The long and short of it - I AM a loyal, 4th generation Arkansawyer, I have strong conservative values, based in Christian morals and ethics nurtured of this country, so much so that I can not stand a manipulative liar, Tim Griffin in this case is such a person.
I have a deep understanding Arkansas politics and the Arkansas people because of family roots, deeply embedded in Arkansas soil,.... niece of the Late Senator John L. McClellan
I despise those who USE their military service as a ' notch ' on their resume because I am a veteran and former Military wife, I despise those who use good 'salt of the earth' ppl for personal gain,.. I have many reasons for which I am more than happy to supply you, the people of Arkansas, with what I had found about John Tim Griffin, ..
It is my sincere hope that you, the voters of Arkansas, upon reading this information, will utilize this information to the maximum ... Hopefully, running this Washington Inside 'Carpetbagger' out of town on a rail ..
denying him his most sought after feather in his cap.. a seat in the US House of RepresentativesArkansas does not need him to be a representative.. I believe him to be a Carpetbagger, sent to us for one reason only, to become a Congressional Representative for Arkansas just like many of these outsiders did after the Civil War during Re-Construction,
WE are not illiterate nor lacking in intelligence, we may be in some cases lacking in formal education but that can not offset the common sense exercised by most people of Arkansas,..
Think about this saying by our older generations, "where there's smoke there's fire" meaning when a person denies a wrong doing to strongly, it usually will be an indication of just how guilty the person is..
His [Tim Griffin] repetitive denial of the actions and these articles which strongly pointed to the facts of his being up to his elbows in these shenanigans hook, line and sinker!!
Strangely enough he claims his campaign funds have come from within Arkansas but according to his FEC filings of which I hold copies downloaded from the FEC WEBSITE, a goodly portion of his funds have been garnered from the two special fundraising events hosted be Washington insiders, on being held in Little Rock in December, one in Washington, DC in Jan. and the other in February in Little Rock by Rep. John Boehner, GOP Minority Leader, Rep. Jim DeMint, and Rep. Pete Sessions, the Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Caucus, from PAC"S and big money donors mostly from without the 2nd District State of Arkansas, Murphy Oil and their executives, Wal-mart & Executives, Arvest, big oil companies in Texas and so on,.. giving not just for the primary but for the general election as well, assuming he would automatically win the primary!!
Strangely enough most of the following information has been removed from the Wiki Page file.. HHUUMMM???
Licensing Public domain This image is a work of a United States Department of Justice employee, taken or made during the course of an employee's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. Public domain
Timothy Griffin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Timothy Griffin | |
 | |
| In office December 20, 2006 – June 1, 2007 | |
| Preceded by | Bud Cummins |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Jane Duke |
| Born | August 21, 1968 Charlotte, North Carolina* |
| Political party | Republican |
| Alma mater | Tulane University |
John Timothy Griffin (born August 21, 1968), was a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007, appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Griffin now runs his own businesses in Little Rock, Arkansas.
His own business is a one lawyer office! But yet he has not been engaged in this community, giving back to the social needs or was he just biding time and feathering his own nest??
Early life, education, and military service
Griffin was born in Charlotte, North Carolina*, and was raised in Magnolia, Arkansas. He graduated from Hendrix College in 1990, and then spent a year in graduate studies at Pembroke College at Oxford, England. He graduated from law school of Tulane University in 1994.Griffin began serving in the United States Army Reserve in June 1996, as a Judge Advocate General (JAG). In September 2005 he was mobilized to active duty for 12 months, serving at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and, for four months*, as a JAG officer in Mosul, Iraq. As of 2006, he had attained the rank of Major.[1]
Career
Prior to 2004
| Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy ( ) |
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| G. W. Bush administration officials involved |
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| Involved administration officials who resigned |
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| U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary 110th Congress |
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| U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary 110th Congress |
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Secretary of HUD, Henry Cisneros. For two years after that he was Senior Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Government Reform. In September 1999 he became Deputy Research Director for the Republican National Committee (for George W. Bush's election campaign); while in that position, he was a legal adviser for the "Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team" (see Bush v. Gore). From March 2001 through June 2002 he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff.
2004 election campaign
From June 2002 to December 2004, Griffin was Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for the Republican National Committee.[White House (2005-2006)]
In April 2005, Griffin began working at the White House as Karl Rove's aide, with the title of Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director in the Office of Political Affairs.[2]US Attorney appointment
See also: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
In September 2006, after ending a one-year military mobilization assignment, Griffin began working as a special assistant to Bud Cummins, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas,.[3] On December 15, 2006, the Justice Department announced that Griffin would be appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, effective December 20, 2006, the date when the resignation of Cummins took effect.[1][4][5][6] On August 11, 2009, the New York Times reported that previously classified White House emails, showed Karl Rove had lobbied for Griffin to be appointed Cummins successor.[7]Before a March 2006 revision to the PATRIOT Act, interim U.S. Attorneys had a 120-day term limit, pending confirmation by the Senate of a Presidential nominee. The Attorney General makes interim appointments; after the revision, the Attorney General's interim appointees had no term limit, effectively bypassing the Senate confirmation process if the President declined to put forward a nomination. Griffin was among the first group of interim attorneys appointed by the Attorney General without a term limit.[8]
Gonzales' decision to bypass confirmation for Griffin particularly angered Arkansas' two U.S. Senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Both Lincoln and Pryor claim that Gonzales promised them Griffin would go before the Senate for confirmation. Gonzales' decision not to do so prompted Lincoln and Pryor to join many of their Democratic colleagues in demanding Gonzales' resignation or firing.[9]
Documents released by a subsequent Congressional investigation showed that, in the summer of 2006, White House officials wanted a vacant slot in Little Rock, Arkansas, so Griffin could fill it.[10] Prior to this he was a top Republican researcher and aide to Rove.[11] He was hand selected by Rove to be a US Attorney.[12] On February 16, 2007, 10 days after McNulty testified that Cummins was dismissed in order to make a vacancy for Griffin to be appointed to, Griffin announced that he would not seek the presidential nomination to be U.S. attorney in Little Rock.[13]
On March 14, 2007 the Arkansas Leader wrote about Griffin his "resignation or dismissal ought to be imminent".[14] Gonzales testified in his January 18, 2007 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee:[4] "I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney."[4]
On May 30, 2007, Griffin resigned from his position effective June 1, 2007.[15]
2008 presidential campaign
On May 31, 2007, the Washington Post reported speculation that Griffin was in discussions with the then-nascent Presidential campaign of Fred Thompson for a top-level post. [16] Instead, Griffin set an office in Little Rock, Arkansas, for Mercury Public Affairs, a New York City-based firm, part of the Omnicom Group, where he had worked as general counsel and managing director. (The Thompson campaign paid Mercury Public Affairs to have Griffin as an advisor.[17]) Then, after a short period with Mercury, he started Griffin Public Affairs and the Griffin Law Firm.[18]In late May 2008, columnist Robert Novak reported that Griffin had been named as the Republican National Committee's Director of Research for the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, to direct opposition research, "although final arrangements have not been pinned down".[19] But Griffin said he was not going back to the Republican National Committee (RNC), and that he had not talked to anyone in the GOP's leadership structure or with the McCain campaign about that role.[18]
Future
On September 21st, 2009 Griffin announced that he was running to challenge incumbent Democrat Vic Snyder.[20]References
- ^ a b "Justice Department Announces Appointment of J. Timothy Griffin as Interim United States Attorney" (PDF). Press Release. Department of Justice. December 15, 2006. http://justice.gov/usao/are/news_releases/2006/december/12.15.2006.pdf. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
- ^ Griffin's resume, DOJ emails released to the Senate Judiciary Committee, p.15
- ^ Sabin, Warwick. End around: Senators question U.S. attorney appointment. Arkansas Times, December 28, 2007. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
- ^ a b c Waas, Murray (May 10, 2007). "Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove". National Journal (National Journal Group). http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/070510nj1.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
- ^ Q & A from Committee for Bud Cummins (no date). United States House Committee on the Judiciary Retrieved May 18, 2007. (Written responses by Bud Cummins to committee interrogatories, post-hearing.)
