New U.S. Attorney Nominee’s 1998 Campaign Was Run By Rove-Protege Tim Griffin
New U.S. Attorney Nominee’s 1998 Campaign Was Run By Rove-Protege Tim Griffin
The controversial U.S. attorney in Arkansas, Tim Griffin, has resigned, effective June 1.
While no replacement has been named, ThinkProgress spoke with Rep. John Boozman’s (R-AR) office earlier this month, who confirmed that on March 30, the congressman submitted three names to the White House to replace Griffin. His office said that it has not heard from the administration on the state of the process.
One of the candidates put forward by Boozman is former Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court Betty C. Dickey. Dickey has longstanding ties to Griffin, who managed her unsuccessful 1998 state attorney general race against Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR). She has also publicly spoken out in support of Rove-protege Griffin:
“Tim Griffin is a fine young man and he is a good attorney, and sometimes partisan politics is a problem, in both parties,” said Betty Dickey, a Democrat-turned-Republican who has been acting chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Griffin worked on Dickey’s unsuccessful 1998 campaign for attorney general. She lost that race to Pryor.
Griffin formerly served as the research director of the Republican National Committee and his history of running campaigns is troubling. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida in the 2004 election.
Pryor has not yet said whether or not he will lend his support to Boozman’s nominees.
(HT: TP commenter PTF)
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Thanks Amanda – the BBC/Greg Palast story on caging is a crucial piece of this story…
May 31st, 2007 at 10:04 amMonica Goodling used that term, too.
Gee, everything the RNC knows it learned from direct mailing.
Doesn’t that make y’all feel better?
May 31st, 2007 at 10:19 amYes, much better.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:22 amCome on Conyers…. take the next step.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:23 amWasn’t it reported that Fred Thompson has Griffin on his team, too?
May 31st, 2007 at 10:51 amNice show of humility, Gonzo… Nominate someone equally antagonistic to Pryor.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:06 amRemember when Monica Goodling was asked to define “caging” when she testified she said she thought it was a term used in “direct mail”. She conveniently left out the part about how it has something to do with using direct mail to perform voter supression. The “voter suppression” phrase never passed her lips.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:50 amThey’re nominating a former state Supreme Court Chief Justice to be a US Attorney? Huh? Isn’t she a LITTLE overqualified? Or is this more mis-direction?
May 31st, 2007 at 12:03 pmDDB:
Note that in Arkansas, the Justices are elected every eight years — BUT — if there’s a vacancy, the Governor gets to appoint whomever he wants to finish out the term.
Betty Dickey was appointed twice by Arkansas Governor Huckabee –
ONCE to fill out the Chief Justice’s term (WH Dub Arnold) who resigned (Dickey served one year in this appointed slot), and,
ONCE to complete another Justice’s term (Jim Hanna) who was elected chief justice (Dickey served one year in this appointed slot).
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2004/11/23/News/309689.html
Dickey has never one an election for any public office – she’s relied on appointments primarily from ex-Governor now presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Prior to taking the Supreme Court appointments, she was Huckabee’s personal lawyer — and in charge of selecting who would get political appointments in Arkansas. Strange that she selected herself for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
Huckabee sure may benefit from having his former senior lawyer plugged into DOJ — and a big player in Arkansas legal community.
Looks to me like the White House is hedging its bets between Huckabee and Thompson.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:16 pmOh you can’t make this shit up.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:02 pm