U.S. Attorneys

Did Christie Play Politics With Probe? U.S. Attorney Docs Add To Questions

Zachary Roth | August 12, 2009, 4:28PM

Those newly released documents from the U.S. attorney firings raise a few questions about the Republican who may be his party's highest profile electoral contender this year.

That's Chris Christie, the former U.S. attorney from New Jersey, who's also leading incumbent Jon Corzine in that state's race for governor.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Chris Christie, Harriet Miers, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Michael Elston, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorney Fired Under Bush To Get Old Job Back

Zachary Roth | July 31, 2009, 4:27PM

What better way to demonstrate a change from the bad old days of the politicized Justice Department than to appoint as US attorney one of the people who was fired from that job as part of the Bushies' purge?

The White House has announced that Daniel Bogden, who in late 2006 was fired by the Bush administration as U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada, has been re-nominated for that position.

"I'm extremely honored that President Obama has nominated me," Bogden told TPMmuckraker in a brief phone interview. "I appreciate the opportunity and I'm looking forward to my return to public service. and I certainly appreciate Senate Majority Leader Reid's recommending me for the position."

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Topics: George Bush, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

DOJ Office Of The Inspector General

DOJ Honors Department Veteran Who Failed To Object To U.S. Attorney Firings

Zachary Roth | October 29, 2008, 11:33AM

The Department of Justice announced yesterday that, at an annual awards ceremony, it had given an award for "Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity" to David Margolis.

Why is that noteworthy?

Margolis, who has been at DOJ since 1965 and now serves as Associate Deputy Attorney General, makes frequent appearances in the report on the US Attorney firings released earlier this month by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

By and large, the report depicts Margolis as a respected career DOJ-er, who was largely out of the loop on many of the details of the scheme to fire US Attorneys for political reasons.

But it also shows that right before the firings, Kyle Sampson, the point man on the plan, showed Margolis -- whose informal biography, says the report, listed one of his duties as being a liaison between main DOJ and the US Attorneys -- a list of six of the US Attorneys to be fired. Margolis had earlier recommended to Sampson that two US Attorneys -- Kevin Ryan and Dunn Lampton -- be fired for legitimate performance-based reasons, but neither one appeared on Sampson's list. And yet, says the report, Margolis neither raised any objections, nor asked Sampson about how the list was drawn up.

From the report's conclusion:

In November 2006, when Sampson advised Margolis about the impending removals, he either showed Margolis a list or read from a list of six U.S. Attorneys that Sampson indicated were to be removed. Margolis told us that he was struck more by the names Sampson did not mention than the ones he did. Margolis asked Sampson why Ryan and Lampton were not on the removal list, and Sampson responded that he would look into it. Based on Margolis's and McNulty's suggestion, Ryan was subsequently added to the list.

However, Margolis told us that he did not think to question Sampson about the six U.S. Attorneys who were on Sampson's list. Margolis said he was more focused on the names that were omitted and assumed Sampson had valid reasons for the six slated for removal.

Margolis is the senior career attorney in the Department and someone who had significant knowledge about U.S. Attorneys and their performance. He was involved in panel interviews for the selection of most U.S. Attorneys, and as part of his duties handles misconduct allegations involving U.S. Attorneys. He is highly respected within the Department, and his opinion was valued because of his experience and stature.

Yet, prior to the removals, he never questioned Sampson concerning why the specific U.S. Attorneys slated for removal were chosen or what process was used to select them. We believe that under these circumstances - an unprecedented dismissal of a group of U.S. Attorneys at one time allegedly for performance reasons - Margolis should have raised questions about the list and the process used to identify the names to ensure there were no improper reasons and that the Department was following a defensible process for the removals. But Margolis never raised those issues, and instead focused solely on seeking to ensure that Ryan was added to the removal list.

...

We recognize that the decision to remove the U.S. Attorneys was not Margolis's to make. But given his position, we believe he should have asked Sampson, McNulty, or other senior Department leaders about the removal process. This is particularly true given that this removal of U.S. Attorneys was unprecedented, and it did not appear from the names on Sampson's list that the U.S. Attorneys Margolis thought were weak had been included.

The report also quotes from Margolis' subsequent testimony to Congress, in which he acknowledged he should have done more:

I should say that I am a bit exasperated by my role here because I'm the only one of all the people involved who knows how to fire a United States Attorney or a Marshal based on experience. And I was not aggressive enough or vigilant enough, and I should have done a number of things, I should have inserted myself. I was too passive, and I'd like to, I think--and I hold myself accountable for this--that if I had stepped in and said something, that maybe this would have been - we would have handled this better...

The report further concludes:

We believe that given Margolis's experience, position, and stature he was too deferential to others on this important and unprecedented removal of U.S. Attorneys. Had he raised questions, as he acknowledged he should have, the damage to the Department by the fundamentally flawed removal process might have been mitigated.

Margolis was clearly a long way from being the main villain in the US Attorneys saga. But he didn't exactly cover himself with glory in the affair.

And he certainly didn't demonstrate "Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity" -- the qualities for which he's just been honored.

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Topics: DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, Kyle Sampson, Michael Mukasey

Alberto Gonzales

The OIG Report: Tying Up Loose Ends

Kate Klonick | October 1, 2008, 3:00PM

In the almost two years that TPMmuckraker has been covering the scandal over the removal of the U.S. attorneys, there have been many questions raised over the reasons behind the firings. On Monday, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General's report answered some of those, but raised others. While it concluded that only three of the firings were carried out for political reasons or to interfere with active prosecutions, it could not gather sufficient evidence to conclude the rest of the firings were politically based. Regardless, the report strongly condemned the DOJs overall mishandling of the firings, calling the process "fundamentally flawed . . unsystematic and arbitrary."

As we wrote earlier this week, the report reveals that Todd Graves, David Iglesias and Bud Cummins were fired for reasons of politics, not performance.

The report lays out the investigations into each of the remaining U.S. attorney firings, but repeatedly states that its analysis and investigation were "hindered" due to many witnesses' "lack of recall"; the refusal of many witnesses to cooperate with the investigation or give testimony; and the administration's stonewalling in disclosing documents. Citing these obstacles, the report hedges its findings, requesting a prosecutor to continue the investigation with the power to compel testimony.

In the case of Margaret Chiara, the former Western Michigan U.S. attorney, the report could find no evidence that the rumors that Chiara was in a lesbian relationship with one of her subordinates were behind her removal.

Chiara has stated publicly that she believes the rumors -- which she called "false and malicious" in a statement yesterday from her attorney -- were the reason for the loss of her position.

Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California, was believed to have been asked to resign over her prosecution of former Executive Director of the CIA, Dusty Foggo and Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who bribed former Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham and Foggo. But the report "found no evidence" to support those claims, stating that "the investigation and prosecution of Cunningham and Foggo were aggressively pursued by career prosecutors in Lam's office, both during and after her tenure."

Instead, the report supports the Department's previous claims that Lam was removed because of her poor statistics on gun and immigration prosecution statistics -- but blames the DOJ for poor handling of her removal.

In the case of Daniel Bogden of Nevada, little was known about his removal, except that he had not been diligent in prosecution of obscenity cases. The report found the claim to be behind Bogden's removal, but added some color to the removal. Interestingly, the report found that the complaints of Bodgen's dalliance in obscenity prosecutions were made by Brent Ward, the head of the DOJ Obscenity Prosecution Task Force -- who was friends with Attorney General Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson's brother and had direct conversations with Sampson regularly.

When questioned by the DOJ, Sampson stated he "did not recall whether those complaints played a role in the decision to remove Bogden," a response the report found "particularly suspect, given his role in the removal process."

In Arizona, Paul Charlton's termination was believed to be connected to his investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, but the report states that it could find no evidence to support that claim. Charlton had previously clashed with Main Justice on a decision he made to not seek the death penalty on a case involving a murder that transpired during a drug deal. Charlton believed it was this death penalty case as well as his policy of tape recording interrogations that led to his removal -- theories the IG report confirmed as the primary reasons for his dismissal.

Lastly, there is Seattle's John McKay who was believed to have been fired over his failure to prosecute voter fraud related to the 2004 Washington governor's election.

McKay famously received a call from Ed Cassidy, chief of staff to Washington Rep. Richard Hastings (R) asking about his prosecution, to which McKay responded, "Ed, I'm sure you're not about to start talking to me about the future direction of this case," after which Cassidy quickly ended the call.

Hastings claimed ignorance and told investigators that "he could not remember telling Cassidy to call McKay. . . or whether Cassidy had told him he had done so."

The report also mentions a meeting in Washington between McKay and White House Counsel Harriet Miers in which Miers reportedly asked McKay "why Republicans in the state of Washington were angry with him."

The report concludes that the "evidence suggests" that the primary reason for McKay's removal was an argument with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty over an information sharing program -- not because of failure to prosecute voter fraud as McKay conjectured.

The OIG report, though nearly 400 pages long, is far from comprehensive. The investigation lacked the power to compel testimony or documents outside of the Justice Department and were consequently limited in their investigation. As a result, the report is forced to reserve judgment on whether many of the firings were inappropriately political, though it recommends that a prosecutor be appointed to look into whether crimes were committed.

Nora Dannehy, appointed on Monday by Attorney General Michael Mukasey will take up that mantle. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to ferret the truth out of unwilling witnesses and departments.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Brent Wilkes, Bud Cummins, Carol Lam, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, David Iglesias, Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, Harriet Miers, John McKay, Justice Department, Kyle Sampson, Michael Elston, Michael Mukasey, Rick Renzi, Todd Graves, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

MO Senator and White House Played Role in Firing of U.S. Attorney

Kate Klonick | September 30, 2008, 3:53PM

New details provided by the IG report released yesterday, gives definition to former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves' termination and paints a clear case for a politicized firing orchestrated by the office of Missouri Sen. Kit Bond (R).

Graves was the last U.S. attorney to be counted among those fired through the work of Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales and Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office of the United States Attorney. His case differed from the others in many ways -- he was fired in January 2006, almost 11 months earlier than the other removed attorneys, and the circumstances around his dismissal were unclear.

But according to the report, Graves' removal was a result of multiple calls and emails from Bonds' legal counsel Jack Bartling, to members of White House Counsel -- who "kicked over" the complaints to the Justice Department.

Bond's problems with Graves' began in late fall of 2004. Bond's office had been having problems with another Missouri Congressman -- Rep. Sam Graves (R), U.S. Attorney Graves' brother. Between October and December 2004, a staffer from Bond's office reportedly called former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves to ask for his help in convincing his brother to fire his chief of staff. When Graves refused to intervene, the staffer told him "they could no longer protect [his] job," and hung up, according to the report.

Shortly after, in February 2005, Bartling began placing calls to the White House Counsel's office about Graves, pushing for a replacement. By the fall of 2005, the complaints had been passed to the Justice Department. In December, Bartling reached out again to Michael Elston, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, who had interviewed Bartling when he had been applying for a position in that department.

In a call shortly before Graves' firing, Bartling asked Elston to, "'keep his ear to the
ground' to ensure that the Senator's role in requesting White House action on
Graves was not being disseminated within the Department," and make sure that Bonds name was never linked to Graves' ouster, the report states.

A little over a month later, Battle called Graves on January 24, 2006 to ask Graves for his resignation, acting on instructions from White House Liason Monica Goodling and using a speech similar to the one he would use with the other fired U.S. attorneys less than 11 months later.

While the IG report states that its investigation was significantly hindered by a number of witnesses refusal to cooperate and/or recall events, including that of Sampson, Goodling, members of the White House Counsel staff and Sen. Bond, it clearly states that they found Graves' firing to be directly a result of Bond's requests.

Acting on the report's findings, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an ethics complaint this afternoon against Bond, stating that Sen. Bond and his staff violated Senate rules prohibiting "improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate."

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Topics: DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, Justice Department, Kyle Sampson, Michael Elston, Monica Goodling, Todd Graves, U.S. Attorneys

Kyle Sampson

Waas: DOJ Probe Has Expanded to the White House

Kate Klonick | August 7, 2008, 5:21PM

Murray Waas confirmed today something we've suspected for a long time: that the Justice Department has widened the net in the Inspector General's U.S. attorneys firing probe to include allegations that senior White House officials made false statements to Congress.

From the Huffington Post:

The Justice Department investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys has been extended to encompass allegations that senior White House officials played a role in providing false and misleading information to Congress, according to numerous sources involved in the inquiry.

. . . Federal investigators have obtained documents showing that Kyle Sampson, then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Chris Oprison, then an associate White House counsel, drafted and approved the letter even though they had first-hand knowledge that the assertions were not true.

The letter referenced was sent from the Justice Department to Congress on February 23, 2007 and denied Karl Rove's involvement in the replacement of fired U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins by Rove protege Tim Griffin.

Just a month later, however, the DOJ was forced to admit that the February letter had been "contradicted by Department documents."

Most notable in those "Department documents," was an email between Sampson and Oprison on December 19, 2006 in which Sampson wrote that getting Griffin appointed was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc." The email from Sampson, who was chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales at the time, directly contradicted the DOJ's earlier denial.

