But so do many others, as more truth begins to emerge--
The attorney general's former top aide identified five Bush administration insiders as potential replacements for sitting U.S. attorneys months before those prosecutors were fired, contrary to repeated suggestions from the Justice Department that no such list had been drawn up, according to documents released yesterday.
But the spin seems to focus in on recent Gonzales aide, and longtime personal govt.-paid counsel to the over-righteous Judiciary Committee Member Sen. (R Utah) Orrin B. Hatch, Sampson, more than Gonzales himself.
E-mails sent to the White House in January and May of 2006 by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, name potential replacements for U.S. attorneys in San Diego, San Francisco, Little Rock and Grand Rapids.
Though Gonzales and Sampson apparently had first tried to pin it all on Rove--
The disclosures contrast with previous statements from Sampson and other Justice officials. They have said that only Tim Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove who was later appointed the top federal prosecutor in Little Rock, had been identified as a replacement candidate before the dismissals of the sitting U.S. attorneys.
More in today's Washington Post
So it looks as if ultimately Gonzales had to throw Sampson to the wolves, though Sampson and maybe Gonzales had earlier tried to pin it on Rove, but didn't get very far with that ploy. Then Sampson in return outed Gonzales in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This is reminiscent of the Libby case, where Cheney seems to have made a half-hearted effort to prevent Libby from taking the rap for what Bush-Rove set in motion. But Libby did not try to out Cheney to save himself--maybe Libby was promised things in exchange that a lower-level guy like Sampson couldn't get.
Tim Griffin was a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, just as Sampson was a former aide to both Gonzales and Hatch. Isn't it time to ask Griffin himself some questions under oath?
Also, wasn't one of those US Attorney scams pulled off in Utah, Orrin Hatch's state? Does Hatch, closely connected with Sampson for some years (1999-2001), come into the picture as well? Exactly what did Hatch know about all this?
Well, actually, Sampson himself wanted that Utah Attorney position, and had tried to appoint himself to it, backed by Bush and Gonzales, in 2006. But Hatch, like many of the super-righteous, has no heart, so Hatch pushed instead for Brett Tolman, yet another Hatch crony, who had served under Hatch on the Judiciary Committee for the previous three years. Source here
Tolman’s most noteworthy work in the Senate is his role in the passage of the Patriot Act reauthorization during 2005 and 2006. He was instrumental in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy USA PATRIOT Act revisions changing the process for appointment of interim U.S. Attorneys.
During Senate hearings on February 6, 2007, Senator Specter claimed that Tolman, on behalf of the United States Department of Justice, added a clause to the bill allowing the President to bypass Senatorial approval process when interim U.S. Attorneys are appointed. This clause is at the center of the Bush-Gonzales dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy. here
In fact, though, Specter had warmly supported the appointment of Tolman--whom he had known for three years, since he was Tolman's boss as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee--Specter, double-faced as always, was for Tolman before it became expedient to turn against him. I believe Specter tends to blame his aides for all his mis-steps.
Why not ask Tolman some questions under oath?
There's been a lot of attention to the US Attorney group who got fired, but wouldn't it be even more informative for the House Judiciary Committee to question all those who replaced them as well? Is it really possible that all of them are so naïve and pure that they had no knowledge of the Attorney Scam themselves? And is it possible that Gonzales himself could be such a dupe that he had no idea what was going on?