Story Time in the Senate
The New York Times | Editorial
Friday 30 March 2007
In his Senate testimony yesterday, Kyle Sampson, the former chief
of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, tried to be a "loyal
Bushie," a term Mr. Sampson used in his infamous e-mail message to
describe what he was looking for in United States attorneys. But if
Mr. Sampson was trying to fall on his sword, he had horrible aim. In
testimony that got so embarrassing for the White House that the
Republicans tried to cut it off, Mr. Sampson simply ended up making
it clearer than ever that the eight prosecutors were fired for
political reasons.
He provided more evidence, also, that the attorney general and
other top Justice Department officials were dishonest in their
initial statements about the firings.
Mr. Sampson flatly contradicted the attorney general's claim that
he did not participate in the selection of the prosecutors to be
fired and never had a conversation about "where things stood." Mr.
Sampson testified that Mr. Gonzales was "aware of this process from
the beginning," and that the two men regularly discussed where things
stood. Mr. Sampson also confirmed that Mr. Gonzales was at the Nov.
27 meeting where the selected prosecutors' fates were sealed.
The hearing brought out evidence that Mr. Sampson also may have
made false statements. A Feb. 23 letter to Congress based on
information from Mr. Sampson stated that Karl Rove was not involved
in replacing the United States attorney in Arkansas with Timothy
Griffin, Mr. Rove's former aide. Mr. Sampson could not convincingly
explain why he wrote that, when he had said in an e-mail message two
months earlier that getting Mr. Griffin appointed was "important" to
Mr. Rove. He finally acknowledged that he had discussed the
appointment with Mr. Rove's two top aides.
The senators questioning Mr. Sampson pointed to a troubling
pattern: many of the fired prosecutors were investigating
high-ranking Republicans. He was asked if he was aware that the fired
United States attorney in Nevada was investigating a Republican
governor, that the fired prosecutor in Arkansas was investigating the
Republican governor of Missouri, or that the prosecutor in Arizona
was investigating two Republican members of Congress.
Mr. Sampson's claim that he had only casual knowledge of these
highly sensitive investigations was implausible, unless we are to
believe that Mr. Gonzales runs a department in which the chief of
staff is merely a political hack who has no hand in its substantive
work. He added to the suspicions that partisan politics were involved
when he made the alarming admission that in the middle of the Scooter
Libby investigation, he suggested firing Patrick Fitzgerald, the
United States attorney in Chicago who was the special prosecutor in
the case.
The administration insists that purge was not about partisan
politics. But Mr. Sampson's alternative explanation was not very
credible - that the decision about which of these distinguished
prosecutors should be fired was left in the hands of someone as young
and inept as Mr. Sampson. If this were an aboveboard, professional
process, it strains credulity that virtually no documents were
produced when decisions were made, and that none of his
recommendations to Mr. Gonzales were in writing.
It is no wonder that the White House is trying to stop Congress
from questioning Mr. Rove, Harriet Miers, the former White House
counsel, and other top officials in public, under oath and with a
transcript. The more the administration tries to spin the prosecutor
purge, the worse it looks.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/033007B.shtml
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