It's been a while since I've done much document production, but isn't the producing party supposed to write in "[Redacted]" whereever they do a redaction?

How else is the recipient supposed to know what parts of the original document were blank and what parts were redacted?

Lots of white paper in this one. Looks disappointing at a glance. Sigh... lunch at the computer again.

From:Elston, Michael (ODAG)
Sent:Thursday, February 01,2007 4:35 PM
To:Sampson, Kyle; Hertling, Richard
Cc:Goodling, Monica; Moschella, William; McNulty, Paul J; Seidel, Rebecca
Subject:Re: Bud Cummins
Elston, Michael (ODAG)
Thursday, February 01,2007 4:35 PM
Sampson, Kyle; Hertling, Richard
Goodling, Monica; Moschella, William; McNulty, Paul J; Seidel, Rebecca
Re: Bud Cummins
Agreed.

----- Original Message-----
From: Sampson, Kyle
To: Elston, Michael (ODAG); Hertling, Richard
CC: Goodling, Monica; Moschella, William; McNulty, Paul J; Seidel, ~ebecca
Sent: Thu Feb 01 16:15:00 2007
Subject: RE: Bud Cummins
I don't think he should. How would he answer:
Did you resign voluntarily?
Were you told why you were being asked to resign?
Who told you?
When did they tell you?
What did they say?
Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming U.S. Attorney?
What did Griffin say?
Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation?
Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming?
If not, then why?
Etc., etc.

- - - - - Original Message-----
From: Elston, Michael (ODAG)
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 3:52 PM
To: '~ertling,Ri chard
Cc: Sampson, Kyle; Goodling, Monica; Moschella, William; McNulty, Paul J; Seidel, Rebecca
Subject: Bud Cummins
just called to let me know that Pryor's and Schumerts staff have called and asked him to
testify on Tuesday. He declined, but wanted to know if we wanted him to testify -- would
tell the truth about his circumstances and would also strongly support our view of S 214.
Thoughts?

PAGE 97 OF DOC DUMP SET 3

*Makes it all tie together: Someone begging for his career future - tell the truth about him?

I didn't do the last document dump. Did they have that spreadsheet where the 'political experience' of each sitting USA was outlined (from the first doc. link). Did they really track which USAs were members of the 'Fed. Soc'?

Federalist Society membership was a determinant on whether you kept your USA job?

Interesting that one of the columns for USA experience is whether or not each was a member of the Federalist Society.

The last doc in dump #3 is a chart of a bunch of attorneys. It lists expereince, etc, but also has columns for political experience(?) and a column marked "Federalist Society"
The political column lists who was a convention delegat, for example, and there's a handful of 'yes's" in the federaliust column...

Doesn't that indicate that their rankings were taking into account political participation and #2, participation in a outside activity that, I would think, shouldn't have any influence on hiring or retention?

Set 3, page 97.

Date: 2/1/07
Email from Michael Elston to Richard Hertling w/ cc: Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, William Moschella, Paul McNulty, Rebecca Seidel,
Subject: Bud Cummins

Elston says that Pryor and Schumer's offices called and asked Cummins to testify. Cummins declined but wants to know if they want him to testify.

Reply email from Kyle Sampson:
"I don't think he should. How would he answer:
Did you resign voluntarily?
Were you told why you were being asked to resign?
Who told you?
When did they tell you?
What did they say?
Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about become US Attorney?
What did Griffin say?
Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation?
Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming?
If not, then why?
Etc etc"

Elston replies, "Agreed."

---All of this sounds familiar, so I don't know if this doc was included in an earlier dump?

also look at page 90 set 3

some redacted attorney names there as well

Nothing political in this note, but a fascinating factoid. On page 11 of the third file is a bio of fired NM USA David Iglesias. It claims that Iglasias was "a defense counsel in a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, court-martial which inspired the
movie 'A Few Good Men'."

Tom Cruise (or perhaps Debra Winger) played a character based on David Iglesias.

Some of the redacted portions can be easily read by copying to a program (e.g. Photoshop, Apple's Preview) that allows enlargement of the document. For instance, the blacked out portion of the first document in the second dump, Kurt Sampson's "Memorandum for the Counsel to the President" date January 1, 2006, begins: "you have asked whether President Bush should remove and replace "U. S. Attorneys...."

