-Caveat Lector-
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 28, 2007 11:16:33 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: Rise of a Very 'Loyal Bushie'
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/032707a.html*Rise of a Very
'Loyal Bushie'* By Richard L. Fricker March 28, 2007 If you want to
know what the career path of a "loyal Bushie" looks like, let me
introduce you to J. Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protégé who was
slipped into the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas,
and now is at the center of the controversy over whether the Bush
administration has sought to politicize federal prosecutions.
Since college, the 38-year-old Griffin has been following the
stations of the cross for a Republican legal/political operative
with ambitions to rise to a position of power and influence in a
government like the one headed by George W. Bush. Griffin has
pretty much touched them all -- the Federalist Society, work for a
Clinton-era special prosecutor, the Florida recount battle in 2000,
opposition research and voter security duties for the Republican
National Committee in Campaign 2004, a brief tour as a military
lawyer in Iraq, a deputy in Karl Rove's political shop at the
White House. But now this carefully groomed Republican operative
stands out as Exhibit A for Democrats as they contend that the Bush
administration imposed political litmus tests on federal
prosecutors who wield enormous power over the lives of those they
investigate. A U.S. Attorney not only has wide discretion over
normal prosecutions but can tip a political race by either shutting
down or starting up a criminal probe. Beyond being the
personification of proof that Bush put political loyalty over legal
competence, Griffin has become the test case for the use of new
emergency powers in the Patriot Act to circumvent Senate
confirmation for U.S. Attorneys. The administration’s gamble on
Griffin was underscored by an e-mail in which Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff Kyle Sampson warned that "there
is some risk that we'll lose the [Patriot Act] authority, but if we
don’t ever exercise it then what’s the point of having it?"
Sampson's e-mail added, "I'm not 100 percent sure that Tim was the
guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting
him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." references to
White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and then-White House
counsel Harriet Miers. Sampson also mapped out plans for
frustrating any congressional objections to Griffin's interim
appointment. "We should gum this to death," Sampson wrote in a Dec.
19, 2006, e-mail to a White House aide. "Ask the senators to give
Tim a chance ... then we can tell them we'll look for other
candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the
recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out
the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."
The Mystery Yet, while it's clear that the White House was prepared
to play political games and possibly pay a political price to
install Griffin in Little Rock, the mystery is why? Why, given the
political risks, did the administration remove the well-regarded
U.S. Attorney H.E. "Bud" Cummins III to make way for Griffin?
Though a staunch Republican, Cummins may not have been staunch
enough. When I checked on Cummins's reputation in the legal circles
of Arkansas, I found that he was praised by both Republicans and
Democrats as a by-the-book prosecutor. One Democratic defense
lawyer told me that Cummins was a prosecutor who "dealt from the
top of the deck." But the White House pushed Cummins out in 2006
along with seven other U.S. Attorneys who did not measure up as
"loyal Bushies," according to another Kyle Sampson e-mail. Given
Griffin's history more as a political operative than an experienced
prosecutor, he surely got higher grades on the "loyal Bushie" test.
Some political analysts see Rove's dream of creating a permanent
Republican majority as the motive behind the firings and Griffin's
appointment. In April 2006, Rove told the Republican National
Lawyers Association that there were 11 states "pivotal" to the 2008
election, Arkansas among them, according to a report by the
McClatchy newspapers. With Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor expected to
face a tough reelection fight, Arkansas could be a possible
Republican senatorial pickup in 2008. Arkansas also has a large
African-American population, and Griffin has had experience in
"voter fraud" investigations that have targeted the registrations
of black voters. Other observers of the rough-and-tumble world of
Arkansas politics recall the scorched-earth investigations into the
personal lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton during the 1990s and
wonder if the Republicans might be hoping to unearth some more dirt
about the Democratic frontrunner and her husband. There's also
speculation that Rove might be lining up his protégé as a possible
future governor of Arkansas. Serving as U.S. Attorney, handling
high-profile criminal cases, is a natural stepping stone to state
and federal political office. Career Path The reason so many
people suspect that Griffin has been pre-positioned for political
reasons can best be explained by looking at Griffin's career path
and the powerful contacts he has made along the way. After
graduating as an economics major from Hendrix College in Conway,
Arkansas, in 1990, Griffin entered Tulane Law School. While at the
New Orleans university, Griffin became a leader of the Tulane
chapter of the Federalist Society, a powerful conservative legal
organization and the chief training ground for right-wing lawyers
dedicated to rolling back the liberal gains of the Warren Court and
supportive of unrestrained presidential powers. After graduating in
1994, Griffin parlayed the Federalist connection to land his first
and only legal job in the private sector, at Jones Walker Waechter
Pointevent Carrere & Denegre, a New Orleans law firm where two
members of the firm sat on the local board of the Federalist
Society. In 1995, Griffin headed to Washington to work as an
associate independent counsel under David M. Barrett, a Republican
lawyer selected by a conservative-dominated three-judge panel to
investigate Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G.
Cisneros. Barrett was one of several hard-line conservative lawyers
picked by U.S. Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle, a protégé of
Sen. Jesse Helms, to mount aggressive investigations into alleged
wrongdoing by President Clinton and his administration. Then one
of the nation’s leading Hispanic politicians, Cisneros was accused
of misreporting sums of money that he had paid to a mistress.
