Responding to Congressional Oversight, Part Two

In this post, I examined how DOJ responded to a Chuck Schumer request for an explanation as to why the Attorney General claimed none of the US Attorneys had been fired for political reasons, yet Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said that Bud Cummins had been fired to make way for political hack Tim Griffin. In this post, I will look at what happened when the White House got involved. Short version? Things got nastier. And the White House inserted a willful lie into the response to the Senate Democrats. See my "methodology" below for a discussion of how I came to these conclusions.

Senate Confirmation

Far and away the most significant contribution the White House made to the response was a claim that is clearly contradicted by evidence that has been turned over to the Judiciary Committees. Oprison added:

Finally, the Deputy Attorney General did not state or imply that Mr. Griffin would be appointed as the U.S. Attorney without Senate confirmation. Such a statement would be inconsistent with the Department's stated position that it would strive to have each vacancy filled by a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney.

Paul Kiel provides all the background you'll need on this issue in this important post. He shows that Kyle Sampson suggested--and Alberto Gonzales seems to have accepted--the idea to string Senator Pryor along until the Senator accepted Griffin as the USA.

When Sampson testified last week, he only strengthened Pryor's accusation that Gonzales had been stringing him along, lying to him as part of the strategy to keep Griffin in office until the end of Bush's term.

Under questioning by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sampson admitted that he'd touted the "bad idea" of using the Patriot Act provision to circumvent the Senate. When Specter asked him whether he'd talked about it wtih Gonzales, Sampson answered, " I think I did, but I don't think he ever liked the idea very much." Sampson, oddly enough, couldn't describe just how Gonzales expressed this dislike during their conversations. But he did say, "I don't remember him specifically rejecting the idea until after he spoke with Senator Pryor in mid-December."

Let that sink in. Gonzales and Sampson had conversations about circumventing the Senate to install a former aide of Karl Rove as the U.S. attorney in Arkansas. Gonzales didn't reject the idea. And when it finally came time to implement the strategy when Griffin was appointed, Gonzales seemed to be reading from Kyle Sampson's playbook.

The details of the response letter corroborate that view. The DOJ effectively finished its drafting of a response to Schumer et al, without ever claiming they intended to put Griffin through the normal Senate approval process. But Chris Oprison in the White House appears to have convinced Sampson to claim they did anyway.

FWIW, once the White House sent him down this dangerous road, Sampson throws himself off the cliff, strengthening this lie by changing the second sentence to:

Such a statement would be inconsistent with the Department's stated position that we are committed to having a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in all 94 federal districts.

Perhaps they thought they'd be able to keep their PATRIOT provision if they lied? Pity for them, it didn't work.

There is one more detail related to Pryor that Oprison tried to change. He changed the phrase, "after the Attorney General's telephone conversation with Senator Pryor," to "after a series of conversations between the Attorney General and Senator Pryor." But then Sampson changes it back, so that the final document admits to just one conversation. This is worth some more follow-up--mention of two conversations with Pryor survive the first and Hertling versions of this letter, so clearly someone at DOJ believes there was more than one pertinent conversation.

Attack, attack, attack...

And then, not surprisingly, Oprison heightened the rhetoric of the letter to attack the Senators. In the second paragaph, Oprison adds the sentence,

Your letter, however, contains assumptions and assertions that are simply erroneous.

And replaces the following language from the DOJ letter:

DOJ	White House
The full quotation of the Attorney General's testimony at the Judiciary Committee hearing on January 18, 2007 (not the selective quote cited in your letter), more fairly represents his views...	First, your letter truncates the actual quote of the Attorney General's testimony at the Judiciary Committee hearing on January 18, 2007, and consequently, mischaracterizes the statement...
The Deputy Attorney General, at the hearing heard on February 6, 2007, further stated that the Department's view that asking U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins to resign so that Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Griffing might have the opportunity to serve as U.S. Attorney is not, in the Department's view, an inappropriate "political reason."	Second, your letter mischaracterizes the testimony of the Deputy Attorney General taken at the hearing on February 6, 2007. The Deputy Attorney General simply stated the Department's view that asking U.S. Attoryney Bud Commuins to resign so that Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin might have the opportunity to serve is not an inappropriate "political reason."

The attacks? Those are to be expected from Karl Rove's White House.

But this series of letters shows clearly that it was the White House that inserted the lie into the response to the Senate. Kyle Sampson and Richard Hertling seem to have had no problem with that, mind you. But the decision to lie to the Senate came from the White House.

