-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: April 15, 2007 1:19:31 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "Federalist" Conspiracy in Our Judicial and Legal System
Agency weighed prosecutors' politics
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press, April 14, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/
fired_prosecutors;
_ylt=AnB26.rlUCjdIjxOMMyDyYqs0NUE
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department weighed political activism and
membership in [the right-wing Federalist Society] in evaluating the
nation's federal prosecutors, documents released in the probe of
fired U.S. attorneys show.
The political credentials were listed on a chart of 124 U.S.
attorneys nominated since 2001, a document that could bolster
Democrats' claims that the traditionally independent Justice
Department has become more partisan during the Bush administration.
The chart was included in documents released Friday by the
department to congressional panels investigating whether the
firings last year of the U.S. attorneys were politically motivated
— an inquiry that has Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fighting
for his own job.
"This is the chart that the AG requested," Monica Goodling,
Justice's former liaison to the White House, wrote in a Feb. 12 e-
mail to two other senior department officials. "I'll show it to him
on the plane tomorrow, if he's interested."
Goodling resigned last week, refusing to testify to Congress about
her role in the firings and citing her constitutional protection
against self-incrimination.
The 2,394 pages of e-mails, schedules and memos released Friday
included a few hand-scribbled pages of notes of reasons why some of
the eight were ousted — notes that Justice officials confirmed were
written by Goodling.
Under Iglesias' name, Goodling wrote: "Domenici says he doesn't
move cases" — a reference to Sen. Pete Domenici, the six-term
Republican from New Mexico accused of pressuring the prosecutor on
a political corruption investigation. That allegation has been one
of the factors driving Democrats' claims that the firings were
politically motivated.
The documents also included indications that senior department
officials had replacements in mind for the outgoing prosecutors
nearly a year before the ousters, seemingly contradicting testimony
last month by Gonzales' former top aide.
The new batch of documents — adding to more than 3,400 previously
released — came amid questions about missing White House e-mails,
including some from presidential counselor Karl Rove and other
administration officials. The Democratic-controlled Congress is
seeking those e-mails as evidence for its inquiry into the firings.
Private attorney Robert Luskin denied that Rove intentionally
deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored computer
system. He said President Bush's political adviser believed the
communications were being preserved in accordance with the law.
Democrats are questioning whether any White House officials
purposely sent e-mails about official business on the RNC server —
then deleted them, in violation of the law — to avoid scrutiny.
White House officials said the administration is making an
aggressive effort to recover anything that was lost. "We have no
indications that there was improper intent when using these RNC e-
mails," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
The new documents also show Justice efforts to tamp down the
controversy by meeting with congressional aides they considered
potentially sympathetic to their viewpoint — including a staffer to
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who has been one of Gonzales' most
vocal critics. Additionally, the documents include correspondence
from some prosecutors complaining about being ensnared in the
political storm.
The chart underscores the weight that conservative credentials
carried with the Justice Department.
The three-page spreadsheet notes the "political experience" of each
prosecutor, which was defined as work at the Justice Department's
headquarters in Washington, on Capitol Hill, for state or local
officials, and on campaigns or for political parties.
[Many?] on the list were also members of the Federalist Society for
Law and Public Policy Studies. The group was founded by
conservative law students and now claims 35,000 members, including
prominent members of the Bush administration, the federal judiciary
and Congress.
How that information was used by the administration isn't clear.
One of the eight attorneys fired in December — Kevin Ryan, the
prosecutor in San Francisco — was also a Federalist Society member.
Two others, David Iglesias in New Mexico and Bud Cummins in Little
Rock, Ark., held Republican Party posts or ran for office before
being tapped as U.S. attorneys, the chart shows.
The documents reveal a new contradiction in officials' accounting
of the firings, indicating that replacements for those dismissed
were chosen by Justice officials nearly a year beforehand.
Beginning with a January 2006 e-mail to White House Counsel Harriet
Miers, former Justice chief of staff Kyle Sampson proposed
replacing U.S. attorneys in San Diego, San Francisco, Michigan and
Arkansas. The replacements were to include Rachel Brand, who heads
the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, to oust Margaret
Chiara in Michigan, and Tim Griffin, a Rove protege who now is
acting U.S. attorney in Arkansas.
But Sampson, who resigned under fire last month, told the Senate
Judiciary Committee on March 29 that "I did not have in mind any
replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign" last
Dec. 7.
Gonzales is to explain his role in the firings to the same panel
next Tuesday — an appearance that even Republicans say is crucial
to restoring his shaky credibility amid growing calls for his
resignation.
"The contradictions continue to pile up," Schumer told reporters
Friday. "The questions for the attorney general continue to mount."
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse maintained that, except for
Griffin, no replacements were selected before the prosecutors were
told to resign.
"The list, drafted ten months before the December resignations,
reflects Kyle Sampson's initial thoughts, not preselected
candidates by the administration," Roehrkasse said. "Sampson's
initial thoughts were just that."
Sampson attorney Brad Berenson said his clients' testimony was
"entirely accurate." He said that "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."
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers said the new documents "were
not a complete response to our subpoena request,"
"I expect that the attorney general, as the nation's chief law
enforcement officer, will be respectful of his obligations under
the committee's subpoena and respond in full by Monday," said
Conyers, D-Mich.
Some of the documents released could prove embarrassing.
An Oct. 2, 2006, e-mail to Brand, for example, derides Chiara as
"Miss Margaret," an insensitive manager who announced in an all-
staff meeting which employees would be receiving bonuses and
outstanding staff evaluations. The sender's name on the e-mail was
stripped from the document.
And in a Feb. 28, 2007, e-mail, Griffin complained to Justice
headquarters that he was being maligned as a White House pawn in
the media.
"Someone at DOJ left the press with the impression that Harriet
Miers vouching for me was some sort of extraordinary event,"
Griffin wrote to three senior Justice officials. "It wasn't."
Responded Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling: "Not sure
your assertion is accurate. Someone at DOJ merely recounted the
facts. ... Your point is well taken, however, in that we need to
emphasize the normalcy of the process in your case. I think we are
ready to do that."
___
Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Matt Apuzzo and Pete Yost
contributed to this report.
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