Arkansas Blog

yes, but Fran Townshend is HOT (and she worked for Reno, iirc)

more from US NEWS blog...

Among the 2,000 pages, there were a handful of other documents that are causing concern at the Justice Department, sources said, because they "may not put things in a great light" and could be seen as Justice officials' "potentially misleading" Congress, sources said, which is the key concern among members of Congress.

Note: An earlier edition of this story indicated that the email was sent to McNulty, when in fact it was sent to Sampson and Scolinos.

Try these for some new info and especially the one where Pryor is trying to reclaim his virtue by piling on.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16935983.htm

Support for Gonzales appears to collapse

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3202.html

White House Seeking Gonzales Replacements

Gonzo is soooo screwed...

new from ABC news...

March 19, 2007- New e-mails released this evening by the Justice Department reveal the depth of White House involvement in the discussions to fire eight U.S. attorneys last year. The thousands of pages of e-mails suggest the White House was involved in the plan from the beginning.

The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales' former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised.

... if Gonzo doesn't use email and relied on Kyle to "keep him apprised", how can he claim not to have known of the WH/JD communications for 23 months over who should get canned?

Oh, God, please not Ted Olson.

I just returned from a Peace rally at Creekmore Park in Fort Baptist. I wasn't supposed to be there until 6:30, but a frantic phone call from my 15 year old daughter got me out there earlier.

Seems some Bush supporting War lovers thought it would be fitting to throw eggs and other garbage at little girls and elderly nuns. One car was occupied by 2 teenagers who might have egged anyone on the planet. But the other was some scoundrels in an beat up red truck and they weren't teenagers.

What kind of human attacks a peach vigil? What kind of man throws crap at little girls and old nuns? Ya know.....maybe Osama was right. Seeing something like that would sure make it easy to think Americans are the devil. The rest of the service went peacefully, I'm sure the cop cars helped.

The pro-war, torture loving element of this country are nut cases. We should be very afraid. What has Bush wrought?

from the UK Guardian...

In other trouble for the administration, the Justice Department's inspector general is to testify Tuesday and Wednesday before House and Senate committees on what he says was Justice's misuse of its power to secretly go through people's financial, Internet and other records in terrorism cases.

Gonzales, himself, is the star witness Thursday before a House panel considering his department's budget request. That will be his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since Bush told him last week to quickly patch up relations with lawmakers.

... something tells me AGAG won't be testifying thursday.

Some interesting stuff in the latest batch of documents, like an e-mail from Bud Cummins to Michael Elston on Feb 7th discussing the possiblity of testifying to the House Judiciary Committee -

"I am sure I could work in something about Tim Griffin's qualifications in a hearing. If I testified I don't think I could screw this up any worse than Tim and the White House have done--and it might help.....DOJ's call."

Faint praise indeed.

Well, this is a sad story. Ordinarily, I would support Tim Griffin's appointment and confirmation. On paper, he is well qualified. I particularily respect his work for David Barrett. But Bud got it right - this appointment is totally botched. The document dump tacitly paints Griffin as an arrogant power-seeker who would throw his granny overboard to get the USA position. Nevermind that Cummins had his office running well and was delivering good performance, and everyone in Arkansas was satisfied with the work he was doing.

My friendly advice to Griffin is to get out ASAP.

BE A DOCUMENT DUMP
TRAIL BLAZER.

TMP MUCKRAKER SET UP A WEBSITE TO ALLOW BLOGGERS TO HELP SIFT THRU 3000 PAGES OF EMAILS.

Good stuff discovered so far, a few linking firings to POTUS.

CLICK ON BLUE NAME
_

More from the dump -

Handwritten note in a chart giving talking-points about the fired USAs - about Tim Griffin -

"* Originally recommended by Rep. (redacted) for WDAR"

"PAUSA issue: Griffin was _always_ our choice"

The first guess for the redacted name would have to be Boozman.

From unattributed handwritten notes, perhaps written during a hearing? -

_Arkansas_

1) Griffin is _well_qualified_. More prosecution experience than Cummins or Casey.

2) Griffin came back from _Iraq_ and wanted an opportunity to serve

3) Cummins was given _6_months_notice_ - smooth transition

4) Cummins served full _4_year_term_

5) _Not_performance_ related

6) Opportunity for _new_energy_ with a _strong_candidate_

7) Always _intended_to_nominate_ after consultation with home-state senators Pryor and Lincoln.

Objection will be given "significant weight".

8) Cummins was _politically_ active. Congressional candidate

I've scrolled though the whole dump now. The only damaging information on Cummins was the note that he didn't attend the best schools like Griffin did - he got his education in Arkansas instead.

So it looks embarrassing for Gonzales, Griffin and a bunch of mid-level staffers at DOJ and EOP, and a few may lose their jobs. But no crimes or impeachable offenses were found.