Sampson bumbled his way through an explanation of this discrepancy during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in March of 2007.

We pulled the video from our archives. Take a look:

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Topics: Justice Department, Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson

House Judiciary

Why Harriet's Got What the HJC Wants

Kate Klonick | July 31, 2008, 5:41PM

Now that we have a partial decision on House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers et al. , maybe it's a good time for a little refresher on why the HJC wanted White House documents and Miers' testimony in the first place.

Miers name came up repeatedly over the course of congressional investigations into the U.S. attorney firing scandal, over her communications with former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, Kyle Sampson.

Those communications revealed that Sampson and Miers began exchanging emails discussing the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, almost two years before those attorneys were purged from the department in December 2007. In March 2006, Sampson famously sent an email to Miers, ranking all of the sitting U.S. attorneys in order of "loyalty to the Attorney General."

Though Miers initially suggested that all 93 U.S. attorneys be dismissed, Sampson vetoed that idea, with the approval of the Attorney General, and arranged for limited dismissals, ultimately providing Miers with a seven person list of targeted candidates to be considered for removal.

Outside of the emails, others were observing politicization first hand. In the late summer of 2006, U.S. Attorney John McKay, who would be requested to resign just a few months later, described sitting down with Miers and others for an interview on a federal judgeship. McKay was asked, "why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry" with him in regards to his failure to prosecute allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race.

A few months before the U.S. attorneys were asked to resign, in September of 2006, Sampson again emailed Miers another list of possibilities, this time with nine people listed.

The majority of this information and correspondence came out in the testimony of Sampson and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the spring of 2007.

Naturally all of this piqued the interest of the House Judiciary Committee, who were also investigating the U.S. attorney firings. They subpoenaed Miers to testify, and requested relevant documents from the White House. Miers and Bolten, on behalf of the White House, both claimed executive privilege in late June, with Miers even refused to show up to the Congressional hearing.

This ticked off House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) who held both Miers and Bolten in contempt. As we discussed yesterday, the contempt vote then went to the full House for a vote, where it was upheld, and the lawsuit was filed.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, House Judiciary, Josh Bolten, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

DOJ Office Of The Inspector General

DOJ Report Shows Partisan Culture Reigned Beyond The Few Names Named

Andrew Tilghman | July 30, 2008, 6:53PM

There are still two more uncompleted inspector general reports pending -- one about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and another about political agendas in the department's Civil Rights Division.

Yet from the IG report Monday on hiring practices, it's already clear that a culture of partisanship prevailed inside the department, and many DOJ officials were playing along, some more actively than others.

"It had a significant effect throughout the department. I think one of the most significant things is people not objecting, people not standing up," Inspector General Glenn Fine told lawmakers today on Capitol Hill.

To be sure, Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson and others appear to have been serious party hacks who violated department policy and federal law by screening out prospective lawyers and judges for partisan reasons. But many others went along, if only more passively.

Take for example what Michael Elston told the IG's investigators. Elston clearly understood how Goodling and others operated and admitted to adopting a go-along, get-along attitude.

For example, Michael Elston, former Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, stated that when he sought attorneys for details to the [Office of the Deputy Attorney General], he would generally look for candidates with the type of experience required by the position, but he also looked for candidates with Republican or conservative credentials in order to get them approved by the [Office of Attorney General].

Elston said that Goodling made it clear to him that she did not want Democrats detailed to the ODAG because she had a "farm system" approach to filling vacancies in the Department, and she wanted to "credential" Republicans so that they could move on to higher political positions.

We saw an example of this in an email sent by Bradley Schlozman, the U.S. Attorney for Missouri's western district. He was sending resumes for three prospective hires to DOJ headquarters. Apparently without any prompting, Schlozman began touting their political credentials.

In his e-mail, Schlozman described the three candidates as "rock-solid Americans" who would be a "hugely positive legacy for this Administration." Schlozman described each candidate in terms of their conservative political credentials. He wrote that the first applicant's "involvement with the Bush/Cheney campaign speaks for itself."

Yes, in some cases, Goodling and others actively screened out prospective lawyers and judges for partisan reasons. But in many situations, they didn't have to. Others did it for them.

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Topics: Bradley Schlozman, Civil Rights Division, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, Glenn Fine, Kyle Sampson, Michael Elston, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

DOJ Office Of The Inspector General

For Sampson, Hiring At DOJ Was All Republicans All The Times

Andrew Tilghman | July 28, 2008, 2:37PM

The highest-ranking official flagged for breaking federal law in today's Department of Justice Inspector General's report was Kyle Sampson, a former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sampson routinely violated DOJ policy and federal law by using overt political and ideological considerations when filling key DOJ jobs such as immigration judges, according to the report today from the DOJ's Inspector General. Federal law and Justice Department policy require career officials to be hired on merit and prohibit discrimination based on political affiliations.

Federal immigration judgeships were especially targeted for politicization. In October 2003, shortly after Sampson started working at DOJ, then as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, he began to overhaul the selection process for immigration judges. "[We] were only considering essentially Republican lawyers for appointment," Sampson said, according to the IG's report. (It was not clear from the report whether Sampson said that to IG investigators or in another setting)

Prior to 2004, immigration judges were appointed in an essentially non-political bureaucratic process handled by the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. Vacancies were posted, resumes sorted, interviews conducted and decisions made by lower-level DOJ officials, according to the report.

Sampson's new process involved "coordination" with White House and an extra effort to get friends of the Bush administration into the judgeships when possible. Sampson circulated a document outlining the new process.

"Many lawyers seeking positions within the Administration, including judgeships, become known to the White House offices of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel, and Counsel to the President." The document stated that some lawyers might qualify to be IJs, and that "coordination" was needed to ensure that such lawyers were "informed of the opportunity" to become IJs.

Also, Sampson often called over to the White House personnel office seeking "ideas for immigration judge postings." Sampson told a staffer to "contact the White House to get any candidate ideas that they had for immigration judges".

In one case, Sampson pushed a prospective judicial candidate who was supported by White House political director Karl Rove.

Regarding that candidate, whose name was not disclosed, Kevin Ohlson, then deputy director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, told the IG's investigators that he was "fully aware of the fact" that Sampson was pushing Rove's pick and that was affecting the formal evaluation.

"The finger was on the scale," Ohlson said.

That candidate was ultimately appointed to be an immigration judge in October 2005, the report said.

When questioned, Sampson said he thought the Immigration judges were political appointees, not career positions, and therefore not subject to civil service rules. He said Ohlson and the Office of Legal Counsel told him that. But Ohlson said he never said anything to that effect and investigators from the IG's office found no evidence that OLC provided any guidance to Sampson on the matter.

