Update: Diary originally entitled "USAgate: DOJ blocked investigation of Rep. Charles Taylor" is now below the fold...
This news just out should shut up repubs crying "politics"...
A 16-day gap in e-mail records between the Justice Department and the White House concerning the firing of U.S. attorneys last year has attracted the attention of congressional investigators.
In an investigation into whether seven U.S. attorneys were fired for political rather than professional reasons, the Justice Department on Monday handed over 3,000 pages of documents to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
But the documents included no correspondence about the firings in the critical time period between November 15, 2006, and December 2, 2006, right before the attorneys were asked for their resignations.
http://www.cnn.com/...
More here, hat tip to DelRPCV... Tony Snow:
"I’ve been led to believe that there’s a good response for it."
Senator Leahy, check this out: the NC US attorney, who has since been removed (red flag), was allegedly blocked by former AG Ashcroft (VERY red flag) from interviewing (former) Rep. Charles Taylor when evidence had surfaced in testimony (red flag) that Taylor knew about fraudulent loan activity at his bank.
Four years ago in Asheville, N.C., a lawyer filed a document that contained a scandalous accusation: The U.S. attorney general had intervened in a local bank-fraud case and prevented investigators from questioning one of Congress' most powerful members, Rep. Charles Taylor. [snip]
But many in the western part of the state recall a particular case a few years back that was handled quietly in the North Carolina mountains, when a pair of lawyers thought that Taylor, a North Carolina Republican, ought to be questioned over a loan-fraud case that involved the bank he owns.
"Essentially the question is, `Why was he not interrogated? Why was he not interviewed?'" asked Forrest A. Ferrell, the lawyer who leveled the charges in 2003. "He knew about it all and should've at least been interrogated about it."
Link.
We all now know that any US attorney was made well aware that if they didn't act like "loyal Bushies" and properly obstruct justice when Republicans were caught up in crimes, they would be canned.
"My information was that the U.S. attorney general in D.C. prohibited the U.S. Attorney's Office in North Carolina from interrogating Charles Taylor," Ferrell recalled last week. He'd give no other details.
"My information was confidential," he said.
The response from the DOJ: no comment.
Nothing came of the motion and Taylor lost his seat in 2006: people knew about this quid pro quo.
How does this relate to the current US attorney scandal?
In North Carolina, e-mails disclosed last week reveal that U.S. Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert of Charlotte was among those on the list to be fired. She later was removed, and said last week that she had no idea why she was targeted.
There it is. How many more such cases are out there?
My guess is that the DC shredding companies are busy these days...