Senators Ted Kennedy and Sheldon Whitehouse called for an investigation into whether Justice Department officials carried out an illegal voter-suppression scheme called "vote caging" before Election 2004. The senators named Tim Griffin, former Interim U.S. Attorney, former RNC researcher, and former aide to Karl Rove. In a letter, the senators said:
"It is very disturbing to think that Department officials may have approved the appointment of a United States Attorney knowing that he had engaged in racially targeted vote caging... [and] that senior officials were aware of this practice and did nothing...."
In May, ex-DoJ official Monica Goodling testified before the House Judiciary Committee that Griffin had caged votes. Griffin denied it. The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin retorted:
"But how, then, to explain these e-mails mistakenly sent to (and then archived by) the spoof Georgewbush.org site? The e-mails quite clearly show Griffin thanking another operative -- 'thank you, perfect,' he writes -- for sending him spreadsheets called Caging.xls and Caging-1.xls, both of which seem to contain lists of voters in Jacksonville [Florida] whose mail was returned."
Griffin's alleged vote caging began creeping into the media three weeks ago, when Journalist Greg Palast blogged about it.
This doesn't help presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who considered hiring Griffin as a campaign consultant, according to Marc Ambinder.
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