www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002901.php
an email Sampson wrote in December to one Christopher Oprison, associate counsel to the President, Sampson told Oprison that Griffin's appointment was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc." In other words, back in December, Sampson told Oprison of Karl Rove's and Harriet Miers' role in Griffin's hiring. So Sampson knew of Rove's and Miers's role in Griffin's hiring. He told a lawyer in the White House Counsel's Office of their role in December. And in February he wants the same White House Counsel's Office to sign off on a letter to Congress claiming Rove and Miers had no such role. So did Sampson send the letter to the Counsel's Office for sign off? And the new document dump shows that the response from the Counsel's Office came from none other than Chris Oprison.
February 23rd email from Sampson to Oprison, Sampson explicitly acknowledges Oprison's signing off on Counsel's behalf on the false statements contained in the letter. note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to the February 23rd letter as being from Oprison to Sampson rather than vice versa.
Posted by: TheOtherWA Date: March 28, 2007 07:17 PM Yellow hankie on the turf. Posted by: Kali Date: March 28, 2007 07:21 PM Good lord. Date: March 28, 2007 07:30 PM Very nice work putting the pieces together. The white house will still try to weasel out of it with a "we took DOJ's word about what they were 'aware' of," but the earlier email establishes that they were advised that the AG's chief of staff was aware of Rove's involvement. Posted by: Abby Kelleyite Date: March 28, 2007 07:30 PM C'mon - this is getting too easy. Posted by: SDM Date: March 28, 2007 07:30 PM how reminiscent of watergate. nothing like a good ol' justice department scandal that doesn't involve claims of national security secrecy. Posted by: henry Date: March 28, 2007 07:33 PM I pointed this out in an earlier TPM thread - does it appear that the *attachment* is printed off and produced. It's e-Discovery 101 - produce the e-mail *and* all attachments to the e-mail. The common way to do it is print the e-mail off first, then put the attachment right behind it with the next bates number. If the DOJ *didn't* do that, they are the biggest bunch of f*ck ups that I've seen. Anyway, it would be interesting to see what changes Oprison made to the final version. Posted by: jdw Date: March 28, 2007 07:34 PM If Scooter didn't prompt him to, The Decider might reeeeally wanna revisit his hardline policy on issuing pardons. Posted by: Robin Michael Date: March 28, 2007 07:34 PM They know exactly whats been released, because they are releasing it. is that the Congresscritters have been out interviewing and deposing some of those lowly civil servants who could blow doughboy Sampson, and Rove out of their rat holes. Posted by: Leta Date: March 28, 2007 07:35 PM The guy's name isn't really "O **PRISON**," is it?
Posted by: Joe Mama Date: March 28, 2007 07:35 PM Am I missing something? Maybe it implies the same thing, or the link is incorrect. Also, I agree the wh is probably directing everything, but noting that something is important to someone doesn't do much to highlight their role. Sunlight is important to me, but I don't think I have much of a role in producing it. Posted by: rmadilo Date: March 28, 2007 07:37 PM Are there any Bush Administration employees who aren't dirty? Congress will have to budget a few billion dollars more than anticipated to build enough Club Feds to house them all. Posted by: islandliberal Date: March 28, 2007 07:37 PM Some people are going to do serious jail time over this. To my knowledge, this is the first hard evidence of wrongdoing. Other than the misleading and contradictory statements to Congress that could be explained away by mistakes and bureaucratic bumbling, all previous evidence was only circumstantial at best. Posted by: justthetruth Date: March 28, 2007 07:40 PM Oh - and I do agree with the comments above, especially the yellow hankie one. Do they even check their own documents to see if the next Talking Point will fly? Set aside the universal hate of lawyers that folks have. It is staggering that they are so errant in the positions they are rolling out. They either don't give a f*ck, or are the biggest collection of idiots in the profession. When we have cases where our clients f*ck up this bad, we instantly go into "what's the best settlement we can come up with to just make it go away" mode. Posted by: jdw Date: March 28, 2007 07:41 PM Oprison eh! "The Decider might reeeeally wanna revisit his hardline policy on issuing pardons." So if you pardon someone, isn't that the same thing as giving them immunity? Posted by: rmadilo Date: March 28, 2007 07:43 PM Here's a question for tommorrow. Mr Sampson, the US Department of Justice has 93 USA's, these are the Department's top lawyers, the face of the entire Department. These 93 USA manage 1000's of career attorney's and staffers who investigate and prosecute individuals and companies who break the law or do harm to our country. Do you expect anyone in this country to believe that AG Gonzales handed over the decision of who stays or goes to his Chief of Staff, without any input or knowlege? If so, than Gonzales is possible the worst manager ever, or you sir are not telling the whole truth. Posted by: Blue Ticker Date: March 28, 2007 07:43 PM We should be greatfull for the doc dumps. Anyway at this point I wouldn't put too much stock in them knowing what they are doing in regard to the releases. It's probable that the incompetence is so deep that whoever "they" are who are doing the releasing don't have a clue. pdf Whoever these are from made just a few very minor changes to the key point about Rove being out of the loop. They couldn't be sure that Cummins would play along on this since the heat was starting to get a little intense. Posted by: Pinson Date: March 28, 2007 07:49 PM When lying becomes a habit and becomes the norm, it's as if it is the truth. One response was that your account did not accept Hotmail. I know we mentioned the Cheneys in our latest exchange but this is ridiculous!
Posted by: DGOQ Date: March 28, 2007 07:55 PM Oh, come now, who can be expected keep track of all this tiresome 'who said what to whom when' business? It's all so confusing, what with 9/11 changing everything and all. Posted by: Adam Cole Date: March 28, 2007 07:56 PM Pinson - pages 75-77 do look like Oprison's correction. They're document 1032-1034, clearly following up the e-mail. Posted by: jdw Date: March 28, 2007 07:56 PM rapier: "Mr Oprison previously served as a Senior Litigation Associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP and as a Marine Corps prosecutor. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and his JD from George Washington University." html Posted by: Robin Michael Date: March 28, 2007 07:58 PM I think it's important to remember that they issued the emails that have been "discovered". This puke isn't coming before Congress with anything like confession and contrition in his heart. These people are not running scared yet, so be prepared for more of that "I don't recall that" bullshit. I don't think we will start to know the truth of what happened until there is some immunity taken. Security Code snake Posted by: Randy Date: March 28, 2007 07:59 PM I don't think it is any coincidence that these documents were dumped tonight. He'll get grilled and the Republicans will claim he was a "rogue operator" and that any further investigation is unnecessary. If the Cheneys are living in that house, what is the official Vice-President's residence near the Naval Observatory being used for? Someone commented earlier that an industrial shredding operation has been ongoing at the offical VP's residence for awhile. Posted by: Mrs Panstreppon Date: March 28, 2007 08:04 PM Was the actual Word document that was attached to these e-mails among those released in the DOJ dump? If so, it would be very helpful to see what, if any, changes Oprison made to the original letter drafted by Sampson. What's available here doesn't explicitly implicate Oprison in anything. Is it likely that the WHCO said somet...
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