- ^ "J. Timothy Griffin sworn in as Interim United States Attorney fpr the Eastern District of Arkansas" (PDF). Press Release. Department of Justice. December 20, 2006. http://justice.gov/usao/are/news_releases/2006/december/12.20.2006.pdf. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
- ^ Eric Lichtblau, Eric Lipton (2009-08-11). "E-Mail Reveals Rove’s Key Role in ’06 Dismissals". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/politics/12firings.html?em. Retrieved 2009-08-14.
- ^ Satter, Linda (December 16, 2006). "Prosecutor post is filled in recess". Arkansas Democrat Gazette. http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/175895/. Retrieved 2007-04-04.
- ^ Lincoln, Pryor say Gonzales should be replaced - FOX16.com
- ^ Serrano, Richard (March 14, 2007). "E-mails detail White House tactics behind firings". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-emails14mar14,0,6800882.story?. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
- ^ "E-mails lay out plan to dismiss U.S. attorneys". CNN. March 14, 2007. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/13/fired.emails/. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
- ^ Sadler, Adam (March 15, 2007). "Pryor joins Democratic chorus in bashing attorney general". Arkansas Washington Bureau. http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2007/03/15/WashingtonDCBureau/341051.html. Retrieved 2007-03-15.
- ^ Dan Eggen (2007-04-17). "Interim Ark. U.S. Attorney Won't Seek Job: Former Rove Aide Says Senate Democrats Would Block Permanent Nomination". The Washington Post. p. A10. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600936.html.
- ^ Dumas, Ernie (March 14, 2007). "U.S. attorney scandal widens". Arkansas Leader. http://www.arkansasleader.com/2007/03/editorialsus-attorney-scandal-widens.html. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
- ^ Brantley, Max (May 30, 2007). "It's official". Arkansas Blog (The Arkansas Times). http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2007/05/its_official_4.aspx. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
- ^ Shear, Michael D. and Dan Balz (May 31, 2007). "Thompson Bid Would Stir Up GOP Race". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053000583_2.html. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
- ^ Andrew Zajac, "McCain aide: DOJ scandal 'nonsense'", Chicago Tribune, July 8, 2008
- ^ a b David J. Sanders, "Tim Griffin's proximity attracts lots of attention", Arkansas News Bureau, May 28, 2008
- ^ Robert Novak, "McCain Won't Play by Obama's Rules", May 22, 2008
- ^ http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?zone=AB_DailyReport_Monday&lID=&sID=&ms=&cID=Z&aID=117410.54928.129536
External links
- Eastern District of Arkansas biography
- Greg Palast-BBC documentary on Griffin posted by Greg Palast's youtube account
- ActionPoint- Claiming the Scalp of Tim Griffin Podcast
* this fact alone makes his claim as a 5th Generation Arkansawyer False!!
* this time frame was just long enough to be awarded the Campaign medal check out further information which is easily gathered through a search engine such as Google
J. Timothy (Tim) Griffin, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas who resigned effective June 1, 2007 [1], was named in December 2006 to the position by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which gave the U.S. Department of Justice "authority to install interim U.S. Attorneys without congressional approval." Griffin "said he was leaving to pursue work in the private sector. His name has cropped up in media reports in connection with a potential role on the presidential campaign of Republican Fred Thompson." [ Griffin is a former protégé of Karl Rove, Republican political strategist and top adviser to President George W. Bush. Griffin was "formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a 'caging' scheme to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida."7] | |||||
"Loyal Bushie""If you want to know what the career path of a 'loyal Bushie' looks like, let me introduce you to J. Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protégé who was slipped into the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas, and now is at the center of the controversy over whether the Bush administration has sought to politicize federal prosecutions," Richard L. Fricker wrote March 28, 2007, in Consortiumnews. | |||||
GOP "Oppo Man""Griffin works the oppo beat for the Republican National Committee, but he's not some shadowy operative whispering shady tips over the phone," Howard Kurtz wrote April 16, 2003. "As the man in charge of investigating the opposition, the research chief blasts his findings to the entire press corps in mass e-mailings, then sits back and watches the negative stuff spread like a computer virus. When Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean announced their presidential candidacies, Griffin and his staff flooded media in-boxes with derogatory information." | |||||
2006 Arkansas AUSA NominationPre-Nomination PaperworkAlthough Griffin was on a one-year military leave from the White House, mobilized on active duty beginning in September 2005 [8], a June 13, 2006, email from Natalie Voris, (USAEO-U.S. Attorney Equal Opportunity), cited by Monica Goodling, shows (page 41) that plans to nominate Griffin to a new Justice Department post upon his return from duty in Iraq were well underway:
Prosecutorial ExperienceOn June 14, 2006, Goodling received Griffin's "resume and military bio" (pages 43-47) from S. Courtwright, which states his "Trial Counsel" experience included prosecution of "Army criminal cases at courts-martial and federal criminal cases as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney (SAUSA), Western District of Kentucky and Middle District of Tennessee." Griffin's resume also stated that, between March 2001 and June 2002, as a SAUSA, Eastern District of Arkansas, he had "Prosecuted federal firearm and drug cases." On the March 20, 2007, edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, in a video clip, Mike Allen of The Politico was heard saying of Griffin: "Tim Griffin is very legally qualified, including serving as an Army lawyer in Iraq. In addition to that, he has his political life. He's part of this tight-knit group here in Washington that helped get the president elected twice." Richard L. Fricker wrote April 18, 2007, for Consortiumnews that the Bush administration "fed Republican senators misleading talking points that hailed the prosecutorial experience of interim Little Rock U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin, although the protégé of White House political adviser Karl Rove appears never to have actually tried a criminal case."
