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LAT: Ousted U.S.A. Wonders Whether GOPer Probe Led to Firing

From The Los Angeles Times:

Still uncertain exactly why he was fired, former U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III wonders whether it had something to do with the probe he opened into alleged corruption by Republican officials in Missouri amid a Senate race there that was promising to be a nail-biter.

Cummins, a federal prosecutor in Arkansas, was removed from his job along with seven other U.S. attorneys last year.

In January 2006, he had begun looking into allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state's driver's license offices. Cummins handled the case because U.S. attorneys in Missouri had recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest.

But in June, Cummins said, he was told by the Justice Department that he would be fired at year's end to make room for Timothy Griffin — an operative tied to White House political guru Karl Rove.

In an interview Thursday, Cummins expressed disgust that the Bush administration may have fired him and the others for political reasons. "You have to firewall politics out of the Department of Justice. Because once it gets in, people question every decision you make. Now I keep asking myself: 'What about the Blunt deal?' "

A couple points to be made about this, one that adds credence to Cummins' charge, and one that doesn't.

To bolster Cummins' claim that powerful people didn't like what he was up to (and somehow the Times doesn't mention this), Blunt is the son of Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who was the #3 in the House Republican leadership at the time of the firing.

But there's another point to be made, and that's that Cummins was already on Kyle Sampson's hit list as early as February, 2005.

Now, as with San Diego's Carol Lam, who was also on that early target list before her probe of Duke Cunningham got going, that doesn't necessarily mean that Cummins' probe of a powerful Republican didn't end up being the driving force behind the firing.

But above all, Cummins' public allegation shows how dire the administration's predicament is. Cummins is a dyed in the wool Republican; he even once ran for the House as a Republican in the nineties. When he was pushed out of office, like a loyal Republican, he freely cooperated with installing his successor (Karl Rove's former aide Tim Griffin). And as the scandal gained steam, he held back from expressing suspicions or making allegations -- though he drew the line at allowing the Justice Department to smear his fellow U.S. attorneys. Loyalty has its limits (for people of integrity, at least).

Now look where he is: publicly musing that he was pushed out because he didn't roll over when his fellow Republicans pressured him on an investigation.


338 Comments

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NOW can we dispense with the Karl-Rove-is-a-political-genius meme? It's one thing to piss off a majority of Americans when you have other ways to win elections. It's still one thing when you spin by claiming to know you'll win an election that you end up tanking.

But it's another thing entirely when you launch a coverup so blatantly obvious and grossly mishandled that even your most loyal supporters feel forced to denounce you in public.

Sic semper tyrannus.

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"Loyalty has its limits". That's the crux isn't it? Bush, Rove, Cheney think that laughable and threatening. It's just a balanced view of personal ambition and social responsibility that makes things work well day by day, but doesn't threaten the framework within which we all live.

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"To bolster Cummins' claim that powerful people didn't like what he was up to (and somehow the Times doesn't mention this), Blunt is the son of Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who was the #3 in the House Republican leadership at the time of the firing."

Taking care of Republicans sons seems to be a theme here. In Alaska they put in Patriot Act Attorney Nelson Cohen on August 22, 2006. A few days later the FBI was rading Sen. Ted Stevens sons office. At the time Senate Pro Tem, 4th in line to the Presidency.

The Kyle Sampson email from September 13, 2006 to Monica Goodling and telling her "This is what I intend to send to Harriet. Any corrections?" clearly lists Alaska as a state with vacancy without a candidate. Even though three weeks before they put Nelson Cohen in place.

This brings up some interesting questions:

1) Does Mr. Cohen know he was never in the running for permanent USA? Is it because he could never pass Senate confirmation? Why?

2) Since he was obviously put here as a temp...what WAS he put here to accomplish? Was it related to the upcoming FBI raids? So far Ben Stevens hasn't been charged with any crimes. At least one object of the raid was given advance notice by news accounts.

3) What if anything was Nelson Cohen promised if he did what his Republican handlers in the Whitehouse wanted successfully?

I can think of a thousand other questions Alaska'a Patriot Act USA should answer the House and Senate under oath but that's a starter

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I think the 2005 list is not a reliable indicator about why Cummins was fired. It does not show the names of all of the USAs fired nor does it show how many USAs had strikes through their names.

Where did John McKay, Washington USA, stand with Sampson in 2005?

Say half or even a third of the USAs had strikes through their names. You would then want to know how the list was whittled down.

Leahy should request that the DOJ produce Sampson's supporting documentation for his 2005 list and his ultimate hit list.

And remember, Senator Feinstein early on referred to the purge as the "first wave" of firings. So far, no one is talking about whether Gonzales planned to fire even more USAs.


