My candidate for the one to watch? The USAID guy story. USAID pushes quite a large budget around. Lots of potential for hanky-panky there.

"Harmonic convergence"? More like a backed up sewer pipe is erupting.

Document Set 1:

The pages are too numerous to list but the letter sent to Ed Royce and Issa regarding Lam and Immigration prosecutions seems to defend Lam's policies and practices as well as correcting false assertions.

Also of Note Duke Cunningham is one of the signatories for this letter.

Seems the dept was really going to Bat for Lam before they were against her...that is before Cunningham was knocked off.

Document set 7 seems to be Goodlings emails setting out talking points to support circumventing senate confirmation.

Claims that Griffin went to a 'top university' while Cummins and the Clinton appointee did not seem to be somewhat tenuous. I would consider a top university to be a Harvard, Yale or such. Only real top university in Griffin's resume was a one year course at Oxford.

Its not like Griffin was exatly a star performer at these schools. The bar here is not that he was qualified but that he was an overwhelming improvement on Cummins.

Page 11 Document Set 1:

Looks like Issa was tipping off the DOJ on what would be asked at certain hearings. Not sure if this matters much

Doc set 3, pg. 9 Email from Bud Cummins about what the WH "was doing about this appointment," how "there might be some stick about this down the road", about him having to strike a bargain with "Jody" to keep her mouth shut about this...

Page 32 Doc Set 1 -

Email to Bill Mercer from Margret Chiara, shows Goodling was setting directives on how long to keep certain "detailees" whatever they are.

sorry, I'm not a good catalogger yet but in group 6 there was a quote from McNulty's opening statements:

"The Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General are responsible for evaluating the performance of the US Attorneys and ensuring that they are running their offices effectively."

That's a good enough reason for Gonzales to be fired by the president. He's responsible for this important thing before firing people and he completely neglected it!

it might have been Moschella's opening statement.

I'm not typically one to jump the gun, but the very first thing I read has to be seen to be believed. Set 8, last page: Iglesias' letter of farewell. Where he manages to "name drop" each and every reason he knows he's been fired, pointing them out as huge successes. An incredible f* you to his former boss.
WTG USA DI!

Doc 7

Repeated versions of talking points and parsing comparisons of Bush nominees vs. Clintons.

Interesting math point though:
"The average number of days between resignation of one Senate confirmed USA and the nomination of one by the president" = 273 days.
"The average number of days between nomination of a new USA and confirmation" = 58 days.

The combined 331 days is WAAAY TOO LONG!!!!

My comments: Well why wait 273 days to nominate someone then......

Set 5 (and possibly others) contains a transcript of one of the senate hearings. Seems like a pretty transparent attempt to pad the document dump.

More padding. Sets 3 and 8 contain the same transition docs and start out with this:

Examples of Difficult Transition Situations
Examples of Districts Where Judges Did Not Exercise Their Court Appointment
(Making the Attorney General's Appointment Authority Essential To Keep the
Position Filled until a Nominee Is Confirmed)

A follow-up to sr's comment above (7:21pm)

On the second page of the chart sr refers to, it looks like a name is redacted right above Bud
Cummins. (bates #1320, set 5)

The initial 35 pages of set 5 are McNulty's testimony.

Set #4 says someone has let a stranger into their house. Time for Feinstein to tie her shoes.

also re: the 'mouth shut' email : note that at the top it's relayed to 'monica.' seems like the standard operating procedure then would be to keep monica goodling clued in on all the political happenings

Set 5 pg 38 chart on USAs Resignations

Paul Charlton (USA-AZ) - Leadership Assessment:
- Repeated instances of insubordination; actions taken contrary to instructions; or actions taken that were clearly unauthorized
- Ex: multiple failures to follow AG's instruction on death penalty cases
- Ex: worked outside of proper channels, without regard to the damage caused to others
Ex:
- Ex: refusal? to comply with a leadershp priority (obscenity)

Also noted - Leadership Assessment comments blank (deleted?) for other USAs.

Well someone was pretty upset with Charlton - interesting. Seems like it would be in Mr. Charlton's best interest to talk to Congress - especially after seeing this document.

Set 8 p29 AOG000001428-31

Redactions in FACT SHEET: BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON VACANCIES AND AUTHORITIES USED TO ENSURE CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS

Sample section:

"In 5 cases,the Department selected another Department employee to serve as interim until a nomination was submitted to the Senate. Those districts include:

Eastern District of Virginia - Chuck Rosenberg, who was the pending nominee, was given an interim appointment when Paul McNulty vacated the position to take oath as Deputy Attorney General (Rosenberg was confirmed shortly thereafter
Eastern District of Arkansas - Tim Griffin was appointed interim (he has expressed interest in the position; no nomination yet ready)
District of Columbia - Jeff Taylor [1.5 lines redacted]
Nebraska - Joe Stecher [1.5 lines redacted]
Middle District of Tennessee - Craig Morford [1.5 lines redacted]

They really seem to be pumping up Griffin and trashing others as a way to do it.