However, Fricker writes that "Army officials say Ft. Campbell’s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial." Griffin v. CumminsOn March 28, 2007, Mary Lu Carnevale wrote in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: "Today’s email release from the Justice Department shows that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid along with Sens. Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray zeroed in on the Griffin case in a Feb. 8 [2007] letter to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ... Among the questions: 'Why was Bud Cummins (bio) told to resign in June of 2006, when the other dismissed officials were told in December of 2006? Was the reason to give the replacement, Tim Griffin, a chance to become ensconced at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arkansas before making the appointment?'," Carnevale wrote.The answer comes from the preceding: Although Griffin was still on active duty, serving in Iraq, he was already in play for the Arkansas post. This is clearly indicated by both the June 14, 2006, email cited above and the anonymously posted August 30, 2006, speculative blog entry at The Truth In Arkansas Politics. On the Fast Track to ArkansasJune and July 2006 emails between Griffin and Goodling clearly show how Griffin's pre-nomination process was fast-tracked—or, as Griffin put it in a July 5, 2006, email (page 10) to Goodling, "movement on my front."Griffin also wrote (page 10) "i havent said a thing to Bud Cummins." Goodling's response (page 11) was to tell Griffin "WHCO also asked me to remind you to continue to keep this close hold." "WHCO" was the White House Counsel's Office, which at the time was Harriet E. Miers. Goodling emailed (page 18) Kyle Sampson on August 8, 2006, regarding a U.S. Senate confirmation problem and where to put Griffin before "we install him in Arkansas." On August 24, 2006, Sean Murphy sent an email to Goodling and others which included the text (page 20) of an Arkansas Times article about Cummins' departure "in the next few 'weeks or months', but almost certainly by the end of the year" and which speculated on Cummins' successor. Griffin's name was discussed by the Times, citing "informed sources".The article states that Griffin's "political work would likely get more attention - and Democratic opposition - in the Senate confirmation process" and that he would "have to endure some questioning about his role in massive Republican projects in Florida and elsewhere by which Republicans challenged tens of thousands of absentee votes. Coincidentally, many of those challenged votes were concentrated in black precincts." On August 30, 2006, Goodling emailed (page 40) Scott Jennings et al. to inform them that the plan was to "bring Tim over to DOJ around Sept. 25, when he finishes at the Army ..." The plan (page 42) to appoint Griffin was well-timed, as he would complete active duty on September 25th, work a day at the White House, and then be appointed to the Justice Department on the 27th.This was confirmed on September 8, 2006, when Sherry Mahoney, Justice Management Division, sent Goodling an email (page 43) stating that Griffin would "Work at WH on tues 26th and start at doj on wed 27th." Goodling responded (page 44) "Yes, one day here is enough." On September 13, 2006, Goodling received an email (page 47) informing her that Griffin had been cleared by security for permanent status as "Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General DJES" with a salary of $142,900.Apparently there was a question as to what Griffin's title "DJES" meant, as Goodling sent an email (page 48) September 13, 2006, in which she wrote "I have no idea what it stands for, but he's Counselor to the CRIM AAG technically, but will be detailed to the USAO in Arkansas after EOD'ing." On September 13, 2006, Kyle Sampson emailed (page 53) Goodling a list he planned to send to Harriet Miers regarding the U.S. attorneys. Under section IV entitled "USA in the Process of Being Pushed Out" was "E.D. Ark. (Bud Cummins)." Sampson also wrote (page 53) "I strongly recommend that, as a matter of policy, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments. ... By not going the PAS route, we can give far less deference to home-State Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less cost to the White House." On September 27, 2006, Mahoney emailed (page 59) Goodling that Griffin was completing his paperwork "and advised us that he will be detailed immediately to a position in Arkansas." On December 16, 2006, Aaron Sadler of the Arkansas News Bureau wrote that Griffin, a "former Republican political operative and top aide to President Bush was named late Friday [December 15, 2006] as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas", while Congress was on recess. Cummins was to resign the following Wednesday, December 20, 2006.Profiles"In May 2006, Griffin was assigned to the 501st Special Troops Battalion (STB), 101st Airborne Division and sent to serve in Iraq. From May through August 2006, Griffin served as an Army JAG with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq, as a member of the 172d Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) Brigade Operational Law Team (BOLT)." [9]Beginning in September 2005, Griffin was "on military leave from the White House where he served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director, Office of Political Affairs. As Special Assistant to the President, Griffin advised President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard B. Cheney on political matters and organized and coordinated political support for the President’s agenda, including the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court." [10][11] Previously, Griffin served from 2001-2002 "as an appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice where he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General, Michael Chertoff, the Criminal Division Chief. In the summer of 2001, AAG Chertoff granted [Griffin] a year detail as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock[, where he] prosecuted a variety of federal cases with an emphasis on firearm and drug cases. He also organized the Eastern District’s Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the Bush Administration's initiative to reduce firearm-related violence by promoting close cooperation between state and federal law enforcement, and served as the PSN coordinator." [12] Griffin "served as Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for the Republican National Committee (RNC) during the 2004 presidential campaign and Deputy Research Director for the RNC during the 2000 presidential campaign. [Griffin] has also served as Senior Counsel to the Government Reform Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; Associate Independent Counsel, In Re: Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Henry Cisneros; and as an associate attorney with the New Orleans law firm of Jones, Walker." [13]
TimelineThe following comes from a profile provided by Tim Griffin in April 2006 for The Pembrokian (Pembroke College). [15]
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Related SourceWatch Resources
External linksEmails: to/from/about Griffin
Profiles
Articles & Commentary about Tim Griffin | |||||
RFK: Rove And Rove's Brain, 'Should Be In Jail,' Not In OfficeNEW YORK -- Monday, May 7, 2007 Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin's former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush. "Timothy Griffin," said Kennedy,"who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through 'caging' techniques - which are illegal." [Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and 'caging lists' below or here]Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, "Armed Madhouse." On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the 'caging' lists. This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly "lost" by Rove's office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with 'caging' lists attached. 'Caging' lists are "absolutely illegal" under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters 'caged' in a single state, Florida. Palast wrote in his book, "Here's how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters," particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back "undeliverable" because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, "challenge the voter's registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted." The Republicans successfully challenged "at least one million" votes of minority voters in the 2004 election. Kennedy, a voting rights attorney, fumed, "What he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail. Instead [Griffin] was rewarded with the US Attorney's office." "They [Griffin, Rove and their confederates at the RNC] knew it was illegal." Kennedy has called on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to expand their investigations of the firing of US Attorneys to include a probe of their replacements, especially Griffin, as well as Rove's knowledge of the caging operation.In preparation for just such an investigation, Kyle Sampson, former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, wrote a confidential email, dated December 19, 2006 outlining a strategy to stall Congress' from questioning the propriety of the Griffin appointment. “We should gum this to death," wrote Sampson, "Ask the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course." Sampson has since resigned. Palast said, "Just as Rove is known as 'Bush's brain,' Griffin is 'Rove's Brain.' I'm flattered by his 'review.'" Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television's premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove's office, Griffin boasted that, "No [US] national media picked up" the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling, Senior Counsel to Attorney General Gonzales, who has since resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer Congressional questions. Griffin and Rove refused several requests from Palast and BBC to respond to charges of illegal, racial 'caging' of voters. However, a Republican spokeswoman, while admitting the lists could be used to challenge soldiers' votes, said that was 'not the purpose' for gathering the lists. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House GONE WILD. To see Palast's reports for BBC, obtain more information on Armed Madhouse or the prosecutor firing scandal, or to request an interview with Palast, go to www.GregPalast.com Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and on Palast's book -- "a masterpiece," says RFK: download this recent segment of "Ring of Fire" at www.GregPalast.com Palast will return to speak with Kennedy and his Air America co-host, attorney Mike Papantonio, this weekend. Check Air America listings. | |||||
