| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"james g. keegan jr." |
| Date: |
04 Apr 2007 09:23:01 PM |
| Object: |
Did Rove's Protégé Puff Up Résumé? |
consortiumnews.com
Did Rove's Protégé Puff Up Résumé?
By Richard L. Fricker
April 3, 2007
Little Rock¹s interim U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin already at
the center of a firestorm over whether the White House has put
politics ahead of prosecutorial integrity made claims about his
experience as an Army lawyer that have been put in doubt by military
records.
The 38-year-old Griffin claims on his official Web site that he
prosecuted 40 criminal cases while at Ft. Campbell, where he was
stationed from September 2005 to May 2006. But Army authorities say
Ft. Campbell¹s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial
counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial.
Griffin didn¹t agree to be interviewed about his claim of 40 criminal
prosecutions versus the Army¹s confirmation of three cases, all of
which were settled as plea bargains. But Cherith Beck, a Griffin
spokeswoman, suggested that Griffin¹s higher number might refer to
all cases he worked on in any capacity.
³Just wanted to clarify, make sure you had an understanding that
prosecuted means it¹s a case he handled while he was there; it
doesn¹t mean that it went to trial necessarily,² Beck said.
³Prosecuted means he handled those cases in one form or another.²
Griffin¹s prosecutorial experience at Ft. Campbell is important in
evaluating Griffin¹s fitness to serve as the top federal prosecutor
in the Eastern District of Arkansas since the bulk of Griffin¹s legal
career has been in political operations, such as opposition research
on Democrats or work as a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.
Seeking to burnish Griffin¹s prosecutorial credentials, his backers
also have cited a letter of recommendation dated Aug. 13, 2002, from
then-Little Rock U.S. Attorney H.E. ³Bud² Cummins III praising
Griffin¹s nine months of work as one of his assistants.
On NBC¹s ³Meet the Press² last Sunday, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a
senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hailed Griffin
as ³a person with prosecutorial experience who the attorney who the
U.S. Attorney who was going to be removed said was his right-hand man
and one of the best prosecutors he had.²
In an e-mail to me, however, Cummins disputed Hatch¹s
characterization of the letter.
³I don¹t see here where I referred to him as my Œright arm,¹² Cummins
said. ³I don¹t know where they are getting that. Tim [Griffin] worked
hard and did a good job organizing the launch of what became a very
successful PSN [Project Safe Neighborhoods] program. But the great
success was at least equally due, if not a great deal more, to the
efforts of virtually every prosecutor in the office after his
departure.²
False Talking Points
Cummins noted that Hatch also made disparaging remarks about Carol
Lam, the U.S. Attorney in San Diego who was another of the eight
federal prosecutors fired last year because the White House and
Justice Department didn¹t rate them highly on lists that included an
assessment of whether they were ³loyal Bushies.²
³I imagine Senator Hatch will be very upset with the person or
persons that fed him all the wrong information,² Cummins said in the
e-mail. ³I know he doesn¹t want to put HIS credibility at risk, too.
Sounds like he was provided talking points by someone as reckless
with the facts as other previous occurrences in this saga.
³I have lost count of the public statements they have made that are
simply wrong, or at least obviously deceptive. It smacks of
desperation. You wonder if the bosses know the underlings are
composing talking points for them with such little regard for the
facts.²
In an earlier phone interview, Cummins told me he had no clear
recollection of Griffin actually trying any case during his
nine-month stint in Little Rock. ³I honestly don¹t remember,² Cummins
said. ³He may have tried one or two but nothing jumps out at me.²
Cummins added that Griffin ³got a lot of indictments but other people
had to try his cases because he left.² Griffin quit his job with U.S.
Attorney Cummins to go to work as an opposition researcher for the
2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
It was in such political assignments that Griffin became a favorite
of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove whose office pressed
for Griffin¹s appointment as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock starting in
2005.
In December 2006, Griffin was named to replace Cummins, a Republican
who was well-regarded for his fairness by both Republican and
Democratic lawyers in Arkansas. Cummins was put on the Justice
Department hit list as early as March 2005 with Griffin tapped as his
replacement by January 2006, according to internal administration
documents and e-mails.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other administration officials
have denied acting improperly in the prosecutor purge, but Gonzales
is under increasing fire from Congress over a series of inaccurate
explanations about how and why the firings occurred.
Griffin¹s other principal experience in a prosecutor¹s office came
early in his career, in the mid-1990s, when he was hired as an
associate to special prosecutor David Barrett, a Republican lawyer
who was appointed by a conservative-dominated three-judge panel, to
investigate alleged misstatements by President Bill Clinton¹s Housing
and Urban Affairs Secretary Henry Cisneros about payments to a
mistress.