Sampson's lawyer, Brad Berenson, said today the hiring decisions were an honest mistake and that Sampson "immediately agreed with the recommendation to put a stop to this process" when he first learned he may have been wrong.

Here's a clip of Sampson's testimony on Capitol Hill in March 2007.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, Glenn Fine, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson

DOJ Office Of The Inspector General

Conyers Considers "Criminal Referral" For Gonzales, Other DOJ Officials

Andrew Tilghman | July 28, 2008, 12:43PM

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are talking about a criminal investigation for DOJ officials -- Alberto Gonzales included.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said today's report about politicization in at the DOJ suggests that former AG Alberto Gonzales and other Justice officials may have given false statements under oath before Congress.

Conyers said in a statement this morning:

The Report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters. I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

A spokesman for the committee said the committee's lawyers are currently looking over the report and past testimony on the Hill.

That's probably not as dramatic as it sounds. Any criminal referral would be passed on to DOJ, which has so far refused to appoint a special prosecutor for the matter. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said he's not going to pursue contempt referrals from Congress.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, House Judiciary, John Ashcroft, Kyle Sampson, Michael Mukasey, Monica Goodling

DOJ Office Of The Inspector General

Inspector General Releases Report on Monica Goodling Hirings

Kate Klonick | July 28, 2008, 10:31AM

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility released another part of their investigation into the politicization of the DOJ. The full report, "An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General," can be found here (pdf).

We'll be reading through and posting on this all day. But at first glance here's a quite relevant section:

In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct, when she considered political or ideological affiliations in hiring decisions for candidates for career positions within the Department. In particular, the evidence showed that she considered political or ideological affiliations in deciding several waiver requests from interim U.S. Attorneys, in promoting several candidates for career positions, and in disapproving a candidate for an EOUSA career SES position.

Late update: Here are the names of other implicated in the report:
former Chief of Staff to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson; Goodling's predecessor, former White House Liason Jan Williams, and EOUSA (Executive Office for United States Attorneys) Director John Nowacki-- who is still at the department. The report states that Nowacki knew of the politicization of the DOJ but drafted a press statement saying otherwise. Of Sampson, Williams and Goodling the report states:

In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs [immigration judges], which are career positions protected by the civil service laws.

Late late update: Attorney General Michael Mukasey released a statement saying he is "of course disturbed" by the findings of the OIG report:

I have said many times, both to members of the public and to Department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career Department employees. And I have acted, and will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the Department.

Over the course of the last year and a half, the Justice Department has made many institutional changes to remedy the problems discussed in today's report, and the report itself commends these changes. The report includes one new recommendation for institutional change, and I have directed the prompt implementation of that recommendation. It is crucial that the American people have confidence in the propriety of what we do and how we do it, and I will continue my efforts to make certain they can have such confidence.

Late late late update: The report also investigates whether officials (namely Williams, Goodling and Nowacki) gave "inaccurate or misleading" information to investigators, attorneys in civil-suits, and higher-ups at the DOJ.

Late late late late update: We think it's important to note that the former Attorney Generals Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft, who presided over the DOJ through all of this, were not implicated in the report.

The report also details some of the questions Goodling used for her interviews, here's a pithy little excerpt:

Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

And our personal favorite:

Why are you a Republican?

Of the Goodling and Angela Williamson (the Deputy White House Liason) interviewees, 34 persons said they discussed abortion, and 21 said they discussed gay marriage.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, Glenn Fine, Justice Department, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling

U.S. Attorneys

USA Scandal: Where Are They Now?

Paul Kiel | October 31, 2007, 1:25PM

So what's next for Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson? Where does a senior Justice Department official with an expertise in politicization, who has experience orchestrating a purge of prosecutors, engaging in a clumsy cover-up, and getting drubbed when testifying before Congress, go next?

The answer: working for drug companies. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Sampson has landed a gig with the mega-firm Hunton & Williams, in their food and drug practice. There, Sampson will help companies navigate the wilds of Food and Drug Administration regulation, among other duties. The Tribune also reports that the firm has landed a much bigger fish in Sheldon Bradshaw, who, in true revolving door fashion, recently resigned as general counsel of the FDA. Bradshaw also has DoJ experience -- he was one of the political appointees overseeing the notoriously politicized Civil Rights Division. So he and Sampson will likely get along fine.

But wait! Let's not forget Bradley Schlozman who had his own version of what a "loyal Bushie" is -- his phrase for it was "good Americans." Earlier this month, The Kansas City Star reported that Schlozman has opted for a quiet retirement from his rigorous politicization duties at the Department. He'll be practicing tax law at a Kansas City law firm.

The troubles of both, however, are not over, as they are both currently under investigation by the Department's inspector general, whose report on the mess at the DoJ is still forthcoming.

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Topics: Bradley Schlozman, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Justice Department Investigators Probe Hiring Practices

Paul Kiel | August 31, 2007, 11:16AM

Do you believe in God? Are you gay? Have you cheated on your spouse? What's your position on abortion? Should gays be allowed to marry? Have you contributed to Republican candidates? What kind of conservative are you?

Welcome to Bush's Department of Justice. Those are just some of the questions that investigators think may have been asked during interviews for both career and political positions at the Department over the past three years.

They come from a questionnaire (pdf) sent out from the Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility, the two offices conducting the joint investigation of politicization at the DoJ. The questionnaire (as reported yesterday by Bloomberg and The Washington Post) recently went out to an untold number of people who'd applied for spots at the DoJ. Investigators are trying to get a hold on how widely politicized the hiring process was at the Department.

Former Department White House liaison Monica Goodling admitted to "crossing the line" with regard to career employee hiring decisions when she testified before Congress. But she was pretty hazy about the details. (Did she ask about political contributions? She couldn't "rule that out.")

Read more »

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

Karl Rove

Goodling, Sampson Attended Rove Political Briefing

Paul Kiel | August 6, 2007, 3:39PM

As The Washington Post reported over the weekend, Justice Department officials attended a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001. You can see the Justice Department's catalog of the briefings here.

Karl Rove and his aides, remember, delivered the briefings for agency officials throughout the government. Briefing slides from a presentation at the General Services Administration and the State Department show that Rove's shop lectured the officials on which GOP incumbents were vulnerable. It wasn't publicly known until Friday that Rove had included Department officials in his briefing circuit. White House aides have defended the briefings by saying they were merely meant to "inform" appointees by giving them the "political landscape."

As you can see, most briefings were attended by the White House liaison at the Department, and a number were delivered by Karl Rove himself.

