HavenWorks
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 Timothy
Griffin
J TIMOTHY GRIFFIN News:
20070613
-
 Karl
Rove
-  Sara
Taylor
-  Kyle
Sampson
-  Alberto
Gonzales -  Paul
McNulty
-Tim
Griffin -  Ark
-  US
Attorneys -  Law
- E-Mail
- "Officials
rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. attorney."
... "The White House's former political director was furious at Justice
Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration
had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for
a protege of Karl Rove, [Republican] President Bush's political adviser,
according to documents released late Tuesday." ... "Then-White House political
affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16
e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales." ... "She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul
McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney
Bud Cummins wasn't fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former
Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim
U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn't seek confirmation to the
Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else.
Griffin has since resigned." ... ""Tim was put in a horrible position;
hung out to dry w/ no heads up," Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which
was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House
e-mail address. "This is not good for his long-term career."" -By
Margaret
Talev and Marisa
Taylor -McClatchy
via -RealCities
20070531
 Monica
Goodling - Tim
Griffin - Alberto
Gonzales - Paul
McNulty
- Karl
Rove
-  Harriet
Miers
-  Noteworthy
- US
Attorneys -  Military
-  Students
- Race
-  Politics
- Law
- 2004
Election - Arkansas
-  Florida
- "Raging
Caging: What the heck is vote caging, and why should
we care?" ... "Last week, in her testimony before the House judiciary committee,
[Republican] Monica Goodling referred several times to "vote caging" possibly
done by Arkansas' soon
to be ex-interim, never-confirmed [Republican] U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin.
Yet Goodling was questioned about this almost not at all, nor did the media
do much more than report the words of the former liaison between the [Republican
President Bush's] White House and [Republican] Alberto Gonzales (why a
"liaison" is required between two institutions with no boundaries between
them is incomprehensible, but perhaps another story). Meanwhile, liberal
talk radio, Robert
F. Kennedy Jr., and the blogosphere went nuts. So, which is it: Is
vote caging the most underreported part of this U.S. attorneys scandal
or the most over-hyped?" ... "One of the reasons the mainstream news reports
(including mine [Dahlia Lithwick])
barely touched the vote-caging story was that nobody had any idea what
Goodling was talking about. "Vote caging, what's that?" we e-mailed each
other at Slate. The confusion seemed to extend to Goodling herself. The
subject came up in her testimony about former Deputy Attorney General Paul
McNulty. In saying he had not been forthright with the House judiciary
committee in his testimony on the firing of the U.S. attorneys, she cited
three areas, one of which was McNulty's failure "to disclose that he had
some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in 'vote
caging' in the president's 2004 [election] campaign," when he spoke to
Congress." ... "Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters
(who tend to vote Democrat) by getting them knocked off the voter rolls
if they fail to answer registered mail sent to homes they aren't living
at (because they are, say, at college or at war). The Republican National
Committee reportedly stopped the practice following a consent
decree in a 1986 case. Google the term and you'll quickly arrive at
the Wizard of Oz of caging, Greg Palast, investigative reporter and author
of the wickedly funny Armed
Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans—Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales
of a White House Gone Wild. Palast started reporting allegations
of Republican vote caging for the BBC's
Newsnight
in 2004. He's been almost alone on the story since then. Palast contends,
both in Armed Madhouse and widely through the liberal
blogosphere, that vote caging, an illegal voter-suppression scheme,
happened in Florida in 2004 this way:"
"The
Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do
not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as
evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they
were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless
men, students on vacation and—you got to love this—American soldiers. Oh
yeah: most of them are Black voters." ... "Why weren't these African-American
voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were
on park benches, the students were on vacation—and the soldiers were overseas."
"From
the point of view of the ongoing DoJ scandal, perhaps what's most urgent
about the vote-caging claims is that they go a long, long way toward explaining
why [Republican] Karl Rove and [Republican] Harriet Miers were so determined
to get Griffin seated in the Arkansas U.S. Attorney's office, and to do
so without a confirmation hearing." (1, 2)
-By Dahlia Lithwick -Slate
20070510
-
Karl
Rove
- Timothy
Griffin - D
Kyle Sampson
-
Alberto Gonzales - Harriet
Miers
- US
Attorney - E-Mail
- Law
- Politics
- Arkansas
- "Administration
Withheld E-Mails About Rove." ... "The [Republican
President] Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress
showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked
together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy
Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Arkansas." ... "The withheld records show that D.
Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters
to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's
appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin."
... "In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007,
the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any
role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin
to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized
in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had
been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role." ... "Brad Berenson,
an attorney for Sampson, said in an interview that his client did not intend
to mislead Congress. Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter
based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate."
... "The withheld e-mails show that Sampson's draft was forwarded for review
to
Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel, who approved
the language saying that Justice was not aware of Rove having played any
role in supporting Griffin. But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison
that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed
Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the
forefront of Griffin's nomination." ... "Two senior administration officials
told National Journal they were frustrated with decisions by Gonzales
not to release some of the documents held by the Justice Department. One
of the officials charged that "Gonzales is doing this to save his own neck,"
at the expense of the administration. The same official said that senior
aides to Gonzales have been refusing to turn over many relevant documents
to Congress, and that the attorney general's top aides have been selectively
leaking portions of them to the media to portray themselves in a favorable
light." -By
Murray
Waas -NationalJournal
20070504
-
 Cunningham
-  Renzi
-  Gibbons
-  Jerry
Lewis - Miers
- Sampson
- Griffin
- Rove
- Noteworthy
- Secret
- US
Attorneys - Law
-  Money
- Politics
- Los
Angeles -  California
-  Arizona
-  Nevada
- Arkansas
- "The
U.S. Attorney, the G.O.P. Congressman and the Timely Job Offer."
... "There is yet another United States attorney whose abrupt departure
from office is raising questions: Debra Wong Yang of Los Angeles [California]."
... "Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego [California], was
fired after she put [California Republican Representative] Randy Cunningham,
known as Duke, in prison. Paul Charlton, in Arizona, was dismissed while
he was investigating [Arizona Republican Representative] Rick Renzi. Dan
Bogden, in Nevada, was fired while he was reportedly investigating [Republican]
Jim Gibbons, a congressman who was elected [Nevada] governor last year."
... "Ms. Yang was investigating [California Republican Representative]
Jerry Lewis, who was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee."
... "Ms. Yang says she left for personal reasons, but there is growing
evidence that the White House was intent on removing her. Kyle Sampson,
the Justice Department staff member in charge of the firings, told investigators
last month in still-secret testimony that Harriet Miers, the White House
counsel at the time, had asked him more than once about Ms. Yang. He testified,
according to Congressional sources, that as late as mid-September, Ms.
Miers wanted to know whether Ms. Yang could be made to resign. Mr. Sampson
reportedly recalled that Ms. Miers was focused on just two United States
attorneys: Ms. Yang and Bud Cummins, the Arkansas prosecutor who was later
fired to make room for Tim Griffin, a Republican political operative and
Karl Rove protégé." ... "Press reports say she [Ms. Yang]
got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties." ... "Gibson, Dunn was defending
Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation." -By Adam Cohen
-NYTimes
20070329
-
Karl
Rove
- Timothy
Griffin - US
Attorneys - Law
- "E-Mail
Shows Rove’s Role in Fate of Prosecutors." ... "Almost
every Wednesday afternoon, advisers to President Bush gather to strategize
about putting his stamp on the federal courts and the United States attorneys’
offices." ... "The group meets in the Roosevelt Room and includes aides
to the White House counsel, the chief of staff, the attorney general and
Karl Rove, who also sometimes attends himself. Each of them signs off on
every nomination." ... "Mr. Rove’s role has put him in the center of a
Senate inquiry into the dismissal of eight United States attorneys. Democrats
and a few Republicans have raised questions about whether the prosecutors
were being replaced to impede or jump-start investigations for partisan
goals." ... "Congressional Democrats said they were focusing on Mr. Rove
in part because the administration appeared to have tried to hide his fingerprints.
In a February 23 letter to Senate Democratic leaders that was approved
by the White House counsel’s office, for example, the Justice Department
said that no one in the White House had “lobbied” for any of the eight
dismissals, and specifically denied that Mr. Rove had “any role” in the
appointment of the protégé, J. Timothy Griffin, a former
Bush campaign operative." ... "But the Justice Department officials who
drafted the letter had corresponded with Mr. Rove’s staff just weeks earlier
about how to get the nomination done. On Wednesday night, a department
official apologized for inaccuracies in the letter." (1, 2)
-By David D. Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg
-NYTimes
20070323
-
Griffin
- Rove
-
 Schlozman
- US
Attorneys - Poor
-  People
- Civil
Righs - Law
-  Enforcement
- Politics
- Ark
- Florida
-  Colorado
-  Wisconsin
-  Minnesota
-  Iowa
- Arkansas
-  Michigan
- Nevada
-  New
Mexico -  Georgia
- 2004
Election - 2008
Election - "New
U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records." ...
"Under [Republican] President Bush, the Justice Department has backed laws
that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S. attorneys to investigate
voter fraud - policies that critics say have been intended to suppress
Democratic votes." ... "Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush
has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice
Department's civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding
voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority
voters." ... "Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little
Rock, Ark. [Arkansas], was accused of participating in efforts to suppress
Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while
he was a research director for the Republican National Committee. He's
denied any wrongdoing." ... "Taken together, critics say, the replacement
of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice
Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration
may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes."
