Today’s Must ReadJust how many of the fired U.S. attorneys were canned because they didn’t pursue claims of voter fraud fervently enough?
The Washington Post counts ‘em up: we know that David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Washington had angered state Republicans by not bringing indictments after highly publicized investigations of alleged liberal malfeasance. And we know that Todd Graves of Kansas City perhaps disappointed the leadership in D.C. by refusing to sign a Justice Department lawsuit to purge Missouri’s voter rolls. And we know that Steven Biskupic of Milwaukee, despite a state full of unhappy Republicans, narrowly avoided being fired because he was lucky enough to have a very powerful political patron.
So that’s three firings and one near miss.
And now the Post adds another: Daniel Bogden of Nevada, who was among the seven U.S. attorneys fired last December 7th. Bogden’s firing has remained the greatest mystery — and the efforts by Justice Department officials to justify it the most pathetic (an official told Congress that they wanted “renewed energy” in Bogden’s district). But voter fraud prosecutions had not been raised as a possible reason for Bogden’s dismissal until now.
Here’s what the Post adds: When Justice Department official Matthew Friedrich — following up on Karl Rove’s request last October to investigate voter fraud allegations in three jurisdictions (Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New Mexico) — called Benton Campbell, chief of staff for the Criminal Division, Campbell told him that Nevada was also “a problem district.”
It’s not clear from the Post’s account whether Friedrich brought this news back to Kyle Sampson or whether word of Nevada’s “problem” made it back to the White House. But what we do know now is that there’s reason to believe that displeasure with a lack of voter fraud prosecutions was behind at least four of the nine prosecutors fired last year. Somehow, all four were in battleground states.
Put that together with the Justice Department’s efforts to install U.S. attorneys who are gung-ho about voter fraud prosecutions and the picture becomes clearer.