I don’t know if you remember the 2004 Governor’s race in Washington state. It pitted Democrat Christine Gregoire against Republican Dino Rossi. It was a very close election. After they did the initial count, Mr. Rossi was ahead by 261 votes. Then all hell broke loose.

A series of recounts and legal battles ensued. Rossi led by an even smaller margin after the first recount, but a second recount, done by hand, gave Gregoire a slim lead. Along the way it was discovered that hundreds of disputed votes, including votes by suspected felons, deceased voters, and double voters, were included in the canvas. Also, ballots in six counties were discovered after the initial count and included in the recounts, the most being from King County, a heavy supporter of Gregoire. Washington Republican leaders claimed there were enough disputed votes to change the outcome of the election and sued. On May 25, 2005 the judge hearing the lawsuit ruled that the Party did not provide enough evidence that the disputed votes were ineligible votes, or for whom they were cast, to enable the court to overturn the election.

Rossi did not appeal to the state Supreme Court; Gregoire was declared governor, by a margin of 129 votes, or 0.0045%.

It’s a curious feature of the Republican mind that every vote should never be counted. And recounts are only good if the Republican is behind. In the Washington gubernatorial race, all kinds of accusations were hurled about the Democrats committing voter fraud to rig the outcome. The U.S. attorney for Washington was John McKay. Here is what Mr. McKay has to say about all those allegations:

“Had anyone at the Justice Department or the White House ordered me to pursue any matter criminally in the 2004 governor’s election, I would have resigned,” McKay said. “There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.”

Hey McKay!! As Donald Trump would say, ‘You’re fired’. And it appears it was the big man in charge that made the decision.

Former U.S. Attorney John McKay said Monday night he was “stunned” to hear President Bush told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last October that Bush had received complaints about U.S. attorneys who were not energetically investigating voter-fraud cases.

They didn’t fire the U.S. Attorney for Ohio…go figure. The Muckraker has a good timeline of how the DOJ massacre was conceived and implemented. You can look at articles from Josh Marshall on GOP accusations of voter fraud going back to 2002 here.

It’s really worth reading Schumer’s full statement from his news conference (w/ DiFi) this morning:

Schumer: Here are some of the falsehoods we’ve been told that are now unraveling.

First, we were told that the seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for performance reasons.

It now turns out this was a falsehood, as the glowing performance evaluations attest.

Second, we were told by the attorney general that he would, quote, “never, ever make a change for political reasons.”

It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as all the evidence makes clear that this purge was based purely on politics, to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans.

Third, we were told by the attorney general that this was just an overblown personnel matter.

It now turns out that far from being a low-level personnel matter, this was a longstanding plan to exact political vendettas or to make political pay-offs.

Fourth, we were told that the White House was not really involved in the plan to fire U.S. attorneys. This, too, turns out to be false.

Harriet Miers was one of the masterminds of this plan, as demonstrated by numerous e-mails made public today. She communicated extensively with Kyle Sampson about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In fact, she originally wanted to fire and replace the top prosecutors in all 93 districts across the country.

Fifth, we were told that Karl Rove had no involvement in getting his protege appointed U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

In fact, here is a letter from the Department of Justice. Quote: “The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.”

It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as demonstrated by Mr. Sampson’s own e-mail. Quote: “Getting him, Griffin, appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, et cetera.

Sixth, we were told to change the Patriot Act was an innocent attempt to fix a legal loophole, not a cynical strategy to bypass the Senate’s role in serving as a check and balance.

It was Senator Feinstein who discovered that issue. She’ll talk more about it.

So there has been misleading statement after misleading statement — deliberate misleading statements. And we haven’t gotten to the bottom of this yet, but believe me, we will pursue it.

It looks like this scandal has some legs. Alberto Gonzales says he didn’t get to where he is by giving up and that he has no intention of resigning. I’d note for the record that Alberto Gonzales got to where he is by doing the bidding of George W. Bush.

On a side note (actually totally unrelated), Joe Klein used his blog today to call Al Sharpton a race-hustling phony and then told him to shut up. It’s time for Klein to cash another check.

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