GONZO

And though you'll never hear it from MSM accounts, the blogosphere was incredibly important in exposing this hack.

Congratulations to Josh and the gang at TPM.

House alleges administration crimes

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee released a report alleging that WH and DoJ officials engaged in illegal activity in its firings of the Gonzales 8 US attorneys.

From the Washington Post:

The report says that Congress's seven-month investigation into the firings raises "serious concerns" that senior White House and Justice Department aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year may have obstructed justice and violated federal statutes that protect civil service employees, prohibit political retaliation against government officials and cover presidential records.

The key importance of this report, which the article fails to point out I might add, is that a presidential "executive privilege" claim is much weaker in the face of an actual criminal investigation.

Should this go to the courts the administration will now be much harder pressed to show why their blanket claim of that privilege is valid.

Gonzales-gate: I can hardly wait for the sequel

Interrogator: Sign ze papers old man.
Prisoner: I can not sign ze papers.
Interrogator: You must sign ze papers! Why will you not sign ze papers?!
Prisoner: Because you have broken both my hands!

[Stolen Adapted from Cheech and Chong]

In a tale fit for a Tom Clancy novel, or perhaps a dope-inspired comedy, routine your current Attorney General and former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez (I'm thinking Benicio del Toro for the movie), along with his co-conspirator White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (I see James Woods in the role) wend their way to the hospital bed of Attorney General John Ashcroft (sure the black thing might be a problem, but I'm rooting for James Earl Jones). Meanwhile, racing from his office at the DoJ, Deputy Attorney General (and acting AG) Jim Comey (in the Harrison Ford role) fights the clock in a desperate attempt to intercept the evil-doers before they can reach his boss' bed.

I can see it now, the quick cuts from Comey's speeding car to the random beeps of hospital monitors, to the steady incessant footsteps of the villains. Indeed, very cinematic.

And I suspect that's what presents the crux of the problem for Gonzales. The recent investigations into the corrupt politicization of the Department of Justice are, I suspect, a little too arcane to capture and hold the public's attention.

But how's this for a narrative that'll hold your attention. Mr. Comey, against all odds (while still obeying all traffic laws - he's that kind of guy) beats Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's bed in the ICU. Dana Milbank takes up the narrative in the Washington Post:

"The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey told the spellbound senators. "They came over and stood by the bed." They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on an eavesdropping plan that Comey and others at the Justice Department had already called legally indefensible.

Ashcroft "lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter" -- that Comey was right. "And as he laid back down, he said, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.' And he pointed to me."

Gonzales and Card "did not acknowledge me," Comey testified. "They turned and walked from the room."

Fade/dissolve to congressional hearings where Comey testifies to a stunned panel of Senators"

"I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," Comey told the quiet chamber. His voice grew thick and he cleared his throat as he explained how he prepared to resign. "I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis."

Pretty gripping stuff you'll agree.

I can hardly wait for the movie.

More Gonzalesgate fallout

One of the most profound consequences of the scandal unfolding in the Attorney General's office is that it legitimately calls into question virtually any prosecution conducted in the last few years.

Especially when such a prosecution is summarily overturned.

hilzoy blogging at Obsidian Wings has the story.

Monica Goodling: faith-based incompetence in the Bush administration

Few memes are so accepted as Common Wisdom, (within the progressive community anyway) as that of Bush's faith-based government. The ubiquitous response on the left has been its proud allegiance to the "reality-based" community, and Stephen Colbert's witty formulation that, "reality has a well known liberal bias".

But few, and certainly few of the MSM, have really investigated the depth with which the Bush administration has been infiltrated by literal members of the aforesaid faith-based community. Unti now.

One of the oddest little tidbits of information about Monica Goodling, the DoJ deputy who is taking the fifth rather than testify before congress about her role in Gonzogate, was the identity of her law school, Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law.

And despite the fact that no-one outside the evangelical community has ever before heard of this institution of higher (much higher, heavenly you might say) learning, apparently it's had a huge impact on the nuts and bolts operation of the Bush administration.

As Max Blumenthal, posting at HuffingtonPost points out, our Republican Monica, is not alone in calling Regent her alma mater:

Goodling's involvement in Attorneygate is not the only aspect of her role in the Bush administration that bears examination. Her membership in a cadre of 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University currently serving in the administration is another, equally revealing component of the White House's political program.

Goodling earned her law degree from Regent, an institution founded by Robertson "to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world." Helping to purge politically disloyal federal prosecutors is just one way Goodling has helped fulfill Robertson's revolutionary goals.

