[Dialogue] Officials Rebuked For Disclosing Rove's Connection To Firing of U.S. Attorney

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers 

Officials Rebuked For Disclosing Rove’s Connection To Firing of U.S.
Attorney

by Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON - The White House’s former political director was furious at
Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the
administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to
make way for a protégé of Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser,
according to documents released late Tuesday.

Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her
frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0613_06.jpg> 

She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the
Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins
wasn’t fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican
political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S.
attorney, then announced that he wouldn’t seek confirmation to the Arkansas
post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has
since resigned.

“Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up,” Taylor
lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account
rather than from her White House e-mail address. “This is not good for his
long-term career.”

The Taylor e-mail was among 46 pages of documents that the Justice
Department turned over to Congress Tuesday as part of the investigation into
the firings of at least nine U.S. attorneys.

The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees said
the documents showed greater White House involvement in the firings than
previously known.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the documents “provide further evidence that
White House officials like former political director Sara Taylor were deeply
involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors.”

The White House disputed those characterizations, saying the e-mails deal
only with the aftermath of the firings, not what led up to them, and that
there was nothing inappropriate about wanting to promote Griffin, whom the
administration considered “exceptionally” qualified.

“I know this is becoming terribly frustrating for Democrats, but once again
documents show no wrongdoing in the decision to replace U.S. attorneys,”
said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Fratto said some documents also undercut Democrats’ assertions that the
White House wanted to abuse a change in federal law to keep interim U.S.
attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.

In an e-mail exchange from early January, then-White House Counsel Harriet
Miers asked Sampson how the department wanted to handle replacement
candidates. Sampson replied that “in no case” did he want to use the new law
unilaterally to “jam senators” because “that will only result in the
Congress taking that authority away from us.”

The newly released e-mails also showed that:

-The White House counsel’s office thought in January that the ousted
prosecutors had “disloyally stirred up the senators” but argued against
criticizing them publicly because they hadn’t “fired any shots” at the
administration.

-Taylor called Cummins “lazy” and said that was “why we got rid of him in
the first place.” Cummins, reached Tuesday, said, “I don’t know how Sara
Taylor would have any information about my work ethic.”

© 2007 McClatchy Newspapers

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/13/1853/

 

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