by emptywheel
Much of the most recent DOJ document dump on the USA purge maps out the response from DOJ to a letter from Chuck Schumer and others with regards to questions the Senators had regarding Abu Gonzales' claim that he would never fire a US Attorney for political reasons. As four Democratic Senators had pointed out, Gonzales had done just that when he fired Bud Cummins to make way for Rove's political crony Tim Griffin. The document dump, then, shows DOJ's frantic attempts to respond to the Deputy AG contradicting the AG.
I'd like to map it out to point to a couple of interesting points. In this post, I'll do a quick chronology; below the fold I'll add my comments on the DOJ side of things. In a second post, I'll look at how the White House directed the response. And in a last post, I'll look at whether or not DOJ actually responded to the Senators' inquiries.
Here's the chronology:
February 8, 12:23 PM: Schumer's Deputy Press Secretary Emily Epstein sends Nancy Scott-Finan letter from Senators Schumer, Reid, Durbin and Murray.
February 8, 1:25 PM: Scott-Finan forwards the letter to Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Michael Elston, William Moschella, Richard Hertling, Rebecca Seidel, and Tasia Scolinos; she cc's Catalina Cabral, Linda Long, and Saralene Green.
February 8, 4:15 PM: Sampson forwards a response to Goodling, Paul McNulty, Elston, Moschella, Hertling, and Scolinos; he proposes several responses that will make up the bulk of the response.
February 8, 4:32 PM: Sampson sends the Schumer letter and his proposed response to Michael Beck, asking him to print both out "for the AG." Beck opens the email at 5:47 PM. The following day, Beck forwards it to someone using his GMail account [see William Ockham's comment below for correction]. I wonder if Beck attempted to forward this to Abu G via a private email to hide his paper trail? There's something else funny about this email. In the first version in the OAG packet, the email appears as it should, with just Sampson's email draft and the Schumer letter. In its second appearance, they include a draft of the lettter itself (as distinct from the email); but the letter was not drafted for at least another day, if not 11 days.
February 9, 10:34 AM: Hertling responds to Sampson alone, asking "who has the pen"?
February 9, 11:57 PM: Sampson responds and says he can draft the response: "I can, I suppose."
February 9, 12:01 PM: Hertling responds, saying "that may be best."
February 9: A work order shows the Schumer letter as having been received on February 9 (from OLA). It asks OAUSA to draft letter for AAG/OLA (Hertling) to sign. The ODAG copy notes Margolis and Moschella by hand on it. It references work orders 1135622, 1119916, 1114387 (it is work order 1136274) as related documents. It sets February 27 as the deadline for response.
February 14, 4:00 - 6:00 PM: Senate Judiciary Committee briefing attended by Paul McNulty, Michael Elston, William Moschella.
February 21, 7:22 PM: Sampson sends draft response letter to McNulty (11:33), Moschella (7:31), Elston (9:36), Margolis (8:50), Hertling (7:28), Goodling (7:40); he asks Hertling to forward a PDF of the Schumer letter to the others [the time the recipient read the email is in parentheses].
February 21, 7:28 PM: In a response to Sampson's request for the PDF letter, Hertling says, "Just left. Will send around tomorrow."
February 22, 9:23: Margolis responds, asking how long Griffin spent in the Criminal Division (CRM), and otherwise approving the letter
February 22, 10:11 AM: Hertling's apparent Assistant, Catalina Cabral, sends the PDF of Schumer's letter to Hertling
February 22, 10:16 AM: Sampson asks Goodling how long Griffin was in CRM
February 22, 10:18 AM: Hertling forwards Schumer letter to Sampson (10:20), Moschella (4:19), Elston, Margolis (10:19), Goodling (10:31), and McNulty (11:25) [the time the recipient read the email is in parentheses]
February 22, 10:38 AM: Hertling provides suggestions to Sampson (12:02) in response to his draft. He says, "I added a new graf along the lines of Paul's thoughts this morning." The paragraph is:
In addition, the Department does not consider the replacement of one Republican U.S. Attorney by another well-qualified person with extensive experience as a prosecutor and strong ties to the district to be a change made for "political reasons." U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President; that has always been the rule, and U.S. Attorneys accept their appointment with that understanding. U.S. Attorneys leave office all the time for the most mundane of reasons. As noted in the case of Mr. Cummins, he had previously indicated publicly that he did not expect to remain in office through the President's second term. It was only natural and appropriate that the Department would seek a successor in anticipation of the potential vacancy. When the Department found an able and experienced successor, it moved forward with his interim appointment.