During an investigation that lasted 10 years and cost $21 million,
Barrett managed to secure from Cisneros a guilty plea on a
misdemeanor charge of lying to the F.B.I. about the payments,
effectively destroying his promising political career. In a final
report, Barrett thanked Griffin "for helping in the early stages of
the investigation." Griffin's résumé paints a more substantial
picture, however, saying he "interviewed numerous witnesses with
the F.B.I. and supervised the execution of a search warrant,
drafted subpoenas, and pleadings and questioned witnesses before a
federal grand jury." After leaving Barrett's staff, Griffin took a
job as senior investigative counsel to the Republican-controlled
House Committee on Government Reform, which was looking into other
alleged offenses by Democrats, including improper campaign
contributions. Griffin next went home to Arkansas to manage the
Attorney General campaign of Betty Dickey, a Republican who lost to
Democrat Mark Pryor, the future U.S. senator. Griffin returned to
the House committee where he remained until September 1999 when he
joined the Bush-Cheney campaign as deputy research director working
for the Republican National Committee, what's known in the
Washington political world as "oppo" or opposition research.
Griffin’s résumé describes his job as "the primary research
resource for Bush-Cheney 2000 (BC00), with over 30 staff." During
the bitter Florida recount battle, Griffin served as legal adviser
in Volusia and Brevard counties. After shutting down the recount
and claiming the White House, Bush rewarded Griffin in March 2001
with the job of special assistant to Michael Chertoff, assistant
attorney general at the criminal division. On his résumé, Griffin
says he, "tracked" issues for Chertoff, such as extradition,
provisional arrest and mutual legal assistance. Up the Ladder Five
months later, Griffin left Chertoff to become a special assistant
U.S. Attorney in the Little Rock office where he worked for "Bud"
Cummins. After nine months in Little Rock, Griffin was named
research director and deputy communication director for the 2004
Bush-Cheney campaign. In other words, Griffin was back in the land
of "oppo" digging up dirt on Democrats and dishing it to reporters.
During this period, Griffin also oversaw efforts to catch
Democratic voters who might be improperly registered, especially in
Florida, a key swing state. Through a process known as "caging,"
Griffin's team sent letters to newly registered voters in envelopes
barring any forwarding, so they would be returned if a voter wasn't
at that address. BBC's investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered
Griffin’s role in this practice that proved especially effective in
"caging" African-Americans who lived in low-income areas or who
were serving in the U.S. military. The "caged" voters would then
be challenged by Republican lawyers when they arrived at the polls.
According to Palast and his BBC report, Griffin "was the hidden
hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000
citizens prior to the 2004 election. Key voters on Griffin's hit
list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women." http://
www.gregpalast.com/bushs-new-us-attorney-a-criminal/ Palast noted
that "targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime
under the Voting Rights Act of 1965." Palast said he attempted to
interview Griffin, but the Republican operative hid from the
cameras. After Bush secured a second term, Griffin joined the White
House staff as deputy director for political affairs under Karl
Rove. Griffin's résumé said that starting in April 2005, he
"advised President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B.
Cheney on political matters, organized and coordinated political
support for the President's agenda, including the nomination of
Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."
Meanwhile, the White House began contemplating the removal of U.S.
Attorneys, who "chafed against administration initiatives" and who
weren't "loyal Bushies." Cummins was soon on the removal list along
with San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who was spearheading the
bribery investigation of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-
California, which led to his resignation and to the discovery of
other high-level administration corruption. In September 2005,
Griffin's résumé shows that he reported for active duty as an
attorney at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. He was deployed for a brief
tour in Iraq in spring 2006 and returned home to news that he would
be given the job of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock. Changed Landscape
But the political landscape changed in November when Democrats won
control of the Senate and promised much tougher oversight than had
been the practice with the Republicans in charge. Griffin faced
the possibility of a difficult confirmation hearing. However, a
change had been made in the Patriot Act, allowing the Attorney
General to make emergency U.S. Attorney appointments without Senate
approval. Though Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had vowed that
all nominees would still go before the Senate, Gonzales appointed
Griffin under that special authority. When the furor about the
firings of eight U.S. Attorneys, including Cummins and Lam, began
in December 2006, Gonzales also stated that he was not involved in
"any discussions" about the ousters and that the dismissals were
not politically motivated. When the released e-mails demonstrated
that politics was a factor and that the White House had played a
direct role in the dismissals, Kyle Sampson -- Gonzales chief of
staff -- resigned. A growing chorus of senators also sought
Gonzales’s resignation, especially after more records showed that
the Attorney General took part in a Nov. 27, 2006, meeting to
discuss the firings. There was more Senate anger over the fact that
the Patriot Act change had been exploited to avoid the confirmation
process. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to rescind the Attorney
General's special appointment power, with the bill now going to
the House. On March 22, Griffin told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette
that he will not go through a Senate confirmation hearing if one is
required. "I have made the decision not to let my name go forward
to the Senate." Griffin said. "I don't want to be part of that
partisan circus." So, it may never be fully known what Karl Rove
had in mind for his political protégé if the "loyal Bushie" plan
had succeeded. Nor is it clear what else the White House may have
had to hide that would explain why it concocted the scheme in the
first place. To comment at Consortiumblog, click here: http://
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