Arkansas Blog from Arkansas TimesThe 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. | |||||
Former Bush Administration Colleagues Give To GriffinTim Griffin, a central player in the 2006 U.S. Attorney firings scandal, is now running for Congress from ArkansasGriffin Raises $130,000 For House Bid | |||||
TPMMuckraker | |||||
Ex-aide to Rove resigns amid U.S. attorney flap [CNN] | |||||
Former Rove aide 'aggressively sought' US Attorney post  The "unusual appointment" of a former Rove aide to a US Attorney post that he "aggressively sought" has become one of the central issues in the current controversy, an article in Friday's Washington Post reports."Two months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice Department to take his place," Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein write. The article continues, "Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, e-mails reveal. New documents also show that Justice and White House officials were preparing for President Bush's approval of the appointment as early as last summer, five months before Griffin took the job." "The unusual appointment of Griffin, now serving as the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, has been one of the central issues in the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, which led to this week's constitutional showdown between Congress and the White House over the testimony of some of Bush's closest advisers," the Post reports. Radar Online took note of another Griffin email which showed him "aggressively" hustling for Cummins' job. "One of the most controversial judicial appointments was that of J. Timothy Griffin, whose strongest qualifications for being named the U.S. attorney for Arkansas were that he worked as Karl Rove's assistant in 2005 and did opposition research for the Republicans during the 2000 campaign," the website noted. "In an e-mail to Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, Griffin passes along a few references that don't pop up on his resumé." "I am good friends with both chiefs of staff to [Arkansas Senators] Pryor and Lincoln. Pryor's chief of staff is a good friend and Lincoln's was my high school girlfriend," Griffin wrote. "Should I say anything to them? I would hate for my senators to be told without my peeps knowing? [sic]" Radar Online mocked, "The former girlfriend reference—always a solid way into a job as U.S. attorney!"Excerpts from Post article: #Cummins said he had no idea of those plans until he was notified of his firing last June. Sometime in the next couple of months, he said, it became clear that Griffin was going to get the job, and Cummins stepped aside in December. "Was it because Tim Griffin was working for Karl Rove?" Cummins said this week. "I don't know, and I don't think it really matters at this point."The e-mails, however, show just how aggressively Griffin sought the appointment. On April 27, for example, he used a private e-mail account to send a note to Sampson. "Kyle, This might also be helpful," Griffin wrote, enclosing the flattering, four-paragraph note that Cummins had written nearly four years earlier, after Griffin had worked in his office as a special assistant U.S. attorney. "Just thought you should have it," Griffin said. FULL POST ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK | |||||
Why is everyone so surprised that last night's document dump from the White House included an e-mail showing one of Rove's twerpy assistants pissed off about Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty admitting that the White House had forced out a U.S. Attorney to make room for grubby GOP operative and Rove protege Tim Griffin. (Griffin-- now exposed and asked to leave the Department of Justice-- is currently doing grubby political ops for actor/lobbyist Fred Thompson.)Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Why? Is there something too unsavory for Griffin about working as a lobbyist? Isn't that what all Republican trash does when they get caught doing things they shouldn't be doing? I'm sure he and Toensing and Bossie and Thompson will do some memorable things together-- and you can count on DWT to follow their misadventures closely. In this morning's Washington Post Dan Eggan writes that Bush's gal Harriet Miers and a bunch of Rove thugs "were closely involved in crafting a public response to the uproar over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys." He's so polite. He means they were orchestrating the coverup. Poor Harriet; she coulda been a contender. From a sure thing in the Supreme Court to a felon. The new records provide a peek at the actions of the White House, which has repeatedly refused Democratic demands for records and sworn testimony related to the issue. UPDATE: SUBPOENAS... WE HAVE SUBPOENAS Does it matter? The Senate Judiciary Committee is subpoenaing Taylor and the House Judiciary Committee is subpoenaing Miers. The White House announced that they will invoke executive privilege to prevent either from testifying about anything that happened inside the Regime while they were working there. So the question is... why not just subpoena Rove, who they were both taking orders for and who thought up the whole plan to begin with? I mean the most Congress will be able to do is hold someone in contempt of congress, so why not the most contemptible creature in the regime instead of these two order takers? Just askin'. UPDATE: CONYERS EXPLAINS WHY HE AND LEAHY ISSUED SUBPOENAS TO MIERS AND TAYLOR-- BUT NARY A WORD ON ROVE This morning John Conyers availed himself of the might Daily Kos platform to share his insights into the unfolding Purge-gate scandal with the million or so concerned citizens who wisely get their information there instead of on the corporately owned, heavily biased mass media. Rep. Conyers (D-MI) explained why he and Leahy finally felt compelled to issue the subpoenas.
He then goes on to summarize what his committee has discovered so far. It sounds like a novel that an editor might say is too far fetched for anyone in the U.S. to believe; the editor might suggest setting it in Paraguay or Albania. • Key White House political advisers Karl Rove and then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales were involved from the beginning in plans to remove U.S. Attorneys. According to documents obtained from the Department of Justice and Mr. Sampson’s testimony, Mr. Sampson discussed the plan with then-White House Counsel Gonzales not long after President Bush’s re-election in late 2004. A January 9, 2005 e-mail released by the Department shows that Karl Rove initiated inquires as to "how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc." In his response to queries from David Leitch, a White House official, Mr. Sampson expressly deferred to the political judgment of Mr. Rove as to whether to proceed with plans for the replacement of U.S. Attorneys, writing,"[I]f Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I." OK, so why exactly hasn't Rove been subpoenaed? And why is impeachment off the table again? Like I said before, just askin'. Wednesday, May 30, 2007Tim Griffin, the grossest joke to surface so far in the still-unfolding Purge-Gate scandal, decides it's time for him to pursue other opportunities "Griffin became the poster boy for the politicization of the U.S. attorney process. Former Justice official Kyle Sampson noted that getting Griffin into office 'was important to Harriet [Miers], Karl, et cetera.'”--from ThinkProgress's report of the resignation of Rove-style campaign hatcheteer Tim Griffin as a U.S. attorney The grossest embarrassment in the Purge-Gate U.S. attorney scandal is moving on. Friday will be the last day as U.S. attorney for the Eastern district of Arkansas for Tim Griffin, the Karl Rove protege who scammed his way into the job with absolutely no qualifications except a master's degree--the master in question being his mentor, Master Rove--in campaign slimery and election thievery. That and his apparent feeling that it would be just a swell job for him, and never mind that there was a widely admired and respected incumbent, Bud Cummins, occupying the office.  It's important to recall that Cummins wasn't fired as part of the famous Virgin List (of insufficiently Bush-sucky U.S. attorney appointees). In fact, beyond the Bush regime's general and enduring hatred for competence, nobody seems to know why Cummins was given the old heave-ho, except that the punk Griffin wanted his job. (At any rate, Deputy AG Paul McNulty testified that he didn't know of any reason apart from the wish of people in high places to install Master Karl's puppet in the job. There is plausible speculation that Master Rove wanted to install his Timmy in Arkansas to position him for a reelection challenge to Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor.) Thanks to the stealth insertion in the Patriot Act that gave the attorney general the power to replace a U.S. attorney indefinitely without Senate confirmation, Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales could have slotted the Prince of Darkness himself into the job. Hell, he would have had better credentials for it.Here's ThinkProgress's report of Timmy's departure:
Meanwhile Raw Story reports this comment from a spokesman for Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), Michael Teague: [Griffin's] departure from the U.S. Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas is a positive development, and the senator is looking forward to having credible leadership restored there. Reports floated by the Wall Street Journal have the odious Griffin taking a top position in Fred Thompson's impending Republican presidential campaign. However, tonight on Countdown Alison Stewart asked political commentator Dana Milbank why Thompson would want to take on Griffin's weighty baggage, and Dana couldn't think of a good reason. | |||||
Did Rove's Protégé Puff Up Résumé? Little Rock’s interim U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin – already at the center of a firestorm over whether the White House has put politics ahead of prosecutorial integrity – made claims about his experience as an Army lawyer that have been put in doubt by military records. The 38-year-old Griffin claims on his official Web site that he prosecuted 40 criminal cases while at Ft. Campbell, where he was stationed from September 2005 to May 2006. But Army authorities say Ft. Campbell’s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial. Griffin didn’t agree to be interviewed about his claim of 40 criminal prosecutions versus the Army’s confirmation of three cases, all of which were settled as plea bargains. But Cherith Beck, a Griffin spokeswoman, suggested that Griffin’s higher number might refer to all cases he worked on in any capacity. “Just wanted to clarify, make sure you had an understanding that prosecuted means it’s a case he handled while he was there; it doesn’t mean that it went to trial necessarily,” Beck said. “Prosecuted means he handled those cases in one form or another.” Griffin’s prosecutorial experience at Ft. Campbell is important in evaluating Griffin’s fitness to serve as the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Arkansas since the bulk of Griffin’s legal career has been in political operations, such as opposition research on Democrats or work as a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill. Seeking to burnish Griffin’s prosecutorial credentials, his backers also have cited a letter of recommendation dated Aug. 13, 2002, from then-Little Rock U.S. Attorney H.E. “Bud” Cummins III praising Griffin’s nine months of work as one of his assistants. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hailed Griffin as “a person with prosecutorial experience who the attorney – who the U.S. Attorney who was going to be removed said was his right-hand man and one of the best prosecutors he had.” In an e-mail to me, however, Cummins disputed Hatch’s characterization of the letter. “I don’t see here where I referred to him as my ‘right arm,’” Cummins said. “I don’t know where they are getting that. Tim [Griffin] worked hard and did a good job organizing the launch of what became a very successful PSN [Project Safe Neighborhoods] program. But the great success was at least equally due, if not a great deal more, to the efforts of virtually every prosecutor in the office after his departure.” False Talking Points Cummins noted that Hatch also made disparaging remarks about Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney in San Diego who was another of the eight federal prosecutors fired last year because the White House and Justice Department didn’t rate them highly on lists that included an assessment of whether they were “loyal Bushies.” “I imagine Senator Hatch will be very upset with the person or persons that fed him all the wrong information,” Cummins said in the e-mail. “I know he doesn’t want to put HIS credibility at risk, too. Sounds like he was provided talking points by someone as reckless with the facts as other previous occurrences in this saga. “I have lost count of the public statements they have made that are simply wrong, or at least obviously deceptive. It smacks of desperation. You wonder if the bosses know the underlings are composing talking points for them with such little regard for the facts.” In an earlier phone interview, Cummins told me he had no clear recollection of Griffin actually trying any case during his nine-month stint in Little Rock. “I honestly don’t remember,” Cummins said. “He may have tried one or two but nothing jumps out at me.” Cummins added that Griffin “got a lot of indictments but other people had to try his cases because he left.” Griffin quit his job with U.S. Attorney Cummins to go to work as an opposition researcher for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. It was in such political assignments that Griffin became a favorite of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove whose office pressed for Griffin’s appointment as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock starting in 2005. In December 2006, Griffin was named to replace Cummins, a Republican who was well-regarded for his fairness by both Republican and Democratic lawyers in Arkansas. Cummins was put on the Justice Department hit list as early as March 2005 with Griffin tapped as his replacement by January 2006, according to internal administration documents and e-mails. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other administration officials have denied acting improperly in the prosecutor purge, but Gonzales is under increasing fire from Congress over a series of inaccurate explanations about how and why the firings occurred. Griffin’s other principal experience in a prosecutor’s office came early in his career, in the mid-1990s, when he was hired as an associate to special prosecutor David Barrett, a Republican lawyer who was appointed by a conservative-dominated three-judge panel, to investigate alleged misstatements by President Bill Clinton’s Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Henry Cisneros about payments to a mistress. Cisneros, then one of the most promising Hispanic politicians in the United States, eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI about the payments, effectively destroying his career. In the final report on the case, Barrett thanked Griffin “for helping in the early stages of the investigation.” Griffin’s résumé, however, paints a more substantial picture of his role, saying he “interviewed numerous witnesses with the FBI and supervised the execution of a search warrant, drafted subpoenas and pleadings and questioned witnesses before a federal grand jury.” Griffin next went to work for the House Committee on Government Reform, which was looking into other alleged offenses by Democrats, including improper campaign contributions. ‘Oppo’ Researcher In September 1999, Griffin joined the Bush-Cheney campaign as deputy research director handling what’s known in the Washington political world as “oppo” or opposition research, digging up dirt on political opponents. He also worked as a legal adviser in the Florida recount battle that gained Bush the White House. In 2001, Bush appointed Griffin as a special assistant to Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s criminal division. During five months on the job, Griffin “tracked” issues for Chertoff, such as extradition and provisional arrest, according to Griffin’s résumé. Griffin then spent nine months in Little Rock as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney Cummins before returning to the political world where he was named research director and deputy communication director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. Griffin’s campaign initiatives included the use of a technique known as “caging” to identify suspect voters. Griffin’s team sent letters to newly registered voters in envelopes barring any forwarding, so they would be returned if a voter wasn’t at that address. BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered Griffin’s role in this practice that proved especially effective in “caging” African-Americans who lived in low-income areas or who were in the U.S. military. “Caged” voters would then be challenged by Republican lawyers when they arrived at the polls or cast absentee ballots. After Bush secured a second term, Griffin joined the White House staff as deputy director for political affairs under Karl Rove. Griffin’s résumé again portrayed him playing an important role. Starting in April 2005, Griffin said he “advised President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney on political matters, organized and coordinated political support for the President’s agenda, including