Open Thread - Minnesota update

by Mary

TPM highlights the latest in the US Attorney scandal. It turns out that McClatchy is reporting that Minnesota's US Attorney, Heffelfinger, showed up on an early list of attorneys to fire. But he saved them the trouble by resigning back in February 2006. This in turn made way for the DOJ to place Rachel Paulose, the youngest US Attorney, protege of Paul McNutly in the Civil Rights division, and best-buds with Monica Goodling, into the empty slot. Heffelfinger insists that no one was unhappy with his work and he was ready for a job in the private sector.

Just a couple of problems with this story. Heffelfinger resigned without a job waiting for him. As dKos' Halcyon noted, he didn't get another job until June.

Heffelfinger said he resigned because he needed to earn more $, yet his new position in the private sector wasn't announced until June 2006 (He resigned in February, barely a month after the Abramoff guilty plea.) Heffelfinger had been the head of the Native American Interest Section of DoJ, a subset of USAs who dealt with Indian cases. In a December 2006 article he noted the fact that 5 of the Gonzales 8 were members of NAIS (he makes 6), including Margaret Chiara, who had been named to replace him (perhaps because they were already planning to force her out, thus 'churning' the USAs on NAIS in order to stall cases involved with Abramoff, Griles and the oil/gas-extraction companies who've been getting away without paying royalties).

Paulose spent her 2 months at DoJ in the Civil Rights division, no doubt being trained in minority voter suppression.

Seems like that cover story needs some work.

It's your soapbox now.