Sara Taylor

Whitehouse: Who's "We?"

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 4:53PM

"Bud is lazy – which is why we got rid of him in the first place."

That's what Sara Taylor, Karl Rove's senior aide, wrote to Kyle Sampson in February of this year. During the hearing this morning, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wanted to know: who was "we"?* Who'd decided that U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins was lazy? And who decided on that basis to "get rid of him?" It certainly doesn't sound from the email that this was the Justice Department's decision.

A few answers, several digressions, and many minutes later, Taylor finally refused to answer the question and invoked executive privilege to protect internal White House deliberations.

Sen. Whitehouse responded that it was a prime example of the "ludicrous and extreme" assertion of privilege by the administration that Taylor couldn't testify about an email that the committee already had.

It's case in point for why Democrats want to hear more from Taylor and others to find out whether the White House was behind the firings.

*Note: "We," Taylor said, was "the administration" -- of which both Justice Department appointees and White House officials are a part.

Taylor apologized earlier in the hearing for calling Cummins lazy.

U.S. Attorneys

Whitehouse Presses Taylor on Rove Briefings

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 1:13PM

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former U.S. attorney himself, pursued the most grueling, unrelenting and outright damning line of questioning of the day.

Whitehouse wanted an answer to a simple question. The topic was those by-now famous briefings that Karl Rove and his aides (Taylor included) gave at a number of agencies throughout the federal government. The slides from one of those briefings, given at the General Services Administration, showed that Rove's aides had briefed officials there on which Republican Congressional candidates were in danger.

Whitehouse wanted to know: during those briefings that Taylor gave, did she mention the "names of particular candidates?"

It took about three minutes for a rambling, stuttering Taylor to admit it. Taylor didn't want to. She talked about how the briefings were "informative," how they were meant to "thank employees," how they were meant to impart some knowledge about the "political landscape." Finally, she admitted, "It's hard to give the landscape without talking about the people who were the stars in the show."

But she wanted to make clear: “The purpose of those briefings was to inform people, it was not to direct people.” That, of course, is the narrow distinction on which Rove has relied.

U.S. Attorneys

Taylor: "I Took An Oath to The President"

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 12:57PM

"I took an oath the president, and I take that oath very seriously," Sara Taylor said in answer to a question early in the hearing.

And right after a break, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked her if she was sure about that. "Did you mean, perhaps, you took an oath to the Constitution?" Leahy asked. It was a telling exchange.

"I know that the president refers to the government being his government -- it's not," Leahy reminded her.

U.S. Attorneys

Maybe Clinton Got Away with It?

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 12:35PM

A couple revealing moments from the hearing:

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Taylor whether any other administrations had fired 10% of the U.S. attorneys in the middle of a term. The answer is no. But Taylor wasn't sure -- maybe Clinton or Reagan had done it in a "more artful" way?

Later, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) wanted to know whether Taylor had ever gotten specific complaints from Republicans around the country about certain U.S. attorneys. Taylor said she couldn't remember, because she'd gotten so many complaints about so many things. In fact, Taylor said, “I can’t remember what I had for breakfast last week.”

U.S. Attorneys

Taylor: Sorry for Calling Fired USA "Lazy"

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 12:22PM

The former U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins was going to step down, and Karl Rove's former aide Timothy Griffin was just the logical one to replace him -- that's the story Sara Taylor told today, under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA).

You can see her lay it out here:

It all sounds so harmless. But there's a number of problems with that. First, if Bud Cummins had long planned to step down, no one told him that. Taylor cited press accounts that Cummins was looking to retire as U.S. attorney, but Cummins had not informed his superiors at the Justice Department that he was leaving and had not requested to be replaced. And when Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last February, he said that Cummins had been fired in order for Griffin to take his place.

Taylor couldn't account for that discrepancy, only saying that everything would gone better (it was "awkwardly handled") if there had been "better communication."

But there's another problem with that, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointed out in her questioning.

Taylor had written in an email to Kyle Sampson after the firings that Cummins was "lazy," which was "why we got rid of him in the first place."

Taylor apologized to Feinstein for that "unnecessary comment" and said that she'd "heard that," but that it was not a fair comment.

U.S. Attorneys

Taylor Used Off-The-Record Email to Be "Efficient"

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 11:20AM

Karl Rove and his aides at the White House have regularly used email accounts provided by the Republican National Committee to send and receive emails that should have been sent and received on the official White House system under the Presidential Records Act. When Sen. Leahy asked Taylor about this, she said that the email system had been created in order to avoid violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government resources for political means.

That's true, of course, except that Rove and his aides seem to have used the RNC emails for just about everything, regardless of whether it was a political matter. When Leahy pressed Taylor as to why she'd emailed Justice Department aide Kyle Sampson about the replacement of U.S. attorneys using her RNC account, Taylor answered that she'd done it as "someone trying to be efficient with their time." If so, Rove's shop must have been very efficient.

U.S. Attorneys

Taylor Refuses to Answer about Conversations with President

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 11:13AM

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wanted to know: Since the 2004 election, had Sara Taylor spoken with the president about replacing U.S. attorneys?

Taylor declined to answer, citing the president's invocation of privilege. Leahy replied that he wasn't after the content of the discussion, just whether it occurred. Taylor declined again.

It's just a sample of the testimony as it's progressed this morning, where Taylor has actually answered a number of questions that would seem to be covered by privilege, but not others. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) later remarked that Taylor's willingness to answer certain questions had "weakened" the White House's claim of privilege.

Update: Later in the hearing, Taylor answered the question -- it was no.

U.S. Attorneys

"Our Quarrel is Not with You"

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 10:28AM

That's from Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) opening statement at the hearing, as he made a point of saying that the Senate Judiciary Committee's fight is not with Sara Taylor, but "with the White House," which, he said, had issued a "gag order" in the form of an assertion of executive privilege.

Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) said that he hoped that the committee would not seek to cite Taylor with contempt for refusing to answer questions that the president claimed was protected by privilege.

U.S. Attorneys

Former Rove Aide Testifies before the Senate

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2007, 10:03AM

Sara Taylor, until recently Karl Rove's former aide at the White House, will begin her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a matter of minutes.

You can see Taylor's opening statement here. In it, she says that she intends "to follow the President's instruction" and not testify about conversations she had at the White House about the U.S. attorney firings. However, there may still be certain questions she can answer:

"While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee's need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege...

I look forward to answering those questions not covered by the President's assertion of executive privilege."

We'll bring you updates as the hearing (which will probably be relatively short) continues.

Update: For those wanting to watch, the hearing is on C-Span3 and streaming from the committee's website.