Your daily drivetime update on the US Attorney Purge...
(A lot to talk about today, and I've tried to stay focused on the important points. Many, many hat tips and thanks to TPMMuckraker for putting these video clips up. I've just pulled a few for emphasis. If you would like to see more of these, please go here, and please seriously consider contributing to TPM here.)
NEWS ON INDIVIDUAL ATTORNEYS
(Most of the news relates to Kyle Sampson's testimony thread here. Also, please note the addition of Middle North Carolina USA Anna Mills Wagoner)
1. Fired San Diego USA Carol Lam: Kyle Sampson reiterates that prosecution of immigration cases was the "real problem" he was referring to in his infamous email. Video:
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But again, there is no documentation supporting that assertion, there is (still!) no evidence that anyone at the DoJ talked to Carol Lam about her "real problem" with immigration cases, and there is documentation discussing using border crimes as a justification after the fact. Indeed, Senator Feinstein produced a letter of commendation of Lam from US Customs and Border Protection, and in her afternoon questioning of Sampson, he admitted that as far as he knew, nobody contacted her about this "problem." Under earlier questioning, Sampson noted that Carol Lam was on the early 2005 list because of her "failure to embrace the President's anti-gun, violence initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods," so we're probably still playing games here. Also, Sampson did complain to the FBI to shut them up about Carol Lam's firing. Huh.
2. Fired New Mexico USA David Iglesias: Whoa, what what the hell is this? An attack ad on fired New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias? (h/t TPM) WTF?!? TPM did a little sniffing around and found the people behind the ad to be RNC delegates and Republican donors Linda and Tom Krumland. Don't just shrug your shoulders at this, kiddies- remember, this is a former US Attorney- why are Republican party heavy hitters spending good money on attacking someone that is no longer a public official, and (theoretically) is no longer in the public eye? It's stuff like this that makes me extremely curious about what happened with these USAs. Also, from his early testimony, Kyle Sampson has no specific recollection of David Iglesias' inactivity on "voter fraud," and was not aware of phone calls to Iglesias from Republicans Heather Wilson and Pete Domenici. Under later questioning, Sampson does sort of remember complaints coming in from Karl Rove to the Attorney General about not pursuing "voter fraud" cases.
3. Former Los Angeles USA Debra Wong Yang:
4. Fired Seattle USA John McKay: In early testimony, Sampson doesn't specifically recall any Republican dissatisfaction over John McKay's refusal to investigate "voter fraud" in the 2004 gubernatorial election. But as noted above, he does sort of remember complaints coming in from Karl Rove to the Attorney General about not pursuing "voter fraud" cases.
5. Fired Arizona USA Paul Charlton: Sampson was only aware of Charlton's investigation of Republican Rick Renzi through news accounts. Under questioning, Sampson states that Charlton's firing was due to "policy disputes," not performance issues. So now we've got two US Attorneys that even the DoJ admits were not let go for "performance" reasons.
6. Fired Nevada USA Daniel Bogden: Sampson not aware of Bogden's investigation of Republican governor Jim Gibbons.
7. Fired Arkansas USA Bud Cummins: Sampson reiterates that Cummins was to be replaced in order to make room for Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin.
8. Reassigned Guam USA Frederick Black:
9. New Hampshire USA Tom Colantuono:
10. New Jersey USA Chris Christie:
11. Current Minnesota USA Rachel Paulose:
12. Fired Western Michigan USA Margaret Chiara: does anyone know if a newspaper has investigated the reason for her firing? TPM supposedly provided a link, but it didn't go to anything about Chiara. I've tried Googling, and I haven't come up with anything. Is anyone aware of any newspaper sniffing around about Margaret Chiara?
13. Former Western North Carolina USA Robert J. Conrad, Jr.:
14. Kentucky USA David Huber:
15. Southern Mississippi USA Dunn Lampton:
16. Middle North Carolina USA Anna Mills Wagoner: from Sampson's testimony, this USA was on an early list, but was taken off on advice from Monica Goodling. Why was she on an early list?
GENERAL NOTES ON SAMPSON'S TESTIMONY
- TPMMuckraker's running commentary on Sampson's testimony here.