From Iglesias's bio: "He was a defense counsel in a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, court-martial which inspired the movie 'A Few Good Men.'" Apparently, Mr. Iglesias is still running afoul of those who think we "can't handle the truth!!"

Pages roughly 8-10 of the first dump (EQUSA...134-136) show a check column for each USA for "FedSoc".

My initial interpretation of this would be membership in the Federalist Society. Isn't that a bit odd to be tracking in what otherwise seems to mostly be tracking job experience?

So which attorney's were offered the opportunity to quietly leave? "to save face"

What's the legality of redacting sections? Can't they just release every document but redact the entire thing?

Or redact the parts where they're breaking the law? Is there a way to compel them to release everything, at least to the committee?

3rd PDF, pg. 60. list of US Attorneys to evaluate which will be on the AG Advisory Committee. Handwritten notes attached to Carol Lam's name appear to read: "issues w/ 4th floor" (???) and "very independent"

What's on the 4th floor of the DOJ building? Apparently the FISA hearing room is...

Kyle, I undertand Paul McNulty thinks we should go up in person? Do you want us to set that up? Not sure how we do
today if that is the case given how booked the day is. Phone call easier, and may be easier to get out of (i.e. not trapped up
there) when she doesn't get the info she wants (i.e. why they were fired).
Tracking: Recipient Read
Seidel, Rebecca Read: 1/12/2007 2:12 PM
Goodling, Monica Read: 1/12/2007 1 :43 PM
Moschella, William
Hertling, Richard Read: 1/12/2007 1:44 PM
Elston, Michael (ODAG) Read: 1/12/2007 2:04 PM

My bold.

Siedel e-mail re: the Feinstien Hearing.

doc num, 1152 pg 70

I'm reading set 3. The first 60-odd pages are just copies of performance evaluations of Iglesias, Cummins, Bogden, Arizona (this packet is more scattered), and Lam.

These documents, like so many before, are heavily redacted. Even the list of criminal division significant cases for Iglesias has its Narcotics/Immigration section heavily redacted, with much lighter redaction of other sections. What is the justification for these redactions?

P. 1101 would make a nice image. It's a calendar page for January 15, 2007, entirely redacted except for a single entry that says "Senate Judiciary Hearing Prep" and a label at the bottom saying "Otus2007, AG". 1105 is even uglier, with just "US Attorneys Meeting", and not even the date and times legible.

1107 is interesting. It says "we will be losing 9 members in December", and all are redacted excect for David Iglesias.

The memo on p 1116 covers a conference call, same content as 3-19-2007 documents 11-2 pp 14-17.

A few other memos, like the "I don't think he should. How would he answer:" one, I've seen before.

In sum, not much new here.

Part 3, page 60 of 102: Carol Lam circled - marginalia notes "very independant" (the ultimate sin) and "issues w/ 4th Am" (??).

Holy crap, Mike H. You're totally right.

I'm zooming into these docs with Preview and I can read them just fine. (a little squinting is required :)

OAG12-22

pgs 1-8 are redacted completely

pg 9 is a letter from kyle to harriet discussing the broad outlines of what firing the prosecutors would encompass. It ends with a list of possible names for replacement but is missing #'s 1,2 and 4 (the others are Cummings, Lam, Chiara and Ryan) and ends with:

i list these folks based on my review of the evaluations of their offices conducted by EOMA and my interviews with
dfficials in the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and the Criminal Division. If a
determination is made to seek the removal of these folks. then we should similarlv seek to remove and replace.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed. The first steps, I think, would be (1) to agree on the target list of U.S.
Attorneys and (2) ask EOUSA to'begin quietly calling them to ascertain their intentions for continued servicelindicating to
them that they might want to consider looking for other employment.

pg 11 is from May 11, 2006 from Sampson to William Kelly and copies the above message as well as including:

Phi yotir inquiry yesterday after JSC, this is'the e-mail I sent to ~ a b nleas~t m oith at Harriet's request. Pleaseqcalml e at .
your cdnvenience to discuss the following:
i -Rachel Brand fbr W.D. Mich.;
i. :Tim Griffin for ED. Ark.; and - . Tihe real pi'oblein we have right now with Carol Lam that leadsme to conclude that we should have someone ready to . '
be riaminated on 11118, the day her 4-year term expires.
. .
. ,. .... .. , .. . . .. . .
Fm-h.: Sampson, Kyle
.Serit: Friday, April 14,2006 9:31 AM
To: 'Dabney-Friedrich@wfio.eop.gov'
sSeinrsbil;jukit Y:
Ftk Removal and Replacement of U.S. Attorneys Whose +year Terms Have Expired
Confidential
Aldo,. I wbuld note that two others on my original list already have left office. They are: (names don't appear)

