Could it be a Coincidence?

Read "E-Mails Show Machinations to Replace Prosecutor: Administration Worked for Months to Make Rove Aide U.S. Attorney in Arkansas" by Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein, The Washington Post, March 23, 2007.

• After the presidential election of 2004, would Carl Rove's attention not have turned to the presidential election of 2008?
• Would he not have recognized Hillary Clinton as likely Democratic candidate?
• Would he not have recognized a vulnerability for her in Arkansas (home of the White Water affair and her long term private law practice)?
• Tim Griffin went to work in Rove's office in 2005. Griffin, raised in Arkansas had worked in the U.S. Attorney's office in Arkansas as a special assistant U.S. attorney. He was research director at the Republican National Committee during Bush's 2004 campaign.
• Bud Cummins, the earlier Bush appointee as U.S. Attorney for Arkansas -- who did not qualify as what Department of Justice Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson called "loyal Bushies" -- "was recommended for removal as early as March 2005."
• While the Patriot Act (enacted after 9/11) increased the power of the White House to appoint U.S. Attorneys, in 2005 the power for interim appointments was still limited to three months. For appointments lasting beyond that time limit, Congressional Confirmation was required or the judiciary would make the appointment.
• The Senate allows Senators for a state to effectively block appointments to that state. According to the Department of Justice:

  A blue slip is the traditional method of allowing the home state senators of a judicial nominee to express their approval or disapproval. Blue slips are generally given substantial weight by the Judiciary Committee in its consideration of a judicial nominee. The process dates back several decades and is grounded in the tradition of "senatorial courtesy," which traces its roots back to the presidency of George Washington.

• In 2006, the Patriot Act was amended giving the White House the authority to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney to a vacant post for the remainder of the president's term in office without Congressional confirmation nor judiciary review.
• Newly released e-mails now show how Sampson "and other Justice officials prepared to use a change in federal law to bypass input from Arkansas' two Democratic senators, who had expressed doubts about placing a former Republican National Committee operative in charge of a U.S. attorney's office."
• In April 2006, Tim Griffin sent Sampson a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace "internal e-mails released this week show."
• Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, (other) e-mails reveal."
• "Cummins's dismissal differs from the firings of the seven other ousted federal prosecutors in several respects. Cummins was told he was being removed last June, and the rest were told on Dec. 7. Justice Department officials also have not publicly said Cummins's departure was related to his performance in office, as they have with the others. They acknowledged last month that he was fired simply to make room for Griffin."
• "By June 13, about a week before Cummins would be told he was losing his job, Sampson wrote to Monica Goodling, senior counsel to (Attorney General) Gonzales, to tell her that a colleague had the necessary pre-nomination paperwork for Griffin. He said that he would speak the following morning with Michael A. Battle, chief of the office that oversees U.S. attorneys, and make sure that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty's office 'knows that we are now executing this plan.'"
• In August 2006, Griffin was hired into a political position in headquarters and transferred "immediately to work in the U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock and await his nomination."
• "Griffin had been in Little Rock for more than a month when he received an official Justice Department notice that he would be interviewed for the position of interim U.S. attorney."
• Griffin is now serving as the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, and would normally be expected to continue in that position through the primary season and 2008 presidential election.

Comment: So we have a long and complex process -- one which as evaded the normal checks and balances of our legal system -- which placed "an aggressive and accomplished Republican political operative" with close ties to Karl Rove as the U.S. Attorney in the state where the leading Democratic candidate for president is most vulnerable to adverse legal action. Does anyone thing it is a coincidence? JAD