It's good to be the King--or even his lapdog. Tim Griffin, protégé of Karl Rove and Interim U.S. Attorney in Arkansas, announced that he will resign from the U.S. Attorney's office. According to the Wall Street Journal , Fred Thompson (character actor, former U.S. Senator and possible candidate for president in 2008) is considering Griffin for a top spot in his campaign.
That's almost as prudent as President Bush's putting former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on the list of hopefuls to head World Bank, despite Frist's struggles with Senate ethics rules, federal election law, and insider trading allegations.
Former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins (see scandal overview) was fired to make room for Tim Griffin--which, in itself, doesn't cast shadows on Griffin, but there's more to his story. Consider, for example, Griffin's reported involvement in vote-"caging" during Election 2004....
While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling said that Griffin had been involved in a (likely illegal) vote-"caging" scheme to remove voters from the rolls before the 2004 presidential election. The committee failed to probe further (Legal Times). The issue hasn't made major mainstream headlines yet, but blogs far and wide have posted about it (e.g., BNP , Crippled Chimp, DailyKos, Drudge Report).
Griffin was one of the operatives the Bush-Cheney campaign deployed to Florida during the Election 2000 recount--though I don't know whether Griffin was one of those disruptive drones who yelled or stomped or pumped fists in the air.
This might have secured his spot as the Republican National Committee's chief opposition researcher in 2002, which likely landed him the job of aide to presidential advisor Karl Rove in 2005 (see résumé, pdf pp. 15-16).
Last month, incidentally, Griffin's truthfulness was challenged after he claimed to have prosecuted 40 criminal cases as an Army lawyer. Army records suggest that Griffin had merely served as assistant counsel on three cases that didn't go to trial.
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