Email Identified Republican Ideologues For U.S. Attorney Jobs

Documents reveal partisan candidates considered for federal prosecutor jobs long before firings.Email Identified Republican Ideologues for U.S. Attorney JobsBy Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 16th, 2007A Justice Department email memo released on Friday reveals that the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proposed replacement candidates for federal prosecutors nearly a year before they were dismissed in December 2006. The department has repeatedly claimed that no successors were selected before the firings.The Jan. 9, 2006, email was written by Kyle Sampson, who resigned last month as the top aide to Gonzales. In it, Sampson identified five Bush Administration officials–most of them Justice Department employees–whose names were given to the White House as conceivable replacements for prosecutors the administration had marked for dismissal.The email message was sent by Sampson to Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and to William Kelley, another White House lawyer. In the email, Sampson proposed the firing of a total of seven United States attorneys, and named at least one replacement candidate for each possible vacancy.Because of deletions in the emails turned over to Congress, the document reveals only the names of four U.S. attorneys slated for dismissal and five of their possible successors. The names of the replacement candidates are usually followed by a question mark, possibly suggesting that Sampson may have been unsure about them.The email message and several related documents give the first indication that Sampson, the Justice Department official in charge of the firings, had focused on who would replace the ousted prosecutors. Justice officials have consistently claimed that seven of the eight prosecutors were fired without consideration to who might replace them.Some of the new documents show the department’s undue attention to individual United States attorneys’ political and ideological views. An undated spreadsheet attached to a Feb. 12, 2007, email memo listed the U.S. attorneys who had served under President Bush along with their previous work experience–with an emphasis on the prosecutors’ work for political organizations.The chart held a category for those with Republican Party and campaign work experience, showing who had been a delegate to a Republican convention or had managed a G.O.P. political campaign. The chart included a special category indicating who among the prosecutors was a member of the Federalist Society, a Washington-based opinion tank that serves as a talent pool for young conservatives seeking appointments in Republican administrations.Taken together, Democrats say, the new documents support their claim that the fired prosecutors were dismissed to make room for favored candidates who were primarily chosen for their ideological preconceptions.This latest batch of documents, the sixth collection released by the Justice Department in recent weeks, also gives Americans a further insight into the frantic scramble by the Bush Administration since January to contain the public relations fallout caused by the ouster of the eight prosecutors.The emails–some written as recently as last month–provide a rare and almost “on-the-spot” account of the political tactics used by a sitting administration attempting to manage a growing political scandal.One email message shows Bush officials urging the Justice Department to call Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), to provide him information about the placement of Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Karl Rove, as the interim United States attorney in Arkansas.“WH political reached out to Sen. Sessions and requested that he ask helpful questions to make clear that Tim Griffin is qualified to serve,” according to a January 2007 email message from Monica Goodling, a former senior aide to Gonzales, to other department officials.“Here are the talkers on Griffin, as well as a narrative that can be used by staff, and his résumé. I think it would actually be helpful for all of the Rs [Republicans]  to have it,” wrote Goodling.It is unclear whether the “talkers”–shorthand for “talking points”–were sent to Sessions and other Republicans. But in a later hearing on the matter, Sen. Sessions ran through all of the highlights as he praised Griffin’s résumé–faithfully following the script previously prepared for him by the White House and the Justice Department.Other documents show that Goodling, the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House and apparent rhetorical point-person, also prepared a list of reasons in February as further political spin on why the prosecutors had been replaced.The January email was among more than 2,000 pages of papers just released by the Justice Department. But they are only part of the more than 6,000 pages of email and other internal records produced in the last month in response to requests by House and Senate committees investigating the federal prosecutor scandal.Gonzales is scheduled to appear on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will it be all it promises to be? Stay tuned…