Outside the Spectrum

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers. And so far as I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew. But again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General.

That was March 13th of this year. Of course, since then it has come out that Gonzales was at a meeting where these firings were discussed on November 27th of 2006.

“…was not involved in any discussions about what was going on” indeed. Also note, in the same USA Today article, “Internal e-mails disclosed by the Justice Department have indicated that Sampson worked closely with the White House in developing the plan for removal.” That would be Karl Rove, Harreit Miers, and maybe the president himself involved in firing prosecutors whose performance was hardly bad. And note the emails that indicated that a day after Carol Lam announced she would be pursuing Hookergate Kyle Sampson shot off an email saying that she was a “problem.”

This administration is rotten from crotch to crown.