February 22, 12:01 PM: Goodling responds that Griffin was really only in CRM for 6 months.
February 22, 12:03 PM: Sampson sends out a new version integrating Hertling's changes, and says, "Because this letter mentions Rove and alludes to Harriet, I'd like to send it to WHCO for their review, with an eye on getting out tomorrow."
February 22, 3:20 PM: Moschella approves draft but tells Sampson to cc Specter and McConnell.
February 22, 4:19 PM: Elston asks apparent Assistant Monica Keasley to print attachment (Schumer letter).
February 22, 4:28 PM: Elston asks Keasley to bring documents into conference room.
February 22, 4:47 PM: Sampson sends a copy of the letter to Bill Kelley in the White House noting obliquely: "As you will see, the response touches on White House entities/equities and obviously concerns a hot-button issue of mutual interest -- hence, I'm forwarding it to you for WHCO review (and review by whomever else you think is appropriate)."
February 22, 6:06 PM: Sampson forwards Hertling the email he sent to Kelley, with an FYI.
February 23, 9:14 AM: Hertling forwards the letter to Paul Eckert and Christopher Oprison in the White House (and cc's Sampson) noting that Bill [Kelley] has already received it and asking for their approval.
February 23, 2:56 PM: Sampson sends Oprison a second version to approve.
February 23, 2:59 PM: Sampson sends Oprison a third version to approve.
February 23, 6:01 PM: Sampson sends note to Oprision saying "I accepted your changes and then made some changes." He says he needs to leave in 5 minutes.
February 23, 6:14 PM: Sampson sends Hertling the final letters.
February 23, 7:01 PM: Hertling sends the letters to Cabral, asking her to format them for his signature, so they can be faxed out that evening.
February 23, 7:39 PM: Hertling emails Sampson saying the letters had gone at about 7:30; he says he will email Sampson, Goodling, McNulty, and Scolinos PDFs of the letters on Monday morning. Sampson opens that email at 8:44PM.
February 23, 7:43 PM: Cabral emails Hertling to tell him all four faxes have gone through.
February 26, 9:24 AM: Hertling forwards Sampson, Goodling (10:43), Scolinos, Scott-Finan (9:24), John Nowacki, Elston, and Moschella (9:36) Cabral's email confirming receipt.
February 26, 9:49 AM: Sampson forwards Hertling's confirmation to Oprison.
And here's my analysis:
General work flow
First, a general comment about work flow. This request came in via Nancy Scott-Finan, who appears to be an Executive Assistant of some sort. She passed the request on to Sampson, Hertling, Margolis, Moschella, Elston, Goodling, Scolinos, and Rebecca Seidel (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, I think for Legislative Affairs), and three more administrative people. Sampson then removed Seidel from the working group on this, and added Paul McNulty. In his first response, he suggests "Hertling should sign," effectively taking Gonzales out of the response on this.
While the other participants in this appear to be following closley (they open these emails fairly quickly), the response is largely executed by Sampson and Hertling. Sampson appears to wait until the deadline approaches to begin a response. And it's not until the draft has been vetted internally before he sends it to the White House for input. The White House changes the tone of the letter in some significant ways, then Hertling sends out the response.
Keeping the AG and the DAG out of the paper trail
First, remember. The request from Schumer arose from an apparent contradiction between Gonzales' and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's testimony: while Gonzales said he'd never fire anyone for political reasons, McNulty basically admitted that Bud Cummins had been fired to make way for Rove crony Tim Griffin.This makes the way they deal with the AG and DAG more interesting.
As I mentioned, Sampson immediately suggests Hertling, and not Gonzales, respond to this inquiry, taking Gonzales out of the legal loop, at least. Further, look at how he forwards the inquiry on: he forwards a working email to the main players on this (Hertling, Margolis, Moschella, Goodling, Elston and Scolinos) and adds McNulty. Fifteen minutes later, he forwards the same materials onto Michael Beck in the AG office. Did he send this after a phone call or meeting with Gonzales? And apparently the following day Beck forwarded the materials using his GMail account. Did Beck try to hide that he had forwarded the documents?
