header_blog.jpg

Former Karl Rove Protege Tim Griffin Resigns As U.S. Attorney

Posted by Stephanie Taylor on May 31, 2007 at 11:33 AM

Tim Griffin, the controversial U.S. attorney in Arkansas, has resigned.

Griffin is a protégé of Karl Rove and formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a "caging" scheme to suppress the votes of African-American service members in Florida.

ThinkProgress published this helpful explanation of what "caging" is:

In 2004, BBC reporter Greg Palast obtained two e-mails — prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign’s national research director--that listed "1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas" of the Jacksonville, FL Naval Air Station. Palast explains:

Here’s how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters’ registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.

In 2004, African-American leaders denounced the caging scheme as "another shameful Republican effort to keep blacks from voting."

According to ThinkProgress, the Bush administration was so worried about the allegations that it decided not to proceed with the Griffin nomination before the Senate because it would draw attention to this very topic.

In her recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, former Justice Department official Monica Goodling dismissed "caging" as "just a direct-mail term."

Comments - 10 »

Comments are now closed for this entry.