Sampson had plans to dump Lam in June of 06 if she didn't play ball!

[Sydnie]

They didn't care about actual investigations or convictions other than getting their "numbers" up to stop criticism of the AG's office.

[WinkyDink]

1. "If she balks....remove her." That, to me, is the point: to harass Lam into

pushing matters other than what she deemed fit, KNOW that she will object to being used, and voila! Buh-BYE.

[Hepburn]

3. That would explain why the investigation against...

Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, CA, kind of fizzled.

This POS Rep NEEDS to be indicted. He was chair of the House Approriations Committee and APPROVED the contracts that Duke Cunningham was making.

You KNOW he is dirty...he is under investigation. So HOW long does it take to indict the SOB???

[youngdem]

7. This and Cheney's involvement through Wilkes and Foggo is the Rosetta Stone for all of this

[Hepburn]

20. IMO....

...it is like the pebble dropped into the pond. The ripples just keep going out and out and out...and more and more are found inside those ripples.

The only thing I can say is that at least FINALLY some of this is coming into the daylight.

I just hope they get ALL of those b*stards who perverted the system for they own financial gain. This is so sick ~~ we have soldiers dying in Iraq and this total evil beings are more worried about buying a congressman a yacht under the table for the favors he did in steering money to certain people than making sure our troops have necessaries like body armour.

Sick and evil! :mad:

[bleever]

2. "...this relates (certainly in the AG's mind)...to our pressing need to

...generate some deliverables on immigration enforcement..."

Ugly way to go about enforcing the law, Mr. Gonzales.

[juno jones]

6. Yeah Mr they're ganging up on me

because I'm 'latino' Gonzales. I have REAL mexican friends buddy, and they aren't buying a word out of your mouth....The immigration thing is far more complex than any of you asses are letting on....Mr Bo-Jangles Stepinfetchit Gonzales...

[Justice Is Comin]

4. I understood her to say in the hearing that she

was not reprimanded or that anyone even suggested she was not doing a good job on prosecuting immigration. In fact, didn't she have one of the most successful conviction rates for the serious mule transporters?

[bleever]

9. She did testify that no one had told her to step up the immigration

prosecutions.

It's almost like they were just planning on finding her "non-responsive", and forgot to actually ask her to respond.

[Patsy Stone]

11. From what I read in the e-mails,

it was not even her record on immigration as a whole, instead they had zeroed in on "coyotes" in particular. This looks like it was the tool Issa used as a precursor to getting her out, so they could get more "on-board" USAs (as they call them in later e-mails) appointed.

They narrowed the focus to the area of human trafficking within the immigration issue as a whole. SD had higher thresholds: investigation required attempting to smuggle in twelve people, Arizona's requires only six. IIRC, it was because the budget had been cut and the laws had been changed in 2004 regarding the enforcement of such types of immigration cases.

They made anything up they could find -- and Issa helped.

As Lam said in her e-mail (p. 25 at the link below) she "tried to explain some of the other ways we deal with the alien smuggling problem (ie through 1326 cases, prosecuting corrupt border patrol agents, etc) but he remained fairly fixated on the coyote issue. Despite my explanation that prosecuting hundreds of coyotes only to have them receive 30- to 60-day sentences is an inefficient use of attorney resources, I don't think he is inclined to give up the coyote stand yet."

Here's the .pdf where I saw this discussed: http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/nationalchannel/archive/mcw/pdf/usattorneys/032307_5.pdf

You can start at about page 35 and scroll/read up.

[Sydnie]

12. They didn't seem to care about the length of sentence

not the crime they were charged with (exception being the "coyotes" you mentioned above), as long as the numbers were going up ... keeps the border people happy, the minutemen happy (and voting for them) and gives them numbers to run on.

And I feel damn sorry for Chiara. She seemed more concerned about her financial situation than her job (nothing pending other than that conference from her correspondence) but she seemed to be living paycheck to paycheck or something. She extended as long as she could just to keep her paycheck and her benefits.

[Justice Is Comin]

15. We're on it Patsy.

[SharonAnn]

19. Hmmm, Issa. Didn't he fund the Gray Davis recall and plan to run for governor?

[Hamlette]

5. seems to contradict the allegation they made up the immigration stuff from TPM

"The e-mails also show that administration officials struggled to find a way to justify the firings and considered citing immigration enforcement simply because three of the fired prosecutors were stationed near the border with Mexico. While the e-mails don't provide evidence of partisan motives for the firings, they seem to undercut the administration's explanation that the prosecutors were dismissed for poor performance.

"The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DOJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts," Tasia Scolinos, a senior public affairs specialist at the Justice Department, told Catherine Martin, a White House communications adviser, in an e-mail."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013228.php

(I think Josh is quoting his researchers for this opinion but I can't tell for sure.)

[Sydnie]

8. It supports the theory of manufactured rage

Issa got a copy of an border patrol report that was altered by "some unknown source" and made a spectacle of it. Lam called him on it and responded before the AG's office made a statement about the report. Got Lou Dobbs involved. Issa went on his show and spread the false info from the report there too. They wanted to make immigration issues a cornerstone of the 06 election and the manufactured rage played well for them. Now, project to 08. They could continue to increase the numbers of prosecutions and sentences to go with them and still use immigration as a cornerstone for their nominee.

Manufactured rage that played into their hands in the very districts that Rove said would be crucial in 08. Not a coincidence as far as I can see. They could have headed it all off if they had just come out forcefully and pointed out, as Lam did, that the report was not official and had been altered by unknown sources.

That's how I see it from what I have read of this dump so far anyway.

[reality based]

10. Keep in mind that this memo comes two months after

Lam had informed DOJ that she was serving a search warrant on "Dusty" Foggo and Sampson had emailed deputy White House counsel William Kelley: "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." Then followed the immigration prosecution dustup. We need to consider each fact in context. See the timeline at TPM: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php

[nicknameless]

13. K&R

:nuke:

[unlawflcombatnt]

14. Nothing to do with real immigration enforcement, only appearances

So it appears to have nothing to do with actually reducing illegal immigration, simply the appearance of doing something. Which is completely consistent with the Bush administration's obvious advocacy of open borders and amnesty.

[Sydnie]

16. Is Paul McNulty the source of this latest dump?

From the bottom of one of the pages in the third listed dump from the 20/23.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. Sampson's testimony next Thursday should be interesting

It looks very much like Gonzo was very much involved in the firing of Ms. Lam and from the language in the e-mail, it looks like the Attorney General was informed by Mr. Sampson of this plan (including firing Lam) both before and after this e-mail was sent.

[creeksneakers2]

18. There are two ways to handle the

immigration prosecutions. The bigger charges take months to prosecute before judges. US Attorneys have the option of taking smaller cases before a magistrate almost immediately for quick judgment. The downside to that is that sentences are very short, sometimes no sentence at all. The upside is the number of prosecutions skyrockets. A US Attorney in Texas uses the magistrate route and his numbers dwarf the other four border districts'.