From the Document Dump

(updated below)

The Bush administration produced thousands of pages of documents to Congress tonight regarding the U.S. Attorney scandal. I spent a little time digging through them, and one in particular caught my eye. It's a February 1, 2007 email exchange between Kyle Sampson--Alberto Gonzales' now departed chief of staff--and Michael Elston--the chief of staff of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty (click here and scan down to p. 15). CC'd on the entire exchange are McNulty himself, William Moschella, Richard Hertling, Monica Goodling, and Rebecca Seidel.

The email chain begins with Richard Hertling informing the group that Bud Cummins, the departing U.S. Attorney from Arkansas, had been asked to testify before Congress by Senators Schumer and Pryor and wanted to know whether he should accept the invitation.

Sampson then responds to the group:

I don't think he should. How would he answer:

Did you resign voluntarily?
Who told you?
When did they tell you?
What did they say?
Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming a U.S. Attorney?
What did Griffin say?
Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation?
Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming?
If not, then why?
Etc., etc.

To which Michael Elston responds--again to the entire group--"Agreed."

This email exchange helps put this previously released email from Bud Cummins in context. In the email, Cummins relays to the other fired U.S. attorneys that Michael Elston had called him in mid-February and essentially threatened to trash his reputation if he continued to provide quotes to the press and/or Congress (for more on this incident, see this TPM Muckraker post).

The exchange between Elston and Sampson also provides further evidence that officials in the Justice Department were determined to keep the details surrounding the appointment of Tim Griffin from Congress. As I highlighted the other day, in another email exchange Sampson had written the following regarding the Griffin appointment:

I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say "no never" (and the longer we can forestall that the better), 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.

As I noted previously, this is an incredibly damning email. It lays out, in no uncertain terms, an intention by the Attorney General's office to mislead Congress by going through the motions of the normal appointment process while actually engaging in a deliberate, bad faith stalling campaign designed to allow Tim Griffin to serve out the remainder of the Bush administration as a U.S. Attorney.

Sampson appears to have been afraid that if Cummins testified before Congress, it would become clear that the Attorney General's office had acted in bad faith and misrepresented the circumstances of both Cummins' departure and Griffin's appointment as his replacement.

Putting this all together--the firing, the stalling plan, the attempt to intimidate Cummins into staying silent--it looks an awful lot like senior Justice Department officials deliberately misled Congress about their intentions regarding Tim Griffin's appointment and then attempted to obstruct a Congressional inquiry that might have exposed that deception.

This is all very circumstantial, of course, but the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together and it's not looking good for the Bush administration.

UPDATE: Another relevant data point to consider. From the New York Times:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was “extremely upset” that his deputy told Congress last month that a federal prosecutor had been fired for no reason, according to e-mail released Monday by the Justice Department.

Mr. Gonzales believed that the prosecutor, H. E. Cummins III, the United States attorney for Arkansas, was dismissed for performance reasons, the e-mail suggested. But his deputy, Paul J. McNulty, testified that Mr. Cummins had been replaced to create a vacancy for J. Timothy Griffin, a political ally of the White House political adviser Karl Rove.

Was Gonzales upset because his Deputy told Congress the truth? Sure sounds like it.