the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” Military Lawyer Griffin’s brief White House service was interrupted in September 2005 when he reported for active duty as an attorney at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. It was there where Griffin claimed to put significant prosecutorial experience under his belt. Griffin’s Web site states that “At Fort Campbell, he prosecuted 40 criminal cases. One of those, U.S. v. Mikel drew national interest after Private Mikel attempted to murder his platoon sergeant and fired upon his unit’s early morning formation. Private Mikel pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.” When I asked the Army to identify the cases prosecuted by Griffin at Ft. Campbell, the Army’s public relations office replied, “According to our SJA [Staff Judge Advocate] office, Major Griffin was involved in these three cases (guilty pleas before a military judge alone) as an assistant trial counsel at Ft. Campbell, US vs. Hurst, vs. Mikel, and vs. Edwards.” Then, after a tour of about three months as an Army lawyer in Iraq, Griffin returned to the United States where the White House offered him the job as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock. Over the preceding two years, White House and Justice Department officials had collaborated to create the vacancy by ousting Griffin’s old boss, U.S. Attorney Cummins. Although the Justice Department initially denied knowing “of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Griffin,” an e-mail by Gonzales’s chief of staff Kyle Sampson revealed that Griffin’s appointment was “important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,” in a reference to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers and Karl Rove. As a furor arose over the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys, Sampson resigned. However, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29, he insisted there was no contradiction between the initial denial about Rove’s role and the e-mail because he only “assumed” Rove’s interest from the pressure coming from Rove’s staff to grant Griffin the appointment. Griffin’s appointment also has proved controversial because Gonzales exercised a new emergency power that was put into the USA Patriot Act to give the Attorney General discretion to name U.S. Attorneys without the normal Senate approval. Both houses of Congress have now voted to rescind that power. Griffin also has indicated he will not submit himself to the Senate confirmation process. Griffin told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that “I have made the decision not to let my name go forward to the Senate. … I don’t want to be part of that partisan circus.” One of the questions Griffin may want to avoid is a detailed recounting of his courtroom experience. Richard L. Fricker is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based freelance reporter/writer and two-time winner of the American Business Press Editors Award for Investigative Journalism. He writes regularly for the Swiss newsweekly Sonntags Blick and Consortiumnews.com. Fricker can be reached at rlfricker@hotmail.com . | |||||
Rove-Protege Tim Griffin Resigns As U.S. Attorney The Arkansas Times reports that the controversial U.S. attorney in Arkansas, Tim Griffin, has resigned: 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.Griffin, a former protege of Karl Rove, was formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida. Griffin became the poster boy for the politicization of the U.S. attorney process. Former Justice official Kyle Sampson noted that getting Griffin into office “was important to Harriet [Miers], Karl, et cetera.” The traditional 120-day term for “interim” U.S. attorneys had expired for Griffin on April 20, yet the Justice Department continued to allow him to serve. ThinkProgress earlier spoke with Rep. John Boozman’s (R-AR) office, which said that the congressman submitted names of replacements for Griffin to the White House on March 30. So far, no word from the Justice Department on the name of the new U.S. attorney. In the meantime, assistant U.S. attorney Jane Duke will take over. The Justice Department had previously passed her over to install Griffin, using sexual discrimination as an excuse because Duke had been on maternity leave at the time. UPDATE: Today the Wall Street Journal reported that Griffin was in “discussions” about working for the possible presidential campaign of Fred Thompson. But the Arkansas Times reports that it’s still unclear whether he will join a campaign or go into the private sector. UPDATE II: Raw Story has Sen. Mark Pryor’s (D-AR) reaction to Griffin’s resignation here. [reason behind resignation was simple, Tim Griffin was not going to be confirmed by the Judiciary Committee, a crucial part of the process - check Senate Committee record on Thomas ] | |||||
Arkansas Senator happy to see top Rove aide end term as US Attorney
 Reflecting on news that a controversial player in the firing of one US Attorney could soon join the Presidential campaign of Republican Fred Thompson, an Arkansas Senator said he was happy to see the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas depart from his current office."His departure from the US Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas is a positive development and the Senator is looking forward to having credible leadership restored there," said Michael Teague, spokesman for Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), of reports that interim US Attorney Tim Griffin had been approached to join Thompson's campaign. Teague did not have any remark for RAW STORY about Griffin's future employment plans.The Wall Street Journal reported today that Thompson, who will formally announce his candidacy in July according to news reports, is speaking with Griffin about giving him a senior position in the former Tennessee Senator and current Law and Order actor's campaign. "Thompson allies have had discussions with Tim Griffin, the Arkansas U.S. attorney and Rove protégé, about taking a top job with the campaign," the Journal's John Harwood reported. Griffin worked as counsel on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during the Clinton administration, as his boss, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), issued over a thousand subpoenas to Clinton administration officials. Later, he became a top opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee, and worked in the White House for Karl Rove. In a recent congressional hearing, former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling acknowledged there were concerns about his work in the area of 'caging' votes in the 2004 presidential election, which some critics contend is a form of voter suppression. The ex-Rove aide, who also served as a Judge Advocate General in the US Army in Iraq, replaced previous US Attorney H.E. 'Bud' Cummins after the Justice Department used authority stealthily inserted into the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed the executive branch to indefinitely appoint interim US Attorneys. He has not been confirmed by the Senate, and Senator Pryor has been strongly critical of the Attorney General and told him in a recent private meeting to resign in large part due to the handling of the Griffin situation. "We've always said, this isn't the way this is supposed to be done, you shouldn't be installed as US Attorney via press release," Teague told RAW STORY in an April interview. Some Members of Congress have implied that Griffin was installed in the position simply to 'pad his resume,' which was discussed in the Attorney General's recent appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. Since the US Attorneys controversy erupted earlier in the year, both houses of Congress overturned the indefinite appointment authority by commanding majorities. | |||||
3-Year Overdue NOW Report Links Scheme to Top Republican Operatives and White House Former US Attorney David Iglesias Believes Withheld WH Emails May Show Criminal Involvement in '04 Election Theft... Guest Blogged by Alan BreslauerLast night --- nearly three years after it was first reported by the BBC --- PBS's NOW finally exposed the Republican Party conspiracy to steal the 2004 Presidential Election. Whaddayaknow? The 15 minute segment concentrates on "Voter Caging" and features appearances by Greg Palast and former US attorney David Iglesias. Readers will recall that Palast, who originally broke this story in 2004, has written BRAD BLOG exclusives on voter caging and on Tim Griffin, who was one of the leaders of the illegal scheme. For even more on the NOW story, voter caging, and the Republican conspiracy to steal the 2004 election, listen to the replay of Brad guest hosting on the Peter B. Collins Show yesterday. Brad speaks to Palast in the first hour and interviews Bryan Myers, who produced the NOW segment, in the second hour. | |||||