On Page 89 of the 3rd package there are Roman Numeral I next to each attorney that has 2 democratic Senators in his/her state. I suppose that makes it easier to only tell the Republican Senators about firings as Kyle Sampson has said, especially since there doesn't appear to be any Republican Senators in at least 4 of these choices.

looking at the forest rather than trees, these seem to be a bunch of draft documents that slowly add on reasons for dismissal (well after the actual dismissals) in response to criticisms.

PDF #3, pg. 82: Christopher Oprison's edit of a draft letter to Reid changes "The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin..." to "..aware of Karl Rove playing a role..". For what that's worth.

PDF #5 Pages 1-3:

Interestingly, the only USA's where they are awaiting home-state Congressional recommendations are when the Congressmen are Republicans:

Sen. McCain, Sen. Kyl, Sen. Ensign, Rep. Reichert, Sen. Domenici.

Rep. Reichert is interesting because he's from WA and both WA Senators are Democrats, so it appears they're planning on going around the home-state Senator recommendations in that case.

The other recommendation sources are the "Parsky Commission", and in Cummins' case, "home state Senators" which we know to be false. Of course, they don't actually list either Senator, despite the fact they do everywhere else.

Fascinating that the table of USAs prepared by Monica Goodling and sent to John Nowacki (at the very end of the 3rd PDF) notes whether the USA is a member of the Federalist Society. Is this now an official part of the criteria for evaluation of USAs?

( GWB.xls, found at end of "Set 3" )

"Call me if you have any questions. If you pushed, I'd have 3-5 additional names that the WH mught want to consider"

Sec 5 page handwritten notes appear to be from MONICA GOODLING! Look at page 8 and the handwritten comment "Domenici says he doesn't move cases." I believe the email is to Elston and Sampson.

Is this news? Have we seen this link before?

#3, pg. 92, handwritten page with header "Griffin, EDAR" (eastern district arkansas)

"Priorities: 1) CT 2) violent crime (PSU) 3) child expl 4) public corruption -- real prob w/ that"

Pdf #3, page 60.

Carol Lam's name is circled in pencil and an arrow is drawn to the annotation "very independant" and "issues w/ 4th "

This is a document titled, "United States Attorneys by Judicial District." Most has been whited out.

I've transcribed the first blacked-out Sampson memo. I have no special tools for this, so it's just a best-effort based on the fact that you can kind of read it.

You have asked whether President Bush should remove and replace US Attorneys whose four year terms have expired. I recommend that the Department of Justice and the Office of Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of US Attorneys.

United States Attorneys are appointed to a four year term of office and thereafter may hold over until a successor is appointed as the US Code provides.

(a) The President shall appoint by and with the advice and consent of the Senate a US attorney for each judicial district.
(b) Each US Attorney shall be appointed for a term of four year. On the expiration of this term, a US attorney shall continue to perform the duties of this office until his successor is appointed and qualifies.
(c) Each US Atty is subject to removal by the President.

28 USC 54 (?) During the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace US Attys they had appointed whose four-year terms had expired, but instead permitted such US Attys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision.

There likely are several explanations for this. In some instances, Presidents Reagan and Clinton may gave been pleased with the work of the US Attys who after all they had appointed. In other instances, Presidents Reagan and Clinton may simply have been unwilling to commit the resources necessary to remove the US Attorneys, find suitable replacements (seek the advice of the home state senators) complete background investigations and secure Senate confirmations.

There are practical obstacles to removing and replacing US Attys. First, wholesale removal of US Attys would cause significant disruption of the work of the Department of Justice. Second, individual US Atty’s who were originally recommended for appointment by home state Senators who may be opposed to the President’s determination to remove the US Atty. A suitable replacement must be found in consultation with the home state Senator, the difficulty of which would vary from state to state. Fourth, a background investigation must be completed on the replacement, a task often complicated if the outgoing US Atty remains in office. Fifth, after nomination the Senate must confirm the replacement.