Cisneros, then one of the most promising Hispanic politicians in the
United States, eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of
lying to the FBI about the payments, effectively destroying his
career.
In the final report on the case, Barrett thanked Griffin ³for helping
in the early stages of the investigation.² Griffin¹s résumé, however,
paints a more substantial picture of his role, saying he ³interviewed
numerous witnesses with the FBI and supervised the execution of a
search warrant, drafted subpoenas and pleadings and questioned
witnesses before a federal grand jury.²
Griffin next went to work for the House Committee on Government
Reform, which was looking into other alleged offenses by Democrats,
including improper campaign contributions.
ŒOppo¹ Researcher
In September 1999, Griffin joined the Bush-Cheney campaign as deputy
research director handling what¹s known in the Washington political
world as ³oppo² or opposition research, digging up dirt on political
opponents. He also worked as a legal adviser in the Florida recount
battle that gained Bush the White House.
In 2001, Bush appointed Griffin as a special assistant to Michael
Chertoff, assistant attorney general at the Justice Department¹s
criminal division. During five months on the job, Griffin ³tracked²
issues for Chertoff, such as extradition and provisional arrest,
according to Griffin¹s résumé.
Griffin then spent nine months in Little Rock as a special assistant
to U.S. Attorney Cummins before returning to the political world
where he was named research director and deputy communication
director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Griffin¹s campaign initiatives included the use of a technique known
as ³caging² to identify suspect voters. Griffin¹s team sent letters
to newly registered voters in envelopes barring any forwarding, so
they would be returned if a voter wasn¹t at that address.
BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered Griffin¹s role in
this practice that proved especially effective in ³caging²
African-Americans who lived in low-income areas or who were in the
U.S. military. ³Caged² voters would then be challenged by Republican
lawyers when they arrived at the polls or cast absentee ballots.
After Bush secured a second term, Griffin joined the White House
staff as deputy director for political affairs under Karl Rove.
Griffin¹s résumé again portrayed him playing an important role.
Starting in April 2005, Griffin said he ³advised President George W.
Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney on political matters,
organized and coordinated political support for the President¹s
agenda, including the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court.²
Military Lawyer
Griffin¹s brief White House service was interrupted in September 2005
when he reported for active duty as an attorney at Ft. Campbell,
Kentucky. It was there where Griffin claimed to put significant
prosecutorial experience under his belt.
Griffin¹s Web site states that ³At Fort Campbell, he prosecuted 40
criminal cases. One of those, U.S. v. Mikel drew national interest
after Private Mikel attempted to murder his platoon sergeant and
fired upon his unit¹s early morning formation. Private Mikel pleaded
guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.²
When I asked the Army to identify the cases prosecuted by Griffin at
Ft. Campbell, the Army¹s public relations office replied, ³According
to our SJA [Staff Judge Advocate] office, Major Griffin was involved
in these three cases (guilty pleas before a military judge alone) as
an assistant trial counsel at Ft. Campbell, US vs. Hurst, vs. Mikel,
and vs. Edwards.²
Then, after a tour of about three months as an Army lawyer in Iraq,
Griffin returned to the United States where the White House offered
him the job as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock. Over the preceding two
years, White House and Justice Department officials had collaborated
to create the vacancy by ousting Griffin¹s old boss, U.S. Attorney
Cummins.
Although the Justice Department initially denied knowing ³of Karl
Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Griffin,² an e-mail
by Gonzales¹s chief of staff Kyle Sampson revealed that Griffin¹s
appointment was ³important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,² in a reference to
then-White House counsel Harriet Miers and Karl Rove.
As a furor arose over the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys, Sampson
resigned. However, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee
on March 29, he insisted there was no contradiction between the
initial denial about Rove¹s role and the e-mail because he only
³assumed² Rove¹s interest from the pressure coming from Rove¹s staff
to grant Griffin the appointment.
Griffin¹s appointment also has proved controversial because Gonzales
exercised a new emergency power that was put into the USA Patriot Act
to give the Attorney General discretion to name U.S. Attorneys
without the normal Senate approval.
Both houses of Congress have now voted to rescind that power.
Griffin also has indicated he will not submit himself to the Senate
confirmation process.
Griffin told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that ³I have made the
decision not to let my name go forward to the Senate. Š I don¹t want
to be part of that partisan circus.²
One of the questions Griffin may want to avoid is a detailed
recounting of his courtroom experience.
http://www.consortiumnews.com./2007/040307b.html
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