My favorite bit from set eight was where they listed the fact on page 5 that he was the Undersecretary and Treasurer of the Oxford Clay Pigeon Shooting Club.

That means qualified if nothing else does my friends.

Set 8 contains alot of redactions that appear as just white page space so they might be easy to miss. Starts around page 25.

PDF #1, p. 20, bates#375

More evidence that DOJ had no problem with Lam, and that they didn't take Issa's complaint seriously:

5 April 2006 email from Otis Lee to Bill Mercer, Michael Elston, Ron Tempas:

"The two felonies in the district business is from Issa's letter. I have no reason to believe it is an accurate description of the
southern district's pros guidelines. That said that even if they are accurately described as I believe they are in the background
portion of the tps you are right that Issa likely will not be satisfied with them because they have some holes in terms of who they don't pick up."
---
PDF #1, page 12, bates#367

Talking points for AG in his testimony to Darrell Issa: Apparently Lam was responsible for a strong majority of immigration cases in the entire US:

"The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California, along with the USAOs for just four other districts, prosecuted over two-thirds of the criminal immigration cases nationwide last year."

They were so behind Lam that they put this particular talking point in bold.

GROUP 8:
OAG000001402
author unknown - talking points about quality of replacements for fired usas.
OAG000001403-1405
author unknown - appears to be out of order from above, detailed “examples of difficult” usa transitions
OAG000001406-1407
author unknown - biography of Griffin, with talking points comparing him to Cummins
talking points about Casey
OAG000001408-1409
author unknown - brief bios of WDAR Balfe, Gean, and Clinton’s appointee Holmes
OAG000001410-12
author unknown detailed praise of Griffin
OAG000001413-OAG000001415
author unknown - appears to be out of order from above -
sections of an (incomplete) letter asking for reasons behind firings. From Reid/Conyers/?
OAG000001416-1417
author Hertling - Letter in response to Reid’s questions.
OAG000001418-1419
author Hertling - Letter in response to Reid’s questions - appears to be same letter, ccd to others
OAG000001420-1422
author Hertling - Letter in response to Reid’s questions - appears to be same letter, ccd to others
but this is a markup edited version
OAG000001423-1428
“Transitions in Arkansas” talking points history
OAG000001429-1431
fact sheet on vacancies filled before and after patriot act change
OAG000001432-1434
nominations, vacancies, appointments after patriot act change
OAG000001435
vacancies since march 2006 talking points
“There are many reasons why a USA may retire or resign.”
OAG000001436
Email - Nowacki-Goodling: charlton resig date
OAG000001437
email - McKay-USA-OEO-Goodling - press release of McKay’s new position
OAG000001438
email - Goodling to Sampson et al. - forward previous email
OAG000001439
email - Paulose-Goodling - same McKay email as 37
OAG000001440
email - Nowacki-Goodling 2/5/07: Lam says Conyers wants her to testify, but provided no answer.
OAG000001441-42
email - Goodling-Hertling 2/28/07: Subpoenad: Cummins, Lam, McKay, Iglesias.
OAG000001443
email - Iglesia’s fascinating farewell letter to USA dist list.

You're all desperate. There's nothing even slightly sinister in anything posted here. Quotes from Moschella's opening statements? Do you realize that he testified publicly? Almost everything cited in this thread so far was released previously.

Code is loss. As in yours.

Set #4 says someone has let a stranger into their house. Time for Feinstein to tie her shoes.
Posted by: Jack

Isn't that standard spy speak? I've felt for the past 6 years that this WH is being run like a covert coup operation. Read anything about the CIA and you see the similarities over and over again.
.

This dump has been sanitized for Karl's protection.

Doc set 9 isn't showing up.