None of the above obstacles are insuperable. First, a limited number of US Attys could be targeted for removal and replacement, mitigating the shock to the system that would result from an across the board firing at the Department of Justice. Executive Office of the US Attorneys (EOUSA) could work with the targeted US attorneys to encourage them to leave governement. This would allow targeted US Attys to make arrangements for work in the private sector and to save face both in the DoJ community and in the local legal communities. Third, after targeted US Attorneys have left office or indicated publicly their intention to leave office the the Office of the Counsel to the President can work with home state Senators and/or other political leaders in the state to secure recommendadtions for a replacement US Atty. Finally, after background investigations are completed and the replacement candidate is nominated, the AG can appoint the nominee to serve as Interim US Atty, reducing the time during which the leadership of the office is uncertain.

If a decision is made to remove and replace alimited number of US Attorneys, then the following mught be considered for removal and replacement:

Margaret M. Chiara – US Atty for the Westerns District of Michigan.
Term expired 1/2/2005
Replacement Candidate: Rachel Brand
Home State Senators/political leaders: Levin and Stabenow, numerous

Harry E. “Bud” Cummins III US Atty for the Eastern District of Arkansas
Term expires 9/2/2006
Replacement candidates: Tim Griffin
Home State senators/political leaders: Pryor (D) and Lincoln (D) Gov Huckabee )

Kevin V. Ryan US Atty for the Northern District of California
Term expires 8/2/2006
Replacement candidates Dan Levin
Home state senators/political leaders Feinstein(D) and Boxer (D), Parsky commission.

Carol Lam US Atty for the Southern District of California
Term expires 1/18/2006
Replacement candidates Jeff Taylor, Deb Rhodes
Home State Senators/political leaders Feinstein (D) and Boxer (D), Parsky commission.

I like these folks based on my review of the evaluations of their offices conduced by the EOUSA and my interviews with officials in the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and their Criminal Division. If a determination is made to seek the removal of these folks then we should similarly seek to remove and replace.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

correction, doc dump 5 has the charts with deletions on McKay, Lam, Inglsies etal as well the the handwritten excuses for firing. Apologies all.

Hm, it appears that much of the redacted info in doc 2 is actually what appears on page 9 in unredacted form.

Does this seem rather sparse to you guys? There's a bunch of repeats of the same document - that chart shows up in several iterations, as does the blacked-out memo.

OAG1159-1234.pdf
Page: 17

From: Goodling, Monica
Sent:Monday, February 12,2007 9:10 PM
To:Elston,. Michael (ODAG); Sampson, Kyle
Subject:Draft chart for AG review - NONPUBLlC

Attachments: US Attorney chart- AG.doc
b

This is the chart that the AG requested. I'll show it to him on the plane tomorrow, if he's interested.

Tracking: Recipient
Elston, Michael (ODAG)
Sarnpson, Kyle
Read
Read: ZlZ2007 9:15 PM
Read: 2/12/2007 9:34 PM"

set 7 is inaccessible.

Very end of set 7 involves "DAG is working with members to tee up the right questions." (meaning they are trying to get congress members to ask them Qs that will lead into their talking points at hearing.) Can they do that? I mean, I have never doubted that they do, but can they?

Doc 7, page 21: letter from Diane Feinstein complaining about lax enforcement on the southern California border. Strengthens admin's story about Lam. Poop.

EOUSA127-150.pdf set 1

pages 23-24

Interesting attempt at the top of page 23 to compare the average age of USAs under Clinton with those of Bush. If the firings were justified for job performance...why bother? Seems like an attempt to justify the firings, not based on anything substantive, but based on some odd notion that somehow the Clinton administrations methods for firing somehow justify the firings in this case.

OAG1159-1234.pdf
Page: 68-73

These pages document teleconferences that were held between Monica Goodling, William Moschella, Kyle Sampson and Sen. Domenici.

Regarding Lam's meeting with Issa/Sensenbrenner, set 6, p.78 reads: "Sounds like she handled well and it was actually constructive." i.e. she explained well that she had lower immigration prosecution rates, but longer sentences.

In set 6, p. 90, somebody notes on 01/16/06, that Feinstein "was saying on the floor that she is hearing a lot of rumors about what is going on, and pointed out that they are just rumors, but it would be better if they knew what is really going on," and that Feinstein "has seen press stories that quote an FBI agent as saying USA Lam's departure will be disruptive to their cases."

... that must be a typo in the document and actually be 01/16/07?

