By Chitra Ragavan
Posted 4/20/07

~snip~ That issue has greatly angered Sen. Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat in whose state Gonzales replaced the existing U.S. attorney, H. E. "Bud" Cummins, with J. Timothy Griffin, a former prot égé of Bush political adviser Karl Rove, using this controversial provision.

Pryor has said that he called Gonzales and the White House on December 15 to weigh in on who Cummins's replacement should be. When Pryor heard that the administration was planning to name Griffin as an interim appointee, the senator says, he "asked them to please not do that, and please send someone through the confirmation process. And if it was Tim Griffin, send him through," even though Pryor could not guarantee he would vote for Griffin. Gonzales assured him that he supported the idea of a Senate-confirmed nominee as well.

But just four days later, Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, sent an E-mail to Christopher Oprisem in the White House, regarding circumventing Pryor and his fellow Arkansas senator, Blanche Lincoln, also a Democrat.

"I think we should gum this to death," Sampson wrote. "Ask the senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say, 'no, never,' (and the longer we can forestall that, the better), then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for their recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course." ~snip~

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