It Was All About Carol Lam, Always. by revbludge /Daily Kos

[Demeter]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/30/16466/5597

My theory is that Carol Lam was originally the sole target. (It was on May 10, 2006, that Lam notified the Justice Department of her plan to serve search warrants on Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA. This trail of corruption is alleged to encompass the CIA, Pentagon, and perhaps the White House.)....The Rove White House and the Dept. of Justice assembled a list of seven other US Attorneys plus Lam, in order to create a plausible cover story for her dismissal. If a bundle of attorneys were replaced with a common rationale for dismissal, Lam's dismissal would stick out less like a sore thumb. (The Rove White House clearly misread the political landscape and the communications revolution. Lately this kind of Rovian faulty calculus and overreaching has become more and more apparent.)....While compiling this "smokescreen list," Rove and Miers detected other targets for dismissal for political reasons, and added their names.

After the election, firing the US Attys became much more risky, but the WH-DOJ axis went ahead with it anyway. The risk of Lam continuing to investigate a chain of corruption that stretched all the way to DC outweighed the other risk...That's why Kyle Sampson's "list" was never a serious aggregation of "performance review" data from competent, objective sources. His list was an evanescent work-in-progress that has left no paper trail at all, apparently...Kyle Sampson seems to have understood the "performance issues" were a cover rationale. In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam."...Because Sampson knew the "performance issues" were a cover rationale, not the real reason for the dismissals, they did not need to be seriously investigated & firmly documented. And they weren't, as Sen. Whitehouse et al. established on Thursday.

Possibly Rove and Miers never "officially" discussed the master plan regarding Lam with AG Gonzales, nor with Kyle Sampson and other DOJ employees at his level....Sampson simply followed directives from the AG and White House to "assemble" a list of USAs about whom complaints had been made. People pipelined complaints and bad performance reviews to him, and the list took shape....Armed with a list of people who had similar "performance issues," The DOJ could then plausibly fire Carol Lam under cover of the rationale that they had a "policy" of replacing attorneys who weren't carrying out Bush's alleged "signature" agenda items, i.e. firearms and immigration cases, aggressively enough....David Iglesias was a last-minute pick for this list, chosen purely because of his refusal to indict Democrats immediately before an election. Before that, Iglesias was a DOJ golden boy, cited as a real "comer" for his expertise, exemplary record, and "diversity."

Only the "principals" knew the whole master plan was about. The disjuncture between what the "principals" knew and what they told Gonzales and DOJ underlings like Sampson caused a ruckus. Because Gonzales was kept out of the "Lam + 7" plan loop, he did not have his story straight, and screwed up by making conflicting statements.

My theory may be flimsy as hell, but it has the merit of meshing beautifully with one segment of Sampson's account. When he cutely told Miers and Bill Kelley "Patrick Fitzgerald could be added to this list," a stone-cold silence answered him. "They just looked at me."

Imagine their consternation. Ye Gods! Add the notorious Fitzmas to a list that was supposed to defuse accusations of political dismissal? Ehhh.

[Bitwit1234]

1. In the six years this snake called rove has slithered thru the administration

can you imagine what he has done, that has not been brought to light. It is a shame that, since they are waterboarding, he isn't added to the list. Wonder what in the world we would find out.

[EST]

2. Lam was also getting closer to the corruption of rep Jerry

Lewis, similarly cought up in the secret military and security money laundering.
I can't agree that Lam was the only target, although she probably was the most important one.

[sam sarrha]

3. some about Lamb, the rest all about Election fraud, Roves list of states to steal, they cant do a

big state again so they are going for several small ones, each of the replaced Investigators were put in a state on Roves list where he had the 'Math' to win that election..

we must never forget that the 81 Justice investigators that weren't fired have been Processed by the GOP Evil.. and only kept their jobs cause they are willing to break the law to give power to the GOP

[sallyseven]

4. Always listen to Timmy when he makes statements like

Florida, florida, Ohio, Ohio. He knows where the next steal the election is going to take place. He recently said Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. Do they have new US Attorneys? That is whee the vote stealing will take place and where any democrat will be lied about. Investigated for show.

[Demeter]

5. And Where Is Dusty Foggo Today?

Still taking up a paycheck?

[yellowcanine]

6. Please let this be true. Imagine a scandal starring Dusty Foggo. Pass the popcorn.

[unlawflcombatnt]

7. You've nailed it.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Lam was involved in so many investigations close to the White House that they had to get rid of her. The reasons the others were removed seem trivial in comparison.

The White House knew there'd be a firestorm over Lam's firing. Clearly there was a huge problem somewhere that justified creating this firestorm.

One of the key phrases was "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." The "real problem" was so big that it couldn't even be mentioned in emails. And that "real problem" was further investigations might lead to the White House.

The U.S. attorney firings were done to obstruct further investigations by Carol Lam. To me, it looks like blatant "obstruction of justice."