Deputy AG McNulty, however, seems to be closely involved in this response, but he never records any of his input. Hertling apparently spoke to McNulty on the morning of February 22, just as they started to respond to this, and Hertling attributes his addition to Sampson's letter to McNulty. Then McNulty's Chief of Staff Michael Elston asks an administrative person to print out and then bring the materials to the conference room, which might or might not reflect a meeting with McNulty. As far as I can tell, the McNulty morning input and the Elston conference room event are not reflected in the formal meeting announcements turned over in the latest document dump.
Friday night document dump
Just one small detail. Notice when DOJ got this response out? 7:30 on a Friday night. Big surprise, huh?
Update: I've changed both references to the GMail account per William Ockham's comment, emailed from some beach on Grand Turk Island (the bastard).
I believe your mistaken about kyle sampson and gmail. Beck is the one
who forwarded thay document to somebody's gmail account. If you look
closely at you can tell that thay redacted the name of the account.
Also it has to be somebody at doj because the printed those pages from
IE. I suspect that beck sent it to himself.
I would post this as a comment, for some reason typepad doesn't like
my blackberry and I am on beach at grand turk with no other access.
Marcy - you are the weediest! Take it as a compliment. Interesting process. I also note the final revisions were by the WH - who apparently control it all.
Posted by: Carolyn in Baltimore | April 02, 2007 at 11:39
Anyone willing to speculate how far and deep the Dems in Congress will take this and how aggressive they will be in investigating the "political" connection in the WH? Or are they likely to "paper" this over?
I see Purgegate as an opportunity for the Dems in Congress to open a wedge that would enable them to unmask the WH politicization of the executive branch and bring to task Rove by forcing his resignation or at the very least forcing a withdrawal of all his security clearances. And more importantly shedding light on the role of Bush in how the executive operates to trash the constitution and assume "monarchial" powers.
Posted by: ab initio | April 02, 2007 at 11:48
Riveting emptywheel, thanks so much. All these
bastardscash their pay checks every two weeks. That certifies to me that they are deluding themselves into thinking that they are acting in the public's interest. They're not. First, they are trying to save their own worthless asses. Second, they are trying to cover-up for the WH. I believe the law calls that "constructive fraud." "Constructive fraud consists in:(1) any breach of duty which, without an actually fraudulent intent, gains an advantage to the person in fault or anyone claiming under him by misleading another to his prejudice or to the prejudice of anyone claiming under him." Just because their massively inaccurate, incomplete, and false statements don't directly bring them more cash, however, does not mean that their actions are necessarily "legal." I would argue that in the context of DOJ paycheck, this is even more true.
Posted by: John Casper | April 02, 2007 at 12:03
Biggest lesson learned in my life, from my service in US Navy (Active duty, '79-'85): CYA.
Biggest reason I'm not a politician: CYA all too often translates to "cover up".
I'm no angel, but I do have a conscience. It appears about the only conscience these people (Bush & Co.) have is conscientiously doing everything possible to maintain power.
Not that the Democrats are necessarily much different, but at least they *appear* to be attempting to present a deference to the rule of law and adherence to U.S. constitutional principles. I can only hope these hearings are truly more about substance than show.
At any rate, EW, you and Jane and Christy sure got me hooked on FDL and your SUPERB coverage of the Libby trial; I'm an avid reader of your blogs now. Thanks again.
Posted by: Forrest R. Prince | April 02, 2007 at 12:11
Hi folks.
I thought I would look in and see how the "I don't recall" refrain the Republicans are singing was going down.
It is a new world, where people are more interested in not making a record of definite statements that someone else might challenge, than speaking frankly and honestly as to the issues, because someone might be found that disputes their statement and they could end up in court. Welcome to the post-Libby world Fitzgerald has wrought.
I would only be willing to venture that yes I wrote that memo or note and that is what I thought at the time. Any current statements are memory limited and somewhat of a guess.
I said it before and here it is again. The Democrats need to be making a record of "governing" like DemFromCT likes to say, and passing legistation that the major section of America wants. Not just what the Union Shop Stewards and the Feminists are demanding.
I ask you what would an ERA give us today that we don't already have?
Unisex bathrooms, equal participation in the draft when the next war comes?
And this I heard from a higher up where I work that has the proverbial "in." President Bush may veto the legistation with the time frames, and benchmarks, or he may make another famous "signing statement" OR he may just let it become law without signing it and then at the appointed time utilize the power he has as "Commander in Chief" to do what he wants with the military in Iraq. e.g. "New events have altered the situation, and I must do what I need to do to protect America's future!"