Set 6, p. 58: Meeting with POTUS!

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/PDFS/OLP1-197.pdf, page 58, Douglas Baker from the White House says a question about marijuana prosecutions by USAttorney for Arizona "was raised in meeting with POTUS".

This clearly means George Bush was personally in at least one meeting where replacement of USAs was being discussed.

I haven't looked at the documents, yet, but reading the comments it appears a notation was made concerning Lam's alleged problems with either the 4th am. or 4th fl.

If it's 4th fl., 4th floor of what? What's/who's on the 4th floor of the EOB? DoJ? House/Senate office buildings? Does the White House have 3 floors, or 4, including the basement?

Amazing. Enlarging some of the docs to 400% in Acrobat, you can read the redactions no problem. Nice catch, whoever... Mike?

Page 9 of section 2 (after many blank or blotched pages) is a real eye-opener, we have heard about this one before (I don’t know if they know this, but some of their black-ed out passages can still be read, at least in part…)
first line from the second blacked-out paragraph on page 6 of the 2nd set, “none of the above obstacles are insurmountable”
I’ll see if I can find those obstacles hiding in the shades…

Anyone notice how Griffin’s qualifications are continually and progressively amplified and expanded as these documents progress?
Check out page 2 vs. page 19 in the first set of documents…

The first, short entry is at 2:43 PM and the longer, exaggerated version shows up after 8PM…

first blacked-out paragraph, page 6, “replacement a task often complicated if the outgoing U.S. attorney remains in office (eifht?) senate must confirm the replacement” followed by that “not insurmountable” redacted
paragraph…

Page 14 has a reference to a failed Attorney General candidate as replacement for Iglesias. It's Jim Bibb. Click on my handle (sorry, don't know how to embed links on this board)

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/PDFS/OAG1159-1234.pdf

Set 5: pp 7-8 Handwritten notes; pp 68-76 calls btw office and Domenici - times and participants only Gonzales in at least one.

Followup on "meeting with POTUS"

I wrote "This clearly means George Bush was personally in at least one meeting where replacement of USAs was being discussed."

Incorrect. I should have said he was in a meeting where USAttorney of AZ policy was discussed.

Okay! Carol Lam replacement info:

Set 2 OAG12-22-NEW-.pdf

Possible replacements

Jeff Taylor, Deb Rhodes

an email from Jan 9, 2006

Just above, it mentions Tim Griffins as a possible replacements but has a "?" mark next to his name, for Bud Cummins spot. Why the question mark here but not for Jeff and Deb? Could be an innocent explanation...or?

set 5, page 7, handwrtitten document, about midway down does it say "Line up Griffin story.."?

Oops, Set 2 page 10 for those possible replacements for Ms. Lam.

Set 2--Looks as if some content from redacted first pages, as transcribed in one or more earlier tpm posts, is repeated or overlaps with content not redacted in set 2, beginning on p. 9

JA

page 14, section 5... Monica to Kyle "This is the chart the AG requested..." you mean the same AG who knew NOTHING???

OK, bit of a waste of time trying to read redacted pages in Set 2. Page 1-3 and 5-7 are just (as far as I can tell) redacted copies of pages 9-10. However, candidates for removal #1, #2 and #4 have been scrubbed more thoroughly. Interestingly, they also seem to have been removed from the redacted copies.

This set has been redacted twice. The candidates for removal that are completely missing (not just blacked out) are what's being hidden. The blacked out redacted pages are a just a distraction, since they're just repeats of non-redacted text. They're just there to draw attention away from the parts that are really being hidden.

Who wrote the handwritten statement???

set 7 p70-71

A list of all the USA who have resigned over the previous year. Josh was looking to track down who had left, and when they left to identify the two names listed as having resigned and thus were taken off the list in the fall of 2006. I don;t have the timeframe with me to determine which they are. Here's the list.

Full list of resignations since last March in reverse date order (13 total):
John McKay, ED WA, 1/07 (has said he will teach at a law schooI)
Paul Charlton, AZ, 1/07 (going into private practice)
Bud Cummins, EDAR, 12/06 (pursuing 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, 10/06 (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 firm)
Paul McNulty, EDVA, 3/06 (to become DAG)

Interesting statement regarding Carol Lam page 23 of 76

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/PDFS/OAG1159-1234.pdf

"She continually failed to perform in relation to significant leadership priorities -
these were priorities that were well-known within the Department. They were
discussed at our annual mandatory USA conferences, in speeches by Department
leaders, in memos, in conference calls, and in a host of other ways."

seems there could be a trail that way too...especially that last line "and in a host of other ways."

