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Tim Griffin, Karl Rove Protege, Resigns U.S. Attorney post in Ark.


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Very little about this has been discussed in the mainstream media, but the man who replaced former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins after he was fired by Alberto Gonzalez was Tim Griffin, a close aide to Karl Rove. More interestingly, evidence recently surfaced that Griffin was involved in a voter disenfranchisement plot to remove the voting rights of minorities, particularly minority soldiers serving in Iraq.

 

This morning he resigned from his post, just 12 hours or so after a BBC reporter named Greg Palast handed over 500 e-mails over to Senate Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, implicating Griffin and others in this plot.

 

Here is the story of his resignation:

 

Arkansas Times article: Link

 

The U.S. Justice Department has notified Arkansas's congressional delegation that Interim Eastern District U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin is resigning effective Friday, June 1. Jane Duke will become acting U.S. attorney. (This is the assistant in the office who the Justice Department once had said had to be passed over as an interim appointee because of her pregnancy. Since it's illegal to discriminate on account of pregnancy, Justice had to back off this statement.)

 

Still no word from the White House on selection of a nominee to put through the Senate confirmation process from a slate sent up by Rep. John Boozman.

 

"This is long overdue and a positive development," said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor. "Credibility is being restored to the leadership postion at the U.S. attorney's office. We have confidence Jane Duke will do a good job."

 

Griffin was placed in the job as part of an effort to install picks of Karl Rove in U.S. attorney jobs throughout the U.S. Griffin once worked for Rove. The politics of the move has become more apparent in a succession of congressional hearings. Pryor's criticism of the ouster of Bud Cummins to give Griffin the job and the use of a permanent interim appointment under the Patriot Act helped trigger what has grown into a national scandal. A law to end the president's ability to make permanent interim picks without Senate confirmation now awaits the president's signature.

 

Pryor had resisted Griffin's appointment without a confirmation hearing because of reports he'd been involved in Republican efforts to suppress black voter turnout in Florida, a critical state in Bush's victories.

 

No word yet on whether Griffin will join Fred Thompson's presidential campaign or move into the private sector. He had come home to Arkansas in hopes of building a resume for a future political careeer. This episode won't help. What he has to say in the days ahead -- and as Congress' investigation continues -- could have some bearing on his future as well.

 

and here's the article on the developing scandal involving RNC e-mails. Check out the link for pictures of the e-mails, which contain a list of names that were being targeted:

 

Article by Greg Palast, published in the Baltimore Chronicle: Link

 

March 7, 2007?There's only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That's replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

 

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush's firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn't bend to political pressure.

 

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

 

Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn't mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

 

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails?potential evidence of a crime?to email addresses ending with the domain name "@GeorgeWBush.com" he sent them to "@GeorgeWBush.ORG"?a website run by prankster John Wooden, who owns "GeorgeWBush.org." When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

 

And we dug in, decoding and mapping the voters on what Griffin called "Caging" lists?spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.

 

The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, "Do not forward." Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers; other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city's State Street Rescue Mission. Another target: Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.

 

If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as "suspect" and their registration wiped out, or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these 'cages' captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military, though they are legitimate voters. We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa. His wife admitted he wasn't living at his voting address: Randall was a soldier shipped overseas.

 

Randall and other soldiers like him who sent in absentee ballots, when challenged, would lose their vote. And they wouldn't even know it.

 

And by the way, it's not illegal for soldiers to vote from overseas?even if they're Black.

 

But it is illegal to challenge voters en masse where race is an element in the targeting. So several lawyers told us, including Ralph Neas, famed civil rights attorney with People for the American Way.

 

Griffin himself ducked our cameras, but his RNC team tried to sell us the notion that the caging sheets were, in fact, not illegal voter hit lists, but a roster of donors to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. Republican donors at homeless shelters?

 

Over the past weeks, Griffin has said he would step down if he had to face Congressional confirmation. However, the President appointed Griffin to the law enforcement post using an odd little provision of the USA Patriot Act that could allow Griffin to skip Congressional questioning altogether.

 

Therefore, I have a suggestion for Judiciary members. Voting law expert Neas will be testifying today?March 7? before Conyers' Committee on the topic of illegal voter "disenfranchisement"?the fancy word for stealing elections by denying voters' civil rights.

 

Maybe Conyers should hold a line-up of suspected vote thieves and let Neas identify the perpetrators. That should be easy in the case of the Caging List Criminal. He'd only have to look for the guy wearing a new shiny lawman's badge.

 

I also find it disappointing that Fred Thompson may hire this guy to work on his Presidential bid.

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Where was GM's posting of William Jefferson's indictment?

 

:lol

I was actually going to do that yesterday, but I figured someone else would. The guy is an absolute crook, and it looks like he was much more involved with criminal activities than anyone imagined. I was disappointed back in Jan when he was given a chairmanship of a committee, especially with that investigation hanging over his head.

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