The US Attorney scandal did not begin with Carol Lam. It began as soon as the Bush Crime Family took over the United States in 2000. We must be thankful for Senator Feinstein's intuition from late 2006 that the firing of Carol Lam was politically-motivated to roadblock further investigations of the Bush Crime Family members; however, what she uncovered is something much more treacherous.
Todd Graves was the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri from September 17, 2001 to March 10, 2006.
This diary describes why Mr Graves had to be removed, and how it is related to why Bud Cummins had to be removed as well. Through Mr Rove's sleight-of-hand, we are led to believe that Cummins was asked to resign so that an old friend could get the job; stories are leaked that Rove really wanted to have his compatriot/replacement US Attorney, Mr Griffin, in Arkansas to uncover Clinton issues for the 2008 elections. But, I think it will become clear that while these may have been motivations, other members of the Crime Family had other motives.
I. Who is Todd Graves?
Todd Graves served as United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri from 9.17.01 to 3.10.06:
Todd P. Graves, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that he is resigning from the presidentially-appointed position effective March 24, 2006.
Graves, 40, was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the top federal law enforcement official for western Missouri on July 30, 2001. Graves took his oath of office on an interim appointment as U.S. Attorney by the U.S. District Court on September 17, 2001, and his presidential appointment was formally confirmed by the United States Senate on October 11, 2001.
Graves came to the U.S. Attorney’s Office from his position as Platte County Prosecuting Attorney, an office to which he was elected in 1994 and 1998. At the time of his election to that post in 1994, he was the youngest full-time prosecuting attorney in Missouri.
The reasons for his having to be replaced in March 2006 by the Bush Crime Family, using the Patriot Act exemption to curtail further investigation by the Senate will become immediately apparent by the end of this diary.
II. The Blunt Family
Here is a brief over-view of the Family, as described in the Washington Post from the relevant time-period for this diary, mid-2005:
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the man one step behind Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in the Republican leadership, has built a political machine of his own that extends from Missouri deep into Washington's K Street lobbying community.
Blunt, who entered politics as a protege of former senator John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), has assembled an organization of whips and lobbyist vote counters that has delivered more than 50 consecutive victories for the GOP leadership on tough fights over issues including tax and trade bills, District of Columbia school choice and tort reform -- without a single defeat.
Working outside the glare of public attention, Blunt has maximized the organization's influence by delegating authority to Washington business and trade association lobbyists to help negotiate deals with individual House members to produce majorities on important issues.
Blunt's organization in scope has begun to rival "DeLay Inc." -- the political fundraising committees, extensive favor-giving and alliances with Republican lobbyists that the majority leader has used to become one of the most influential leaders in memory.
...
The network of political committees with ties to Roy Blunt is complex and elaborate. His campaign committee has raised $8.58 million since 1996. His leadership committee, the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund (ROYB Fund), has raised $1.68 million since 2000. A separate ROYB 527 Committee collected $1.67 million from 2000 through 2002.
Over the years, seven companies with business before Congress stand out as the most reliable Blunt supporters: Altria, SBC Communications, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, Verizon, United Parcel Service and BellSouth have together given more than $1.2 million to political committees tied to Blunt. Altria is the largest contributor, giving more than $270,000. Blunt, a vocal social conservative, divorced Roseann Blunt, his first wife, to marry Altria lobbyist Abigail Perlman in October 2003.
Blunt's lobbyist son Andrew includes among his clients Altria-owned Kraft Foods, Philip Morris, and 36 percent Altria-owned Miller Brewing, along with SBC Missouri, Burlington Northern and UPS. Hartley has among his clients Verizon (paying $320,000 a year), SBC ($120,000) and BellSouth ($120,000).
Matt Blunt, the governor, has awarded one of the few remaining patronage plums in the state -- franchises to collect fees for driver's license renewals, tax payments for new cars and processing motor vehicle titles and registrations that can provide recipients with as much as $1 million over four years -- to the wife of U.S. Attorney Todd P. Graves, Tracy Graves, and to Graves's brother-in-law, Todd Bartles. The U.S. attorney's office has jurisdiction over Blunt's congressional district and the state capitol.
