney who wasn’t entirely comfortable with what his superiors expected of him. Funny, the other eight purged prosecutors probably felt the same way.
OK, but why was Graves’ “independence” such a problem? In the other cases, U.S. Attorneys were fired for purely partisan reasons (charging Republicans and/or not charging Democrts). What was the controversy in Kansas City?
As it turns out, the GOP political machine was intent on pursuing bogus “voter fraud” cases in Missouri last year, home of one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races. Bradley Schlozman, whose record on alleged voter suppression is quite clear, was apparently leaning on Graves to bring up more baseless charges. Graves refused, and upon Graves’ resignation, Schlozman replaced him and got to work.
Perhaps this might shed some light on what Graves meant by doing “something that you should be ashamed of.”
Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to give testimony in the House tomorrow, and Schlozman will appear on Tuesday, May 15.
Stay tuned.