Arkansas Blog: The lying liars

More on the attorneygate document dump.

1) Here's to laugh: Patrick Fitzgerald was near the top of the Bush admin. list of poor performers. Now we learn that list was developed largely by measuring supposed loyalty to the Bush administration, not performance criteria. Independence got you a low rating. Prosecuting Scooter didn't help either, we're sure.

2) The Bushies grew nervous about their deal to sack Bud Cummins so they could put Karl Rove's political hit man Tim Griffin in the U.S. attorney job in LR without a Senate confirmation. Concern grew about potential fallout from the facts, rather than their previous lies:

The documents also show that department officials were concerned Mr. Cummins, the dismissed Arkansas prosecutor, might testify before Congress. On Feb. 1, Michael Elston, a senior Justice Department official informed [Gonzales' chief of staf Kyle] Mr. Sampson that two Democratic senators had requested that he do so.

Mr. Elston said Mr. Cummins had declined, “but wanted to know if we wanted him to testify.”

Mr. Sampson responded: “I don’t think so,” explaining that he could be asked all kinds of questions, including: “Did you resign voluntarily?” and “Were you told why you were being asked to resign?”

Mr. Sampson also said it could be troublesome if Mr. Cummins were asked about his knowledge of his successor. “Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming U.S. Attorney?” was one possible question he mentioned, as well as whether Mr. Griffin had talked about getting the job by avoiding Senate confirmation.

DOJ lied to Sen. Harry Reid that Rove and White House had no involvement in Griffin's appointment, documents show.

Gonzales must go. For the dignity of the Justice Department in Arkansas, Tim Griffin must as well.

PS -- The more that's written in Missouri about Bud Cummins' handling of a corruption investigation related to the Republican governor of Missouri, the worse it smells. Do other U.S. attorneys give private advice to powerful lawyers for governors that their clients are not targets of an investigation from which other U.S. attorneys disqualified themselves because of relationships with the governor? If you want details, here's a Missouri blog going after the governor. It is rich in Cummins posts. He's begun to tie himself in knots with explanations on his role.

Comments

The folks in Missouri seem to have a different perspective on the firing of Bud Cummins. They seem to feel it was because he was investigating Gov. Matt Blunt's campaign practices. Although, Cummins had concluded the investigation and that no charges were filed against anyone; he had committed a cardinal sin.

Posted by: Raven | March 20, 2007 07:10 AM

So does Houston Nutt.

Posted by: Arkansas Red | March 20, 2007 07:25 AM

My reading of Cummins' resume is that his main claim to bipartisan prosecutorial 'fairness' is that when compared to Griffin/Rove he's a heckuva guy...he's not quite as rabid.

Posted by: zelda | March 20, 2007 09:54 AM

"You have no idea," said one Justice official, "how bad it is here."
by John Aravosis (DC) ·

It's raining subpoenas! From US News (via TPM Muckraker)
"You have no idea," said one Justice official, "how bad it is here."

The fear that virtually any piece of communication will have to be turned over has paralyzed department officials' ability to communicate effectively and respond in unison to the crisis, as has the fact that senior Justice officials themselves say they still don't know the entire story about what happened that led to the crisis. So they are afraid that anything they put down on paper could be viewed as lies or obfuscation, when in fact, the story is changing daily as new documents are found and as the Office of Legal Counsel conducts its own internal probe into the matter.

The paralysis will affect the calculations that Gonzales must make this week as to whether he should stay or go. If Gonzales doesn't resign, there's little doubt that he will get few of his initiatives through for the rest of his tenure and that his people will spend months churning out documents at the behest of angry Democrats who will be investigating virtually anything that moves.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Posted by: RLR | March 20, 2007 10:12 AM

and here we go.. new email shows Cunningham (Duke/Convict) wrote to DOJ complaining of Carol Lam's lack of pursuing immigration cases... the reason given for her "poor performance" rating and firing (all while the WH itself was trying to pass legislation helping Illegals become Legal)

Posted by: muleboy303 | March 20, 2007 10:16 AM

chicago tribune reporting that the House Appropriations Cmte has cancelled either the meeting for thursday or AGAG's scheduled testimony.
(as yet unconfirmed)

Posted by: muleboy303 | March 20, 2007 10:37 AM

Doesn't Gov. Blunt look like Rev. Haggard? Now Bud, that would be a career propelling prosecution!

Posted by: Janus | March 20, 2007 12:12 PM

STILL wondering about the ones that WEREN'T fired, and what they are doing RIGHT NOW.

This is great if they are afraid of actually getting caught for their actions. It's about time!

As the cons are so fond of saying "if they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about."

Their problem is that they are often doing things that are just shy of the law, ethics, or decency, or over the edge into illegality, unethical behavior and indecency.

Posted by: rablib | March 20, 2007 04:11 PM

Arkansas Blog

The lying liars

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