"But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison" [an associate White House counsel] "that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the forefront of Griffin's nomination."There are also other emails and documents that the White House is withholding from Congress.
Several of the e-mails that the Bush administration is withholding from Congress, as well as papers from the White House counsel's office describing other withheld documents, were made available to National Journal by a senior executive branch official, who said that the administration has inappropriately kept many of them from Congress.The item highlighted above is confirmation of my earlier assertion that Al Gonzales has been playing a role. He knows everything that has happened and why, and his statements to the contrary are the equivalent of the small child standing next to the broken cookie jar looking up and saying "What? I don't know how that happened." Gonzales is playing his role to protect the White House.
The senior official said that Gonzales, in preparing for testimony before Congress, has personally reviewed the withheld records and has a responsibility to make public any information he has about efforts by his former chief of staff, other department aides, and White House officials to conceal Rove's role.
"If [Gonzales] didn't know everything that was going on when it went down, that is one thing," this official said. "But he knows and understands chapter and verse. If there was an effort within Justice and the White House to mislead Congress, it is his duty to disclose that to Congress. As the country's chief law enforcement official, he has a higher duty to disclose than to protect himself or the administration." [editor - highlighting is mine.]
Some of my prior discussions of Alberto Gonzales' testimony can be found here, here and here.
Prior reports by Murray Waas reported in the National Journal can be found here.
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