Revealing documents released by DoJ right after 'no confidence' vote failed
The Bush Administration waited until after the Alberto Gonzales 'no confidence' vote failed before finally that proves Karl Rove helped micromanage the political strategy behind the firing of US Attorneys.
Back in February, White House Political Director , who conveniently last month, at the Justice Department for disclosing Karl Rove's role to Congress:
The White House's former political director was furious at JusticeDepartment officials for disclosing to Congress that the administrationhad forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way fora protege of Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, accordingto documents released late Tuesday.
Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelledout her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then thechief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
This all has to do with Tim Griffin, a former aide to Karl Rove, who was nominated to replace fired US Attorney Bud Cummins. Because of a , the former Rove aide was installed . No one knew about this loophole until after Griffin started serving. Once the scandal broke, Griffin resigned, and the Congress passed a law that repealed the Patriot Act loophole -- meaning that all U.S. Attorney replacements would once again need to be confirmed by the Senate before serving.
Now to perjury. Many allege that to Congress on January 19th. Gonzales claimed that all US Attorney replacements would be confirmed by the Senate. But as mentioned above, that Patriot Act loophole allowed Gonzales to hand-select US Attorneys without having them be approved by the Senate. Either Gonzales was not aware of the loophole, or he misled Congress.
Bottom line: Gonzales is not out of the woods yet. In his next appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he will be pressed on the documents that were just released.
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