Have you all seen these emails? (US Attorneys Scandal)

[drm604]

Maybe I'm a little behind in this whole thing and this is old news, but I was just reading an article in the online WSJ which includes a number of the US Attorney emails and it's very interesting.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-retro_DOJemails_070319.html

Some highlights:

From: Kyle Sampson View PDF of email
Sent: Jan. 9, 2005
To: David G. Leitch
Subject: RE: Questions from Karl Rove

Judge and I discussed briefly a couple of weeks ago. My thoughts are:

<snip>

3. As an operational matter, we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys -- the underperforming ones. (This is a rough guess, we might want to consider doing performance evaluations after Judge comes on board.) The vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are going a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc.

(Emphasis is mine)

My thoughts:
1. I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say, look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in "good faith," of course

<snip>

4. The only thing really at risk here is a repeal of the AG's appointment authority. We intend to have DOJ leg affairs people on notice to work hard to preserve this

<snip>

There is some risk that we'll lose the authority, but if we don't ever exercise it then what's the point of having it? (I'm not 100 percent sure that Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.)

(Emphasis again mine, but not the quotes around "good faith" they are there in the email.)

So,

• Being a loyal bushie is important.
  
• They want to run out the clock, while trying to give the appearance of acting in good faith.
  
• Tim Griffin's appointment as Attorney General was important to Karl (obviously Karl Rove).
  

No no no... Nothing political in these appointments, no bad faith here. :sarcasm:

[Fresh_Start]

1. other great email chain was the abramoff

chain where they were scolded for using the government email system and instructed to use the private system because the government system would limit the options for helping them

[drm604]

2. Do you have a link? n/t

[Fresh_Start]

3. one of the current greatest has some of the info

trying to remember where I read the rest of it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x503954

[drm604]

4. I found a link.

It's a PDF on oversight.house.gov.

http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070326112419-30085.pdf