Gap in Justice, White House e-mails raises questions
There is a sixteen day gap in the emails released concerning the firing of US Attorney's. The gap concerns the time period between November 15th and December 2nd 2006. The last email before the gap asks whether the President should be consulted.
This is a potential time bomb. Have the emails deliberately been held back to spare Bush's blushes? Did Bush intervene in this matter? Are we now witnessing a cover up?
The time period in question is the time directly before the period when the Attorney's were asked to hand in their notices.
On November 15 - the last day before the e-mail gap - Kyle Sampson, who was then chief of staff to Gonzales, e-mailed Miers and her deputy an outline of the plan to fire the prosecutors and wrote, "The plan, by its terms, would commence this week."
Sampson resigned last week amid outcry about the firings.
Later in the same e-mail Gonzalez said, "I am concerned that to execute this plan properly we must all be on the same page and be steeled to withstand any political upheaval that might result."
Miers responded that same morning, saying, "Not sure whether this will be determined to require the boss's attention" and noted that President Bush had left town the night before. Sampson then asked, "Who will determine whether this requires the president's attention?"
Bush is currently refusing to allow Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to be questioned under oath, citing executive privilege, which it is my understanding that one only uses to protect state secrets, which is blatantly not the case here.
This stinks to high heaven... If it walks like a cover up, if it quacks like....There are documents from days in that time period, but they deal with related issues such as setting up an interview for Tim Griffin, who was the replacement for Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney in Arkansas who was one of the eight asked to resign. They also deal with a request for a copy of an evaluation of an unnamed U.S. attorney and how U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was directed to provide a prosecutor for a high-profile trial.
A Justice Department official said "there was no lull" when asked about the time period between mid-November and early December.
The White House has yet to release internal communications that could shed light on the issue. It has offered to release communications between White House staffers and those at the Justice Department or others outside the White House, as part of negotiations with congressional committees over their access to key White House officials.
The White House, however, has not included internal communications between White House officials in its offer.
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