And Regent is far from the only source of holier-than-thou Bush appointments. As Garry Willis makes clear in his extensively backgrounded article in the New York Review of Books, such agents of reaction were placed specifically in an effort to assuage Bush's evangelical supporters. In fact, just as Bush put corporate shills in positions of power on his economic deprtments, he put evangelicals in charge of his social bureaucracies.

How? From Mr. Willis:

The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that "a lot of FRC people are in place" in the administration. The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services—agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes. [Emphasis mine-CK]

Mr. Willis' article should be read in full to appreciate the full depth to which Bush appointees, selected for their adherence to his particularly narrow view of faith rather than say, competence, have penetrated the various executive branch agencies.

The scope of this infiltration is truly breathtaking, though hardly surprising to those of us who've been watching how this wretched administration has trashed this great nation's cities, environment, and military.

More surprising is how the MSM, which now is engaged with much hand-wringing over BushCorp™ incompetence, refuses to talk about exactly why this is so.

[Big hat tip to Digby for pointing me to the Willis article]

Just boys, er, Republicans being boys

Lies, betrayal, email, til now the scandals revolving around Bushie lapdog Alberto Gonzales, has had it all, except sex.

Until now.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's teenage boy inmates.

Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties. [Emphasis mine-CK]

Of course I can kind of understand if Gonzalees was confused, after all, as Mark Foley demonstrated, this sort of thing is just boys being boys for Republicans.

Our Republican Monica takes the fifth

You've seen this scene before.

A beefy, olive complexioned man in a shark-skin suit, with a nick name that sounds like Vinny the Weasel, sweats beneath the steely gaze of his intrepid Senatorial interlocutor.

Senator: Mr. the Weasel, these documents (waves thick sheaf of papers) show that you were involved in a conspiracy to see that one Jimmy the Rat, would soon be sleeping with the fishes. Do you deny this charge?

Vinny the Weasel (after leaning over and holding an intense, though inaudible conversation with the attorney at his side): My lawyer tells me I gotta take the fifth.

The hearing room errupts in pandemonium.

(Cut to)

Vinny the Weasal in chains and oddly stripped jumpsuit being led to the hoosegow.

(Fade to black. Roll end credits)

Well, for today's edition of the Saga of the Gonzales 8 (will someone please establish a "gate" name for this fiasco so I know what to call it?), the part of Vinny the Weasel will be played by DoJ White House liason Monica M. Goodling.

Oh god, not another Monica.

Happily, for the moral fiber of this nation, this Monica has never given any president a blowjob (as far as we know).

What we do know is this. That this senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, after taking an indefinite and unspecified leave of absence form her job at Justice last week, was this week called to testifiy before the Senate regarding her role in Purgegate (c'mon folks, let's settle on that nickname and soon).

And this afternoon we now find out that our Republican Monica (shouldn't EVERY party have its own Monica?) will, rather than testify, be instead taking the fifth.

Finer legal minds than mine will have to analyze the implications of her move. Certainly I have a hard time blaming her for not wanting to become a scapegoat for this corrupt and incompetent administration. But this is exremely bad news for the Bushies (hey, I wonder if they have a softball team? I can suggest a name). It just doesn't look good.

I'm especially looking forward to hearing wingnut spin doctors explain the finer points of Ohio v. Reiner and how, just because Monica is invoking her right against self-incrimination, it doesn't mean she's done anything incriminating.

That ought to go over well with the American public.

Unless they've seen the movie.

Some random reactions around the 'sphere:

The commenters at TPM Muckraker are, um skeptical.

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers think she should be offered immunity so she can testify (I agree, Ms. Goodling's a small fish in this scummy pond).

Over at Daily Kos mcjoan notes that Republican's aren't always big supporters of the Fifth Amendment, at least when (surprise, surprise, surprise) it applies to Clintons.

Newsflash: BushCorp™ politicizes DoJ

But don't expect film at 11.

Though it strikes me as patently obvious that an administration that would let ideology guide us into the occupation of Iraq wouldn't hesitate to politicize the hypothetically apolitical Department of Justice, it appears the MSM is just catching on.

Triggered by the recent revelations of the politcal nature, perhaps criminally so, of the firings of the Gonzales 8, others are coming forward to a media that is shocked, shocked I tell you, that BushCorp™ has politicized the DoJ.

As the LA Times headline says:

Justice Department tugged to the right: Under Bush, the department has been tainted by politics, many say.

WASHINGTON — Not long after President Bush was first sworn in, White House political guru Karl Rove and his lieutenants met with officials of nearly every Cabinet agency to brief top officials on the latest polling data and issues that could influence voters and key constituencies.

