Coverup. It always get discovered in the last two years of a President's term. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave........."
Another Document Dump, Another Misleading Statement
CAPTAIN ED
The Department of Justice executed another Friday-afternoon document dump -- that time-honored method for politicians to avoid press coverage of their peccadilloes -- and uncovered yet another refutation of earlier statements by its senior officials. This time, the documents disprove the testimony given repeatedly that the replacements for the fired attorneys had not been selected before the termination of the prosecutors:
"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.
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, Mich.
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. ...
Sampson's attorney and a Justice spokesman said yesterday that the candidates listed were only tentative suggestions and were never seriously considered. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the list "reflects Kyle Sampson's initial thoughts" and "in no way contradicts the department's prior statements" about the lack of a candidate list.
Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that on Dec. 7, when seven U.S. attorneys were sacked, "I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign."
So first we have Alberto Gonzales telling us categorically that he was "not involved in any discussions" with Sampson about the presidential appointees that his aide was about to fire. After a document dump put him in the meeting where the final decisions were made about the termination, Gonzales said that he meant that he had no discussions on the selection of the prosecutors, just on the process for notification. That produced a huge round of skepticism; the names had to be part of the process in that meeting, and the notion that a "CEO" of Justice (as Gonzales described himself) would be completely disinterested in the presidential appointees his staff planned to fire either demonstrated incompetence or complete disinterest in the job.
Now we have Sampson playing similar word games. At least two of the people on that list besides Tim Griffin later received postings as US Attorneys. Both of them worked at Justice before their appointments in DC and Alabama. Very clearly, Sampson had other candidates in mind and had taken the time to draft a list of potential replacements as part of the process. By any reasonable reading, that contradicts the essence of his sworn testimony to Congress. His attorney told the press that Sampson's state of mind was such that he had not seriously considered replacements, and therefore his testimony was accurate.
Why did Sampson hide the list that he himself had drawn up -- and sent through his e-mail to the White House? Why did Gonzales try to back away from the process? It's all to avoid what everyone knew about the terminations: they were politically motivated. So what? They're political appointees. Had Gonzales simply stood up in January and said, "These fine attorneys simply didn't follow our policy direction and we replaced them with people we thought would do that better," all of this would have simply blown over in less than a week. Instead, we have people lying, changing their testimony, and playing word games where "no involvement in any discussions" includes sitting in on meetings where final decisions were made, and "I did not have any replacements in mind" covers the compiling of a list of replacements and e-mailing it to the White House.
Enough already. If President Bush doesn't act to fire everyone involved from Gonzales on down for the sheer incompetence and deception, then he deserves every moment of televised committee hearings he gets from this molehill that Gonzales & Co built into Mount McKinley.
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