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it’s now ‘that meeting’…

Posted on Friday 4 May 2007

The March 5th meeting is now just about everywhere – even the Washington Post by Dan Froomkin [read it all – a great summary]:

Back on March 5, several top Justice Department officials were summoned for an emergency meeting at the White House. On the agenda: Going over "what we are going to say" about why eight U.S. attorneys had been summarily fired.

The reason for the urgency: principal associate deputy attorney general William Moschella was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee the next day.

Deputy White House counsel William Kelley sent an e-mail over to Justice early in the afternoon, saying that he had "been tasked" with pulling the meeting together, and that "we have to get this group together with some folks here asap."

The meeting was held at the White House later that day. And who did Kelley mean by "some folks here"? Well, among others, Karl Rove — the White House’s chief political operative, and the man who may very well have set the unprecedented dismissals in motion in the first place.

But after the coaching session, Moschella went out and told Congress that there was no significant White House involvement in the firings, as far as he knew…
This story is like most of the Bush era scandals. Even our wildest speculations are turning out to be mild compared to what really happened. Just an undocumented summary: It’s looking like Debra Wong Yang , the California U.S.A. who left for a $1.5 million signing bonus, was part of the scandal – to shut down her investigation of Congressman Jerry Lewis. She was apparently targeted by Harriet Miers. It sounds like Monica Goodling is ready to testify – her only liability will be to lie in the hearing. Leahy is hot after Karl Rove’s emails. Waxman’s bearing down on the Niger forgeries and a frowny Condoleeza Rice. Other than the fact that we’re still in an unjust war in Iraq, and five American soldiers died there today, things are moving along…

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