More on The US Attorneys Story

by: huntsu

Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 08:11:12 AM EST

That diary raised questions about whether Christie had received or acceded to political pressure to investigate Democrats during last fall's elections.  As many as US Attorneys have been fired or pressured to do so in the past few months, and some of them say it was because they refused to use their office politically to benefit the Republican Party.

Now Talking Points memo reports that the House Judiciary Committee sentsubpoenas the fired US Attorneys, and a lot more information may come out.

Remember Bud Cummins. He was the US Attorney from the Eastern District of Arkansas who got canned so Karl Rove's opposition research chief could take over the job. Look closely at what he just told the Associated Press ...

Cummins, U.S. attorney for Arkansas' Eastern District from 2001-2006, said Thursday that he and other fired attorneys had "politely declined" previous requests from the committee. He said he "didn't have any desire to stir up the controversy any further."

"If given the choice, I'd elect to stay home and mind my own business," Cummins told The Associated Press. "Now that I'm under subpoena, I'll go and give cooperative, truthful answers."

When asked if officials in the Justice Department or White House had asked him to decline the earlier requests, Cummins said he had no comment.

Again, one of those 'no comments' that says plenty.

This story may be getting bigger.  Again, we do not know how many US Attorneys got pressure to insert themselves into the political process in close elections, but we do know Chris Christie did insert himself in the Menendez/Kean Jr. campaign at a sensitive time.  We also know he has continued to issue subpoenas whenever NJ Democrats are making good news for themselves.

The House Judiciary Committee should not only subpoena the fired US Attorneys, but also ones who have not been fired.  They should start with ones who publicly investigated Democrats between Labor Day and the November election last fall. 

Unfortunately, there is no one from the NJ House Delegation on the House Judiciary Committee for us to call.

Some enterprising reporter should also ask US Attorney for the State of New Jersey Chris Christie if he received any such political pressure.  Christie has previously denied it, but with mounting evidence that others have been pressured the subject should be raised again.