As Atrios notes, the first email dump which pointed the finger at Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales’ office as the source of the US attorney purge scheme, likely originated from Karl Rove. Well, now it appears the outed ones are fighting back with a document dump of their own, and this time the fickle finger of fate is pointed squarely at the Mayberry Machiavelli himself:
(cont.)
March 15, 2007 — New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged. The e-mails also show how Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel — weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general. […]
The e-mail exchange is dated more than a month before the White House acknowledged it was considering firing all the U.S. attorneys. On its face, the plan is not improper, inappropriate or even unusual: The president has the right to fire U.S. attorneys at any time, and presidents have done so when they took office.
What has made the issue a political firestorm is the White House’s insistence that the idea came from Miers and was swiftly rejected. […]
The latest e-mails show that Gonzales and Rove were both involved in the discussion, and neither rejected it out of hand.
According to the e-mails, Rove raised the issue with Leitch, prompting Leitch to e-mail Sampson, who was, at the time, a lawyer in the Justice Department. Sampson moved over to the Justice Department after working with Gonzales at the White House.
My what a tangled web and all that. Should prove interesting once the subpoenas start flying.