Don't know if this is new - Set 6, 93-98: "Talking Points: USA Nominations and Interim Appointments by the AG"

Looks like the "gum it to death" playbook.

Someone may have already caught this.. On set 5 pages 24 -25, they criticize Lam for not prosecuting enough immigration cases, comparing her unfavorably to NM and AZ USA totals. Their rationale: (Pg 24) "Border enforcement is a top priority". Fair enough, i guess (ignoring that she just prosecuted the largest corruption case in congress in 20 years). but then they go on to criticize the AZ USA on the next page even though he was, according to their comments under lam, going gangbusters on border security cases, which again is a "top priority". Even worse they then criticize Iglesias on page 25 for not being tough enough on border issues, when they just used his good record as evidence carol lam wasnt doing enough!! none of this is new, it's just funny to see it on consecutive pages of the same document.

Judging from donviti's summary as to http://judiciary.house.gov/media/PDFS/OAG1159-1234.pdf it strikes me that there was no independent documentation concerning Carol Lam or documentation that would support telling her about her "failing to follow priorities" or even telling her what the priorities were.

In order to come up with something, they went to the general statements made at conferences and conference calls for "notice" to Carol Lam of the priorities for which they claim she fell short.

page 3, section 7, reads like Griffin hired a PR firm to make his resume seem worthy and promote his lack of experience as an asset... is this goodling's work?

fatcat: OTUS 2007: Is there "AG" somewhere before that? If so, it's "Attorney General of the United States".

The same thing was in the previous doc dump.

Set 5 p 31. Has the "justifications" for the insertion of words into patriot act that let AG appoint interim people, notably: "the previous provision was constitutionally-suspect and the Senate respects the Constitution." p30-35 of set 5 interesting talking points.

Amending the Statute:
We are aware of no other federal agency where federal judges, members of a separate branch of government and not the head of the agency, appoint interim staff on behalf of the agency.

In early 2006, the statute that authorizes the appointment of interim United States Attorneys (28 U.S.C. fj 546) was amended by section 502 of Public Law 109-1 77 to eliminate the provision of a 120-day appointment and to allow the Attorney General to
appoint interim United States Attorneys to serve until the nomination and confirmation of a United States Attorney under 28 U.S.C. fj 541.
The statute was amended for several reasons: 1) the previous provision was constitutionally-suspect and the Senate respects the Constitution; 2) some federal judges, recognizing the inherent problems, have refused to do appointments, creating a situationwhere the Attorney General had to do multiple 120-day appointments; 3) a small number of federal judges, disregarding the Constitutional issues, attempted to appoint individuals
other than those proposed by the Department - in one case, someone who had never been a federal government official and hence had never been subject of the required national
security clearance process, an unacceptable risk given the responsibilities and operations overseen by our U.S. Attorneys.

RE: Fourth Floor

I'm going to go with the simplest possible explanation here. There're a host of offices on the fourth floor of Justice, but the offhand reference suggests that the writer is employing a common shorthand.
Generally speaking, "fourth floor" means the office of the Deputy Attorney General (Paul McNulty) and "fifth floor" means the Attorney General (John Ashcroft).
So McNulty (or his office) had problems with Lam.

The black, largely readible redacted sections look to be drafts of final documents provided below the redaction. Looked promising at first, but the parts redacted with while in the final document are also redacted in white above.

Here's an interesting but lurid "note to self" from Rachel Brand on the evaluations and bonuses. I suppose she's referring to herself when she says: "You can guess the one person who got the largest bonus and presumably the best rating."

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/jackneefus/RachelBrand.jpg

p 2:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/jackneefus/RachelBrand2.jpg

Intriguing revision:
OPA7-217.pdf., p. 202. This appears to be a markup of Moschella's opening statement by Christopher Oprision [though the chain of authorship isn't entirely clear]

"Second, the Department has not [underline] asked anyone to resign[end underline] to influence any public corruption case - and would never do so."
Change indication: "Deleted: taken any action"

This suggests one of two things: 1) the department didn't like the less specific wording or 2) the department has taken action to influence a public corruption case - just not asking anyone to resign.

