Sampson Refuses To Disclose Whether He Spoke To Rove About Firing Fitzgerald

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/29/rove-sampson-fitz/


Sampson Refuses To Disclose Whether He Spoke To Rove About Firing Fitzgerald

The Washington Post reported recently that Patrick Fitzgerald — the special prosecutor in the Libby trial — was given a poor ranking by the Bush administration despite being described by his colleagues as a “legal star“:

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had “not distinguished themselves” on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking was drawn up by Kyle Sampson, but the reference to Fitzgerald “is in a portion of the memo that Justice has refused to turn over to Congress.”

During today’s hearing, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) repeatedly asked Kyle Sampson whether he ever discussed drawing up this ranking with Karl Rove. On eight different occasions, Sampson refused to rule out that he had discussed firing Fitzgerald with Rove or his office.

UPDATE: TPMMuckraker has video of Sampson telling Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) of the day he suggested firing Fitzgerald.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002915.php

[The Count]

1. DEMS NEVER ASK QUESTIONS THEY DON'T HAVE THE ANSWERS ALREADY

Eventually, that has to get through the skulls of those criminals.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. He went out of his way to be equivocal about it, that's for sure...