Latest Attorney Document Dump Undercuts Sampson and Gonzales

by Steve

As a result of the latest DOJ document dump last night related to the federal attorney purge, Alberto’s former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson now has a perjury problem stemming from his testimony last month in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The Justice Department identified five Bush administration insiders as replacement U.S. attorneys almost a year before most of the prosecutors were fired, contrary to repeated claims that no such list had ever been drawn up, according to documents released today.

[snip]

Sampson, who has resigned as Gonzales's chief aide, also submitted prepared testimony to the Senate last month saying that, with the exception of the prosecutor in Little Rock, "none of the U.S. attorneys was asked to resign in favor of a particular individual who had already been identified to take the vacant spot."

Not only does the document dump create problems for Sampson, but as Phoenix Woman over at Firedoglake noted based on a DKos diary, this latest dump undercuts Gonzales's claim that he wasn't involved in the sackings. Even if the documents were vetted in an effort to set up Sampson, Monica Goodling’s potential immunity deal would force Sampson to seek the same with Congress, thereby making the White House extremely vulnerable.

And if I am Conyers or Schumer right now, before I proceed with any immunity deals with Goodling and Sampson to go after Gonzales and the White House, I would first ask Patrick Fitzgerald point blank if there is anything in the recent Rove email revelations that is news to him. Given that Fitzgerald gave Rove a pass on the assumption that Rove was being completely truthful, if there were any chance that Fitz would be reopening a case against Rove, the Senate Dems need to tread carefully. Fred Fielding is at the White House specifically to run a "four-corners" stall against Congress for the remainder of Bush's presidency, but if Fitz sees a reason to show the three-judge panel that Rove lied to him and now seeks to reopen a case against him, Fielding has no cards to play.

Update: CREW this afternoon has now asked Fitzgerald to re-open the case against Rove.