When BushCo fired David Iglesias, Carole Lam, John McKay and a few other principled US Attorneys, the media made much of it (briefly)--while uttering not a peep about all those US Attorneys who remained in place. Certainly those characters stayed on the job because, unlike Iglesias et al., they did as Karl Rove ordered, working not as civil servants but as party operatives, devoted to facilitating "victories" for the GOP.
We've heard of some of them: most infamously, Alice Martin and Leura Canary, who did their bit, in Alabama, to nail Don Siegelman; and then there's Dunn Lampton, who indicted Paul Minor, Wes Teel and Oliver Diaz in Mississippi. Those three--all of whom are still in place--have been the objects of (a little) press attention. But most of those who were not sacked at Rove's command have gone completely unexamined by the press (and so our president just lets them do their thing). Here's a little item about one of them: Brett Tolman, US Attorney for Utah. As you'll see, his story is well worth some critical attention. (Tolman made a tiny bit of news--i.e., in the blogosphere--on April 1, when he indicted U. of Utah student and eco-activist Tim DeChristopher on political grounds: http://oneutah.org/2009/04/01/tim-dechristopher-indicted/.) Why are these people still in office? Eric Holder has a mighty big broom in his office. Isn't it past time for him to use it? MCM WHY ISN'T BRETT TOLMAN IN PRISON YET? <http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-isnt-brett-tolman-in-prison-yet.html>http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-isnt-brett-tolman-in-prison-yet.html There may be legitimate reasons why Brett Tolman isn't in prison; I'm not sure. But there are certainly none that would explain why he is still the U.S. Attorney for Utah. Yes, another U.S. Attorney-- but one, unlike crimebusters Carol Lam, David Iglesias, John McKay, etc-- that wasn't fired. In fact, if not for Mr. Tolman none of them would have been fired. But that goes back to his old job when he was a staffer for Arlen Specter at the time when Specter was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Tolman was a counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee when they were reauthorizing the so-called "Patriot Act" in 2005-06. He reported to Snarlin' Arlen-- or at least that is what Specter believed. Specter was unaware of the Bush Regime's tight-knit "Mormon Mafia" operated by Karl Rove at the heart of the U.S. government. He learned the hard way. One night, before passage of the bill, Tolman surreptitiously inserted a paragraph into the legislation that basically removed Senate oversight and approval of replacements for U.S. Attorneys. Tolman didn't ask Specter and didn't tell Specter or, as far as we know, any other senators. He just snuck it into the bill and none of them knew they were voting for that provision. Is that embarrassing, or what? I think so. And I think it plays a role in why the senators have been pretty mum on this episode. And what made it worse is that the Senate unanimously approved Bush's nomination of Tolman, soon after... as U.S. Attorney for Utah! When Specter finally did discover he had been duped by Tolman and tried to get to the bottom of it, all he was told was that Tolman had acted on behalf of the Justice Department! No names. The question remains, did Rove tell Tolman to do it directly or did he use Gonzales as his messenger boy? Today it was revealed that the Saudis have turned their backs on BushCo. That leaves one base of support, the Mormons, right? Well... not so fast. Utah may be the reddest of the red states-- and the lowest information state anywhere-- but even there things are turning around a bit. A poll in the Salt Lake City Tribune has some bad news for the Bush Regime. Like the Saudis, the Mormons have about had it with Bush's disastrous war and catastrophic occupation of Iraq. In the survey, just 44 percent of those identifying themselves as Mormon said they backed Bush's war management. That's a level considerably higher than Bush gets from Utah's non-Mormon population and the nation at large, but it's also a 21 percentage point drop from just five months earlier.... Such abrupt moves in group opinion are uncommon. Pollsters say numbers generally move gradually, unless "spooked" by something. Rove, who went to high school and college in Utah and first got into political campaigning working for Senator Wallace Bennett (R-UT), operates a virtual "Mormon Mafia" out of his White House office, recently uncovered by our own Karen Allen while she was investigating Kyle Sampson, another in Rove's web, for Down With Tyranny. Oddly, after Tolman had rendered his little service to Rove at the Judiciary Committee, it appeared that Rove was backing Sampson for the U.S. Attorney gig-- although with Rove, appearances are almost always deceptive. It was Utah Senator Orrin Hatch who was behind Tolman, a protege of his, and Hatch seems to have come to terms with Rove. A few weeks ago Karen Tumulty flagged this in Time as a potential problem for Gonzales and the Bush Regime-- twice. No one seems to have bitten. It's difficult for me to understand-- beyond their own embarrassment-- why senators, particularly those on the Judiciary Committee, have failed to haul Brett Tolman's ass in and find out who exactly gave him the order to insert the secret paragraph into the Patriot Act in the dead of night. Once that is cleared up, I believe the rest of Purge-Gate will fall into place. ANOTHER DoJ DOCUMENT DUMP SHOWS MORMON MAFIA MEMBERS UNDERMINING OUR ENTIRE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE Kyle Sampson, another of Rove's pet Morman Mafioso, was the one who misled Congress about the role Rove played in the firing and replacing of 8 (or more) U.S. Attorneys and thoroughly politicizing the U.S. justice system. The DoJ is calling Sampson's willful and premeditated deception a case where officials "may have provided inaccurate and incomplete information." Labels: Brett Tolman, Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Mormon Mafia, Purge-Gate, Utah --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