Set 6, pg 14 BY by Douglas Baker WHO.EOP.GOV to Rachel Brand USDOJ: Talks about inquiry to Arizona USA about why they are only prosecuting over 500 lb. marijunan cases in Nogales, TX. Wants answers because: "THIS WAS MENTIONED (by Speaker Hastert) IN MTG WITH POTUS!!!" Answer to question at pg 57 forward.

7 - OPA0000000119

"I think this will get some traction with the media but w/o it going under the AG name less so."

Read the whole part

Good OCR programs are $500 - $1500 & have amazing powers. Omni Page Pro, ABBYY are two good ones. When they can't read it, they give clues, which by themselves may spur the researcher. Anybody want to donate one for the cause?

Security code: bent

Since DOJ did these as image files, they are not really searchable, however since they appear to be relatively clean images I am going to run OCR on at least one to see how it comes out. If it is reasonably accurate, I will try and get it onto the web because it will then be possible to search for specific words, such as Rove.

It will not be perfect, so anything that might be found this way needs to be confirmed against the PDF as scanned.

OPA7-217.pdf., p. 202
Correction to my comment on the change from "taken any action" to "asked anyone to resign" (suggesting the DOJ could have action to impair ongoing corruption investigations):

William Moschella explicitly suggests this change in OPA7-217.pdf p. 190 (OPA 196)

Actually, looking at that page, I'm sure that's her yahoo.com email address which has been redacted, as seen in the earlier doc dump which includes the same DRAFT Talking Points message:

http://snipurl.com/tasiascol

Embarrassed much by it, DOJ?

So far the scan looks pretty good. I'm going to do a couple of quick searches.

The handwritten comments on p. 7-8 of OAG1159-1234.pdf look like a draft, by Monica Goodling, of the center column of the table "U.S. ATTORNEY RESIGNATIONS" on p. 10-12. On p. 9, Goodling's e-mail has the subject, "DRAFT (am still working on second column)"

Some random observation:

SET 5

* Page 7 -- "Was Prez told about this?" (Handwritten) "Any outside calls about Lam?"

"Some great, some not so much, some problematic."
"DOJ put together list or problematic people; sent to WH; WH cleared."

* Very top of page 8 -- Hand-written note says Ygleisias "Underachieves in a very important district."
"Domenici says he doesn't move cases." [It also says "absentee landlord," something I can't make out,
and "in over head,"]

* Does it seem weird that there were several phone calls to Senator Domenici's office
in April of 2006 -- and the required attendees were Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, and
William Moschella? (At the end of set 5) There's also talking points to defend
the installation of Rove's pal Griffin around page 48.

Page 13 -- It's apparently about US Attorney Margaret Chiara, who wanted a few more weeks
(according to the NYT).

Set 6

Two years ago (Jan of 2005)
Michael Frank at the Office of Legal Policy says
"I'm starting to not like Roger Haines. He forwarded my quick
response to his U.S. Attorney [Carol Lam] and I got the attached [from Lam]..."

Lam is urging that they help her prosecute illegal alien smugglers under
USC 1325 and 1326. Lam points out that 2200 of 3500 felonies prosecuted (about two thirds) are
already alien smuggling cases -- and more than half of their trials.

Page 6: discussion of the rule requiring recordings of interviews.

Page 13 (July, 2006): Complaints from USAG in Arizona that their office is stretched to the limit.

Page 18: Someone tells Rachel Brand that USAG Margaret Chiara hurt the feelings of some staffers
by announcing the names of those who did and didn't receive performance bonuses. (Although
Chiara follows up with an email saying this was standard policy.)

Page 27: It looks like Domenici is very interested in appearing tough on immigration, and was
talking to the DOJ about that. (And a few pages down, they talk about passing on information
to the White House Immigration Task Force.)

Set 6 p 6-12

Development of document named "US Attorney Resignations"
Marked as "sensitive" following handwritten notes on the AG tables, a revised table of USAs with "leadership assessments." The middle column consists of the proposed talking points regarding the fired USAs failures, e.g. LAM "Failure to perform in relation to significant leadership priorities" with a notation "ADD GUNS". Page 7 handwritten notes say "DOJ put together list of problematic people; sent to WH; WH cleared;"

FYI, in OCR of Doc 6,

No hits on Rove (accept within other words like approve)

12 hits on Sampson

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture12nn2.png

fifth line:

"the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam"