Newsweek:Fuel to the Firings

[cal04]

Eight U.S. attorneys lost their jobs. Now investigators are assessing if the dismissals were politically motivated.
Bud Cummins never had any intention of making a fuss. A folksy Arkansas lawyer, Cummins had been abruptly fired last year as U.S. attorney in Little Rock to create a slot for a former top aide to Karl Rove. But Cummins is a loyal Republican; he knows how the game is played in Washington, so he kept quiet. Then last month, as the press picked up on the story of Cummins and seven other fired U.S. attorneys, he was quoted in a newspaper story defending his colleagues. Cummins got a phone call from the Justice Department that he found vaguely menacing.

It came from Michael Elston, a top Justice official. Cummins says Elston expressed concern that he and the dismissed attorneys were talking to reporters about what had happened to them. Elston, Cummins says, suggested this might not be a good idea; Justice officials might feel compelled to "somehow pull their gloves off" and retaliate against the prosecutors by publicly trashing them. "I was tempted to challenge him," Cummins e-mailed colleagues later that day, "and say something movie-like such as 'are you threatening ME???' " (Elston acknowledges he told Cummins, "it's really a shame that all this has to come out in the newspaper," but says "I didn't intend to threaten him.")

Was there an attempted cover-up? The disclosure of Cummins's e-mail at a Senate hearing last week only stoked the controversy surrounding a Justice Department already under fire for politicizing the legal process. Even Republican lawmakers stepped forward to criticize the attorney general's handling of the matter. "It was clumsy and unseemly," Sen. Lindsey Graham tells NEWSWEEK. By the end of the week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had made a rare acknowledgment of error and agreed to let a congressional probe into the firings move forward.

A key question for investigators now: did Justice officials, with involvement from the White House, fire attorneys in retaliation for actions that didn't favor the GOP? David Iglesias, who was dumped as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, says Sen. Peter Domenici called him and pressed him to bring indictments in a corruption case involving local Democrats before last November's election. When he didn't give the answer Domenici wanted, "the line went dead." A senior Justice official, who didn't want to be named discussing sensitive legal issues, says Domenici had earlier complained to the deputy attorney general about Iglesias's record on "public corruption." (Domenici apologized for his call to Iglesias, but says he "never pressured" him.)

(snip)
Justice officials say the dismissals were for "job-performance reasons," as well as for failure to pursue Bush administration policy priorities. But where did the list of particular U.S. attorneys to fire come from? Two senior Justice officials, who didn't want to be named discussing the dismissals, tell NEWSWEEK that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House. In a recent statement, the White House said it approved the firings, but didn't sign off on specific names.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17552880/site/newsweek/

[CJCRANE]

1. People should realise

that Rove and his crew have been studying how ruling parties in third world dictatorships maintain power for decades and applied those tactics in America.

[Erika]

2. About 20 years ago, under the Heritage Foundation

There was a movement of lawyers and religious right wingers to overtake America and turn it into a theocracy. They almost did it.

[CJCRANE]

3. I'm not disputing their desire

has been there for decades. But their tactics have become more and more aggressive and they definitely seem to be borrowing dictatorship techniques used successfully in the third world.

(Personal anecdote: I have a friend who lives in East Africa who told me back in '04 that there had been an American delegation (Republican, I assume) visiting the region the previous year to study how elections were held by ruling parties there).

[SharonAnn]

4. They still may succeed.

[cal04]

5. Josh Marshall with some of Sampson's backround

We edge a bit closer to the truth on where the list of 8 canned US Attorneys came from. From Newsweek ...

Justice officials say the dismissals were for "job-performance reasons," as well as for failure to pursue Bush administration policy priorities. But where did the list of particular U.S. attorneys to fire come from? Two senior Justice officials, who didn't want to be named discussing the dismissals, tell NEWSWEEK that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House. In a recent statement, the White House said it approved the firings, but didn't sign off on specific names.

"With input from the White House." I'll bet.

Here's a bit on Sampson's background from a DOJ press release: "Prior to his service with Attorney General Gonzales, Kyle Sampson served in the Department as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft and in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President. He also served as Counsel to Senator Orrin G. Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012955.php

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Renews Commitment to Justice Department's Intellectual Property Task Force
Deputy Chief Of Staff Kyle Sampson Appointed Chairman
http://www.cybercrime.gov/iptaskforce.htm

[maddezmom]

7. and now he's resigned

NYT: Fast-Riser’s High Hopes and Sudden Fall (D. Kyle Sampson...Gonzo's Chief of staff resigns)
Edited on Mon Mar-12-07 11:54 PM by maddezmom
Fast-Riser’s High Hopes and Sudden Fall
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By ERIC LIPTON
Published: March 13, 2007
WASHINGTON, March 12 — D. Kyle Sampson has never worked full time as a federal prosecutor. But for much of the Bush administration he played a considerable role in vetting who served in the Justice Department. And last year he used his post as chief of staff to the attorney general to make a bid for a job as a United States attorney in Utah.

In many ways, until his resignation Monday, the rapid rise of Mr. Sampson, from a low-level aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee to one of the most senior advisers to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, is like that of many other young, ambitious lawyers who come to Washington with a passion for politics.

He arrived in Washington in 1999, around his 30th birthday, with impeccable credentials — at least for a man his age — among religious conservatives. A native of Utah and a Mormon, he had completed his undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University. Mr. Sampson then followed the lead of Dallin H. Oaks, the former president of Brigham Young, by attending the University of Chicago for law school, another bastion of conservatism.

When President Bush was first elected, Mr. Sampson joined his transition team, helping screen nominees for judiciary or Justice Department jobs, said Taylor Oldroyd, a longtime friend. Mr. Sampson had learned about the nomination process from 1999 to 2001, when he worked for Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, while he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/washington/13sampson....

background:

~snip~
Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The Gonzales aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

Lawmakers requested the documents as part of an investigation into whether the firings were politically motivated. While it is unclear whether the documents will answer Congress's questions, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more closely involved in the dismissals, and at a much earlier date, than they have previously acknowledged.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

~snip~

Schumer said the committee would also consider whether to hold public hearings at which the aides would testify about their roles in the firings. Schumer said the decision makes it unnecessary for Democrats to pursue subpoenas to compel testimony from the aides, including Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and the top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

more:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20036...

looks like another fall guy takes a tumble


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2765232&mesg_id=2765232

[maddezmom]

6. kick

:kick: Wish I had seen this earlier