It is now crystal clear that Todd Graves was one of the attorneys eased out by the administration in its U.S. attorney purge of 2005-2006; in fact, for all the attention paid to the eight formally fired in December, 2006, the Graves case may be the first example of a U.S. attorney purge that year.
Why would Graves have to go?
As we suggested yesterday, Graves' connection with the state fee office scandal played a political role, although there is no evidence yet of any criminal wrongdoing in connection with the awarding of an office to his wife, Tracy.
What seems most likely is a combination of factors led to the dismissal.
Here, in descending order of likelihood, are the other likely reasons for Graves' departure:
1) The Justice Department (DOJ) simply wanted Brad Schlozman in. The Kansas City-area native and former local law clerk had worked at main Justice for some time; sources here say Schlozman wanted to "punch his ticket" with a U.S. attorney's post, improving his resume while looking for something bigger if it came along (including, one source said, an ambassadorship). One source said Schlozman discussed the strategy with colleagues here two weeks after taking office in the spring of 2006.
(In that regard, by the way, Salon.com's story, quoting an anonymous source claiming Schlozman "was Gonzales' guy," is extremely important.)
Others, though, say Schlozman did want to stay and would have taken the job here permanently — in fact, one source says, Schlozman lobbied with Washington for just such an outcome.
Regardless, we should remember this: Schlozman was apparently the first U.S. attorney, appointed on an interim basis, who could serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation. That means DOJ could put Schlozman there without major interference; Sen. Kit Bond insists he learned about Schlozman from a press release. That would appear to make it easy for someone to "take care of" Schlozman quietly.
In this, the Graves-Schlozman exchange would have closely mirrored a similar ouster in Arkansas, where Bud Cummins was replaced by Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin.
2) Schlozman would be more likely to pursue voter fraud cases. As we've discussed in earlier posts, Schlozman was intimately involved in voter fraud challenges in Missouri. Rove and the White House were clearly obsessed with voter fraud heading into 2006; they (and DOJ) almost certainly saw Schlozman as more aggressive in that area than Graves, who had declined to take part in the authorization of a 2005 lawsuit against Missouri for failing to purge its voter rolls.
3) Schlozman may have been more aggressive with Democrats. The New York Times reports today that at least some of the other attorneys caught up in the dismissal scandal may have appeared reluctant to prosecute Democrats. Graves issued a letter in 2004 that cleared then-auditor Claire McCaskill of wrongdoing in connection with a drug investigation; he had also failed to prosecute Katheryn Shields after various investigations of her office.
4) The fee office scandal. Justice was clearly aware of the Graves-Matt Blunt connection, and assigned another attorney — Cummins — to investigate it. As we suggested yesterday, despite the lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the White House may have concluded the fee office was a political liability for Graves and the Republican party in the state.
5) Graves made someone mad. There's a theory that Todd Graves refused to cooperate with main Justice on a couple of relatively high-profile local criminal cases — a civil rights case involving cross burning, for example — and that he was removed because someone in Washington just didn't like him. It's clear he was on someone's radar screen for some reason.
It's possible no one knows exactly why Graves was forced out. It's likely Graves doesn't know. It's likely they told him his "performance" wasn't up to the standards they wanted; that's what they told Bud Cummins and others who are publicly part of the evolving scandal.
House and Senate investigators are digging to see if politics was involved in the eight fired U.S. attorneys. They should insist they get similar evidence in the Todd Graves dismissal.