I think this particular document was produced to support firing Lam which the WH has known all along would be the big question.

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Trivial observation: The dismissed US Attorneys are class acts . . . They still use the word "IF" when referring to the polictical nature of their ousting.

Side note: Cheney has been strangely silent on this subject . . . like he is hanging Bush out to dry. Could it be he is still steaming over the lack of verbal support by Bush during the Libby trial? Are they both laying low . . . Waiting for the other to down in flames so the survivor can blame everything on the other?

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That's a beautiful image Richard. Bush and Cheney each trying to beat the other one to cut a deal and save their own skin. Like two lowlife "skels" on NYPD Blue.

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Mr. Kiel, you gentlemen are going top-notch work on this story. Keep it up.

There's one question I haven't seen addressed, however. Are there any US Attorneys who have been pursuing prominent Republicans who have NOT been fired, other than Fitzpatrick?

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Please don’t forget that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was corrupt to the core. The depth of his corruption was revealed as he left office, but there is no prosecutor currently in Arkansas with both the political will and authority to investigate Huckabee’s crimes. What’s worse is the investigation would be a no-brainer since all the prosecutors would have to do is confirm facts that have been reported in the main stream media.

Combine the reporting of Huckabee’s brazen, well-documented criminal behavior with the timing of the Cummins’ firing and it is enough to make one scratch his head. It would be very interesting to learn whether the former US Attorney was also exploring public corruption in his own neighborhood.

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Blind loyality can be a bitch.

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Adult Video News has been investigating the obscenity angle to the firings... http://www.avn.com

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safe for work, Thanks for the link - that is one of the funniest obscenity cases I've heard of to date.

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I know I've been beating a bit of a dead horse on this issue...but has anyone bothered to call any of the U.S. Attorneys who have been prosecuting Democrats at a ten-to-one ratio? We know that something like 85% of U.S. Attorneys are "loyal Bushies."

Would it be so wrong to call one of them up and ask if they've been chasing Democrats out of loyalty? Even corrupt lawyers get nervous making blatantly false public statements. But you'll never know unless you ask.

It's no secret who the most "loyal" U.S. Attorneys are...

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We have already seen the impact of the Bush loyalty test for US Atty's. We merely have to look to the vast disparity of Democrats investigated at the state level where national scrutiny is limited. This shows a 7 to 1 prediliction to investigate Democrats. (I think we ought to develop more information concerning the ration during Regan, Bush I and Clinton) I think it will show the depravity of this particular administration

This government has taken on the aspects of the old Soviet empire. We saw that today during the Plame hearings. The Republicans ssked whether Plame and her husband were Democrats.. This is a one party system. If you are not in the dominant party, you are automatically suspect, disloyal, a traitor and act only for partisan purposes. Obviously the Republicans would not. - Yeah

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Building on JMOHR's comments...let's look at Christopher J. Christie, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, who was nominated by Bush in 2001. (Christie also serves as one of seventeen U.S. Attorneys on Attorney General Gonzales' Advisory Committee.) Since 2001, Christie's office has prosecuted 29 local Democrats and just 5 Republicans.

According to Wikipedia, Christie's office manages 137 attorneys. Do you think they're all Republicans? Me either.

It would be awfully interesting to find out if there was feeling around the office that prosecuting Democrats was a necessary part of maintaining job security...

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How is this any different from Clinton canning 93 US Attorneys?

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DavidG: "How is this any different from Clinton canning 93 US Attorneys?"

I'll send it over to Bob Barr...

"I and a number of others were critical of president Clinton when he first came into office and almost immediately removed all U.S. Attorneys. But that's not the same thing as what's happening now.

We're seeing a president in his second term go after U.S. attorneys of his own party for reasons that are clearly political: not moving fast enough against targets on the other side of the aisle, succumbing to pressure from Senators for example. That is very, very corrosive, both to morale for U.S. Attorneys as well as in terms of reducing the confidence that the public has that the system is fair and impartial and non-partisan," - former U.S. attorney, Bob Barr, a Reagan appointee who was a Republican congressman from 1995 to 2003.

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Who cares? The Constitution charges the President with filling those posts, and they serve at his discretion. If a cabinate member fails to perform he fires them. Same thing. Do not allow your intellectual honesty to be compomised by you blind hate for Bush.

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What a number of people seem to be missing is that the nomination of the US Attorney has usually been the prerogative of the senior senator of the President's party from that state. They often set up selection committees, then made a recommendation to the President.
Four of the dismissed USAs were from Colorado, Washington, and Aerkansas, states with no Republican senators. But two of those dismissed were from New Mexico and Arizona. We know where Sen. Domenici of New Mexico stood on the firing. What about the senior Republican senator from Arizona? Fella named McCain. What was his input on this decision?

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