WHAT DID HE KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?….It seems like only yesterday that Alberto Gonzales was telling reporters that he barely even knew his department was planning to fire a bunch of U.S. Attorneys — and he certainly didn’t actively participate in any discussions about it. Like so many other administration figures, though, it appears his memory isn’t so good these days:
Internal Bush administration e-mails suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have played a bigger role than he has acknowledged in the plan to fire several U.S. attorneys.
The e-mails, delivered to Congress Friday night, show that Gonzales attended an hourlong meeting on the firings on Nov. 27, 2006 — 10 days before seven U.S. attorneys were told to resign. The attorney general’s participation in the session calls into question his assertion that he was essentially in the dark about the firings.
The McClatchy link also includes PDFs of tonight’s document dump, so head on over if you feel like browsing through it to look for dirt. Lots of back-and-forth about how pissed off Darrell Issa was at Carol Lam.
Also at McClatchy, they have a story putting together some evidence that the point of the purge was to install new U.S. Attorneys who would be more aggressive at ginning up Democratic voter fraud cases for the 2008 elections. Check it out.
