Seattle Times: GOP leader confirms he called U.S. attorney about governor's race

[Pirate Smile]

GOP leader confirms he called U.S. attorney about governor's race
By Les Blumenthal

The Seattle Times

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - A former chairman of the Washington state Republican Party said Tuesday he talked with the GOP-appointed U.S. attorney in Seattle during the agonizing recounts in the 2004 governor's race.

Chris Vance said then-U.S. Attorney John McKay made it clear he would not discuss whether his office was investigating allegations of voter fraud in the election. He said McKay cut off the conversation.

"I thought it was part of my job, to be a conduit," Vance, who now operates a consulting business, said in a telephone interview. "We had a Republican secretary of state, a Republican prosecutor in King County and a Republican U.S. attorney, and no one was doing anything."

Vance also said that he was in contact with the White House's political office at the time.

Those conversations and others are coming to light as Democrats in Congress investigate whether McKay and seven other U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/16897028.htm

I found this on Think Progress. The link didn't go to the Seattle Times, it went to Fort Wayne but the article is written by The Seattle Times.

Think Progress:

State GOP Chairman With Close Rove Ties Admits Pressuring Attorney

The Seattle Times reports tonight that a chairman of the Washington state Republican Party with ties to Karl Rove pressured U.S. Attorney John McKay to launch a criminal probe during the hotly contested 2004 governor’s race, which had been certified in favor of the Democratic candidate. The ex-chairman, Chris Vance, “said that he was in contact with the White House’s political office at the time.”

Vance said then-U.S. Attorney John McKay made it clear he would not discuss whether his office was investigating allegations of voter fraud in the election. He said McKay cut off the conversation.

“I thought it was part of my job, to be a conduit,” Vance, who now operates a consulting business, said in a telephone interview. “We had a Republican secretary of state, a Republican prosecutor in King County and a Republican U.S. attorney, and no one was doing anything.“

Vance’s revelation may be new evidence of a wider level of involvement by Karl Rove in the U.S. Attorney purge. Vance and Rove reportedly worked closely on state politics. The Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2004, Dino Rossi, was the candidate “Vance and Rove wanted,” the Seattle Times noted in 2005. Rove and Vance also reportedly worked to get Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-WA) to launch a Senate bid.

McKay is a Republican and was appointed by President Bush. The alleged voter fraud he was being pressured to probe had already been investigated by prosecutors in his office and the FBI, who “never found any evidence of criminal conduct.” Nevertheless, he was pressured both by a GOP official and Rep. Doc Hastings’s (R-WA) office to convene a federal grand jury.

In emails released today, we learned that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson wrote then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers in Sept. 2006 and identified McKay as one of five U.S. attorneys “we should now consider pushing out.” That same month, Miers called McKay directly and asked him to explain why he had “mishandled” the governor’s race. By December, McKay had been fired and denied a federal judgeship. Shortly afterwards, a Gonzales aide called McKay to offer him a deal: “you stay silent and the attorney general won’t say anything bad about you.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/13/gop-chairman-attorney/

[napi21]

1. There's that old "appearance of impropriety" again!

Although I don't believe it, I suppose it's possible he was just calling to ask if the USA was planning on looking into possible fraud, but because of all the other illegal thingsevery other Pubs has done, I'm just not buyin' it! The termination of the USA confirms my suspicions.

[Gman]

2. You mean McKay refused to investigate active Democrat gubernatorial terrorist cells?

These people are about as corrupt as is humanly possible. Well, no, they haven't fallen to the level of Idi Amin. But I don't know what's keeping them from that.

[gratuitous]

3. "No one was doing anything"

Gee, a Republican sitting in all the prosecutor's chairs, and none of them was doing anything? Could it be -- crazy idea I'm about to broach here, just spitballing, you know -- that there was no fucking crime to be prosecuted???

God damn, but these fuckers are so corrupt they don't even realize how corrupt they sound.

[rwenos]

7. "they don't even realize how corrupt they sound."

That's really it, isn't it? The functionary signing the transit orders, directing Jews onto trains bound for eastern Poland. "Nobody was DOING anything about the sanitation problems in the camps."

This little twit BROKE OMERTA. Don't they train these little Pubbie shits not to SAY stuff from the Playbook to the Press?

[PSPS]

4. Their vote machine rigging in Snohomish County and elsewhere didn't pull it off

I remember this well. In several counties where they had the magical touch-screen machines, the vote counts were being flipped to republicans as they always do. Unfortunately, the slimy Dino Rossi couldn't quite pull it off because the republicans are so reviled in Washington (just like everywhere.)

Nevertheless, they did manage to get it close enough to where Rossi and his RW radio supporters and other paid shills made a big deal, alleging "voter fraud," and the usual canards they always do to try and jam through a re-vote. A judge told him to get lost after he heard their "case" (which they venue-shopped to an Eastern rural county, thinking the fix would be in.)

The Seattle Times did an exhaustive investigation of their "case" of voter fraud and found nothing there. However, they did discover Vance's version of "caging lists" they tried to use to disenfranchise poor, minority and homeless people. After this came to light, Rossi sort of "disappeared."

[upi402]

6. Republicans are the dirtiest, meanest types imaginable

Those "not my governor" bumperstickers are almost as bad as the "W" stickers flanked by "support the troops" ribbons.

[upi402]

5. k/r n/t

[DesEtoiles]

8. he means "no one was stealing the election so I tried to force him to cheat"

[maddezmom]

9. here's the Seattle Times link

GOP chair called McKay about '04 election
:hi:

K&R

[tanyev]

10. Did Rove ask local GOP chairmen to make calls and report to him?

“I thought it was part of my job, to be a conduit,”

Vance also said that he was in contact with the White House's political office at the time.

We have at least two that have stepped forward to "confess". Sounds like they got dragged in over their heads and now they are scared.

[underpants]

11. #5

:nuke:

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. "I thought it was my job to be a conduit"

We really need to look deeper into this, because I think this is one of those good ole boy practices that could be challenged effectively if we had a responsible criminal department agency to review it.

Conduits, in local government, are people who pass on information between two parties who are legally not suppose to discuss a matter while that matter is up for review by the Commission. For example, Commissioners are not suppose to talk about the issue to one another before they vote. but then the City Manager acts like a conduit and will call each Commissioner separately, and as you'd expect, the City Manager picks and chooses the information that he passes on to each Commissioner and can even tell an undecided Commissioner how the others will vote.

This shit happens all the time, and it's one of the reasons that so many local government meetings have that "Done Deal" feel to it by the time the issue gets before the public.

[Missy Vixen]

13. Au contraire, Chris Vance

>"I thought it was part of my job, to be a conduit," Vance, who now operates a consulting business, said in a telephone interview. "We had a Republican secretary of state, a Republican prosecutor in King County and a Republican U.S. attorney, and no one was doing anything."<

One of the Republican Party's operatives filed almost 2,000 voter challenges a couple of years back with the elections board in King County. I know, because I was one of them. For those who believe that this could have been a "coincidence", a very high number of those challenged were a) Democrats, and b) had contributed financially to a candidate. A more interesting wrinkle in this story was that the woman filing the challenges had to have personal knowledge that the voter was attempting to defraud Washington State with their registration.

Nineteen hundred plus people had to prove who they were, they had the ability to legally vote, etcetera. Luckily, I had an ace in the hole. I'd run for elected office a year before. My registration had been checked (in person and at King County Elections in Seattle) on the spot.

The Republican King County prosecutor REFUSED to press charges against this woman. I'd always thought him non-partisan before that day. I will never vote for him again.

Julie