Schumer twists the knife

Chuck Schumer did a very smart thing on Meet The Press this morning. I wish I had the transcript, but essentially he intimated that Kyle Sampson was ready to come forward voluntarily to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee. That has to be freaking out everybody in the White House.

We know that Sampson "resigned" his post as Abu G.'s chief of staff but was given a new office and basically hidden away on the Justice Department payroll, in what I would term a kind of witness protection program. The problem was that Abu G and the other DoJ officials were all too willing to let him be the fall guy for this entire episode. Not only did Gonzales say that Sampson gave incomplete information to the Congress, but today Newsweek reports deputies Paul McNulty and William Moschella laying the blame at Sampson's feet.

...a pair of senior Justice officials gave accounts to lawmakers that were, at best, incomplete. At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, William Moschella, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, vigorously defended the firings of the U.S. attorneys as a purely managerial move that had originated within the Justice Department. He said nothing about any nudging from the White House. McNulty had earlier given similar testimony, saying the attorneys had been let go for "job performance" reasons, an assertion that infuriated the fired prosecutors. But the two Justice officials have told colleagues that when they saw the e-mail accounts showing the attorney-purge idea had originated in the White House, they were surprised and appalled. "I felt sick," Moschella told NEWSWEEK. "I basically saw my professional life flash before my eyes." Moschella and McNulty blamed [Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle] Sampson. The attorney general's chief of staff had sat in as they prepped for their testimony and "never said a word," according to a Justice Department official who wished to remain anonymous discussing a private meeting.

Sampson, the guy who was being groomed for Karl Rove's job, isn't about to be outflanked. And so he has fought back with statements of his own that distribute the blame right back to Moschella and McNulty and Abu G.

Schumer is smartly inserting himself into what blueness termed a "ratfight." By stating publicly that Sampson has contacted the Senate Judiciary committee and may be willing to come forward, he sends an ominous message to both DoJ and the White House. Sampson testifying to Moschella and McNulty's role in lying to Congress will be devastating for them and for their boss, as it suggests that there was deliberate intent to mislead Congress about the true nature of the USA firings. But Sampson was also the liaison, going back two years, between the DoJ and the White House. He's involved in emails with Miers. He's involved in emails with Rove. He wrote the White House about the strategy to "gum to death" the process for finding a replacement for USA of Arkansas Bud Cummins, so that former Rove oppo research guy Tim Griffin could stay in the position without Senate confirmation, presumably throughout the rest of Bush's term. (As a side note, while Griffin has stated publicly he would step down, he's offered to remain on until a replacement is found, and the DoJ is dragging their feet in doing so).

This puts a lot of pressure on the White House to let Miers and Rove testify, and for them to release more potentially incriminating documents. They'd rather not have Sampson set the agenda for the Judiciary Committee and the nation. He would be very likely to assign blame to Justice Department officials and the key White House figures as well. And if Rove, Miers et al. continued to refuse to testify, he'd have the platform all to himself.

By subtly putting out this information on Meet the Press, Schumer is indirectly compelling Miers and Rove to testify, as a pre-emptive strike to defend themselves against Kyle Sampson. I suspect that Sampson does want to testify, as he seems ambitious and probably feels scapegoated and wants to pull an Ollie North. It's the way in which Schumer let this information out that really adds to the pressure on everyone involved in this scandal.