Matt Ortega

View documents released by the White House on the prosecutor firings here.

The prosecutor purge as it stands now:

Gonzales: I’m going to get to the bottom of what Harriet and I did.

The White House released several documents relating to the prosecutor firings that occurred last December. Among these documents were e-mail correspondence between Department of Justice and White House officials that provide incontrovertible evidence of the level of involvement and their partisan political aims.

Tim Griffin, the former research director for the Republican National Committee in 2004, suggested using the provision in the USA PATRIOT Act to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. Griffin, a former Rove aide, was installed as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas with the cooperation of Bud Cummins, then-prosecutor. Former Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings was “in close contact” with Griffin on devising his installation in Arkansas.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spoke to the press and accepted responsibility with a caveat: He is not “aware” of “all decisions” made at the Department of Justice.

For his full comments, read the transcript here.

Fired prosecutor David Iglesias had contacted Gonzales chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, asking if he could list the attorney general as a reference during his job search. Sampson approved it — an obvious contradiction to the claims of poor performance. Sampson replied to Iglesias:

You can list the AG as a reference — not a problem. Good luck!

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) blasted the Bush administration officials for giving a series of “falsehoods” and “misleading statement after misleading statement” in a press conference today. Schumer lays it out:

Check out Schumer’s full comments here.

Sampson, the main conduit for the Justice Department on the firings, resigned yesterday, but TPMmuckraker picked up on an Al Kamen column in the Washington Post from October 2005 that stated if Rove were fired for his involvement in the Plame affair, Sampson was his “ready replacement.”

Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) expressed his displeasure with the firing of Daniel Bogden, U.S. Attorney for Nevada. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) also voiced his anger over the plan to oust the U.S. attorneys for political reasons. DNC Chairman Howard Dean sent out a press release calling for Gonzales and Rove to be axed.

Government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a call for a special prosecutor to investigate the firings.

And what about those ‘voter fraud’ allegations? “Bogus,” says Josh Marshall.

Marshall also provides a key component to the discussion:

I’m not sure if it’s more a matter of entertainment or just grim confirmation, but it is worth cataloging all the Republicans who are now willing to come forward and spin out arguments about how federal prosecutors always pursue political investigations and are little more than cat’s paws for the party apparatus of the president who appointed them. Rule of law. Rule of law. Rule of law. I’ve said it a number of times in recent months: the rule of law and creeping authoritarianism has to be at the center of any sensible politics today. The degradation is so great and the bar has fallen so low. [emphasis added]

Implications for 2008: former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-New York City) and former Governor Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts)? No comment. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), 2004 vice presidential candidate and former trial lawyer, says Gonzales must go. (Read more from the Democratic candidates here.)