Most notable is a September 5, 2006 briefing for "agency Chiefs of Staff and White House Liaisons" at the White House; both Kyle Sampson, Gonzales former chief of staff, and Monica Goodling, the White House liaison, were scheduled to attend. Rove led the briefing.

These, of course, were the two 30-something senior staffers at the center of the U.S. attorney firings, and the briefing was given shortly before the firing process entered its final stage. One week after the briefing, Sampson sent then-White House counsel Harriet Miers another draft list of U.S. attorneys to fire -- the first such list he'd drafted for more than six months. There's no evidence that the briefing, which was given to political appointees from a number of agencies, led directly to the generation of that list, but surely it helped Sampson and Goodling, who were at the forefront of the politicization of the Department, to be well apprised of "the political landscape."

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Topics: Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

How Immigration Judge Spots Went Political -- and Went Back

Paul Kiel | May 29, 2007, 6:10PM

Last week, Monica Goodling revealed that she'd routinely placed Republicans in civil service spots, including immigration judge positions. As she was eventually forced to concede under hard questioning, doing that was against the law.

But it also became apparent that the practice was nothing new -- and that it dated at least back to 2004, before Goodling got involved. That's how people like Garry Malphrus, a former Brooks Brother rioter with no immigration experience, became a judge.

Today The Legal Times fills in the blanks. And as Jason McLure and Emma Schwartz plainly put it, "As with the replacement of U.S. attorneys, political appointees at the Justice Department appear to have trod upon department norms — and may have even broken federal law — to reward their own people with plum assignments."

The slide began during John Ashcroft's tenure, they report, when Ashcroft's aides got the idea. They went to the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department's internal legal advisor, for the go-ahead. And they got it.

That process of consultation, however, seems to have been oddly casual for such a shift in policy. According to a statement by Monica Goodling's lawyer, Kyle Sampson got an oral opinion from the then-head of the OLC that it was legal.

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U.S. Attorneys

Email Raises More Questions about Rove's Role in U.S. Attorney Appointment

Paul Kiel | May 25, 2007, 5:17PM

It's been apparent from very early in the U.S. attorney scandal that Tim Griffin, the former aide to Karl Rove who was appointed the U.S. attorney for Little Rock, was different from the others.

Emails show that White House and Justice Department officials worked together for months to install Griffin, dating back to last summer. Rove's aides in the White House Office of Political Affairs were intimately involved. Up until now, however, there had been no evidence of direct communication between Rove and Griffin about the appointment. But an email contained in documents released earlier this week shows Griffin directly emailing Rove and his deputies in the White House Office of Political Affairs (click to enlarge):

David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico who was among those fired last year, told me that he thought the direct contact was "really inappropriate and over the line." The only time he ever contacted anyone there, he said, was to return phone calls about job opportunities. He'd twice been considered for positions, he said: once as director for Executive Office of United States Attorneys and another time as the assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The White House had called to see if he was interested in the appointments; he told them he was not. He said that he'd never heard of a U.S. attorney speaking to someone in the Office of Political Affairs for any other reason.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

The email, dated February 16, 2007, shows Griffin forwarding a copy of a local news article about his announcement that he would not seek Senate confirmation. Griffin wrote Rove, three of his deputies, and Christopher Oprison of the White House counsel's office that he was "glad" that he "did this" ("this" presumably being his announcement not to seek the nomination), and explaining why he'd taken a "swipe" at Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR).

Griffin had been a controversial figure ever since his December 15th appointment, due not least to his ties to Rove. But Sen. Pryor had been most alarmed by the administration's apparent scheme -- which Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson laid out in a December 19, 2006 email that was later turned over to Congress in March -- to appoint Griffin indefinitely without Senate confirmation, via a little noticed provision in the USA PATRIOT ACT Reauthorization bill. Griffin's appointment drew even more scrutiny after it was revealed in January that at least six other U.S. attorneys besides Griffin's predecessor Bud Cummins had been fired by the administration.

“It’s unfortunate," Griffin is quoted as saying in the article, "that Sen. Pryor is blaming the administration for using a law that he voted for to appoint me, apparently with the excuse that he didn’t know what he was voting for when he voted." After explaining in the email to Rove why he'd said that, Griffin added, "I am going to go back to focusing on my job until I am told otherwise."

Responding to the email, Michael Teague, spokesman for Sen. Pryor, wondered how many other contacts Griffin had with Rove. "This is just an email. Was he calling him every day?"

In fact, the email was only produced by the Justice Department because Oprison of the White House counsel's office had forwarded it on to Monica Goodling at the Justice Department, who forwarded it to Kyle Sampson the same morning. Despite requests from Congress, the White House has not produced any emails related to the firings.

Sampson's and Oprison's appearance in the email raises an additional question.

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Topics: David Iglesias, Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

From Brooks Brother Rioter to Judge

Paul Kiel | May 25, 2007, 12:34PM

Monica Goodling says she was given the green light to hire immigration judges based on their political qualifications. So how'd that happen? And who's been getting the gig?

As a story in The Legal Times last year explained, immigration judges are different from other federal judges in that they're civil service employees -- meaning that there's a formal application process with the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review.

But, Jason McLure reported, "according to an immigration-judge hiring policy released by the Justice Department, the attorney general also has the option to pre-empt the formal vetting process and directly hire a judge of his choosing."

It was apparently this option that allowed Goodling, and others at the department before her, to do their thing.

So who's been getting the gig? The Times last year profiled one of those judges, Garry Malphrus.

A former Republican aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Malphrus also worked on the White House's Domestic Policy Council before becoming a judge. But he really showed his stripes in 2000, when Malphrus joined other Republicans in making a ruckus (chanting, pounding on windows and doors) outside the Miami-Dade Elections Department -- the so-called "Brooks Brothers Riot" -- during the Bush-Gore recount.

Malphrus, of course, had no immigration experience when he got the job, McLure reports. He had that in common with a number of his peers, who had similar backgrounds:

Among the 19 immigration judges hired since 2004: Francis Cramer, the former campaign treasurer for New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg; James Nugent, the former vice chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party; and Chris Brisack, a former Republican Party county chairman from Texas who had served on the state library commission under then-Gov. George W. Bush.

But why bother becoming an immigration judge? Well, the salary isn't bad ($113,904 in 2006) and "unlike his former colleagues at the White House, as a career civil service employee, Malphrus won’t be out of work should Republicans lose the White House in 2008." And as a friend of Malphrus tells McLure, "I think he's just working his way up the totem pole."

Now, here's the thing. Malphrus and all the others cited in McLure's piece were appointed before Goodling became White House liaison in April, 2005.

