Fired U.S. prosecutor warned of 'stink' (Cummins)

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Fired U.S. prosecutor warned of 'stink'

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The U.S. attorney in Arkansas warned the Justice
Department five months before he and seven federal prosecutors
were fired that "there may be some stink about this down the road"
— in part because of White House involvement.

"The White House recently called our sole Republican congressman
(Boozman) and pretty much told him what they are doing with this
appointment and how they are going about it," then-Arkansas U.S.
Attorney Bud Cummins wrote in a July 6, 2006, e-mail to Mike Battle,
then-head of the Justice Department office that oversees federal
prosecutors. Cummins' reference was to Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark.

Cummins knew by then that he was going to be dismissed and
replaced by a White House appointee who turned out to be Tim
Griffin, a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political
adviser. His e-mail was in previously unreleased documents sent
Friday by the Justice Department to the House and Senate
Judiciary committees.

Cummins' prediction turned out to be correct. His firing and that
of seven other U.S. attorneys over the winter created an uproar
and accusations that the White House was meddling in federal law
enforcement. It also has produced widespread calls for replacing
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors

[rzemanfl]

1. Sounds like a guy who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful of

it.

[fed-up]

2. k/r nt

[maddezmom]

3. WP link

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2007; Page A02

The White House told a Republican member of Congress last summer about its plans to fire a U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replace him with a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but it did not tell Democratic lawmakers, according to a new Justice Department e-mail released yesterday.

The White House called Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) "and pretty much told him what they are doing with this appointment and how they are going about it," according to a July 6 e-mail from Bud Cummins, then the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.


~snip~

The message indicates that Bush administration officials told Boozman about their plans to fire Cummins at the same time that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and other Democrats say they were being stonewalled.

Pryor has accused Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other Justice officials of lying to him about the firing of Cummins, who was replaced by Tim Griffin, a former Rove aide and an opposition researcher at the Republican National Committee.

Boozman said that when he spoke with Justice officials last summer, they told him Griffin would be subject to Senate confirmation. However, Gonzales appointed Griffin as interim U.S. attorney, using authority that has since been repealed by Congress.

Boozman also said he objected to Cummins's removal because the prosecutor was popular in the legal and political communities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702112.html