1 Boring Old Man

I. U.S. Attorney Firings

More Smoke From White House On Attorney Firings

Don’t be surprised if the new narrative on the United States attorney (USA) firings is that it was the Justice Department that was culpable for misleading Congress, not the White House. A story in tomorrow’s New York Times [see below] indicates that the attorney for former Alberto Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson said late Friday that others in the Justice Department knew full well about the ongoing discussions since the 2004 election between DOJ and the White House, and that those senior DOJ officials were also responsible for preparing the misleading testimony to Congress. His attorney also said Sampson isn’t shouldering any blame for misleading Congress. Note that Sampson’s attorney formerly worked for Gonzales in the White House counsel’s office.

Of course this line of argument is utter bullshit, since it was the White House that fingered Harriet Miers for this mess without mentioning that Rove and Gonzales had worked on this right after the 2004 election. Sampson’s attorney is simply an administration hack trying to spin that his client is blameless while other DOJ senior staffers are at fault, and doesn’t want anyone to focus on his former boss or the White House. Before long Gonzales will be blaming his staff, in the hope that he saves his own skin.

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Former Justice Dept. Official Defends Actions

D. Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department official who resigned this week after bipartisan criticism of the firing of several federal prosecutors, said he bore no more responsibility than several others in the department for misleading statements that its top officials made to Congress about the firings.

“Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. attorneys,” Mr. Sampson’s lawyer, Brad Berenson, said in a statement late Friday. “The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department’s testimony to Congress.”