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U.S. Attorneys

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | May 25, 2007, 9:51AM

More answers, more questions.

The Justice Department's Inspector General has broadened his investigation of the U.S. attorney firings, The Los Angeles Times and New York Times report this morning, to cover Monica Goodling's and others' political hiring of career employees at the department.

And there would seem to be plenty of material there for investigation. For instance, Goodling admitted on Wednesday that she'd openly taken political factors into account in hiring immigration judges.

For good reason, those are civil service positions, not political positions -- and they're supposed to be governed by civil service laws (meaning people are supposedly hired for their professional qualifications, not their partisan ones). They handle matters like deportation proceedings and political asylum requests. And there are only 226 of them. As the NY Times points out, approximately 75 of those "have been appointed during the Bush administration," 49 of those during Gonzales' tenure. So there can be no doubt that Goodling's political hiring practices have had an impact on the nation's immigration proceedings.

Now, in her testimony, Goodling said that Kyle Sampson had told her that there was no problem with taking politics into account in hiring immigration judges. And the reason, he said, was that the department's Office of Legal Counsel had said it was OK. But...

Justice Department officials said no such opinion existed.

They also denied Goodling's assertion that the hiring of immigration judges had been frozen after the department's civil division raised concerns about using a political litmus test.

"There is no disagreement within the department, including between the civil division and the Office of Legal Counsel, about whether the civil service laws apply to the appointment of immigration judges," said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. "They do apply."

As Marty Lederman puts it, "Something is happening here, but we don't know what it is. Goodling obviously knew that her conduct in this regard was dubious, and testified about it even though no one had raised any question about it previously, so as to ensure that her immunity would extend to this episode, as well. (She was very well-advised by John Dowd.)"

To hear Goodling tell it, she was assured by the attorney general's chief of staff that there was a legal basis for stocking the nation's immigration courts with political loyalists -- when no such legal basis existed. And the Justice Department now disavows this activity all together. So how much did Alberto Gonzales know about this? And how much did the White House know? More questions...

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Must Read, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson to Comey: There's No "I" in "Team"

Paul Kiel | May 21, 2007, 10:39AM

From U.S. News:

Soon after Gonzales became attorney general, his then chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Comey that Gonzales's "vision" was to merge the deputy's office with Gonzales's own office. That meant that Comey would have lost some of his autonomy, becoming less of a leader and more of a senior staff member. A source close to Sampson says he merely wanted Gonzales and Comey to operate as a "seamless leadership team," with "harmony rather than conflict," and never meant to "degrade the status or authority" of the deputy. Comey didn't buy it. "You may want to try that with the next deputy attorney general," Comey is said to have responded to Sampson. "But it's not going to work with me."

No wonder Comey didn't last long under Gonzales.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson: Rove Aide Was "Upset"

Paul Kiel | May 16, 2007, 3:52PM

In Sen. Pat Leahy's (D-VT) letter to the White House today was a bit of news. A bit of bad news for Alberto Gonzales.

According to Sen. Leahy, Kyle Sampson has told congressional investigators that when Alberto Gonzales finally nixed the plan to permanently install Karl Rove's former aide as a U.S. attorney without Senate confirmation, Rove's senior aide Sara Taylor was "upset." And according to Sampson's testimony, Gonzales didn't say no until late in the game -- when the U.S. attorney firings controversy was already gaining steam. That's not what Gonzales told Congress.

When Gonzales testified before the Senate last month, he claimed that he'd always rejected the idea of using a Patriot Act provision to appoint handpicked U.S. attorneys and keep them in place indefinitely without Senate confirmation as "interim" U.S. attorneys. In a December 19, 2006 email to the White House, Kyle Sampson had specifically advocated using the provision to install Timothy Griffin, Rove's former aide who was installed as the U.S. attorney for Little Rock, over the objections of the state's two Democratic senators. But Gonzales said that he'd never seen that email and he'd never considered Sampson's plan. "I didn't consider it and wouldn't consider it," Gonzales testified.

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Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | May 11, 2007, 9:51AM

If at first you don't succeed, investigate again.

That, at least, seems to be Karl Rove's philosophy.

As McClatchy and The Washington Post report this morning, Rove requested last October that the Justice Department investigate allegations of voter fraud in three jurisdictions. Those three were Milwaukee, New Mexico and Philadelphia -- all battleground states.

The White House really put the heat on. McClatchy reports that at least twice in October, Rove or his deputies passed on word of the allegations to Kyle Sampson. In addition, both Rove and President Bush raised the issue with Alberto Gonzales the same month.

Sampson, in turn, passed on the allegations to a Justice Department official named Matthew Friedrich. Friedrich dutifully agreed "to find out whether Justice officials knew of 'rampant' voter fraud or 'lax' enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back."

Friedrich has told congressional investigators that Sampson also gave him a 30-page report prepared by Wisconsin Republicans about voter fraud in Milwaukee. Sampson apparently expected Friedrich to pass it on to the department's criminal division. Friedrich says he didn't do that because that would "violate strict Justice rules that limit the pursuit of voter-related investigations close to an election." (At least someone in the Justice Department cares about that rule.)

Now, you can see that 30-page report, titled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary" here (pdf, see page 10). As the title would indicate, it was nothing but a collection of news clippings related to voter fraud allegations in Milwaukee... in the 2004 election.

Two things about that. First, it appears that Rove wanted the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of two-year old allegations right before the 2006 election. But second, these allegations had already been investigated -- as part of the most comprehensive effort by a U.S. attorney's office to investigate voter fraud in the entire country. The U.S. attorney there, Steven Biskupic, launched a joint task force with local prosecutors to probe allegations of fraud in the 2004 election. Finally, more than a year after the election, Biskupic announced that the task force hadn't in fact found evidence of a conspiracy to steal the election. But prosecutors nevertheless prosecuted nearly twenty individual cases for a variety of voting-related offenses (Biskupic's office handled 14). No U.S. attorney office in the country can touch those numbers.

But that apparently wasn't good enough for Rove, who thought that Biskupic had been "lax" in his approach to voter fraud.

The only thing that saved Biskupic from being fired, according to the Post, is that "Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty argued against the firing, saying it would 'not be a wise thing to do politically' and could raise 'the ire' of Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who had recommended Biskupic and was then chairman of the House Judiciary Committee."

David Iglesias of New Mexico, obviously, wasn't so lucky. Nevermind that, together with Biskupic, he was the only other U.S. attorney to have launched a voter fraud task force in the 2004 election -- and that the Justice Department had him and Biskupic teach a seminar on election crimes. He hadn't convinced the person whose opinion matters most at the Justice Department: Karl Rove's.