Doc set 8. Page 1 talks about the "high quality" of the "15 Acting/Interim Attorneys since [the law was changed" citing the fact that "14 of the 15 had prior experience as federal prosecutors 93%"

This might explain why certain DoJ employees were given AUSA assignments for a few months... to be able to claim they had "experience as federal prosecutors"

Page 10 -11 Griffin's Resume (although undated, this resume appears to have been prepared FOR the investigation. It lists his job as "US Attorney (Interim) Eastern District of Arkansas")

Page 10
Griffen worked as a Special Asst to then Asst Atty General (criminal division) Michael Chertoff(March 2001-August/September 2001)

Page 11: Griffin's Resume
Lists the job he had working for Rove, but doesn't mention Rove's name. (Special Asst to the President and Deputy Director, Office of Poliical Affairs)

Here is an interesting memo

paul lukasiak

Cummins's statement that he was considering retirement was published in the Arkansas Gazette. It is not "supposed," it is "actual," and "on record."

Dull, dull, dull.

Most of the document dump's page count comes from reprints of house testimony and multiple copies of Monica Goodling's talking points--on the USA firings and the need for the AG to be able to appoint USA's without Senate confirmation.

I can't imagine the Al Queda announcement was meant to provide cover for this.

Set #8, page 12 - Seems to be "prep" material with anticipated Senator questions for Gonzales' hearing. It starts off with what seems to be a hypothetical excoriating Leahy opening statement and then is followed by "Questions" note this practice question:

Why Was Carol Lam Fired?

Because her office was in the middle of a high-profile public corruption
investigation? ["We do not doubt that removing Ms. Lam from the U.S.
Attorneys' office in San Diego now will disrupt this investigation."]

Where are they quoting from in that bracketed quote above?!

That'd be in set #7

The quote that sponson refers to, "We do not doubt that removing Ms. Lam from the U.S. Attorneys' office in San Diego now will disrupt this investigation," comes from a letter that Reps. Conyers and Berman sent to Alberto Gonzales on January 17, 2007:
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca28_berman/carollam.html

Even you guys get trolls, too bad.

UC

Index of Withheld Documents consists of brief descriptions of 163 lost e-mails and 8 documents from 1-28-06 to 3-08-07.
Rove is recipient of only 1 e-mail ( # 132 in the batch).
Missing e-mail 98 is a 10 page
" Discussion concerning DOJ response to Sen.
Pryor's letter re: Griffin, attaching Sen. Pryor's
letter and draft response"
Sure would ike to have seen that one.

the summaries DO show KS (kyke Sampson, I assume) very much in the middle of the communicating, but also show the apparent concensus process used at DOJ.
NO e-mails addressed to Gonzo, or AG or Judge or whatever else they called him.

First impression, on Doc Set 1:

What the hell is DOJ doing emailing DHS about getting talking points in re Carol Lam?

Further evidence that this administration viewed the government as one giant Republican entity.

To El Camino:

Sure a President might want to get rid of USAG's who were giving him grief with Congress. Whether it is legitimate depends on whether the complaints from Congress are valid (Which is why the kudos -- deserved for Lam's immigration work are telling) or whether they are just complaints from or inspired by Cunningham and company and the WH acts on them to obstruct further prosecutions.

Set 2 1-5 continuation. Discussing flak for sending a second EARS team to investigate Kevin Ryan's bad management style.
Set 2 pgs 5-45
Memorandum dated February 2 1, 2006
Project Safe Neighborhoods
Review of FY 2005 District Performance
From:John S. Irving
Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General
This is heavily redacted, but possible and useful to find out who they're talking about in most cases, I would guess.
Basically a review of the various districts to identify exceptional and underperforming districts for the PSN initiatives, noting that some should be commended and some chastised by the DAG. Clearly this is to be used as part of the justification for firing Carol Lam, who is included in the 12 districts who should be chastised (although her numbers are not the worst of the list--it would be interesting to find out who those others were).
Also revealing is the later unredacted mention of Margaret Chiara, the first district mentioned on page 16 under "Other Noteworthy Districts"

Margaret Chiara has been the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan
since the Fall of 2001. The number of Federal firearms cases filed by that district increased from 72 in FY 2004 to 109 in FY 2005 - a 51.4% increase. Nationally, the district had the seventh highest percentage increase in cases filed in FY 2005. With the exception of a dip in prosecution numbers in FY 2004, the district has steadily increased its firearms prosecutions, which have nearly doubled since 58 cases were filed in FY 2001.

Seems like she was following Department Priorities. Code face, as in two-faced.

DOJ Document Set 8 OAG1402-1445 Page12-14
QUESTIONS
Firings
I am deeply concerned about the recent firings of qualified and demonstrably capable
U.S. Attorneys and their replacement with individuals who lack the traditional
qualifications for the position [and instead have a deeply political, partisan background].
The perception of many is that this reveals a growing politicization of the work of federal
prosecutors. How can you explain this action?
The Attorney General's actions are unlike anything that has occurred before. Never
before [except in rare instances of misconduct or for other significant cause] have we
seen the type of turnover now in progress, where the Attorney General, not the President,
is asking mid-term that demonstrably capable U.S. Attorneys submit their resignations.
Why did he do it? Why now?

