Greg Palast, the journalist who blew the whistle on Republican vote suppression activities in Florida (“caging”), has communicated with me further following an e-mail I passed along this morning. He has a theory on Republican congressional candidate Tim Griffin’s involvement in the scheme
Palast’s report:
Was Tim Griffin merely a “Rove-bot”?
Did Karl Rove write the memos that dunked candidate Griffin in hot water?
Special to the Arkansas Times
by Greg Palast (New York, London)
When Tim Griffin resigned his post as interim federal prosecutor a day after the BBC broadcast linking him to illegal “voter caging,” Griffin insisted he did not know what “caging” was.
Griffin, currently the Republican candidate for Congress in Arkansas’s Second District, said he only found out after the BBC report that “caging” is a term “used in the direct mail” business.
That’s correct, Mr. Griffin: it’s an address capture scheme which, when used against voters of color, is a federal crime.
Right here, printed above, is an email sent by Griffin with the subject line, “Caging” with lists attached of soldiers and homeless men whose votes the Republican National Committee wanted the Bush campaign to challenge.
So, if Griffin’s name is listed as the author of the “caging” memo, how the heck could he not know what he was saying and sending?
There are two possible answers:
1. Griffin is lying, or
2. He didn’t understand the content of his note because, in fact, it was written by SOMEONE ELSE who told Griffin to send it from Griffin’s email account.
Who could that be?