And one other thing for the less technically inclined snoops. Are you familar with those phone connected fax machines. It will automatically flip to fax if it hears the correct "whine." It is a small personal device and sits on or near a desk, or for that matter at a home. I have been wondering rather these are used very much in government, and if and where records are kept. You see the fax goes to a regular phone number not a fax number. So on the phone records there is no difference between a verbal phone call and a fax. And there are many more ways for the technically proficient to be below the radar.
:)
Posted by: Jodi | April 02, 2007 at 12:19
Oh no, return of Tokyo Jodi and her spectacularly bad breath.
Posted by: greenhouse | April 02, 2007 at 12:29
If it wasn't political, then why was it coordinated through the white house political office? Hmm?
Posted by: Gromit | April 02, 2007 at 13:02
Welcome to the post-Libby world Fitzgerald has wrought.
Welcome to the real world, where a large part of the government is corrupt, lying GOP tools, who got caught at it.
Posted by: P J Evans | April 02, 2007 at 13:59
Jodi, Jodi, Jodi, you were supposed to copy and paste JUST ONE chaff talking point per thread to derail the discussion, not a whole page! Please retake Troll Indoctrination 101, next Monday 9 am at HQ.
(Dear enemies, sorry for the substandard troll today - you go to info war with the trolls you have, not the trolls you'd like).
-Supervisor 26.
Posted by: Supervisor | April 02, 2007 at 14:16
give tokyo jodi a break, greenhouse
it's kinda hard to brush your teeth when you got a worm tongue
hey jodi, good to see that you survived this much sunlight on your foolish beliefs. sorry to tell you that the forecast calls for increasing sunlight that will expose more repuglican criminality, so get out the sunblock and pray
and how many of us knew that tokyo jodi the wormtongue couldn't stay away forever ???
(waves hand)
the freepi are still lurking, but bush has things so fucked up that even the freepi realize that their arguments make the freepi look totally stupid
Posted by: freepatriot | April 02, 2007 at 14:34
Thanks freepatriot I had to look it up, but it's very appropriate for tokyo Jodi.
From wiki: "Gríma, called (the) Wormtongue, is a fictional character in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He appears in the second and third volumes of the work, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. He is introduced in The Two Towers as the chief advisor to King Théoden of Rohan and henchman of Saruman. Gríma is known as an archetypal flatterer, liar, and manipulator. The name 'Gríma' possibly derives from the word gríma meaning mask in several Germanic languages such as Old English, Old Norse, Old High German and modern Icelandic and Faroese."[...]
Posted by: John Casper | April 02, 2007 at 20:10
Supervisor - I'm Laughing out fucking loud. "The trolls you have, not the trolls you'd like." Belly hurts, must stop laughing.
And Jodi, god bless ya, I don't know why you felt compelled to repeat your "post Fitzgerald world" refain. I guess that crow and sour grapes pie is still causing a bit of indigestion.
However your fax comment is somewhat interesting. Antiquated technology can indeed be just as dangerous as antiquated thinking.
Posted by: Dismayed | April 02, 2007 at 23:23
Hey Supervisor 26, I'm seconding Dismayed, LMAO.
Posted by: John Casper | April 03, 2007 at 00:43
dismayed,
usually kneejerkers can't see the forest for the trees. The people here don't like it when I offer rational thinking, so they ignore the fact that I have no love for things Bush. I just don't wear blinders like most here.
I can give you half a dozen ways to send info around the Whitehouse system, as long as they aren't trying to monitor things.
A desk or deskside fax is useful for many things. They still make the combination scanner, printer, fax type quite small if you want. They can transmit a legal signature.
But especially in this day of automatically archieved e-mails! The computer itself with the proper software can send and receive a fax, but that is easy to pick up if the snoops are trying. They could monitor the phone lines for faxes if they wanted to and archive them too. But I don't think they do.
Of course a secure line or an encrypted connection, or irc, or many other little items will give you a way around most corporate or Government systems. They probably do the instant message retrivials and texting. That is easy.
Google Talk anyone? Or looky on my website.
And we can do like the spamers. Just send a pictue of the letter.
But back to reality! SO WHAT? These people were just brain storming, and already it is a conspiracy.
... and if I was a USA, and I heard for over two years that the WH and DOJ were considering changing some USAs, I would be sure to investigate the GOP! Good job insurance except maybe it didn't work.
Posted by: Jodi | April 03, 2007 at 02:32