But the departments of Justice, Defense and State were exempt. Given their missions — to administer federal laws, protect national security and conduct foreign policy — it was considered inappropriate to make such partisan presentations to them.

That sentiment didn't last long.

But while BushCorp™'s ever dwindling corp of defenders may claim that administrations always set political goals for their attorneys, that is a far cry from interfering in particular cases, which interference is unethical, and can be illegal.

Nonetheless, the critics tied their allegations to those described by two of the fired U.S. attorneys. David C. Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M., and John McKay of Seattle have said they felt pressure from Republican officials to prosecute alleged voter fraud in their states.

Both said their offices reviewed the cases and concluded the evidence did not warrant prosecution.

[snip]

Rich, a 37-year department veteran, said a partisan litmus test in hiring and decision-making has undermined a tradition of nonpartisan professionalism in the division.

"Unfortunately, since this administration took office, that professionalism and nonpartisan commitment to the historic mission of the division has been replaced by unprecedented political decision-making," he told the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties on Thursday.

[Recently retired head of the DoJ's Civil Rights Division, Joseph D.] Rich's views were backed by other department veterans who had left the department in recent years. Many, like Rich, have joined civil rights organizations, such as the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where Rich now works.

"The U.S. attorneys' firing confirmed my view that at the highest levels of DOJ it was decided that politics would play a role in how decisions were made," said Mark Posner, a former civil rights division attorney who contributed to a book-length report released by a civil rights group in Washington last week called "The Erosion of Rights: Declining Civil Rights Enforcement Under the Bush Administration."

The Civil Rights Division veterans focused their criticism on major voting case decisions over the last six years that they say have generally benefited the GOP.

The most recent case concerned a 2005 Georgia law that required voters to provide photo identification. Staff attorneys raised concerns about the law after the Georgia secretary of state supplied data showing that tens of thousands of voters might not have driver's licenses or other prescribed forms of identification. They said the plan could effectively disenfranchise large numbers of black voters.

The staff objections were ignored, department veterans said, and the Georgia ID rule was approved by the Justice Department 24 hours after the staff report was filed.

Again, none of this is shocking stuff, in the sense that such is obviously SOP for our Bushie government.

And I'm currently torn between which I find more shocking, that the MSM never seemed to notice, or that it's finally noticing now.

The sound of one shoe dropping

Last week, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez claimed that he "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on" we knew that he was either incompetent or lying.

Now we know which.

As the AP is reporting:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in an hourlong meeting last fall, according to documents released Friday that indicate he was more involved in the dismissals than he has claimed.

Last week, Gonzales said he ''was not involved in any discussions about what was going on'' in the firings of eight prosecutors that has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.

A Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Gonzales' aides said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week. Another Justice aide closely involved in the dismissals, White House liaison Monica Goodling, has also taken a leave of absence, two officials said.

Oops, good thing he wasn't under oath, but shouldn't baldface lies to the American people carry some sort of penalty?

I'm just asking.

Drip, drip, drip

Countdown with Keith Olbermann has become for many as much "Must See" TV as Heroes or Lost, though the plot twists, given the predictable disingenuousness of the Bush administration, are never quite as shocking (is it me or is Locke REALLY going over the edge?).

Anyway, last night's Countdown featured an interview with Senator Charles Schumer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, discussing Bush's refusal to let his aides testify under oath regarding the Gonzales 8 investigation.

One quote from Senator Schumer struck me as particularly interesting, as a veiled threat, as well as an invitation for DoJ people to step forward:

There are enough disgruntled people in the Justice Department in particular - because they really resented what happened here - that the information is going to come out. It can either come out 'drip, drip, drip' or it'll come out all at once, we'll get to the bottom of it in a complete way and move one (sic). It would be much better for the White House, as well as the Justice Department and the country, if they let it all come out at once. [Emphasis mine-CK]

Now we see that, as I noted in an earlier post, this is exactly what is happening.

And I strongly suspect, as does Senator Schumer, that Sharon Y. Eubanks is the only government attorney who knows that her position as an officer of the court (which lawyers are) was compromised by political directives from on high.

How high?

That's really the question isn't it?

Conservative paper calls for Bush to allow aide testimony under oath

North San Diego County is one of the most conservative areas in the state of California.

How conservative?

When its Republican Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham admitted to and was convicted of corruption charges (prosecuted, perhaps not so coincidentally by Carol Lam, one of the Gonzales 8), the district still chose to elect another Republican to take his place.