Note: In case you're wondering about the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia and why he wasn't fired.... Pat Meehan was formerly senior counsel to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), formerly the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- now the ranking member. If they didn't want to risk the ire of Rep. Sensenbrenner, they certainly didn't want an angry Sen. Specter.

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Topics: Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Must Read, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

NJ: Withheld Emails Show White House Signed Off on False Statements

Paul Kiel | May 10, 2007, 1:26PM

Murray Waas has a new story on the U.S. attorney firings, this one leading to the inescapable conclusion that the administration was complicit in attempts to cover up White House involvement in the firings.

The revelations come from emails that the Justice Department is withholding from Congress.

A "senior executive branch offiical" tells Waas that it's no accident that Congress hasn't gotten their hands on these documents:

"If [Gonzales] didn't know everything that was going on when it went down, that is one thing," this official said. "But he knows and understands chapter and verse. If there was an effort within Justice and the White House to mislead Congress, it is his duty to disclose that to Congress."

A "senior administration official" adds that "Gonzales is doing this to save his own neck."

So what documents are we talking about? The story deals with two separate letters that the Justice Department sent to Congress about the firings.

The first was a January 31 letter to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK) assuring him that "not once" had the administration considered using the Patriot Act provision to install Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's former aide, as the U.S. attorney for Little Rock. The provision allowed the attorney general to appoint interim U.S. attorneys indefinitely without Senate confirmation.

Of course, Kyle Sampson had been pushing to use the provision for months -- and had communicated the plan to the White House.

But when it came time to answer questions about it, the White House signed off on a letter saying that they had never contemplated such a thing. And the withheld documents show that Christopher Oprison was the White House official who signed off on the letter -- that's funny because Kyle Sampson had layed out the plan to use the Patriot Act provision to appoint Griffin in an email to Oprison just a month before.

The second letter in the piece is a February 23rd letter to Congress that claimed that Karl Rove hadn't had any role in appointing Griffin. Fittingly, Oprison also signed off on that one -- even though Sampson had written him in an email in December that Griffin's appointment was "important to Karl."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto tells Waas that "Chris did not recall Karl's interest when he reviewed the letter."

But Fratto also says that "We have no record of that letter ever leaving the White House counsel's office." In other words, they never bothered to ask Karl Rove or any one in his office to check whether the statement was true. And they just forgot that Sampson earlier had boasted about Rove's interest. Huh.

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Topics: Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

DoJ Releases Gonzales' Secret Hiring Order

Paul Kiel | May 9, 2007, 12:26PM

Well, here it is, so you can read it yourself, the secret order signed by Alberto Gonzales in March of last year that gave Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, two young aides with close ties to the White House, the power to hire and fire junior political appointees at the Justice Department (click to enlarge):

You can expect to hear a number of questions about the order tomorrow.

Update: Marty Lederman has a helpful dissection of the order's meaning and motivation over at Balkinization.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | May 1, 2007, 9:18AM

I think we've identified a rule of Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department: the more senior you are in the leadership, the less of a clue you have of what's going on there.

We were all treated to Gonzales' historical display of bumbling amnesia before the Senate Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago. Now we learn that the second in command, Paul McNulty, wasn't really in the loop, either. From The Washington Post:

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told congressional investigators that he had limited involvement in the firing last year of eight U.S. attorneys and that he did not choose any to be removed, congressional aides familiar with his statements said yesterday.

McNulty said he provided erroneous testimony to Congress in February because he had not been informed that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides had been working with the White House on the firings for nearly two years, the congressional aides said.

Put this together with the news yesterday that McNulty, along with other members of the senior leadership in the department, had been cut out of the hiring and firing process for junior political appointees, and it's clear that he really didn't have much to do with running the place. From all evidence, that responsibility fell to Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, two young aides who acted as little more than proxies for the White House.

As Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) puts it: "If the top folks at DOJ weren't the key decision-makers, it's less likely that lower-down people at DOJ were, and much more likely that people in the White House were making the major decisions."

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Must Read, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

NJ: Secret Gonzales Order Put Young Aides in Charge

Paul Kiel | April 30, 2007, 7:03PM

If you needed further convincing that Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling -- the two young Justice Department aides who have resigned due to their roles in the U.S. attorney firings -- were major players at the Department, Murray Waas has it.

In March of 2006, Waas reports, Alberto Gonzales signed a secret order that gave Goodling and Sampson the authority to hire and fire senior political appointees at the department -- the decisions only required Gonzales' authorization. It cut out other members of the department's senior leadership from the hiring and firing process.

The order, an official described only as a "senior executive branch official" explains to Waas, "'was an attempt to make the department more responsive to the political side of the White House and to do it in such a way that people would not know it was going on.'" Goodling, remember, was the Justice Department's liaison with the White House.

Now, the order dealt with a narrow class of political appointees at the Justice Department: officials who were above the career level, but not so high that they were subject to Senate confirmation. That means Sampson and Goodling couldn't replace the highest ranked officials, but could replace those slightly lower in rank. Here's an idea of what that would mean:

A senior Justice Department official, who did not know of Gonzales's delegation of authority until contacted by National Journal, said that it posed a serious threat to the integrity of the criminal-justice system because it gave Sampson, Goodling, and the White House control over the hiring of senior officials in the Justice Department's Criminal Division, which oversees all politically sensitive public corruption cases, at the same time that they held authority to hire and fire U.S. attorneys.

"If you are controlling who is going to be a U.S. attorney and who isn't going to be,... firing them outside the traditional process... and the same people are deciding who are going to be their supervisors back in Washington... there is too much of a potential for mischief, for abuse," the official said.

Waas doesn't point to anyone in particular who was hired or fired by Goodling or Sampson, but it would seem just a matter of time before we find out.

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Lawyer: That's No Contradiction

Paul Kiel | April 13, 2007, 5:08PM

As I pointed out earlier, one of the documents released today apparently catches Kyle Sampson in another bind.

And during a conference call with reporters today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Sampson had not been fully honest with the committee last month. At issue is whether Sampson gave a false impression when he said that he didn't have "in mind any replacements" for any of the U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign.

"He left a clear impression that they did not have people in mind for a replacement," Schumer said, calling it "extremely troubling."

"The contradictions continue to pile up.... The issue of replacements now becomes central."

But Sampson's lawyer Bradford Berenson released a statement that there's no contradiction here:

"Kyle's testimony regarding the consideration of replacements was entirely accurate. In December 2006, when the seven U.S. Attorneys were asked to step down, no specific candidate had been selected to replace any of them, and Kyle had none in mind. Some names had been tentatively suggested for discussion much earlier in the process, but by the time the decision to ask for the resignations was made, none had been chosen to serve as a replacement. Most, if not all, had long since ceased even to be possibilities."