- One important point that might get overlooked in all this questioning. When Senator Whitehouse asked Sampson if "we" (the Senate, the country, etc.) should be concerned that relatively inexperienced lawyers like Sampson and Goodling were making decisions on the careers of US Attorneys, Sampson emphatically responded that "the principals" (i.e. Gonzales and the White House) made the decisions, not staffers like Sampson and Goodling. In fact at various times under different Senators' questions, Sampson repeatedly made the point that the Attorney General made the decision to fire these US Attorneys, not him. It's important to remember this when we hear President Bush or AG Gonzales try to claim they weren't "involved" in this firing. They very clearly were, and one of their own just said as much under oath.
- Republicans pulled a stunt, but I'm not sure what it was. The hearing was adjourned briefly, because, according to the rules, you can't have a committee meeting while the Senate is in session(?). I'm confused about this, but whatever the problem was, Republicans succeeded to delay this for only a little while, and the hearing resumed. You can run, boys, but you can't hide. UPDATE: the clarification I've gotten is that Republicans objected to the length of the hearing, given that it exceeded two hours. But, almost immediately, they realized it was stupid to halt this hearing, so they let it resume. Weird- it's almost as if they thought they were still in charge, and only needed to give the appearance of an investigation.
- Keep a lookout for more to be added to this list. Senator Schumer had an exchange with Sampson where he insisted that Sampson name the USAs that were on early lists, but were taken off at a later time. He named one, Anna Mills Wagoner of Middle North Carolina, but there are at least three others that Sampson "thinks" he knows of, but would not name them, because he didn't have access to unredacted memos with those names. He did commit to looking at the unredacted memos and getting back to Senator Schumer about this, so stay tuned.
- Attorney General Gonzales had at least 5 discussions about the firings, according to Sampson. Gonzales' claim that he "wasn't involved" in this decision has been totally discredited, so now it's up to the Attorney General and the White House to "clarify" their involvement a little more. Kudos to Senator Schumer for squeezing this out of Sampson. Video:
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- Um, about Karl Rove "not being involved?" Yeah, sorry about that. (h/t Hunter)
- Speaking of Rove, Sampson does some SERIOUS dancing on this. Remember, Sampson drafted the DoJ letter sent to Congress that stated the department was "not aware" of any involvement by Karl Rove, but he was also the author of an email that stated that firing Cummins was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc." His explanation that supposedly squares this is that (in his email) he didn't specifically know that Karl Rove was interested in it, but he simply assumed because Rove's assistant was pushing for it. Video:
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And somehow, in his world, that makes the letter (that refuted Rove's involvement)...what? Accurate? Certainly not, but we're not seeing the Senators press on this. But really, here's the question: how can you "assume" that Rove was involved, but also not be "aware" that Rove was involved? Is that possible?
- Sampson thought Patrick Fitzgerald might be someone to put on the list. I'm too gobsmacked to describe his testimony on this, so let's go to the video:
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This guy's something. A very well respected US Attorney is in the middle of investigating Karl Rove and the White House's involvement in a CIA leak, and Sampson is suggesting firing him, possibly just to "get a reaction." Wow. Just F--king Wow.
- Kyle Sampson's opening statement to the Senate Judiciary here.
PERSPECTIVE PIECES
- Josh Marshall yesterday tried to debunk Sampson's, shall we say, artful dodging of wrongdoing by artfully removing the distinction betweeen "political" and "performance-based."
- The Myth of Voter Fraud. Washington Post weighs in, along with the New York Times from a few weeks ago. Remember that FBI Director Mueller confirmed yesterday in his testimony that there were no indictment failures with regard to voter fraud. (h/t ThinkProgress)
- From me, I think there were times when the Senators and Sampson got a little too cute, both with the questions and the answers. So while the Dem Senators generally tried to elicit admissions of bad intent over these firings, and Sampson and Republican Senators continually parried these efforts, very rarely did I see any hard-nosed effort to ask the simple question: why? If there weren't "specific" problems with, for example, Iglesias or McKay, then why fire them at all? I think Sampson tried to describe the mass firing as a stone rolling down the mountain, and he was simply trying to make sure it went in the right direction by picking the "right" US Attorneys, but what, or rather who, started the ball rolling in the first place? Rove? Miers? Sampson himself? Essentially, why (or because of what or whom) did Sampson and staff have the default thinking to fire these USAs (unless someone came up with a good reason not to)?
Testimony continues, so stay tuned, this diary is bound to get messy!
UPDATE: What the hell does this mean? The local FBI agent that "guaranteed politics was involved" in Carol Lam's firing? That got muzzled by the DoJ? He's resigning. Did he get a call from somebody with a 202 area code?