So it can't be good news for the Bushies (my new favoritist term) when the local paper for this very conservative area calls for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify under oath and on the record.

Given that he has so many other more important issues to manage -- there's a war on, after all -- and the fact that this is only the first salvo in what promises to be a long battle, President Bush should submit to this round of subpoenas. Again, Congress is right to pursue the testimony, under oath, of government officials whose previous comments misled our elected representatives and the public, whether deliberately or not.

President Bush still has a chance to avoid the approaching legal showdown between two branches of government. He would be well advised to wait for the next charge by the Democrats in Congress to stand his ground. That attack almost certainly will be on matters of more importance, and his defense will be far less compromised by the mistakes of his own men.

Prudent advice, given with the President's best interests in mind.

Almost makes me hope he's too stubborn to take it.

US Attorney fired for investigating GOPers, the obvious confirmed

In a startling confirmation of the obvious (my milieu if you'll recall), Senator Dianne Feinstein revealed today on Meet the Press that US Attorney Carol Lam was fired because of (gasp) the growing scandal surrounding the investigation of corrupt Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. From the LA Times:

Lam spearheaded the case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., who pleaded guilty to bribery and income-tax evasion. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.

Then, Feinstein said, in a broadening of the Cunningham investigation, Lam turned her sights on two of the former congressman's associates: Brent R. Wilkes, a defense contractor, and Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, a top CIA official who abruptly resigned May 8.

Feinstein said that, on May 10, Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants sent in the case of 'Dusty' Foggo and a defense contractor. The next day, an e-mail went from the Justice Department to the White House."

That May 11 e-mail was from D. Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, to White House Deputy Counsel William Kelley. "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam ... leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires," it read.

In fact they waited until December 7 to fire Lam along with the rest of the Gonzales 8.

The only surprise here is that the arrogant bastards waited until after the election.

OPR investigation: the new, bigger Gonzales-gate?

[x-posted at Daily Kos]

And while we're on the subject of criminal White House behavior, here's a story which seems to carry the potential for actionable (read impeachable) offence.
Remember waaay back when there was a bit of a tiff over the revelation that the National Security Agency was surveilling Americans without the judicial oversight required by the US constitution.

It was in the papers a while but then kind of went away because, funny story, the President of the United States denied security clearance to the government officials investigating the case.

Sure, some folks questioned this at the time, but with no investigation there were no facts to report, and hence no news. And, funny story, the Republican dominated Congress declined to investigate further.

Well, are you ready for another funny story?

Turns out that former White House counsel and current Attorney General (at least at the moment), Alberto Gonzales, knew at the time he was advising the President about how to deal with the NSA surveillance investigation, that he (Alberto) was personally a target of that same investigation.

The invaluable Murray Waas:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

So, here's a time line for you:

1. The NYTimes reveals the existence of the NSA's domestic spying program, brouhaha ensues.
2. OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility, a branch of the Justice Department) announces that it will be investigating the NSA.
3. Then White House Counsel Gonzales learns that he will also be a subject of the OPR investigation.
4. Gonzales' client, aka George W. Bush, then quashes the investigation by denying the OPR investigators security clearance to investigate the NSA.

This being the case, two possibilities remain.

Gonzales didn't tell Bush that Gonzales was a subject of the investigation, with-holding pertinent information from his boss who then quashed the investigation for the purported national security reasons.

Or

Gonzales told Bush that he was a subject of the investigation, as one might expect given their relationship, and Bush quashed the investigation to save his protege's ass, using national security as his Nixonian excuse.

If the former was the case Gonzales was merely as incompetent a White House Counsel as he is an AG.

If the latter was the case Bush, Gonzales, and anyone else aware of the situation, was involved in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Bush has dodged bullets (figuratively only if you please) all his life, but without a compliant GOP congress to look the other way, will he dodge this one?

[For more background Murray Waas is the go to guy on this story. See his articles here and here.]

Criminal behavior

Dear reader, you may be forgiven for wondering about the brouhaha revolving aroung the firing a a few United States Attorneys. What's the big deal? These people serve (as has oft been repeated in the last few days) at the pleasure of the president. He can fire them whenever he wants. Nothing criminal here.

But if it's truly the non-story that GOPers and their mouthpieces at Fox Noise say it is, what are we to make of the Whitehouse's confused attempts to explain away their behavior?

