[Ninong]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dashed out of a Chicago news conference this afternoon in just two and a half minutes, ducking questions about how his office gave U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald a subpar rating.

Gonzales, who increasingly faces calls for his resignation, was here to promote a new ad campaign and had planned a 15-minute press availability. He left after taking just three questions over a firing scandal consuming his administration.

Before leaving, Gonzales said he wanted to "reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here."

[Ninong]

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has allegedly told Senator Schumer that he made a false statement to Congress based on information provided to him by Monica Goodling. Under the federal False Statements statute, 18 USC 1001, it is a felony to cause another person to make a false statement to Congress. Goodling could very well be prosecuted for a Section 1001 violation.

Don't forget that Goodling is the DOJ liaison to the White House and it was the White House Counsel's office that instructed McNulty to keep his mouth shut to the Senate Judiciary Committee if they asked him why the eight U.S. Attorneys had been fired. In particular, he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to admit that politics had played any role at all in any of the firings. That was going to be the line put forth by all "loyal Bushies."

P.S. -- They're all coming up with excuses now for their previous congressional testimony being less than truthful. Gonzo blames it on poor memory and not being able to keep track of what his 110,000 employees are up to (especially his chief of staff) and McNulty now says he was misled by DOJ's faith-based liaison to the White House.

And this is one of the reasons that the White House doesn't want Harriet Miers under oath. She was the one who personally ordered McNulty to keep his mouth shut about politics being involved in the firings.

Getting both Harriet Miers and Karl Rove under oath could lead to perjury or high crimes and misdemeanors, take your pick. It's one or the other. And that's why Brilliant Invincible Commander is so upset about all this. They're going to have an even harder time keeping him sober now.

[Ninong]

Kyle Sampson, Gonzo's former chief of staff, will appear voluntarily and under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if he can maintain his position that politics played no role in the firings of the U.S. Attorneys. We already know what he will say about that, the only interesting part will be seeing how he answers questions about who was in the loop.

I don't think there is any doubt whatsoever that Bush, Rove, Miers, Goodling and Gonzales were all involved in what was going on at every step of the process. It will be interesting to see if Sampson admits this and then argues that it is not proof of any inappropriate behavior or if he denies it and continues the official coverup. In particular, they need to ask him about Sen. Domenici's calls to the White House complaining about David Iglesias.

Whatever he says, he could be setting himself up for a perjury trap because if Leahy and Schumer and not pleased with his testimony, they can always grant Goodling immunity and compel her to testify under oath.

All they need is one administration official to contradict Gonzo's previous testimony to provide them the needed political cover to issue the subpoenas to Rove and Miers -- the subpoenas they intend to issue anyway regardless of what Sampson says tomorrow. I think they're just waiting for the timing to be right before issuing the subpoenas.

P.S. -- Trivia: Kyle Sampson joined the Bush transition team in 2000 following the contested election. He was recommended for the job by a former law school classmate, Elizabeth Cheney.

[Ninong]

Check out this YouTube video of the Administrator of the General Services Administration's appearance before Henry Waxman's committee:

Lurita Doan, head of the GSA pretending that she doesn't remember anything about a briefing Karl Rove's deputy gave to GSA employees asking them to use their official positions in the GSA to aid GOP candidates in the 2008 elections. Remember, these people are in charge of $60 billion in government contracts. They are being asked to do whatever they can to aid certain GOP candidates who are in peril of losing their seats in 2008 and to assist in defeating 20 Democrats targeted by Karl Rove as being vulnerable in 2008.

She doesn't remember anything, she doesn't recall the statements she made, she doesn't know why her press spokesperson made certain comments because she has no recollection of what was said at that meeting by Mr. Jennings (Rove's deputy) or anyone else, including herself. Her mind is conveniently completely blank. Admitting what took place would put her in violation of the federal Hatch Act.

