Thousands of pages of documents were released by the Justice Department last night, and no one has yet been able to read them all. [tag]Purge[\/tag]-related revelations of varying significance will probably come to public light throughout the day, if not the week.<\/p>\n
But at the outset, there’s one message that seems to stand out<\/a>.<\/p>\n [tag]Attorney General[\/tag] [tag]Alberto R. Gonzales[\/tag] was “extremely upset” that his deputy told Congress last month that a federal [tag]prosecutor[\/tag] had been fired for no reason, according to e-mail released Monday by the Justice Department.<\/p>\n Mr. Gonzales believed that the prosecutor, H. E. Cummins III, the United States attorney for Arkansas, was dismissed for performance reasons, the e-mail suggested. But his deputy, Paul J. McNulty, testified that Mr. Cummins had been replaced to create a vacancy for J. Timothy Griffin, a political ally of the White House political adviser Karl Rove.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n More specifically, U.S. News reported<\/a> that the email came from [tag]Justice Department[\/tag] spokesman Brian Roehrkasse who was traveling abroad with Alberto Gonzales when McNulty testified, to Kyle Sampson. It’s this correspondence that “is causing the most concern at the Justice Department.”<\/p>\n That’s understandable. McNulty testified, under oath, that Bud Cummins was replaced, not for on-the-job performance, but because the Justice Department wanted “the opportunity to provide a fresh start with a new person in that position.” (The “new person” happened to be a Karl Rove protege.) This made Gonzales “extremely upset.” <\/p>\n Why? Because the Deputy AG told the Judiciary Committee the truth? * A top Justice Department official who oversaw the dismissals said he had never even reviewed the performance<\/a> of a prosecutor who was summarily removed, Daniel K. Bogden of Nevada.<\/p>\n * A sense of panic seems pervasive in the Justice Department right now, because agency officials are afraid to put on paper<\/a> information that could be viewed as mendacious or obfuscation. “You have no idea,” said one Justice official, “how bad it is here.”<\/p>\n * When the Bush gang started ranking U.S. Attorneys on qualities including loyalty to the president, Patrick Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had “not distinguished themselves<\/a>.” The ranking placed Fitzgerald below “strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty” to the administration but above “weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.,” according to Justice documents. Fitzgerald won the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2002. That, apparently, is not “distinguished” enough.<\/p>\n
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\nLike I said, there will plenty of additional revelations in the coming hours, but here are a few more purge-related news items from the last 12 hours:<\/p>\n