Former Justice official says Congress misled about Griffin

[maddezmom]

Former Justice official says Congress misled about Griffin
Thursday, May 24, 2007

By Aaron Sadler
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A former Justice Department official testified Wednesday that the No. 2 man at the department misled a Senate panel about his knowledge of Tim Griffin's hiring as a federal prosecutor, as new correspondence made public showed that Griffin boasted to former colleagues about a published "swipe" at Sen. Mark Pryor.

Monica Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee that Paul McNulty, the former deputy attorney general, was aware of White House involvement to appoint Griffin as interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

Griffin was an aide to presidential political adviser Karl Rove.

~snip~

In a Feb. 16 e-mail to Rove and four others in the White House political office, Griffin forwarded an Arkansas Democrat Gazette article where he took a jab at Pryor for opposing him.

"I'm glad I did this, especially because Pryor says in the article that Gonzales told him he wouldn't send me through the process and Pryor says he was asking Gonzales," to put his name before the Senate, Griffin said. "Crazy. The swipe ... is in response to a question about whether the White House did me a disservice. I said that Pryor did me a disservice, etc."

Pryor spokesman Michael Teague said the e-mail illustrates why Griffin shouldn't be U.S. attorney.

"Everything's political to him," Teague said. "He e-mails Karl Rove and he's bragging about how he took a swipe at Pryor. This e-mail was sent to the entire White House team right at the time everybody was saying, 'Oooh, Karl Rove's got nothing to do with this.'"

Griffin refused to comment Wednesday.

more:http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2007/05/24/WashingtonDCBureau/342163.html

[maddezmom]

1. Goodling Set To Testify Wednesday; Still No Hearings For Griffin

Goodling Set To Testify Wednesday; Still No Hearings For Griffin
Monica Goodling -- a key figure in the AttorneyGate scandal -- is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
The former Justice Department liaison to the White House was a central player in moving Tim Griffin into Bud Cummins' spot in Arkansas (a move reportedly requested by Karl Rove). Griffin, a political operative, got a plum promotion to US Attorney. Cummins got canned without cause.

Griffin was appointed five months ago. He has not been confirmed by the Senate, even though Attorney General Gonzales insisted that the Administration was not planning to use the loophole -- that it orchestrated -- which would allow Griffin to serve until the end of Bush's term ... without confirmation.

... I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a providentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney... That public January testimony came on the heels of a not-intended-to-become-public December 2006 e-mail from then AG Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson that called the appointment a "test drive" of the new law.

In February, Deputy AG McNulty also insisted that the Administration would "send the Senate nominations for permanent replacements for the prosecutors."

more:http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/208103.htm