Responding to a complaint from the Missouri Democratic Party, David Margolis, associate deputy attorney general in Washington, wrote to Todd Graves: "I have determined that there is no existing conflict of interest that requires further action at this time." Margolis noted the procedures for Graves to recuse himself "from any existing or future matters in which a conflict of interest exists."
Rep. Roy Blunt's son is the Governor of Missouri, Matt Blunt.
III. The Bud Cummins connection to the Family and the Graves scandal
Here is a quick summary:
Graves announced his resignation on March 10, 2006. This is smack in the middle of the period during which U.S. Attorney for Arkansas's Eastern District Bud Cummins was investigating Governor Matt Blunt's award of fee offices to political supporters. Press accounts have indicated that Cummins' investigation of Missouri's license offices began in January of 2006, but there was no public recognition of the existence of such an investigation until April 2006.
In other words, Graves left the U.S. Attorney's office while the only people who knew anything of the fee office investigation were the United States Department of Justice its representatives, and those being contacted as part of the investigation. And, of course, the critical piece of the puzzle is Graves' role as a recipient of one of the patronage fee offices the award of which was the very thing being investigated by the Justice Department.
Simple logic would dictate to even the amateur sleuth that the intersection of Graves' departure with the fee office investigation is worthy of a much closer look. And the amateur would naturally have a number of very pertinent questions immediately spring to mind...
Just what did Bud Cummins find out about Todd Graves during the first two months of his investigation? Whatever it was, did he share his findings with his superiors at Main Justice in Washington DC --superiors who were already in the midst of figuring out how to get rid of and replace federal prosecutors?
Was whatever it was that Cummins unearted regarding Graves' connection to ethically problematic aspects of the Blunt fee office scheme enough to cause the folks at Justice in Washington to "encourage" Graves to vacate his office before things became difficult?
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Here is a petition by a group of citizens in Missouri regarding this part of the scandal:
Gov. Matt Blunt and U.S. Attorney Todd Graves have created a critical conflict of interest, that leaves Missourians with no choice but to question the integrity of the Governor's office and the protection they will receive from the U.S. Attorney's office. With Graves' wife and brother-in-law accepting $3.6 million in no-bid contracts to run two of the state's most lucrative fee offices.
Because Graves' office oversees investigations into wrongdoing or corruption in the state capitol, this situation amounts to $3.6 million in corruption insurance for Blunt. The arrangement seemingly will ensure that the Blunt administration will never be investigated for corruption or wrongdoing as long as Graves and his family continue to get rich off of the Blunt administration.
Tell Matt Blunt and Todd Graves to clean up this mess and fix this conflict of interest immediately. Either Graves' should resign as U.S. Attorney or Blunt must rescind the no-bid handouts he gave to Graves' wife and brother-in-law.
Graves had to go, and he had to go very quietly. His replacement, Bradley J. Schlozman was also installed using the US Patriot Act provision:
Bradley J. Schlozman was appointed to serve as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri under an Attorney General Appointment on March 23, 2006.
And, Bud Cummins had to go as well. And so he is gone as well...
As recently as last month, Cummins wondered aloud whether the real reason he was fired had more to do with the Blunt investigation than any other variable:
Still uncertain exactly why he was fired, former U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III wonders whether it had something to do with the probe he opened into alleged corruption by Republican officials in Missouri amid a Senate race there that was promising to be a nail-biter.
Cummins, a federal prosecutor in Arkansas, was removed from his job along with seven other U.S. attorneys last year.
In January 2006, he had begun looking into allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state's driver's license offices. Cummins handled the case because U.S. attorneys in Missouri had recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest.
But in June, Cummins said, he was told by the Justice Department that he would be fired at year's end to make room for Timothy Griffin — an operative tied to White House political guru Karl Rove.
In an interview Thursday, Cummins expressed disgust that the Bush administration may have fired him and the others for political reasons. "You have to firewall politics out of the Department of Justice. Because once it gets in, people question every decision you make. Now I keep asking myself: 'What about the Blunt deal?' "
Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have cited the firing of Cummins and the corruption investigation he was supervising as evidence that the dismissals were politically motivated.
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Tags: Todd Graves, Bud Cummins, Bradley J. Schlozman, Karl Rove, G.W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Tom Delay, Roy Blunt, Matt Blunt, Organized Crime
