FBI Director Rebuts White House Claims That U.S. Attorneys Failed To Pursue Voter Fraud

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/28/mueller-voter-fraud/

FBI Director Rebuts White House Claims That U.S. Attorneys Failed To Pursue Voter Fraud

One of the Bush administration’s excuses for its prosecutor purge is that the U.S. attorneys weren’t aggressively investigating voter fraud cases. On March 13, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said, “Over the course of several years, we have received complaints about U.S. attorneys, particularly when it comes to election fraud cases.” Last Tuesday, President Bush added, “We did hear complaints and concerns about U.S. attorneys. Some complained about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases.”

Yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller about the U.S. attorneys’ work on voter fraud. Mueller said that since 2001, there have been no FBI investigations related to election fraud that “should have resulted in an indictment but did not.” He also confirmed that he was never consulted about the performance of the fired prosecutors. Watch it:

Former U.S. attorney in New Mexico David Iglesias, who was fired “after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud,” recently wrote in the New York Times out of more than 100 complaints of voter fraud there was one case that could be prosecuted federally. “As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems,” said Igelsias. “The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.”

Transcript:

SCHUMER: It’s been widely reported that both the White House and the Justice Department have said that some of the fired U.S. attorneys didn’t pursue voter fraud prosecutions aggressively enough for this administration’s taste. And President Bush, by his own admission, passed along to Attorney General Gonzales complaints about certain prosecutors in New Mexico and other states who were perceived as being lax in fighting voter fraud.

So I just want to examine that perception with you for a minute.

First let me ask you: Since 2001, have there been any FBI investigation related to election fraud which you believe should have resulted in an indictment but did not?

MUELLER: Not to my knowledge.

SCHUMER: OK.

MUELLER: And nothing has come to my level.

SCHUMER: Right.

Have you ever heard from your agents about any election fraud case where there were no indictments when they thought that there should have been?

MUELLER: I have not.

SCHUMER: Has any special agent in charge ever brought such a case to your attention?

MUELLER: No, sir.

SCHUMER: And have you ever asked FBI personnel about election fraud cases in which indictments should have resulted but did not?

MUELLER: No.

SCHUMER: OK.

Have you ever been asked by officials at the DOJ or elsewhere in the administration about the FBI’s view on how a specific election fraud case was handled by prosecutors?

MUELLER: No.

SCHUMER: OK.

Were you consulted in any way about the performance of any of the fired U.S. attorneys with respect to election fraud cases?

MUELLER: No.

SCHUMER: Did you ever talk to Kyle Sampson, the attorney general’s former chief of staff, about the performance of the fired U.S. attorneys?

MUELLER: I can’t recall having any specific — I certainly was not consulted. And I cannot recall any specific conversation I may have had with him.

And to the extent that I had any conversation, it probably was with regard to San Francisco, because I was the U.S. attorney there. And I believe that that U.S. attorney was one of those who…

SCHUMER: Mr. Ryan…

MUELLER: … was asked to leave. And so I’m not discounting the possibility of some conversation, but I have no recollection.

SCHUMER: You don’t recall any conversation.

MUELLER: No. No.

SCHUMER: And how about any conversation about these fired U.S. attorneys and their performance with the attorney general?

MUELLER: No.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. Headline says "voter fraud," body says "election fraud."

Thinkprogress needs to be more careful.

[acmavm]

2. Wonder what whiz-bang in the bush** administration thought that

voter fraud would be a good enough excuse to cover their shenanigans? Did they think that we would think they were investigating Florida and Ohio? They think that they're so much smarter than everybody else, don't they?

[mod mom]

3. Someone needs to make a clarification on whether each party meant election or voter fraud

If only Faye was there-it would have been clarified!

[bleever]

5. Paging Faye.

LOL.

Clearly they're lumping the two together in this instance. Mueller would have mentioned anything relating to either, if it would have helped the party line.

[yellowcanine]

4. Whoa - Mueller bitchslaps the Republican meme on election fraud. Not very "loyal Bushie" of him.

If I were him I would watch my back with this WH crowd.

[blm]

7. Actually this is PURPOSEFUL - Mueller says there was NEVER any election fraud

that warranted prosecution throughout that time.

This is their way of getting that out there on record since we all know that the REAL election fraud was committed by the GOPs.

Mueller is a LONGTIME fixer for the BFEE - anyone who trusts he is making this statement in earnest doesn't know him.

[tiffane]

6. When All of the Fraud Benefits Republicans, It's no Wonder

I have been following the vote fraud issue for a while now and quite frankly I'm just a little confused. Why would the Bush White House fire attorneys for failing to investigate fraud which in fact made him President? Are there cases of fraud perpetrated by Democrats to to Select Bush as our President, or does this have to do with the "blue wave" that we all saw in November (everywhere but Florida? hmmm) despite GOP dirty tricks? Every case of fraud or situation of suspected fraud has been solely to benefit Republican candidates. Every instance of votes being added to the tallies benefited Republicans, every instance of votes being mysteriously lost magically disappeared from the Democratic candidate. There were cases of 8 out of 10 votes cast in Democratic strongholds not counted, that's 80% but under votes can't be proven so that's irrelevant, then there's the infamous Warren County lock down, in which all observers were removed under the guise of a terror threat by officials posing as FBI and Homeland security and then suddenly Bush carries Warren county higher percentage wise than he carried the entire state of Ohio, and that my friends is just the tip of the iceberg. Sure the Bush administration is upset about the non-investigation of vote fraud.

[EC]

8. Voter fraud and Election fraud

are two very different things...Bushies like to blame the voters because than they can make laws that disinfranchise....where as election fraud is more widespread...computer results flipped etc...they don't want that investigated and judges have stopped court cases and judges helped promote disinfranchisement such as Blackwell's little rules like paper weight of absentee ballets and lateness of sending them out, and on and on....