So it goes.

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U.S. Attorneys

You Call That A Contradiction?

Paul Kiel | April 13, 2007, 2:59PM

It's just become a routine of the U.S. attorney scandal -- pinpointing a contradiction between something Kyle Sampson wrote or said and something else Sampson wrote or said... and then watching him try to wriggle out of it.

Here for instance, is a mind-bending dodge from last month's hearing. He carefully explained why he wrote in an email last year that Timothy Griffin's appointment was "important to Karl" and then prepared a letter to Congress in February that said the department wasn't aware of Karl Rove having any role in Griffin's appointment. I'd summarize his answer here, but it's complicated.

And here we go again.

As I noted earlier, one of today's documents shows Kyle Sampson suggesting possible replacements for U.S. attorneys to be fired. And as Dan Eggen points out in The Washington Post....

During the March 29 hearing, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked Sampson whether he had specific replacements in mind for seven of the prosecutors before they were fired on Dec. 7.

"I personally did not," Sampson replied. "On December 7th, I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign."

But, of course, there's an answer. From ABC News:

"There was some early brainstorming about possible replacements for one or more of the U.S. attorneys who were ultimately terminated. By the time they were let go in December 2006, no specific replacements had been identified or decided upon among any of the seven," one source with knowledge of the discussions about the firings told ABC News.

Nothing to see here.

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U.S. Attorneys

Sampson Suggested Replacements Revealed

Paul Kiel | April 13, 2007, 12:23PM

Well, we have our first notable document of the day.

On January 9, 2006, Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson wrote White House counsel Harriet Miers with a version of the U.S. attorney firing plan.

On his list of U.S. attorneys to be fired, he included four of the U.S. attorneys who were ultimately canned: U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins, western Michigan's Margaret Chiara, San Francisco's Kevin Ryan, and San Diego's Carol Lam.

Sampson suggested replacements for all of them. The only one who ultimately was installed was Karl Rove's former aide, Tim Griffin. In a previous version of the document, Sampson's suggested replacements for the others were redacted. But in this version, they're not.

And the documents show that the other replacements were similarly connected in the administration. Samspon recommended Rachel Brand, for instance, for western Michigan. She's been an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department since 2005.

Others of Sampson's candidates were eventually placed elsewhere as U.S. attorneys. Deborah Rhodes was suggested for Lam's spot -- she was a counselor at the Justice Department but was installed as the U.S. Attorney for southern Alabama instead. Jeffrey Taylor was also suggested Lam's spot -- but he's now the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. He was a counselor to the attorney general from 2002 until 2006.

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson: If I Had It To Do Over....

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 7:31PM

Here it is, the culmination of the hearing, where a very, very tired Kyle Sampson admits that if he had it to do all over again, well...

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U.S. Attorneys

Sampson: We Didn't Consider Corruption Investigations

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 6:45PM

Here, Kyle Sampson claims that it didn't even cross his mind, nor was it an issue, that Carol Lam was in the middle of a sprawling public corruption investigation when she was fired.

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Topics: Carol Lam, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson Admits Lam Was Never Confronted on Immigration

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 6:22PM

Here it is, under questioning by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kyle Sampson admits that Carol Lam was never told of the Justice Department's disaffection with her performance on immigration prosecutions, the supposed reason for her firing.

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Topics: Carol Lam, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Specter Questions Sampson on Avoiding the Senate

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 5:39PM

Under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sampson testifies about his "bad idea" to circumvent Senate confirmation for the appointment of Tim Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Arkansas.

"I did not think the White House would consider doing that in 92 districts," he said, meaning that he only intended to use it for Griffin. "In my discussions at the staff level with folks at the White House, I believe it was a consideration then... at the staff level, we discussed it." But he says it wasn't adopted by "the principals" (meaning Harriet Miers).

Upon further questioning by Specter, he admits that he spoke with Gonzales about the idea. "I don't think he liked the idea very much," Sampson says. He's then asked whether Gonzales specifically rejected it and says that he did after speaking with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) about the appointment of Griffin. But it's unclear when that conversation was.

Sampson says it could have been in late December or early January. When Specter asks whether that was after Sampson wrote in a December 19, 2007 email that they should use the provision, Sampson says it was.

He says he has no recollection of Harriet Miers rejecting the idea.

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson Testifies about Conversation with Gonzales about Iglesias

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 4:51PM

Sen. Pat Leahy asks Kyle Sampson how David Iglesias ended up on the list of prosecutors to be purged, and Sampson replies,

"I don't remember hearing any complaints or anything about Mr. Iglesias' handling of corruption cases in New Mexico -- I do remember learning from, I believe, the attorney general, that he had received a complaint from Karl Rove about U.S. attorneys in 3 jurisdictions, including New Mexico. The substance of the complaint was that they were not pursuing voter fraud complaints aggressively enough."

The video:

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales, David Iglesias, Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson Suggested Removing Fitzgerald

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 3:30PM

Here's Kyle Sampson's testimony about suggesting to White House counsel Harriet Miers and deputy White House counsel Bill Kelley that they remove U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asks if Fitzgerald was ever considered for removal?

Sampson says:

"On one occasion in 2006, in discussing the removal of U.S. attorneys... that I was speaking with Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley and I raised Pat Fitzgerald, and immediately after I did it, I regretted it. I thought, I knew it was the wrong thing to do, I knew it was inappropriate. And I remember at the time that Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley just looked at me.... I said, "Patrick Fitzgerald could be added to this list."... They just looked at me."

Durbin asks why he suggested that. And Sampson says he doesn't know why, that maybe it was just to "get a reaction out of them."

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Sampson Explains Rove's Role in U.S. Attorney Nomination

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 2:54PM

Watch Kyle Sampson thread the needle on Karl Rove's involvement in the appointment of his former aide Timothy Griffin to be the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Arkansas.

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Republicans Stop Sampson Hearing... And Then It Starts Again

Paul Kiel | March 29, 2007, 2:40PM

While Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was talking, Senate Judiciary Chairman suddenly interrupted him to say,

"we've just received word that the Republicans have objected under the Senate rules to this meeting continuing. I think that's unfortunate, but I will follow the rules of the Senate... The Republicans are the ones who don't want to have the hearings, the Republicans have the right under the rules to do that.... we will stand in recess until the Senate recesses."

Whatever the disruption, apparently it was immediately reversed. Republicans are saying that it was based on a misunderstanding. Now we're back on.

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Topics: Kyle Sampson, U.S. Attorneys