[Ninong]

So who's Rove worried about? The presentation lists the following Republican House members as on the "Priority Defense" list:

Jim Gerlach, Pennsylvania
Vern Buchanan, Florida
Robin Hayes, North Carolina
Heather Wilson, New Mexico
Marilyn Musgrave, Colorado
Peter Roskam, Illinois
Chris Shays, Connecticut
Jean Schmidt, Ohio
Thelma Drake, Virginia
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming (Note: Rove also says that Cubin might not seek re-election.)
John Doolittle, California
Jon Porter, Nevada
Jim Walsh, New York
Deborah Pryce, Ohio
Randy Kuhl, New York
Mike Ferguson, New Jersey
Joe Knollenberg, Michigan


And which Dems does Rove think the GOP should try to knock off? The presentation also lists the "2008 House Targets: Top 20." Here they are:

Nick Lampson, Texas
Tim Mahoney, Florida
Jerry McNerney, California
Zack Space, Ohio
Baron Hill, Indiana
Chris Carney, Pennsylvania
Patrick Murphy, Pennsylvania
Nancy Boyda, Kansas
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania
Brad Ellsworth, Indiana
Heath Shuler, North Carolina
Ciro Rodriguez, Texas
Steve Kagen, Wisconsin
Jim Marshall, Georgia
Joe Donnelly, Indiana
John Barrow, Georgia
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania
John Hall, New York
Kirsten Gillibrand, New York
Stephanie Herseth, South Dakota

[Ninong]

Congressional investigators are now learning that as far back as 2000, when the Bush Administration first took office, members of the "White House staff have used non-governmental e-mail accounts to conduct official government business." They're using domains such as gwb43.com that are registered to the RNC. This neat little trick was discovered during investigations in Ohio, where state GOP records showed email traffic to White House staffers on various domains registered to the RNC.

As you can see from this letter today from Leahy and Conyers to the White House Counsel, they are concerned that the White House will deny that these emails constitute official communications and refuse to turn them over in any investigations.

Why would someone working in the White House use private email accounts? The reason is obvious! To conduct sensitive communications of a political nature that would never be part of the "official record."

[Ninong]

GQ has just published a very interesting interview with former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

Last December, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, along with seven of his colleagues, was "asked" to resign. The move was a head-scratcher: Only ten US Attorneys had been fired mid-term since 1982—and of those ten, eight were for completely justifiable reasons. (One, for instance, bit a stripper.) But these firings came in a cluster. And most of the USA-8, as the purged attorneys are being called, had strong records: a large number of cases prosecuted, high conviction rates. Iglesias, in particular, was a star—a 49-year-old former JAG lawyer, "a diverse up-and-comer" according to a Department of Justice evaluation, and someone who was being considered for the U.S. Attorney slots in both D.C. and Manhattan. Then, before he knew it, he wasn't. He was out of a job, for reasons that were unclear to him, and was barely given time to find a new one. Worst of all, he had to listen to two of his former bosses, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and his deputy Paul McNulty, tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that he hadn't performed up to snuff.

[...]

When did you guys start to realize that something wasn't right about the way this went down?

Last summer, Bud Cummins [U.S. Attorney from Arkansas] and I had a joint narcotics prosecution between his district and my district. One day in August, he called me about the case, and then out of the blue, he goes, "Hey, Dave, I was asked to resign." I said, "You gotta be kidding me. Why?" He goes, "I'm not sure, but I think they want to bring in one of Karl Rove's people."


Now, fast forward to December 7th—after I got the call from [Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys] Mike Battle [firing me], I remember thinking, Hey, Bud Cummins got asked to resign, too.

And then John McKay [U.S. Attorney from Washington] sent out this cryptic e-mail in mid-to-late December saying he was moving on, and he didn't say where he was going next. It's customary for outgoing U.S. Attorneys to send out an e-mail to their colleagues saying it's been great serving with you, here's my next great job, here's where you can reach me. Well, he didn't do that. I'm thinking: I bet McKay got the same phone call I did. So I called him right away and asked him. He confirmed it and said that he'd heard there were up to ten more. He gave me the names, and I started calling these people. Sure enough, we all got the same call on the same day. By mid-to-late December I had a pretty good idea of who was on the list. We then started to e-mail each other, basically just feeling sorry for each other because we all knew we'd done a good job. And at that point, nobody had told us what the problem was. We were all scratching our head, like, Why did this happen to us but not the 85 or so other U.S. Attorneys?

Politics.

Yes, but the Justice Department is fundamentally an apolitical agency. We do criminal justice. It's paradoxical because all of us came in through political means. I ran for state attorney general in 1998, and that was the political cred that I needed. But once we got into office it was made crystal-clear to all of us that politics were to stay outside.


Who made that crystal-clear? Ashcroft?

That was Ashcroft. He sat me down in his office, and he said that politics have no role in what you do as a U.S. Attorney.


Did you feel a change in the department when Alberto Gonzalez took over?