Methodology

Let me explain how I did this. I'm working with 5 copies of the response to Schumer et al.:

Document 1 is the letter that Kyle Sampson sends to Bill Kelley at 4:47 on February 22, apparently after all of the DOJ working group has provided its feedback; this is the first time anyone in DOJ solicits written feedback from the White House. This document accompanies Sampson's email from page 23 of the OAG document dump (large PDF).

Hertling Document is the letter that Richard Hertling sends to Chris Oprison and Paul Eckert at 9:14 on February 23. It is actually an earlier version of the document than the one sent to Kelley the night before; someone must have made changes the night before in OAG, though there is no email record of those changes. The primary differences are that Document 1 numbers the points and includes two additional points pitching Tim Griffin:

Mr. Cummins himself credits Mr. Griffin with the establishment of the office's successful gun crime prosecution initiative.

[snip]

Anyone who knows Mr. Griffin must concede that he brings a style of leadership and level of energy that could only enhance the success of a U.S. Attorney's office.

This pro-Griffin propaganda might have come from two people--Monica Goodling (she writes a lot of crap like that in the lead-up to the firings) or Alberto Gonzales (which would explain why we see no record of the addition).

But then Sampson realizes that Hertling hasn't sent the most up-to-date document. Document 2 is the letter that Kyle Sampson sends to Chris Oprison at 2:56 on February 23 accompanying his email on page 33 of the OAG document dump. This document includes an additional sentence at the end of the first main point:

The Department of Justice rejects any suggestion that U.S. Attorneys were asked or encouraged to resign for the inappropriate "political reason" of interfering with any public corruption case of retaliating against a U.S. Attorney who oversaw such a case.

It removes the statement that Mr Griffin "has 'a strong enough resume'" in a sentence talking about how qualified to be USA he is.

And it changes the description of the when the final decision to fire Bud Cummins from "after the second of the Attorney General's telephone conversations with Senator Pryor" to "after the Attorney General's telephone conversation with Senator Pryor."

Document 3 is a slight revision Sampson sends to Oprison at 2:59 on February 23 accompanying his email on page 36 of the document dump. It adds the sentence, "Mr. Cumrnins was confirmed to serve a four-year term, which expired on January 9, 2006; he served his entire term, plus an additional year."

Document 4 is the last document sent to the White House, at 6:02 on February 23. In the accompanying email (page 74 of the document dump), Sampson notes that "I accepted your changes and then made some changes." Sampson is speaking, of course, of Track Changes, which Oprison apparently used to provide his feedback to Sampson. Since Sampson said he accepted Oprison's changes and then made some, we can assume that any changes to the document not marked by Track Changes are Oprison's, whereas those marked by Track Changes are Sampson's. By comparing Document 3 with Document 4, then, we can see what the White House added to the DOJ draft.

Comments

[Mimikatz]

O'Prison is my new favorite Bushie.

Thanks for all your hard work on this. It is the snag that will unravel the Bush sweater, I believe, because as Sara pointed out yesterday from the Nixon experience, once Gonzo has to resign, the Dems can extract quite a bit for approving a new AG, including appointment of a special prosecutor.

[freepatriot]

did somebody say "appointment of a special prosecutor." ???

I nominate Marcy Wheeler

can I get a wOOt ???

[greenhouse]

wOOt!!!

[freepatriot]

an I didn't just say that cuz I don't want Marcy Wheeler investigating me

well, maybe a little ...

[knut wicksell]

The Germans had a phrase for this. In English, it's 'working towards the fuhrer'. That's what Sampson was doing. That's why there's no record of the higher-ups.

[jwp]

EW,

I love the details, but I am getting a little lost.

I am losing track of who the players are. Also, I am losing track of whether the "lies" to Congress occurred in letters or in statements to Senators.

I mention this in the hope that it will help you tailor your story for the broader audience at KOS and Firedoglake.

Fight fiercely.

[hauksdottir]

An organization chart of the DoJ would be helpful, but we'd need side charts showing the links to the White House... like an incestuous family tree.

You really can't understand Icelandic family sagas without knowing the geneologies for several generations, and it is the same here, albeit truncated in years. As people move back and forth through these positions in government, they keep reconnecting. And, as each morsel (such as Griffin's prior working relationship with Goodling and Comstock) gets revealed, we need to place it on the chart.

If the chart gets tangled, we can move to 3D.

[karen]

Thank you, Marcy for all your hard (and brilliant work) I finally had to de lurk after reading you forever....this is better than the Watergate hearings, which I watched every morning (5 AM) You are the best

[Tom in AZ]

Marcy, you continue to amaze us all. Stay on their asses!