The New York Times reports on an email that appears to show that Kyle Sampson perjured himself when he recently testified before Congress. It comes down to something very basic, although the Justice Department manages to muddy the waters.
The Jan. 9, 2006, e-mail was sent by Mr. Sampson to Harriet Miers, the former White House Counsel, and William Kelley, another White House lawyer. In the message, Mr. Sampson proposed the dismissal of a total of seven United States Attorneys and named at least one replacement candidate for each prospective vacancy…
…But Mr. Sampson testified under oath on March 29 at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no candidates in mind to replace any of the fired prosecutors.
Now…I’m actually not that interested, right now, in debating whether Kyle Sampson committed perjury. What I find far more interesting is the following:
The United States Attorneys identified for removal are four who were ultimately dismissed: Margaret Chiara in Michigan, Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, Carol C. Lam in San Diego and H. E. Cummins III in Arkansas.
In case you don’t know, these four attorneys have something in common.
1) Margaret Chiara (Michigan senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow).
2) H.E. Cummnins III (Arkansas senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor).
3) Carol C. Lam and Kevin Ryan (California senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer).
In other words, all these attorneys hailed from states with two Democratic senators. The other attorneys that were fired?
1) John McKay (Washington senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray).
2) David Iglesias (New Mexico senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici).
3) David Bogden (Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign).
It’s customary for the home state senators to have a major say in the U.S. attorneys appointed for their districts. But the Bush administration didn’t want to have to get the approval of Democratic senators for their replacements. So they hatched a plot to use the threat of terrorism to justify introducing a opt-out of Senate approval into the Patriot Act. Why would they do that?
To me, the answer is Abramoff, Abramoff, Abramoff.
By mid-2004 the administration knew that Jack Abramoff was a cooperating witness. They knew that the investigation was going to hit hard and wanted to limit the fallout. I think this ties into everything that is going on…from the erasure of five million emails to the plot to bypass the Senate in the appointment of U.S. attorneys.
Keep pulling on this thread and the edifice of Bushism will come crashing down by mid to late summer.
