NY Times report on U.S. attorney scandal ignored evidence that DOJ may have broken law
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703200008Summary: An article in the New York Times "Week in Review" section left out a key element in the controversy .........
Gonzales' testimony under oath that the administration would not attempt to circumvent the Senate and would nominate for Senate consideration everyone slated to replace departing U.S. attorneys. On January 18, he told the committee: "I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney. I think a United States attorney -- who I view as the leader, the law-enforcement leader, my representative in the community -- I think he has greater imprimatur of authority if, in fact, that person's been confirmed by the Senate."
Gonzales went on to testify that he "agree(d)" with Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) belief that "that these positions should come to this committee (the Senate Judiciary Committee) for confirmation." Later, Gonzales reiterated the administration's position: "I've said to the committee today, under oath, that we are fully committed to try to find presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys for every position."
But recently released emails from D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' former chief of staff, indicate an intention to take advantage of the change in the law by simply allowing interim U.S. attorneys to serve indefinitely without nomination and Senate confirmation in the cases of interim appointees who are likely to be opposed by their home-state senators. In a December 19, 2006, email, Sampson wrote of the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin -- a former research director for the Republican National Committee and aide to White House senior adviser Karl Rove -- as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas:
I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators (Democrats Mark L. Pryor
and Blanche L. Lincoln) to give Tim (Griffin) a chance, meet with him, give him some time
in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say, "no never" (and the longer
we can forestall that, the better), then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates,
ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and
otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in "good faith," of course.
Sampson continued:
Overall, I think we should take the temperature way down -- our guy is in there so the status
quo is good for us. Ask for them to consider him; note that he is qualified and doing a good
job whenever asked; pledge to desire a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney; and otherwise hunker down.
... The only thing really at risk here is a repeal of the AG's (attorney general's) appointment
authority. We intend to have DOJ (Department of Justice) leg(islative) affairs people on notice
to work hard to preserve this (House members won't care about this; all we really need is for one
Senator to object to language being added to legislative vehicles that are moving through). There
is some risk that we'll lose the authority, but if we don't ever exercise it then what's the point
of having it? (I'm not 100 percent sure that Tim (Griffin) was the guy on which to test drive this
authority, but know that getting him appointed was important to (then-White House counsel) Harriet
(Miers), Karl (Rove), etc.)
Parentheticals added.
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