Here is more context on the Bud Cummins email in Batch #3 and how it may have impacted Cummins' investigation of Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, son of Rep. Roy Blunt.

http://www.firedupmissouri.com/cummins_cya

Is El Camino using its rnchq.com address tonight? It doth protest way too much.

Set2 - p23

Why is "Donald Washington" not redacted, while all other USA's, besides the fired ones, are?

It's actually funny that they redacted the district but not the USA.

DOJ Document Set 4 Released on 4-27-2007 - OAG000001262:
[From hearing of Senate Judiciary Committee 2/6/2007]
SEN. MARK PRYOR (D-AR): "Rumors began to circulate in October of 2006 that the White House was going to make a recess appointment which, of course, I found troubling. This rumor was persistent in the Arkansas legal and political community. I called the White House on December 13, 2006 to express my concerns about a recess appointment and spoke to then-White House Counsel Harriet Myers. She told me that she would get.back to me on this matter. I also called Attorney General Gonzales expressing my reservations. And he informed me that he would get back to me as well.

DOJ Document Set 6 Released on 4-27-2007 - OAG000001334:
[Kyle Sampson email dated 2/8/2007]
In the spring of 2006 [Monica, please verifyl, White House Counsel Harriet Miers asked the
Department if Mr. Griffin (who then was on active duty) could be considered for appointment as U.S.
Attorney upon his return from Iraq. As Griffin was well known to the Department (from his service in the Criminal Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the White House), this request was considered favorably.
---------------------------------------------

Why did Harriet Miers need to "get back" to Senator Pryor in December 2006 about the appointment of a U.S. attorney she personally lobbied for that spring????

With Coughlin resigning because of Abramoff we're getting a confluence of Abramoff with USAgate. That's a might heady brew to quaff. Particularly Coughlin's role as overlord of the Abramoff criminal investigation.

Set 5, p.38-39

The bullets are blanks.

The interesting thing about this segment of the doc is what is NOT there. The EARS reviews are filled out, and there are lone bullets in the column representing reasons for termination - the lone bullets are searching for meaning.

I assume the redactions are (in brackets):

"Donald Washington has been the U.S. Attorney for the [Western] District of [Louisiana] since October 2001. The district has been engaged in PSN, and its decrease in Federal firearms prosecutions are in large part due to the substantial increase in cases filed in 2004. However, due to some increasing crime statistics and in order to better assess the district's program in the wake of [Hurricane Katrina], I recommend further contact with the district on a staff level to obtain additional information and offer assistance.

El Camino,

You can go and tell Karl that you have done your assigned task and deserve to be paid.

Now move along out of the way. The adults have work to do.

"The future will be a struggle between huge competing systems of psychopathology." - J. G. Ballard

litigatormom >"...I still don't understand the rationale for withholding the documents on the index, given that..."

Maybe they haven`t been "sanitized" enough yet

J Volk >"...The bullets are blanks...the lone bullets are searching for meaning."

Possibly the redacting material was the same color as the base material of the document. That way the redacting wouldn`t be so obvious and might lead "someone" to conclude there was never something there (hello misdirection !).

code = face (as in face the music crooks)

"If you don't know what your government is doing, you don't live in a democracy." - Jane Anne Morris

it'd be nice if these were marked "DUPLICATE". The forty-one page DAG memo of 3/21/06 from set 2 was also provided on 3/20

The last set of documents (9) seems to be a broken link.

A lot of repetition of past documents dumps. You have to do a big search to find tiny nuggets of information. It seems to try and hide info by boring you to death with repetitive e-mails.

Document set 8 pages 15-27

(apologies if these inconsistencies have already been noted)

These are three versions of a letter sent to Harry Reid in response to his letter of 2/8/07). None of them are dated... so one assumes they are all drafts. These are followed by three versions of a document called "Transitions in Arkansas", which appear to be bullet points to be hit in responding to Reid.

Of particular note is that the "Transitions" documents all tell of how Griffin was acheduled to be nominated for the WESTERN district in Arkansas in 2004....but went to work for BC04 instead. In one of the transitions documents, Griffin "would likely have been the nominee....however, the White House indicated" they wanted Griffin for the campaign (in oppo research) and Griffin took that job. In the other version, Griffin would have been the likely nominee, but "withdrew his name from consideration because he had decided to accept an offer to join the staff of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign"

possibly significant -- in the first instance, its clearly the White House (i.e. Karl Rove) that offered him the job. In the latter instances, "White House" involvement is not mentioned.

