http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/041707a.htmlGOP Senators Misled on Prosecutor
By Richard L. Fricker
April 18, 2007
The Bush administration fed Republican senators misleading talking points that hailed the prosecutorial experience of interim Little Rock U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin, although the protégé of White House political adviser Karl Rove appears never to have actually tried a criminal case.
The Justice Department and White House sent talking points and other information to Congress stressing the 38-year-old Griffin’s “significant experience as a federal prosecutor at both the Department of Justice and as a military prosecutor.” Republican senators then echoed those assessments of Griffin as a seasoned professional.
But an examination of Griffin’s record as a prosecutor reveals a much less impressive body of experience, with no indication that Griffin ever took a criminal case to trial either as a civilian or a military prosecutor.
Federal court files in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Griffin served as an assistant U.S. attorney, show that from September 2001 to June 2002 Griffin was associated with 30 cases, but none went to trial during that time frame.
On his official Web site, Griffin also claims to have prosecuted 40 criminal cases as an Army lawyer while stationed at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, from September 2005 to May 2006. But Army officials say Ft. Campbell’s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial.
Griffin didn’t agree to be interviewed about his legal experience, but his spokeswoman Cherith Beck suggested the discrepancy between Griffin’s claim of 40 criminal prosecutions and the Army’s record of three might be explained because Griffin’s number refers to all cases he worked on in some capacity.
“Just wanted to clarify, make sure you had an understanding that prosecuted means it’s a case he handled while he was there; it doesn’t mean that it went to trial necessarily,” Beck told me. “Prosecuted means he handled those cases in one form or another.”
Despite these discrepancies in Griffin’s record, the Bush administration succeeded in getting senior Senate Republicans to promote him as a well-traveled prosecutor with a strong record.
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