... "Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were
planning the [US Attorneys] firings, [Republican President Bush's deputy
chief of staff Karl] Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican
National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could
be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys
in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa,
Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter
four were among those fired." ... "Several former voting rights lawyers,
who asked to remain anonymous for fear of antagonizing the administration,
said the division's political appointees reversed the recommendations of
career lawyers in key cases and transferred or drove out most of the unit's
veteran attorneys." ... "Bradley Schlozman, who was the civil rights division's
deputy chief, agreed in 2005 to reverse the career staff's recommendations
to challenge a Georgia law that would have required voters to pay $20 for
photo IDs and in some cases travel as far as 30 miles to obtain the ID
card." ... "A federal judge threw out the Georgia law, calling it an unconstitutional,
Jim Crow-era poll tax." -By Greg Gordon, Margaret
Talev and Marisa Taylor with contributions by Tish Wells and Ron Hutcheson
-McClatchy via
-RealCities
-
Rove
-Gonzales- Miers
- US
Attorneys
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
- Arkansas
- E-Mails
- "E-Mails
Show Machinations to Replace Prosecutor: Administration
Worked for Months to Make Rove Aide U.S. Attorney in Arkansas." ... "Two
months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock [Arkansas],
a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice
Department to take his place." ... "Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide
and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff
a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he
was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and
Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in
putting him in the position, e-mails reveal." ... "New documents also show
that Justice and White House officials were preparing for President Bush's
approval of the appointment as early as last summer, five months before
Griffin took the job." ... "The e-mails show how D. Kyle Sampson, then
the attorney general's chief of staff, and other Justice officials prepared
to use a change in federal law to bypass input from Arkansas' two Democratic
senators, who had expressed doubts about placing a former Republican National
Committee operative in charge of a U.S. attorney's office. The evidence
runs contrary to assurances from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that
no such move had been planned." ... "By June 13, about a week before Cummins
would be told he was losing his job, Sampson wrote to Monica Goodling,
senior counsel to Gonzales, to tell her that a colleague had the necessary
pre-nomination paperwork for Griffin. He said that he would speak the following
morning with Michael A. Battle, chief of the office that oversees U.S.
attorneys, and make sure that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty's
office "knows that we are now executing this plan."" ... "Sampson's note
suggests the plan was not new: "I did tell them this was likely coming
several months ago."" (1, 2,
3)
-By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein with contributions
by Michael Abramowitz -WashingtonPost
20070315
-
Gonzales
- Rove
- Law
- Politics
- E-Mail
- Arkansas
- "Statements
On Firings of Prosecutors Are Key Issue." ... "In
testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the
Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention
of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys." ... "Just a
month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff,
laid out a plan to do just that. In an e-mail, he detailed a strategy for
evading Arkansas Democrats in installing Tim Griffin, a former GOP [Republican]
operative and protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove, as the U.S. attorney
in Little Rock [Arkansas]." ... ""We should gum this to death," Sampson
wrote to a White House aide on Dec. 19. "[A]sk the senators to give Tim
a chance . . . 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."" ... "Democrats and Republicans are demanding
to know whether Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and other
Justice officials misled them in sworn testimony over the past two months."
... "The inconsistencies between Justice's positions and the documents
are numerous. On Feb. 23, for example, a Justice legislative affairs aide
wrote to [New York Democratic Senator] Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)
that the department "was not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the
decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." But internal Justice e-mails show that
"getting him appointed is important" to Rove and was closely monitored
by political aides in the White House." ... "Last week, senior Justice
official William E. Moschella told a House Judiciary subcommittee that
the White House was not consulted on the firings until the end of the process."
... "But the documents released this week show that the plan began more
than two years ago at the White House counsel's office [Harriet Miers],
which initially suggested firing all 93 U.S. attorneys. Gonzales rejected
that idea, and Sampson wrote back in January 2006 that Justice and the
White House should "work together to seek the replacement of a limited
number of U.S. Attorneys."" ... "McNulty told the committee that there
was no plan to use Gonzales's appointment powers to evade Senate oversight,
that accusations of "politicizing" the hiring and firing process were "completely
contrary to my daily experience," and that the dismissals of everyone but
the Arkansas prosecutor were purely "performance-related."" ... "Each of
those contentions is called into question by the 143 pages of internal
e-mails and other documents turned over to the House and the Senate on
Tuesday. Most had been sent or received by Sampson." ... "Political considerations,
for example, figured prominently in who was chosen to be fired. Sampson
ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys in part on whether they "exhibited loyalty"
to Bush and Gonzales or "chafed against Administration initiatives etc.""
(1, 2)
-By Dan Eggen with contributions by Julie Tate
-WashingtonPost
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