I'd heard that things had gotten more political under Bush from career people in Justice. My first assistant has been around since the Carter administration, and he told me that he's never seen anything like this, that politics historically don't play any role in our prosecutive decision-making. But I don't have a really good baseline since I was only there for this administration. As far as the transition between Ashcroft and Gonzalez, I thought it was fine, literally, until I got my phone call on December 7, 2006.


You didn't feel it before?

No. That's why I was so dumbfounded when I got my call. I asked Mike Battle—who I still consider to be a friend; he was just the messenger in this—I said, "Mike, what's going on here? I've received no warning. Had someone warned me six months ago that there was a problem, I would've fixed it. What's going on?" He said, "I don't know, and I don't wanna know. All I know is that this came from on high." [P.S. -- Battle resigned last month!]


So you never felt your job was in jeopardy until you were fired?

I was asked to resign effective the end of January. There had been absolutely no warning from anybody in the administration.

[...]

Senator Pete Domenici called you in October basically to lean on you, to ask if you would issue indictments in a case damaging to local Democrats before November's election. You were supposed to report that call to Justice, but you didn't. Why? Because you felt loyal to the Senator?

Correct.


Do you regret that decision?

It's hard to go back and change what happened. I felt like I owed a debt of gratitude to the Senator because he recommended me for the position, he helped me when I ran for office, he did a fundraising video for me, he lent me one of his staffers for a few days to help me drive around the state. I just felt a terrible conflict between my duty to report the inappropriate call and my loyalty to Senator Domenici.


But you've got to see the irony here. One of the great themes of the U.S. Attorney scandal is the tug between being loyal and following standard protocol.

Well, there are limits to loyalty.

[...]

What was your relationship with Gonzalez like leading up to this?

You know, it was nice. I really looked up to him. I think he's the American Dream come true.


What do you think of him now?

I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in the way he's handled the situation. He's the Attorney General. He's in charge of the Justice Department. And it comes down to Leadership 101, to something I learned in the Navy years ago: When your organization does a good job, you take credit. When it doesn't, you take the responsibility. You don't push it down to staff members.


I'm also disappointed that he wouldn't have tried to stop these firings from happening in the first place. But, who knows, maybe he did and got overruled by the White House? Maybe he got overruled by Karl Rove for political reasons? That's part of why the Senate wants to get e-mails from Rove and [Harriet] Miers.

Which brings up the whole argument about executive privilege. Do you think the administration is abusing it here in shielding Rove and Miers from testifying under oath?

I think every president at one point in his term will use executive privilege, but I'm not sure I'm persuaded that there is an absolute privilege. Remember this, though: When you file something in court, it drags the process out. And there's only 20 months left in this administration. This could be a stalling tactic so that by the time it finally gets to the court, this administration will be out of office.


We don't know for sure yet, but how deeply do you think Rove was involved in the plan to fire you guys?

I'm sure his fingerprints are all over this. His greatest strength is his greatest weakness: He views everything in political terms. But you can't treat U.S. Attorneys in the criminal justice system like just another political problem, because we're not. We have more responsibility and more authority than anyone in federal government with the exception of some generals and admirals that are running wartime operations. We take people's lives away, we take their property away, we take their liberty away. Those are serious things. And you cannot let politics infect that process. Rove never understood that. We were just another political hire. I wonder if he didn't like U.S. Attorneys because Pat Fitzgerald, one of my former colleagues, was investigating him last year. Who knows how that was factored in?

[...]

But you've spent time in Gitmo as a JAG. You had a personal connection to the place. The administration's tacit approval of torture had to have been of interest to you.

Well, I don't like it. This country doesn't stand for that. By condoning torture or near torture, we're as bad as the people we're fighting. Sure, we're not cutting their heads off and filming it, but this country stands for decency. It makes me think of what Bobby Kennedy argued during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the military wanted to do a preemptive strike on Cuba. He goes, "You mean, you want us to do a Pearl Harbor, except we're the Japanese. We don't do that. Americans don't do that."

Do you still consider yourself a Republican?

Yes.


Do you consider the people in the White House to be Republicans?

I think they've lost their way. They've lost their moral compass. On paper, we would probably be in agreement on most of the major issues, but in terms of actual practice and treating people fairly and respectfully and decently, I've lost my faith in our leadership.

P.S. -- The Republican Party is running a series of Swiftboat type smear ads on the radio in New Mexico now attacking David Iglesias! What a bunch of lowlife scumbags! Karl Rove is dragging the entire country through the gutter.

When former Deputy Attorney General James Comey was asked a couple of weeks ago what he thought of David Iglesias, he said he was an outstanding U.S. Attorney and that he would be proud to rehire him in a flash! Comey was John Ashcroft's deputy. He's the guy who appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak case because Ashcroft recused himself due to the fact that he was too close to Rove and Libby.

[Ninong]

Unfortunately, it's not being carried live on TV anywhere. His prepared opening statement was released in advance and it's exactly as expected. The Justice Department also released a letter just hours before Sampson's appearance admitting that they lied in a Feb. 23 letter to four Democratic senators in asserting that the department was not aware of any role Rove played in the decision to appoint Griffin to replace U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said that certain statements in last month's letter to Democratic lawmakers appeared to be "contradicted by department documents included in our production."

What he is saying now is that it's a shame that in some of those emails Sampson discussed the fact that Harriet Miers suggested a replacement for Bud Cummins and that this replacement was Karl Rove's assistant. Those emails make it very clear that Cummins was removed simply to make a spot available in Arkansas for Rove's buddy because that's the spot he wanted. The emails also talk about how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to get this guy (Griffin) confirmed by the Senate and that it's really great that they have this new loophole that allows them to appoint U.S. Attorneys indefinitely without having to worry about Senate confirmation. Stuff like that. Too bad all that stuff had to come to light.

The letter to the four Democratic senators was signed by Hertling but it was actually written by Sampson. So Sampson lied in that letter when he said that Karl Rove had absolutely nothing to do with the appointment of his buddy as a replacement for Bud Cummins in Arkansas. It is very plain from the emails that the idea of removing Cummins came from Miers and Rove because they wanted to give that spot to Rove's assistant.

DOJ has finally admitted that in that case the U.S. Attorney was removed solely for the purpose of giving his job to someone else. And, since all U.S. Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the President," they see nothing wrong with that. And nothing wrong with the idea of appointing him without Senate confirmation because, after all, what's the use of having that little loophole if you're not going to use it. They actually said that in one of the emails. That little loophole was closed a few days ago when both the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to remove it from the Patriot Act. The vote was way more than veto-proof! Both the House and the Senate slapped the prez upside the head (94-2 in the Senate!).

Anyway, Sampson's prepared testimony is exactly as expected. The U.S. Attorneys were removed because it was the consensus judgment of senior officials at the Department of Justice that they were not faithfully adhering to the "priorities" or the Bush Administration. He went on to say that political considerations and performance-related considerations were one and the same and that any supposed distinction was artificial: "The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," he said. "A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful."

"Presidential appointees are judged not only on their professional skills but also their management abilities, their relationships with law enforcement and other governmental leaders, and their support for the priorities of the president and the attorney general."

In other words, David Iglesias was fired in part because of his "relationship" with Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), both of whom complained to the White House that he wasn't doing enough to help Heather in her tough reelection campaign. They wanted him to bring charges immediately against some local Democrats. Both Wilson and Domenici called Iglesias in violation of very clear House and Senate ethics rules against contacting a U.S. Attorney about a pending investigation. Domenici has lawyered up, hiring the same attorney who defended Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

[Ninong]

Under questioning, Sampson continues to defend the Administration's position that there is no difference between performance-related performance and political performance but he has also admitted that various previous statements made by Gonzales were "not accurate."

"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate," testified Kyle Sampson, who quit this month as Gonzales' top aide. "I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign."

That's odd. Gonzo said very clearly that he was not involved in this process and that he had no idea what each of the 110,000 different Justice Department employees was doing, especially his own chief of staff. No idea whatsoever what his chief of staff was doing, which is why he decided to ask him to resign. He asked him to resign even though he had no idea what he was doing. That's strange.

Under questioning by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Sampson said Gonzales also was wrong when he said other senior Justice Department aides gave Congress inaccurate information because they hadn't been fully briefed about the firings. Sampson said he kept everyone informed of what was going on.

[Ninong]

The Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, scolded Sampson for causing an uproar that has distracted the Justice Department and jeopardized Gonzales' job.

"It is generally acknowledged that the Department of Justice is in a state of disrepair, perhaps even dysfunction, because of what has happened," Specter said. The remaining U.S. attorneys are skittish, he said, "not knowing when the other shoe may drop."

Democrats rejected the concept of mixing politics with federal law enforcement. They accused the Bush administration of cronyism and trying to circumvent the Senate confirmation process by installing favored GOP allies in plum jobs as U.S. attorneys.

"We have a situation that's highly improper. It corrodes the public's trust in our system of Justice," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. "It's wrong."

Here.

[Ninong]

...the letter written by Sampson and signed by Asst. AG Richard Hertling asserting that Karl Rove played no role whatsoever in the appointment of his aide Timothy Griffin to replace Bud Cummins as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas.

Sampson has just admitted that he submitted that letter to the White House Counsel's office for approval prior to sending it to the Democratic senators since it included statements about Harriet Miers and Karl Rove. The guy at the White House Counsel's office who signed off on it, Christopher Oprison, associate counsel to the President, is the same guy who received an email from Sampson in December that mentions that the appointment of Griffin was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc."

So the White House approved of a letter that they knew was false! They knew that the idea to replace Bud Cummins with Tim Griffin came from Miers and Rove but they approved a letter from DOJ to Congress stating that Miers and Rove played no role in that decision whatsoever.

DOJ last night issued a statement admitting that the letter was "inaccurate." The key statement from the letter: "the Department is not aware of anyone lobbying for Mr. Griffin's appointment." Since DOJ had previously admitted that Harriet Miers first suggested Griffin as a replacement for Cummins, the statement was a denial that Karl Rove played any role in this appointment. That was the specific question asked by the four Democratic senators and DOJ's letter denied that he had any role. Now DOJ is retracting that letter as "inaccurate."

[Ninong]

Sen. Specter: "So he (Gonzales) was involved in discussions in contrast to his statement this month?"

Sampson: "Yes."

Sen. Charles Schumer then asked about Gonzales also claiming that he saw no documents on this matter.

Sampson replied: "I don't think it's entirely accurate."

Schumer: "There were repeated discussions?"

Sampson : "Yes."

Schumer: "As many as, say, five."

Sampson: "Yes."

Remember that Gonzo has testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was not involved in any discussions. He admits he approved the firing of the USA-8 but he denies that he had any role in the process. He simply went along with the recommendations of his subordinates and he had no idea what they were up to because he can't keep track of 110,000 people!

P.S. -- Vaya con Dios, Alberto Gone-zales! (Of course, Bush will resist because he's the Decider. We went through this for two years while everyone from both parties was calling for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld.)

[zhenya]

He never knew this much crap going to hit the fan when he agreed to push Rove's protege, did he?
Now El General may be answering much tougher questions in front of the Senate. It should be interesting to see if Bush will drop him or stick up for him like he did for Rommy.
If he does his job aproval may drop to like 20% or less.

[Ninong]

Senate Republicans did everything in their power this morning to delay the hearings by insisting on rollcall votes on matters that would normally be agreed to by unanimous consent, thus slightly delaying the start of the hearings.

Now that they don't like some of the answers Sampson is giving, they have invoked a little-used procedural rule to suspend the hearings. I guess they need time to re-group and perhaps "counsel" Sampson to keep his big mouth shut.

[Ninong]

Haha! That didn't take very long, did it? The GOP called a halt to the hearings because they claimed they didn't "consent" to them. Everybody went behind closed doors and Leahy explained the facts of life to them: These hearings will be held regardless of whether they like it or not and any suspension would just be temporary. The hearings are going to be held. Period!

So the Republicans gave up and returned to their seats like little boys after they have been scolded for misbehaving.

[Ninong]

The second half of the hearing on the firing of 8 US Attorneys with D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, screeched to a sudden halt today when Republican senators objected that the hearing violated Senate rules.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced that the hearing would need to be frozen while Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) was reading a statement.

"Does that apply to Republicans?" Grassley asked.

"It's the Republicans who want it to stop," Leahy answered.



"Whatever objection there was on the Republican side has been withdrawn," Senator Leahy then explained around 2:37 PM. "I've been here 33 years and I've never seen it happen before," he added, referring to the rules objection.

He added that the hearings cannot be stopped, and he'd hold them on nights and weekends if he needed to.

(Damn! If only George Allen hadn't used that "macaca" word! Losing control of the Senate is turning out to be such a drag!)

[Ninong]

...who famously defended Carol Lam publicly when it was announced that she was being asked to resign? The guy who "guaranteed" the San Diego Union-Tribune reporter that "politics was involved and that it would adversely affect ongoing corruption cases."

That guy! Well, he just announced his retirement today!

What else do we know. We now know that right after he publicly expressed support for Lam and "guaranteed" that her dismissal was political, Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales' then-chief of staff, called FBI headquarters to complain.

SAN DIEGO – San Diego FBI chief Dan Dzwilewski, who was rebuked by superiors for publicly defending ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, has announced his retirement.

Dzwilewski, who has been at the helm of the San Diego office since July 2003, sent an e-mail to his agents and staff Wednesday saying he planned to take a post as director of security at Sempra Energy. His last day at the bureau is to be April 30.

Some colleagues found the timing of the announcement curious. On Tuesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of his subordinates, John Pistole, told Dzwilewski that his statements on Lam were inappropriate and that he should keep quiet.

Dzwilewski had said Lam's firing was political and would adversely affect ongoing corruption cases.

You can read the rest here.

P.S. -- Remember that Carol Lam is the one who prosecuted Randy "Duke" Cunningham and others associated with him. Her office released indictments against Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo (former Executive Director of the CIA) on her last day on the job. Other corrupt Republican congressmen she was investigating at the time included Richard Pombo (R-CA, defeated in November 2007) and Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Lewis has already spent more than $1 million on defense attorneys.

[Ninong]

...special prosecutor on the Plame leak case! We already knew that Sampson's "list" at DOJ classified Patrick Fitzgerald as a subpar, underachieving U.S. Attorney who was not a "loyal Bushie," but now we heard from Sampson's own mouth that he actually suggested FIRING FITZGERALD WHILE HE WAS WORKING THE CIA LEAK CASE AS SPECIAL COUNSEL!!!

(Shades of Richard Nixon, who famously ordered the firing of Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Counsel.)

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, witness D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, admitted that he had suggested removing Patrick Fitzgerald from his position as a US Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois while Fitzgerald was still working as the Special Prosecutor in the case involving former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

In an exchange with Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), the Senator asked if he had ever recommended the removal of Fitzgerald from office.

"In one meeting, I raised Patrick Fitzgerald, and immediately after I did it, I regretted it, I knew it was the wrong thing to do, it was inappropriate, and [Harriet] Miers and [Bill] Kelly said nothing, they just looked at me.

Durbin then asked how they reacted.

"They just looked at me like I had said something totally inappropriate," he explained.

When Durbin asked why he had floated the idea Sampson said, "Maybe to get a reaction out of them." He then quickly added, "I know that I never seriously considered putting him on a list, and he never did get put on a list."

Durbin had earlier quizzed Sampson on why had never given Fitzgerald a favorable evaluation, in spite of his admission in the hearing that he was a "strong, effective" US Attorney.

"It sounds like you didn't want to go out on a limb and say something positive about him," Durbin argued.

P.S. -- Another thing we found out was that David Iglesias wasn't on the original list of U.S. Attorneys selected for firing. His name was added to the list after Sen. Domenici called the White House to complain about him.

[schrocat]

Gonzo sticking around this long is simply killing these fools.

[Ninong]

Inquisitor General Gonzales has no intention of resigning. How dare you even suggest such a thing! You must be one of those pinko commie liberals Fox Noise keeps telling us about.

Heads are rolling right and left all around him. Sampson resigned, Battle resigned, White House political director Sara Taylor just resigned and I'm sure Scott Jennings is about to resign. You might remember that Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the White House was deeply involved in the entire process of firing the USA-8, contrary to Gonzo's statement that the White House was NOT involved. Sampson said that he had constant dealings with Karl Rove's two main lieutenants, Taylor and Jennings, as well as people in Harriet Miers' office. Not only that, but Sampson told the committee that the decisions were really made by Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales.

You might remember that Jennings is the dude who briefed the GSA's political appointees on which top 20 Democrats they should concentrate on defeating and which top 20 Republicans they needed to concentrate on defending. In spite of the fact that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan was there and praised him for his presentation and urged her underlings to do everything possible to "assist our team," she is now suffering from amnesia. She remembers nothing! When she left the committee, she instructed her lawyer to take her glass of water because she didn't want the committee to get a sample of her fingerprints. (It's on tape!)

That, my friends, is a violation of the Hatch Act, but it's SOP for the Bush Administration. They were doing the same thing with the U.S. Attorneys. With the aid of water boy, Alberto Gone-zales, the Bush Administration was turning the Justice Department into an arm of the Republican National Committee. Rove deliberately targeted Arkansas because he hopes to stir up stuff there just before the 2008 elections. Check out what Josh Marshall has to say about Tim Griffin, the Rove protege who was installed as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas here.