Bush Aides Helped Respond to Firings, E-Mails Show

[deminks]

Source: Washington Post

Several high-ranking White House officials were closely involved in crafting a public response to the uproar over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys, according to documents released late yesterday.

Then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and aides to presidential adviser Karl Rove were deeply enmeshed in debates over how to respond to the controversy as early as mid-January, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned the spate of prosecutor departures in a Senate floor speech, according to e-mails that the Justice Department turned over to the House and Senate judiciary committees.

The e-mails are the latest documents to surface among the thousands of pages provided to Congress in last year's firing of nine U.S. attorneys. Their ouster has prompted a series of investigations and led to a failed effort Monday by Senate Democrats to stage a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

(snip)

The 46 pages of e-mails show that Miers and others -- including her deputy, William Kelley, and the White House political affairs director at the time, Sara M. Taylor -- were involved in spirited and sometimes angry e-mail exchanges as the secretive firings operation began to unravel in public. Many of the exchanges also included D. Kyle Sampson, who coordinated the firings as Gonzales's chief of staff.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/12/AR2007061202090.html

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My favorite quote from Sara Taylor (rovebot)

Taylor added in a follow-up: "Tim was put in a horrible position; hung to dry w/ no heads up. You forced him to do what he did; this is not good for his long-term career. Bud runs a campaign and McNulty refuses to say Bud is lazy -- which is why WE got rid of him in the first place."

(emphasis mine)

[babylonsister]

1. Aides, officials, whatever the heck! No one in the wh is happy!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1100503

[maddezmom]

2. McClatchy: Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. attorney

Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. attorney
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - 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, 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."


The Taylor e-mail was among 46 pages of documents that the Justice Department turned over to Congress Tuesday as part of the investigation into the firings of at least nine U.S. attorneys.

more:http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17360352.htm

[maddezmom]

3. Justice documents show White House aide called fired Arkansas prosecutor 'lazy'

Justice documents show White House aide called fired Arkansas prosecutor 'lazy'

Associated Press - June 12, 2007 8:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior White House aide said in an e-mail in February that Bud Cummins, who had been fired from his job as federal prosecutor in Arkansas, was lazy. Cummins says he has some faults, but his work ethic isn't 1 of them.

The February 16th e-mail by then-White House political director Sara Taylor was among the latest documents turned over to lawmakers amid investigations of last year's ouster of 8 US attorneys. In it, she complained that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told senators that Cummins was replaced at the urging of then-White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Taylor asked the e-mail's recipient, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson, why McNulty would say such a thing. She said McNulty should have simply said that Cummins was fired because he was lazy.

more:http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=6649670

[tanyev]

4. Now Harriet's departure at the end of January makes a lot more sense.

[sabra]

5. k & r

[Supersedeas]

6. William Kelley and Sara Taylor -- welcome, take your place in the corruption hall of shame