this afternoon's session, otoh, will
not go nearly as easily, in my estimation.

yet to come, is the direct grilling
from sen. leahy on sampson's dec. 2006
e-mail saying griffin's appointment was
"important to karl; harriet. . ."

vs. . .

sampson's preparation of an e-mail
in feb. 2007, outlining the rove had
"no involvement in the selection" of
griffin theme -- a line offered by DoJ
to congressional inquiries, which we
now know, and sampson MUST have known
THEN, was FALSE -- c'mon! -- he wrote them
both, and they are separated by only
two months' time!

leahy will take. him. apart. into.
little. tiny. pieces. on. this.

he's likely disbarred.

is gonzo next? almost certainly.

why? because sampson gave gonzo
no "scooter libby-esque" bob-n-
weave room at all, this morning. . .

his law license seems toasted. . .

later. . .

he had suggested FIRING patrick
fitzgerald during his investigation
of the c.i.a. leak -- plame matter.

amazing! -- he's now saying,
under oath, that the white
house may have specifically
approved the termination list.

"perhaps harriet mier?" - the attorney
general did, but maybe someone
in the white house "may" have
also specifically approved it.

sampson is singing like a
canary now. . . he is gonna'
burn the whole administration's
house of cards down -- without even
realizing he's doing it. i think
he is genuinely not aware of the
gravity that attaches to these
statements he is making re
himself, rove, gonzales, etc.. . .

and ultimately, bush and cheney. . .

There is an awful lot missing on your local TV news, but the best first step is six minutes of Olberman and his selection of clips.  The MSM selection of clips mostly focuses on irrelevant things or Sampson saying that Gonzales was at the Nov 27 meeting.  That is only a very small first step.

The first major thing to note is that we have a complete disagreement between Gonzales and Sampson about who was the principal decision maker for this process.  Sampson says it was the pair: Gonzales and Harriet Miers.  Gonzales says it was Sampson.  It seems to me that additional testimony should be taken to determine which of these 3, if any, was the principal decision maker.

According to Harriet Miers, who was the principal decision maker?  If there is a White House spokesman who takes questions, isn't this a fair question?  And, according to the persons at the Nov 27 meeting, who was the principal decision maker?  Personally, I would guess that Sampson is right and that Gonzales and Miers were the chief decision makers.  Someone came up with the idea to fire some and put in others, and to do so based on some criteria.  We may agree that the criteria are as yet imperfectly clear, perhaps even to the Democrats.  It wasn't Sampson's idea; it was that of Miers.  Presumably, Sampson, with Gonzales's permission and instruction, carried out her wishes.  So, in that case, Miers is the principal while Gonzales watched passively as the DOJ was politicized and Sampson carried out her wishes?

Also, in the testimony on C-span, one of the senators goes over with Sampson the alleged reasons for getting rid of Iglesias and shows how the alleged and purported reasons can't be squared with known facts about Iglesias performance, notably, his being tasked by the DOJ to instruct other US attns about combatting voter fraud.

So, the claims that there are no improper reasons for the firings appears impossible.  Perhaps Sampson honestly somewhat believed it, but after his testimony re Iglesias with the senator, how could he believe it now?  If there were no improper reasons for the firing of Iglesias, why has the DOJ lied and produced obviously false ones?

And, if he admits that the official reasons for firing Iglesias can't be squared with the facts, shouldn't he be recalled and asked again to reaffirm his belief that no one was fired for improper reasons?