Kudos to the Whitehouse

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has not been a major figure in the US Attorney scandal, but he did the best job today in the Judiciary Committee hearing with former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson. In fact, he was the only one that got any news out of him:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President Bush's former counsel approved the firings of eight federal prosecutors, Gonzales' one-time chief of staff told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

"I and others made staff recommendations but they were approved and signed off on by the principals," Kyle Sampson said, referring to Gonzales and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

Responding to questions from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Sampson rejected the notion that the dismissals were ordered by young or inexperienced Justice Department officials.

"The decision makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And the way in which Whitehouse got this information out was great.

He started by asking if there was a file about this plan to fire these federal prosecutors (this is a rough transcript):

SW: When you were in charge of this project, did you keep a file, on this project?

KS: I think it would be too much to say that I kept a file. In my lower right hand desk drawer I kept the charts that I referred to in answering Senator's Harden's question. It was just sort of a drop file that was changed in and out. I think in looking back and reviewing the documents in preparation for this testimony, I see there were a lots of lists at different times, but as I say to Seantory Cronyrn, I didn't keep one list.

SW: But, did you keep one file where you kept information related to this project?

KS: Again, just sort of a drop file in my lower right hand desk drawer.

SW: Did somebody else keep it for you?

KS: Uh, no. Uh, There really was no file...there really was no documation of this, it was an aggregation of views. Various lists and notes at different points in time. AS the process finalized in the fall of 2006, it became a little more formalized, but only in the sense that we were working in the SR. leadership of the Dept to finalize the list.

SW: So, this was a project that you were in charge of...this was a project that lasted for 2 years....this was a project that would end the careers of 8 United States Attorneys and neither you nor anybody reporting to you kept a specific file in your office about it?

Sampson fought back on that, claiming that it didn't end the careers of the USAs, but the damage was done. He was put on the defensive. And Whitehouse was building the case of giving Sampson two bad choices: either there was a file that investigators maybe haven't seen, or this situation was done with such a cavalier attitude that they didn't even bother to make it in any way official. Sampson went with the half-answer "drop file." But it looked evasive, and was a disappointing answer on both counts.

Whitehouse then asked some basic facts about how the Justice Department handles witnesses who take the 5th Amendment, things you would expect senior officials in the DoJ to know, and Sampson had no clue about any of them. Again, he was building to his ultimate question.

And then, Whitehouse asked how many cases Sampson and Monica Goodling have ever worked on. Sampson mentioned a couple cases he helped with, and didn't know about Goodling. Whitehouse then cut to the chase; he expressed his concern that these major decisions about firings were being made by people with such inexperience. This set Sampson right on his heels, put him on the defensive, and forced him to defend the process and get himself out of repsonsibility at the same time. So he extracted the answer from Sampson, that this was Gonzales and Miers' deal, without having to say it himself, which was much more powerful.

And on follow-up, Sampson said, "You'll have to ask the principals." Which includes the White House counsel, who the WH won't allow to testify. So Sampson's essentially agreed that invoking executive privilege will obstruct the investigation.

A masterful performance. One I would expect from a former prosecutor.