The Daily Background

Did Karl Rove sign off on the misleading statements Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty gave to Congress about Tim Griffin’s hiring? That’s what it’s looking like.

Basically, when the US Attorney for Eastern Arkansas, Bud Cummins, was fired in 2006 (for no other reason than to make room for Tim Griffin), the DoJ originally said that Karl Rove had absolutely nothing to do with it. This was only important because Griffin, Cummins’ replacement, was one of Karl Rove’s aides. Anyways, emails were released that say that it was “very important” to Karl Rove (and Harriet Miers) that Cummins be replaced with Griffin as US Attorney.

Supposedly when McNulty told Congress that Rove had nothing to do with it, he simply didn’t know that he had to do with it– however new documents seem to suggest that Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, who prepared McNulty’s talking points for Congress, apparently asked Rove whether or not he was involved, and Rove said to tell Congress he wasn’t even though he was, which McNulty did.

Now, it’s one thing to have a totally incompetent Deputy Attorney General who had no idea what was going on tell Congress something that’s not true, but it’s another thing entirely to have Rove sign off on information that McNulty gave to Congress (specifically that Rove wasn’t invovled in helping his buddy get appointed) that he knew was entirely false.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog