I’ve lost count of exactly how many document dumps there have been in the U.S. Attorney purge scandal — five? six? — but with each passing revelation, the White House’s connection to the controversy grows stronger.
The White House’s former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday.
Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn’t fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn’t seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned.
“Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up,” Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. “This is not good for his long-term career.”
I’m sure Taylor meant that this is not good for the integrity of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s office. For that matter, Taylor was lashing out at the Deputy Attorney General for testifying honestly under oath. What, exactly, would she have preferred?
In all, the Justice Department turned over 46 pages of documents to Congress last night, and most of them highlighted a central White House role in managing the response to the scandal.
A few angles to consider:
* Private email accounts: All of the top White House staffers trying to deal with the questions surrounding the purge exclusively used Republican National Committee email accounts. As we know, this is a problem — either these White House officials were circumventing the Presidential Records Act in the hopes of avoiding accountability or they were treating the purge of nine U.S. Attorneys as just another political project. Or both.
* Payback: Sara Taylor suggested in an email to Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales’ former chief of staff, that Bud Cummins face White House-orchestrated trouble for questioning the circumstances surrounding his purge. “I normally don’t like attacking our friends,” Taylor wrote in an email, “but since Bud Cummins is talking to everyone – why don’t we tell the deal on him?” This is the way the Bush gang operates — tell the truth, face the WH’s wrath.
* Fudging the numbers: Emails from January showed that DoJ officials expressly told lawmakers that eight U.S. Attorneys had been purged in 2006. The number was actually nine and 30 were considered for dismissal.
* Dems’ reactions: “These documents show that the White House played an integral role in the firings and their aftermath,” said House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). “This only underscores the need for White House cooperation with this investigation.” Added Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), “We need an end to the White House’s stonewalling of our investigations so we can learn the truth.”
There’s plenty of additional coverage at a variety of other sites.
Stay tuned.