And there is one big problem with this narrative. According to his resume (Section 8, pgs 10-11) Griffin started working for BC04 in June 2002, and the vacancy in the Western District did not occur until 2004.

None of this is mentioned in any of the versions of the letter to Reid. Instead, all we are told is that "[t]he Department of Justice is not aware of anyone lobbying for Mr. Griffin's appointment." Then things get murky... in the original "the decision regarding Mr. Griffin...was discussed and made jointly by the Department of Justice and the White House." In later versions "in the spring or summer of 2006" Harriet Miers "inquired...as to whether Mr. Griffin (who was then on active military duty in Iraq) might be considered for appointment to US Attoney upon his return."

The "Transitions" documents describe Miers role differently...in various formulations, they have her (in "Spring 2006") asking "if there will be a US Attorney vacancy in the Eastern District of Arkansas" because Griffin in interested in the job. (one version does mention the district).

Finally, in all versions of the Reid letter, the sentence "The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin".

In other words, we're expected to believe that Rove -- who got Griffin to turn down the job for the Western District of Arkansas in order to do opposition research for BC04 -- played no role in getting him the job for the Eastern District. Instead, it was all Harriet Miers idea. (I guess Miers and Griffin were pen pals, while he was in Iraq, and that is how she knew that Griffin was interested in the job....and Harriet was on top of all the gossip concerning the possibility that Cummins might want to leave. )

"Stranger in the House" sounds like Biblical code to me.
Genesis 18 Abraham and Sarah welcomed strangers into their house and had a baby after many years...
Joseph welcomed stranger into his house..Jesus
If anything sounds "odd" in these emails it could be religious coding. imo.

"Set #4 says someone has let a stranger into their house. Time for Feinstein to tie her shoes.
Posted by: Jack

Isn't that standard spy speak? I've felt for the past 6 years that this WH is being run like a covert coup operation. Read anything about the CIA and you see the similarities over and over again."

Jack is just being a wiseguy - it's a reference from The Good Shepher...

Minsane: "What the hell is DOJ doing emailing DHS about getting talking points in re Carol Lam?"

DHS is the parent department for the INS. DOJ was probably just looking for INS to backstop their claim that Lam neglected illegal immigration cases.

Set 4: is a dud as far as I can tell.

pages 5-17 are administration talking points.

pages 18 to the end is text of a senate committee hearing.

pages 1 is a transmittal email from Seidel to many others, including Sampson, about what Dem and GOP counsel at sen judiciary committee were saying-- Feinstein's staff sounds concerned, but measured, asking for answers on why Lam was let go.

Some redactions on the email on page 4; why is it a secret that Brian Roerkasse emailed some unknown person because "I understand that you've been asked to go on ______ tonight on the US Attorney issue."

The email we have is Roerkasse forwarding that email, and a series of attachments that comprise the rest of set 4, to Courtney Elwood w/o comment.

"PDF #1, page 2, bates#357

John Crews email to David L. Smith and Natalie Voris looking for rebuttal talking points for the AG to use in a conversation with Rep. Issa re: Lam and 'catch and release' -- email from April 6, 2006

[email also sent to Bill Mercer, Michael Elston, others I don't recognize]

"I am not aware of any talking points on this. The issue of catch and release is an administrative, which is to say - non criminal context. The USAOs don't get involved in this part of immigration enforcement""

I know everyone's focused on the firing of the USAs, but isn't an 'administrative' policy which violates US law - in this case immigration law - a high crime? And doesn't this email, among others, demonstrate that catch and release came from the WH?

Well El Camino is right about the documents not telling us anything we didn't know already.

At this point we know that the USAs were all fired for partisan political purposes. In six cases to obstruct pending prosecutions of Republicans, in two cases to enable trumped up charges to be brought against Democrats.

We know that Gonzalez was not the prime mover here, someone in the White House was, almost certainly Karl Rove. We know that crimes have been committed and that there is more than adequate evidence to impeach.

That said, the more information available to back the impeachment process the better. In particular the more claims that can be demonstrated to have been deliberate lies, the better.

We also know that as a direct result of the investigation of Gonzalez, the DoJ has stopped its attempts to obstruct the myriad corruption charges against Republicans.

Can't prove it beyond resonable doubt yet, but on the balance of probabilities its a slam dunk. Why should these people deserve a higher standard of evidence than they required for the existence of WMD?

So boring as it is, the work is pretty important.

The "Draft" response letter to Rep. Issa defends Carol Lam and the SDCA's immigration prosecution policy.

but yeah, that's why she was fired...

