U.S. News: Email Shows Gonzales "Unhappy" with Deputy Testimony

[babylonsister]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002807.php

U.S. News: Email Shows Gonzales "Unhappy" with Deputy Testimony
By Paul Kiel - March 19, 2007, 7:21 PM

U.S. News gives a taste of what's to come:

...one day after Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified on Capitol Hill about the reasons why eight U.S. attorneys were fired summarily, a Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse -- on travel abroad with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- sent an E-mail to McNulty saying Gonzales was unhappy with McNulty's testimony regarding why U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins of Arkansas had been let go.

That email, U.S News reports, is "causing the most concern" at the Justice Department as they ready to turn over thousands more.

Now, why would Gonzales have been upset at McNulty? McNulty had testified that "there was a change made there that was not connected to, as was said, the performance of the incumbent, but more related to the opportunity to provide a fresh start with a new person in that position."

So, in other words, McNulty publicly admitted that Cummins was pushed out for no other reason than to give Karl Rove's deputy a shot (which was, by the way, the truth). And that made Gonzales upset. And it looks like there might be more in that email.

Note: A Justice Department official also laments to U.S. News amidst the chaos of collecting hundreds and hundreds of documents: "You have no idea ... how bad it is here." I think that's another way of saying that you shouldn't hold your breath for the timely delivery of those documents tonight.

[saltpoint]

1. If these guys wind up ratting each other out left and right, that would

be just fine with me.

Let's hang that laundry out and let it dry in the sunny afternoon.

[rumpel]

2. and hopefully all those career attorneys who left out of protest

over the years will come back...

[Justice]

3. the DOJ makes people/companies collect docs in response to

boroad subpoenas all the time. I am not sympathetic to the lament.