Conyers Closes in on Karl and his Rove-bots... *** Special to The BRAD BLOG by Greg Palast Boo-hoo! I made Tim Griffin cry.He cried. Then he lied. You remember Tim. Karl Rove's right hand (right claw?) man. The GOP's ragin' cagin' man. Griffin is the Rove-bot exposed by our BBC Newsnight investigations team as the man who gathered and sent out the infamous 'caging' lists to Republican state chairmen during the 2004 election. Caging lists, BBC discovered, were used secretly as a basis to challenge the right to vote of thousands of citizens - including the homeless, students and soldiers sent overseas. The day after BBC broadcast that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, sought our evidence on Griffin, Tim resigned his post as US Attorney for Arkansas. That job was a little gift from Karl Rove who made room for his man Griffin by demanding the firing of US prosecutor Bud Cummins. Last week, our cameras captured Griffin, all teary-eyed, in his humiliating kiss-off speech delivered in Little Rock at the University of Arkansas where he moaned that, "public service isn't worth it." True. In the old Jim Crow days in Arkansas, you could get yourself elected by blocking African-Americans. (The voters his caging game targeted are - quelle surprise! - disproportionately Black citizens.)  But today, Griffin can't even get an unemployment check. When he resigned two weeks ago following our broadcast, the cover story was that the voter persecutor-turned-prosecutor had resigned to work for Presidential wannabe Fred Thompson. But when Thompson's staff was asked by a reporter why they would hire the 'cagin' man,' suddenly, the 'Law and Order' star decided associating with Griffin might take the shine off Thompson's badge, even if it is from the props department.Griffin, instead of saying that public service "isn't worth it," should have said, "Crime doesn't pay." Because, according to experts such as law professor Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 'caging,' when used to target Black voters' rights, is a go-to-prison crime. By resigning, Tim may not avoid the hard questions about caging - or the hard time that might result. When I passed the first set of documents to Conyers (a real film noir moment, in a New York hotel room near midnight), the soft-spoken Congressman said that, resignation or not, "We aren't done with Mr. Griffin yet..." Tears Not Truth Back in Little Rock, when asked about caging, Rove's guy linked a few fibs to a few whoppers to some malefactious mendacity. That is, he lied. "I didn't cage votes. I didn't cage mail," Griffin asserted.  At the risk of making you cry again, Tim, may I point you to an email dated August 26, 2004. It says, "Subject: Re: Caging." And it says, "From: Tim Griffin - Research/Communications" with the email tgriffin@rnchq.org. RNCHQ is the Republican National Committee Headquarters, is it not, Mr. Griffin? Now do you remember caging mail? If that doesn't ring a bell, please note that at the bottom is this: "ATTACHMENT: Caging-1.xls". And that attachment was a list of voters. In last week's pathetic farewell, Mr. Griffin averred that the accusation he was involved in caging voters, "Goes back to one guy - whose name I won't mention." (FYI, Mr. Griffin: My mother calls me, "Gregory.") Yes, I first reported the story for BBC London - back in 2004 which, as Griffin correctly noted, it was ignored by my US press colleagues until, as Tim put it, "I became embroiled in the US Attorney thing." By 'the US Attorney thing,' I assume you are referring to your involvement in firing and smearing honest prosecutors and grabbing one of their salaries for yourself. You say, Mr. Griffin, that the unmentionable reporter, "Made [it] up out of whole cloth." You flatter me, Mr. Griffin. We could not possibly be so creative at The Beeb as to construct the thousands of names of voters on your caging lists. And by the way, we don't have just one of your "caging" emails, but scores of them. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for sending them to us - even if that was not your intent. You copied your caging missives to 'bdoster@georgewbush.org.' Mr. Doster was Chairman of the Florida Bush campaign - but that address was not his but John Wooden's pretending to be the Bush campaigners. Wooden then sent your notes to me.  Rove in Range By the way, Mr. Griffin, if you want an explanation of 'caging voters,' just read an email dated February 5, 2007 by...Tim Griffin. In that email, Griffin references the Bush campaigns mailing out thousands of letters. The letters returned ('caged') as undeliverable were used as the GOP's supposed evidence that these were "thousands of fraudulent voter registrations." These voters were subject to challenge. However, these caging lists of "fraudulent" addresses, like the 2000 "felon" lists which in fact contained no felons, contained no fraudulent voters. But that wouldn't necessarily save them from the massively successful Republican voter-challenge campaign. During the appearance he made in Arkansas last week, Griffin said he'd never heard of 'caging.' "I had to look it up," he said. Griffin discovered that "caging" is "a direct mail term." I don't doubt Griffin's ignorance. Griffin's just a good ol' boy, a former military lawyer, who wouldn't know direct mail terminology from a hole in the ground. Until he went to work for the RNC. So where did Tim get this direct mail term he used in his emails? Well, before Karl Rove signed on with George W. Bush, he owned Karl Rove & Co....a direct mail firm. Rove made millions making up lists of voters, doing more 'caging' than a zoo-keeper. Am I saying caging-expert Rove had something to do with the allegedly illegal caging games of his boy Griffin? Does a bear...? Mr. Griffin wouldn't answer BBC's requests for comment. So I suggested to an Arkansas local, Luther Lowe, a former army reservist and himself a victim of a challenge to his vote, that at the Little Rock send-off for Griffin, he ask the fallen US Attorney about Rove's involvement in caging. Lowe did so, politely. Griffin wove, ducked, blathered and blubbered. But wouldn't answer. Unless Griffin joins Alberto Gonzales in Club Amnesia, Griffin has a lot to tell us about Mr. Rove and targeting Black voters.Maybe a subpoena would encourage a Griffin response. And a grant of immunity from the Conyers committee. That's Rove's nightmare. Because unless Griffin joins Alberto Gonzales in Club Amnesia, Griffin has a lot to tell us about Mr. Rove and targeting Black voters. Will he? It's not Conyers' style to hunt down Rove. The congressman is not, despite what Republicans say, a partisan hit man. He is, however, one tenacious legislator who told me he would like his committee, "to follow where the evidence leads." But that's not necessarily going to happen. Conyers told me he sees the evidence in the prosecutor firing investigation leading to the much bigger, nastier issue of voter suppression - in simpler terms, fixing elections. Unfortunately, many on his committee from both parties see the hearings as limited to the single issue of the firing of prosecutors. They want to scrutinize the elephant's trunk but refuse to acknowledge it's attached to an elephant: election rigging. Racially poisoned, direct-mail driven, computer implemented election rigging. But Conyers may get there yet, to the issue of elections manipulation. I didn't get that from the Chairman (too circumspect to let his future intensions slip out). I got it from the Big Bubba. When I ran into Ol' Silver Eyes himself at an Air America soiree, Bill Clinton (man, he's gotten thin!) told me, "When we really get going on these prosecutor hearings, when we really dig deep, we're going to get right to the issue of voter suppression."  But what do you mean "we," Bill? Conyers is dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has an abiding concern and painful experience with illegal vote suppression of all types: caging, purging, challenging, lynching. But whether Conyers can convince his committee, mostly members of the Congressional White Caucus, to "dig deep" on vote suppression, is an open question.In the meantime, Conyers has convinced his committee to drop subpoenas on Harriett Miers (the lady tight with Griffin, Rove and, notably, George W. Bush) and Sara Taylor, Rove's Gal Friday. Conyers, methodically, determinedly, is circling in on Rove, "Bush's Brain," a man known to surrender the corpses of his allies in place of his own (eh, Mr. Libby?). No wonder Griffin's in tears. So here's a hanky, Mr. Griffin. This unnamable reporter would rather you save your tears for Randall Prausa. The African-American soldier was on active military duty when he ended up on one of your caging lists, what you term a suspected 'fraudulent' voter subject to GOP challenge because he was not home to get his fraudulent, 'Welcome, voter,' letter from the GOP. Can you guess, Mr. Griffin, why Prausa wasn't at home? Well, unlike Messrs. Rove and Bush, Prausa was serving his country overseas. And that's what caging is all about. If you're Black, you get shipped to Baghdad and you lose your vote. Mission Accomplished, Mr. Griffin. Mission Accomplished, Mr. Rove. UPDATE: 6/26/07 Video of part of Griffin's speech is now available at BRAD BLOG. === The confidential Griffin e-mail, "Subject: Re: Caging," is reproduced in Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Available at www.GregPalast.com Also: Catch the film of Randi Rhodes and Greg Palast on "Bush's and Giuliani's favorite vultures," the men with connections to the Bush Administration who have siphoned off the money meant for Africa's poorest. Video online here. | |||||