Hi Josh,

I just wanted to say thank you so so much1 I am watching you now on Bill Moyers journal. I read all of your site numerous times a day, including the doc dumps you have posted.
You make me feel like we may just survive all this after all. So keep up the excellent work and thank you for all you do. We are listening.
Sincerely, Corey Butler

Full list of resignations since last March in reverse date order (14 total):
Lisa Godbey Wood, SDGA (confirmed to be federal district court judge, but not yet appointed)
John McKay, KD WA, 1/07 (has said he will teach at a law school)
Paul Charlton, AZ, 1/07 (going into private practice) ,
Bud Cummins, EDAR, 12/06 bursuing private sector opportunities)
Chuck Larson, NDIA, 12/06 (to take federal retirement)
Deb Yang, CDCA, 11/06 (to go into private practice)
Jim Vines, MDTN, lot06 (to move to D.C. and go into private practice)
Mike Heavican, NE, 10/06 (to become Chief Justice on the state's Supreme Court)
Ken Wainstein, DC, 9/06 (to become AAG of NSD)
Frank Whitney, EDNC, 6/06 (to become federal district court judge)
Bert Garcia, PR, 6/06 (to return family to home state of Texas)
Tom Johnston, NDWV, 4/06 (to become federal district court judge)
Todd Graves, WDMO, 3/06 (started his own fm)

yet another list. potential witness list, ay? i'm sure the committee has them on their schedule if they haven't see them already.

There's a lot of stuff in set 7 ( all I've looked at so far that seems duplicate of the previous dumps "Why 120 days is not a realistic time period" from Goodling.

Nothetheless some thing that caught my eye ( apart from getting the same old stuff):

Dump set #7, OAG1362-1401

Here's a beauty!
PAge 5
Goodling to Kyle Sampson (and others):--
"These are new or updated USA documents, which can be used with media and friendlies. Please deleteprior versions."

Friendlies? and is the instruction to delete contrary to the need to preserve documents? I personally don't know.

Anyway,, here's other stuff that doesn;t really add up to me:--
Page 1 --the argument about '120 days too long to find replacements...'
Page 11 --she argues that the AMendment to the AG's appoint authority was necessary because judges appointing interims was consitutionally 'iffy'---AND YET
Page 18 she provides examples of courts SPECIFICALLY REFUSING to appoint interimm or acting USAs, reguiring the AG to extend interim appointments every 120 days until a senate approved nomination!! SO what's the big deal?

Tim Griffin--it takes some sorting out but I calcualte he has had 3 years total of actual prosecution experience and 1/3rd of that was in the military--not civilian courts---and the one case cited involved a soldier shooting a sergeant in front of a bunch of other soldiers! Hardly a tough case!
So how does Griffins 2 years in civil prosecutions and 7 years with the RNC machine compare to other USAs and the one he replaced?

That's all I have at the moment

Harmonica Virgins?

...oh, nevermind,

LK

Iglesias' "Auf Wiedersehen" email leaves me a little skeeved. Maybe it's the profuse thank you's to Bush and Ashcroft. At least he had the good taste to leave Gonzales off the "gracias" list. It also kind of bugs that he quotes so many Bible verses. It's great that he's a Christian, but lordy, does he have to include it in all his government communications?

security code salt, as in "Lo, forsooth, Lot's wife and daughter turned around to look at Sodom and Gomorrah and were turned into pillars of salt."

Johnny Sutton (USA from West Texas) is on the receiving end of many of these emails because he chairs the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys (as of March 2006).

Sorry for the long post here, folks, but this may be a 'heads-up' here in matters of further obstruction, induced delays, assorted monkey wrenches and even the 'offshoring' of crucial evidence in the ongoing corruption investigations.

Set 8: Page OAG - 1404:
NOTE: This reads almost like a flow chart, yet also like an instruction of sorts, you know, the kind where one is quietly told to do something by 'indirect directives.'

>>> Examples Where Judges Discussed Appointing or Attempted to Appoint
Unacceptable Candidates:

1. Southern District of West Virginia: When a U.S. Attorney in the Southern District
of West Virginia, David Faber, was confirmed to be a federal judge in 1987, the
district went through a series of temporary appointments. Following the Attorney
General's 120-day appointment of an individual named Michael Carey, the court
appointed another individual as the U.S. Attorney. The court's appointee was not a
DOJ-employee at the time and had not been subject of any background investigation.
The court's appointee came into the office and started making inquiries into ongoing
public integrity investigations, including investigations into Charleston Mayor
Michael Roark and the Governor Arch Moore, both of whom were later tried and .
convicted of various federal charges. The First Assistant United States Attorney,
knowing that the Department did not have the benefit of having a background
examination on the appointee, believed that her inquiries into these sensitive cases
were inappropriate and reported them to the Executive Office for United States
Attorneys in Washington, D.C.The Department directed that the office remove the
investigative files involving the Governor from the office for safeguarding. The
Department further directed that the court's appointee be recused from certain
criminal matters until a background examination was completed. During that time,
the Reagan Administration sped up Michael Carey's nomination. Carey was
confirmed and the court's appointee was replaced within two-three weeks of her
original appointment.

