Who could blame Graves for leaving when he did? (USA in Mo)

[maddezmom]

Who could blame Graves for leaving when he did?
We know that eight ousted U.S. attorneys got the boot because they no longer were seen as supremely loyal to President Bush.

Now it appears that — to his credit — former U.S. attorney Todd Graves of the Western District of Missouri can be added to the group of eight.

The precise motivation for Graves’ departure in March 2006 may never be known. Based on his brief statement Friday, Graves may not know either.

But, like the others, Graves had not always gone along with the Karl Rove-written GOP playbook when it came to using the Justice Department to improve Republican odds at the polls.

Just a few months before, in November 2005, Graves had refused to sign a Justice Department complaint against the state of Missouri alleging that local election authorities — mostly in rural areas — had failed to properly maintain their voter registration lists. His name eventually appeared on the suit, although he never signed it.


more:http://www.kansascity.com/153/story/87761.html

[maddezmom]

1. Congress widens Justice Department probe

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress sought cooperation from one Justice Department official and prepared to put the agency's former White House liaison under oath in a widening investigation into the politics of Justice Department decision-making.

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it wouldn't try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she testifies before a committee.

~snip~


Committee members said they wanted to know whether U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo., was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed. Graves resigned from his post in March 2006 and Schlozman replaced him as interim U.S. attorney.

Five days before the November 2006 election, Schlozman filed another lawsuit, this time accusing members of a liberal activist group of voter registration fraud. Justice Department policy discourages such lawsuits so close to the election.


more:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_SUBPOENAS?SITE=MOSTP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[maddezmom]

2. Number of Fired Prosecutors Grows

Dismissals Began Earlier Than Justice Dept. Has Said

The former U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., Todd P. Graves, said yesterday that he was asked to step down from his job by a senior Justice Department official in January 2006, months before eight other federal prosecutors would be fired by the Bush administration.

Graves said he was told simply that he should resign to "give another person a chance." He said he did not oppose the department's request, because he had already been planning to return to private practice. He did appeal to Missouri's senior senator to try to persuade the White House to allow him to remain long enough to prosecute a final, important case -- involving the slaying of a pregnant woman and kidnapping of her 8-month fetus. Justice officials rejected the request.

The former prosecutor's disclosure, in an interview on the eve of a second appearance today by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales before lawmakers investigating the firings, means that the administration began moving to replace U.S. attorneys five months earlier than was previously known. It also means that at least nine prosecutors were asked to resign last year, a deviation from repeated suggestions by Gonzales and other senior Justice officials in congressional testimony and other public statements that the firings did not extend beyond the eight prosecutors already known to have been forced out.

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Graves said he received a telephone call shortly after New Year's Day 2006 from Michael A. Battle, then director of the department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Graves said Battle told him that department officials wanted to change leadership in the Kansas City office, emphasizing "there are no performance issues."

more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2840911&mesg_id=2840911