By Greg Palast on 5/24/2007 12:20AM And The No Longer 'Missing' Rove Emails Revealing the Cagey Scheme to Steal 2008... UPDATE 5/31/07: Late breaking news on Griffin resignation from Palast interview with Conyers, now posted here...*** Special to The BRAD BLOG by Greg Palast This Monica revealed something hotter --- much hotter --- than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One....And the Committee members didn't even know it.Goodling testified that Gonzales' Deputy AG, Paul McNulty, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: McNulty denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004. Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"??? The perplexed committee members hadn't a clue --- and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found "the keys to the kingdom," they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces. The keys: the missing emails --- and missing link --- that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time. Kingdom enough for ya? But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer McNulty put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time. The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and --- you got to love this --- American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters. Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation --- and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished. How do I know? I have the caging lists... I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them --- sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden. Here's what you need to know --- and the Committee would have discovered, if only they'd asked:
There's no pride in this. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet --- except the USA --- only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004. And now, not bothering to understand the astonishing revelation in Goodling's confessional, they are missing the real story behind the firing of the US attorneys. It's not about removing prosecutors disloyal to Bush, it's about replacing those who refused to aid the theft of the vote in 2004 with those prepared to burgle it again in 2008. Now that they have the keys, let's see if they can put them in the right door. The clock is ticking ladies and gents... (Ed Note: You can easily contact your Congress Members to call and/or email them this information by clicking here. Let them know they need to take action. Now. And feel free to point them towards this article, URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594) [the non existent email notes]   UPDATE 5/28/07: Palast responds to critics... === Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: from Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone WILD. For more info, or to hear Brad Friedman, Ed Asner and other troublemakers read from Armed Madhouse, go to www.GregPalast.com | |||||
Candidate calls rival insiderDon’t let D.C. Republicans pick state leader, he urgesPosted: February 28, 2010 3:39 a.m. A Republican candidate in the 2nd Congressional District is challenging central Arkansans to contribute to his campaigno “help stop Washington from choosing our next congressman,” a reference to the support his opponent has received from four top Republican leaders. | |||||
LITTLE ROCK — Republican congressional candidate Tim Griffin of Little Rock was the architect of a voter-suppression scheme at the Republican National Committee in 2004, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Monday as the group released an online video in an effort to prove the group’s point.
Griffin countered by releasing his 2007 letter to the U.S. Department of Justice that allegations that he was involved in the suppression of minority-group, homeless and service members’ votes “are completely false.”
The charges were published and repeated “with little or recently repeated with little - or no - regard for the truth,” said Griffin’s letter, dated Nov. 5, 2007.
Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Griffin has repeatedly denied the allegations despite evidence to the contrary.
Griffin is one of three Republican candidates for nomination for the 2nd Congressional District seat held by Vic Snyder, a Democrat from Little Rock. The others are Scott Wallace of Little Rock and David Meeks of Conway.
State Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, state House Speaker Robbie Wills of Conway and Snyder’s former chief of staff David Boling of Arlington, Va., have said they’re running for the Democratic nomination to the seat, which Snyder is giving up at the end of this term.
Griffin, an attorney, is a former interim U.S. attorney who was an aide to President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove and worked for the Republican National Committee.
Griffin replaced U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins in December 2006. He resigned June 1, 2007. The Department of Justice said Cummins was forced out after five years on the job solely to make way for Griffin, who served in the White House as the deputy director of the Office of Political Affairs under Rove.
In 2007, then-U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sheldon Whitehouse , DR.I., asked then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate claims Griffin was involved in so-called caging to suppress Florida turnout during the 2004 presidential election when he worked for the RNC.
“Voter caging” refers to efforts to disqualify voters who fail to sign for registered campaign mail sent to their homes.
At that time, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark, said Griffin denied the allegations to him.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted part of a Sept. 2, 2007, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review column about whether there were intentional efforts by the Republican Party to suppress black votes during the 2004 election on a Youtube video. The video is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCtiSaHj4.The column referred to a British Broadcasting Corporation reporter being given confidential e-mails with attached files named “Caging.xls” and Caging-1.xls.”
The e-mails were sent by the Republican Party of Florida to national Republican officials, the column said.
“Among the intended recipients was Tim Griffin, research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee, who responded with, ‘thank you, perfect,’” the column said.
Griffin’s 2007 letter to the Justice Department said there are “some kernels of truth” to the BBC reporter’s story.
“However, the facts don’t support his conclusions,” Griffin’s letter said, adding the reporter “took a steam machine and called it a smoking gun.”
Griffin’s letter said he didn’t give the spreadsheet the name “caging.xls” and wasn’t aware of the term’s meaning until he looked it up in 2005 or even 2006.
“Caging” is when returned letters or results of the mailing are received and sorted after a mailing is sent, according to Griffin’s letter.
“The terms ‘vote caging,’ ‘voter caging’ and ‘caging voter’ while they sound scary and sinister were coined on the Internet as a result of [the reporter’s] allegations and are not terms with any other significance,” the letter said.
During the late summer and early fall of the 2004 presidential campaign, allegations of voter registration fraud were rampant from Nevada to Florida, Griffin’s letter said. At some point, someone above him decided to mail or ask others to mail thousands of letters to registered voters, the letter said.
“RNC Research agreed with the state parties that they would send us addresses of returned letters, thereby allowing us to at least attempt to identify via publicly available databases ... the true nature of the address,” Griffin’s letter said.
“The ‘caging’ lists were simply lists of returned letters mailed by the state parties prepared in late August and early September,” the letter said. “The lists were created in lieu of the more logistically difficult way of analyzing the returned envelopes, physically mailing the returned envelopes from Florida to Washington. ... Once the address search was completed [by the RNC] the spreadsheet was returned to the state party folks for their use.”
Voter suppression and voter fraud are both wrong, Grffin’s letter said.
In other developments in 2nd District politics Monday, state Public Service Commission Chairman Paul Suskie of North Little Rock and Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola ruled out bids for the seat. Assistant Attorney General John Adams of Little Rock said he’s considering running for the Democratic nomination for the congressional seat.
Several other Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Bill Halter of North Little Rock, have said they’re also weighing a possible race for the congressional seat. Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.
This article was published today at 5:02 a.m. Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/02/2010
info supplied by another loyal Arkansawyer
This is the tweet that he sent after the DCCC interview I just sent you.
Here is Tim's tweet today after the Dems called him the "handpicked" candidate for this race:
Subject: Emailing tweet from: griffincongress (Tim Griffin)
griffincongress: Tim: Havent been handpicked for anything I haven't earned.
Listen in: http://tr.im/KFpZ #tcot #ar02 #NRCC
Original Tweet: Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)
Here is Tim's tweet today after the Dems called him the "handpicked" candidate for this race:
Subject: Emailing tweet from: griffincongress (Tim Griffin)
griffincongress: Tim: Havent been handpicked for anything I haven't earned.
Listen in: http://tr.im/KFpZ #tcot #ar02 #NRCC
Original Tweet: Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)
http://www.clintonschoolspeakers.com/lecture/view/coming-home-to-arkansas/ watch the last 5 minutes (especially the last minute)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Griffin Lots of information
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