South Dakota:
In 2005, a vacancy arose in South Dakota. The First Assistant United States
Attorney (FAUSA) was elevated to serve as acting United States Attorney under the
Vacancies Reform Act (VRA) for 2 10 days. As that appointment neared an end
without a nomination having yet been made, the Attorney General made an interim
appointment of the FAUSA for a 120-day term. The Administration continued to
work to identify a nominee; however, it eventually became clear that there would not
be a nomination and confirmation prior to the expiration of the 120-day appointment.
Near the expiration of the 120-day term, the Department contacted the court and
requested that the FAUSA be allowed to serve under a court appointment. However,
the court was not willing to re-appoint her. The Department proposed a solution to
protect the court from appointing someone about whom they had reservations, which
was for the court to refrain from making any appointment (as other district courts
have sometimes done), which would allow the Attorney General to give the FAUSA a
second successive, 120-day appointment.

The Chief Judge instead indicated that he was thinking about appointing a
non-DOJ employee, someone without federal prosecution experience, who had not
been the subject of a thorough background investigation and did not have the >> necessary security clearances. The Department strongly indicated that it did not
believe this was an appropriate individual to lead the office.

The Department then notified the court that the Attorney General intended to
ask the FAUSA to resign her 120-day appointment early (without the expiration of
the 120-day appointment, the Department did not believe the court's appointment
authority was operational). The Department notified the court that since the Attorney
General's authority was still in force, he would make a new appointment of another
experienced career prosecutor. The Department believed that the Chief Judge
indicated his support of this course of action and implemented this plan.

The FAUSA resigned her position as interim U.S. Attorney and the Attorney
General appointed the new interim U.S. Attorney (Steve Mullins). A federal judge
executed the oath and copies of the Attorney General's order and the press release
were sent to the court for their information. There was no response for over 10 days,
when a fax arrived stating that the court had also attempted to appoint the non-DOJ
individual as the U.S. Attorney.

This created a situation were two individuals had seemingly been appointed by
two different authorities. Defense attorneys indicated their intention to challenge
ongoing investigations and cases. The Department attempted to negotiate a resolution
to this very difficult situation, but was unsuccessful. Litigating the situation would
have taken months, during which many of the criminal cases and investigations that
were underway would have been thrown into confusion and litigation themselves.
Needing to resolve the matter for the sake of the ongoing criminal prosecutions
and litigation, after it was clear that negotiations would resolve the matter, the White
House Counsel notified the court's purported appointee that even if his court order
was valid and effective, then the President was removing him from that office
pursuant to Article I1 of the Constitution and 28 U.S.C. ss 541(c). Shortly thereafter,
Mr. Mullins resigned his Attorney General appointment and was recess appointed by
President Bush to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota. The
Department continued to work with the home-state Senators and identified and
nominated a new U.S. Attorney candidate, who was confirmed by the Senate in the
summer of 2006. >> What incentive does the Executive Branch have to nominate a successor in a timely
fashion [and give the Senate the opportunity to fulfill its constitutional responsibility of
evaluating and deciding whether to confirm the candidate]? <<<

NOTE: If I were a covert DoJ political operative and reading these pages as "instructive," I would respond (by phone): "The Executive Branch has a large number of highly-charged incentives to nominate a successor in an 'untimely' fashion by means of 120-day appointments, court refusals to appoint, recusals and doubled-up overlapping appointments, and the resulting confusion and litigation ought to assist us in giving the Senate 'an opportunity to fulfill its [sic] responsibilities,' subject to our cover provisions in the Patriot Act, of course."

What this means, in French, is: "The Dems are demned if they do and demned if they don't. Timing is everything. Now, where is my monkey wrench?"

Set 8: Pages 1410 & 1411:
NOTE: Tim Griffin's credentials are oddly sterling. Oxford Union Society? I don't think it gets more sterling than that, but it does stick out among his Arkansas credentials and his executive position at the Oxford University Clay Pigeon Shooting Club. Tulane (NOLA), though not ivy, is well regarded, however. Okay, silver plated.