Just to bring you up to date on the Whitehouse's evolving lies account of the firings of the Gonzales 8 (in chronological order):

1. Just a routine personnel matter, nothing to see here.
2. The firings were because the selected attorneys were incompetent, and you know how big we are on competence.
3. Maybe the firings were political, but we can do that, 'cos y'know Clinton did it, so it must be ok.
4. The firings weren''t political, and even if they were AG Gonzales didn't know about it, it's Kyle Sampson's (Gonzales' chief of staff) fault.
5. It's Harriet Miers' fault. Karl Rove was just trying to reign in the politicization of the DoJ.
   
6. It's not Harriet's fault, we don't remember whose fault it is, but we're sure it's not the President's.
   

If you're confused I don't blame you. But what do you expect from this Whitehouse, truth?

(If you'll pardon the webese: ROFLMAO!!!!!!)

Ahem.

For a clear view of what's really going on I'd suggest my own brief analysis.

And for extensive coverage you can't do better than the guy who's been pounding this story so hard even the MSM and Congress sat up and took notice, the blogosphere's own Josh Marshall.

At the moment though I'd like to look at a brief passage buried in today's Washington Post article on the latest iteration of the WH's version of events.

Many of the documents released over the past week were sent or received by Sampson, whose resignation, Gonzales and other Justice officials said, was prompted by his failure to tell others in the department about his contacts with the White House, leading to testimony by McNulty and others that may have been misleading.

Sampson disputed that version of events in his statement last night, saying he "felt he had let the attorney general down in failing to . . . organize a more effective political response to the unfounded accusations of impropriety in the replacement process."

Sampson's statement also suggested that his contacts with the White House were well known within Justice. If the contacts were not brought to the attention of McNulty and others, the statement said, it was "because no one focused on it or deemed it important at the time." [Emphasis mine-CK)

Though clearly intended to back up his "we didn't do anything wrong" defense, Sampson's intentionally self-serving statement holds, for me, a glimmer of the truth.

Remember, this was back in 2005. Bush had just received the "mandate" of an actual electoral victory (as opposed to his appointment by the Supreme Court in 2000) and the Bushies were riding high. Time to clean house.

And what better place to start than with some US attorneys who either hadn't shown proper enthusiasm for prosecuting Democrats or even (gasp, the horror, the horror) had had the temerity to prosecute Republicans.

I'm suggesting that to a Whitehouse where policy IS politics, politicizing the prosecution of the law of the land was no big deal. Business as usual.

So while, to you or I, subverting the criminal justice system might seem an attack on this country's fundamental principal of the rule of law, to those serving King George it was standard operating procedure.

And that's the real crime.

Things that make you go hmmm

Washington is all abuzz about whether US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will have a job a few weeks from now (Google news search here). And while I suppose that office pools on his departure date are as rife as those for the NCAA playoffs, Gonzales' continued employment is a mere distraction from the real point of this situation.

The question is not whether Gonzales is an incompetent who lied to Congress and used his position as the nation's top law officer to further polish Bush's boots.

The question is whether the Whitehouse engaged in a concerted effort, a conspiracy if you will, to punish US Attorneys for not using their offices to further partisan Republican goals.

Pending congressional investigation (thanks be to the deity of your choice for a Democratic Congress) hard evidence is still lacking (though recently released emails from the DoJ are certainly suggestive) but a quick review of the circumstantial is suggestive.

We know that USA David Iglesias disappointed Republican Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Dominici for his failure to file indictments against local New Mexico Democrats before the November, 2006 elections. Please note that indictments have yet to be filed, and may well never be, leading to the suspicion that Mr. Iglesias was only doing his job by not filing charges because there was no chargeable offense.

And failure to file charges just because no crime had been committed appear to account for U.S. Attorney David McKay's spot among the Gonzales 8. "There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."

Obviously in need of the axe.

San Diego USA Carol Lam was merely the prosecuter behind the conviction of corrupt Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. 'Nuff said.

Now we learn that fired USA H.E. "Bud" Cummins was involved in an investigation involving the Missouri GOP:

In January 2006, he had begun looking into allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state's driver's license offices. Cummins [USA-Arkansas - CK] handled the case because U.S. attorneys in Missouri had recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest.

But in June, Cummins said, he was told by the Justice Department that he would be fired at year's end to make room for Timothy Griffin — an operative tied to White House political guru Karl Rove.

GOP investigation? Them's hangin' words.

And as a further bonus Cummin's firing opened the door for the placement of Karl Rove protege Tim Griffinin the Arkansas Attorney General's office.

Let's see. Former Arkansas first lady Hillary Clinton is running for President. And the Bush Whitehouse is, according to those darn emails, was especially interested in placing a Rovian puppet in a position to launch any number of investigations in the Clinton's home state.

It's just another of those things that make you go hmmm.