At Katie Couric's blog, of all places, I noted the following fact, which was not released in the latest document dump:
that Fitzgerald was ranked by Justice Department officials in March 2005 as having "not distinguished" himself at his post. The ranking, the Post reported: "placed Fitzgerald below ‘strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty’ to the administration but above ‘weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.,’ according to Justice [Department] documents."
Fitzgerald's ex-boss responds:
"[ranking Fitz] `as a middling prosecutor’ lacks total credibility across the board... It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake.’"
More on the flip...
UPDATE: Quote from fired USA Cummins email to other fired USA's re: DAG phone call with threats if they don't shut up.
UPDATE 2: As an example of this thuggish administration's idea of a good USA is Tim Griffin, who was behind voter "caging" efforts in Florida. More below...
The original story is in the WaPo and provides more fuel for the politicalization of the DoJ fire. Several items of note:
- The ranking was in March, 2005, during the Grand Jury investigation of the Plame leak.
- Two USA's who receieved the same ranking were among those fired.
- This info was in the portion of the ranking that was redacted, according to the source.
Is there anything that could be more political than planning to fire the USA that is going after White House aides for serious breaches of national security at the time he is actually going after them?
WaPo notes that the search for a new AG has begun, so Gonzo is counting down the hours until he is booted into a cushy lobbying job.
I like this quote:
A Justice Department official yesterday sought to play down the importance of Fitzgerald's ranking, saying the chart was "put together by Sampson and is not an official department position on these U.S. attorneys."
Of course, Sampson was Gonzo's Chief of Staff, so it couldn't be official business, could it?
Let's just spend the next two years investigating everything while trying to roll back the more egregious laws the Repugs have passed. And bring our troops home!
Back to document mining. Over and out.
UPDATE: As an example of how BushCo works behind the scenes, some excerpts from an email from Bud Cummins to his fellow fired USA's:
Mike Elston from the DAG's office called me today...the essence of his message was that they feel like they taking unnecessary flak to avoid trashing each of us specifically or further, but if they feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully...He mentioned my quote on Sunday and I didn't apologize for it, told him it was true and that everyone involved should agree with the truth of my statement, and pointed out to him that I stopped short of calling them liars and merely said that IF they were doing as alleged they should retract...He reacted quite a bit to the idea of anyone voluntarily testifying and it seemed clear that they would see that as a major escalation of the conflict meriting some kind of unspecified form of retaliation....I don't want to stir you up [to] conflict or overstate the threatening undercurrent in the call, but the message was clearly there and you should be aware before you speak to the press again if you choose to do that.
Source: this doc from dump. My bolding, but underline of "their" was in original.
Obviously, these hamfisted pressure tactics failed, as they ended up voluntarily testifying before Congress.
Somehow, I don't think Fitz would have been anywhere near as reticent. Fitzmas would have turned in to Fitzstorm very quickly.
By, by Gonzo :)
UPDATE 2: This deserves a diary of its own, but I've already used mine up today. From intrepid investigative reporter Greg Palast we find this story, about Tim Griffen and his efforts at suppressing likely Democratic voters in Florida. Griffen was the Rove protege for whom Bud Cummins was kicked out of the Arkansas USA job, an "up and coming" Republican who needed some resume padding.
Some excerpts:
There’s only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That’s replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.
...
Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.
Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
...
In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn’t mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.
However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name "@GeorgeWBush.com" he sent them to "@GeorgeWBush.ORG." A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns "GeorgeWBush.org." When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.
And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin called, "Caging" lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.
Go read the whole article, it gets more disgusting.
And if anyone wants to diary this subject, a good place to start is this Google search.
Let's keep exposing these lowdown scumbags for what they really are: asslicking political operatives who don't care about the rule of law or the lives of our soldiers. Last week, I wouldn't have imagined I could get any more disgusted with BushCo. Once again, I've been proven wrong.