Set 8: Page 1424:
NOTE: Somebody's timeline gets redacted on this page. Was the diary too sensational at the end?

Set 8: Page 1431:
NOTE: Somebody's 'FACT SHEET' gets redacted on this page, right after Schlozman is mentioned for one of his many interim appointments. This redaction occurs in an area describing "authorities used to ensure continuity of operations." QUESTION: Would the redacted authorities be connected to some shadow government process? If so, one would not advertise the fact, and simple redaction ought to cover until all is 'offshored' for "safeguarding" the moment any criminal investigation of this or any related matter is announced. (Which see, precedents: Pages 1404,1405, above.)
(And NOTE: Who would be the carrier for this document move? MZM Limousine Service? There is lots of new storage space at the Baghdad embassy.)

QUESTION: To lawmakers and lawyers everywhere: When a document gets redacted before release, can it be too much trouble to stamp "REDACTED" in those areas of the document that are redacted? Otherwise, how is anyone to know for sure? In some jurisdictions elsewhere, it is legally prescribed to mark all redactions as "redacted."

Set 8: Page 1444:
We see here the character of the man, David C. Iglesias. He seems to be a good fellow, with a lot of wit and grace, whose meticulous aim is true, and despite his slip in process (not reporting those pressure calls from 'his' senators), he is very impressive. He will suffer many things, but not the label 'incompetent' or 'poor performer.' He is very hurt by this. He needs a good mentor right now. He might be open to 'conversion,' but would it be too difficult to usurp Ashcroft as mentor? Iglesias is a talent that should not go to waste.

Set 8: Overall, I find Pages 1404 to 1415 unsettling. They could be deliberately leading a team of subordinates to perform obstructive acts.

"Makes it seem that not only was Monica the WH liaison but that she either kept very detailed records or was copied on just about every communication between the DoJ and WH. Bottom line, she knows everything about WH communications with the DoJ. ALL the details."

She's also the oppo researcher, in the Comstockian tradition: the person who has the dirt (or knows where to look for it) when a Bush cultist leaves the flock.

"is the instruction to delete contrary to the need to preserve documents? I personally don't know."

I think that's harmless: it's not so much about preservation as the desire not to send out an older version of a document.

Set 8: Page OAG - 1404:

1. Southern District of West Virginia:
...
The court's appointee came into the office and started making inquiries into ongoing
public integrity investigations, including investigations into Charleston Mayor
Michael Roark and the Governor Arch Moore,

For full description see post from Agent86 above

The unnamed Court appointee for USA during Reagan Administration began investigations into Mayor Roark and Governor Moore, both are Republicans...needless to say she was canned a loyal "Reaganite" was appointed think this is where the "Bushies" got their ideas from?

Question above asks about why persons in one dept might write to someone in an apparently unrelated dept. - Answer: these may be database lookup requests among plants in various depts.

People in each dept have access to restricted databases, so you casually ask your friend, What do you know about (person or event or title) A? And your friend understands, Query about A in my databases and reply.

Rove and Co have plants/moles in each dept who can access restricted databases as part of their job duties. It's like the game where you ask your cop-friend to get the name and phone number of the cute girl with license plate #AGL-439.

tja

The Northern District of Iowa may bear looking into. The original USA, Charles Larson Sr., took retirement as of December 31, 2006. He was replaced by The First Assistant USA who gets an "acting" position...who suddenly takes retirement herself, and Dummersmith gets appointed interim on January 27.

Dummermuth was only 33, and had spent two years in Ashcrofts civil rights division, then one year in the Eastern District of VA.

Does anyone else find it odd that a FAUSA would take the "acting USA" job for less than a month before retiring? (Larson's retirement is more easily explained--he'd been around since the late 60s, and this may just be a case of groominga "loyal Bushie" to replace him.)

For his undergrad, Griffin attended Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. Admissions requirements there are as, or almost as competitive as Ivy League universities. Whoever rates these things calls it, "one of the colleges that change lives." It may not be top tier, I don't know one way or another, but it is very well-regarded locally.

Now, Griffin is still a lying, unqualified, political hack with a mission.

Breaking News At Daily KOS via WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702190.html
The Career Lawyers Are Back In Town
(sung to the tune of "The Boys Are Back In Town")

The ex post facto rationalizations for the firings are amazing. I'd have to check the time line, but if memory serves Cummins started speaking publicly about moving on after he was told his spot was needed for Griffin.

Also, the brazen lies in the letters regarding the selection of Griffin set a new standard. They directly contradict their own documentation.

One things for sure, they a