Conrad Burns, Abramoff crony and former US Senator from the state of Montana, nominated William Mercer to the post of US Attorney for the District of Montana. But William seems to be spending a lot more time in DC than is seemly for a US Attorney. ePluribus Media has already prepared a "dossier" on Mercer. Here are a few tidbits from that article The Case of the Absentee Attorney, William Mercer, Montana:

Although never confirmed by the U.S. Senate, William W. Mercer serves as the Acting Associate Attorney General of the United States, the third highest-ranking official in the Justice Department, and a member of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' inner circle. He has helped to formulate crucial Department of Justice Policies regarding expansion of federal powers, and his name has surfaced in connection with the firing of eight US Attorneys.¹

[...] in September of 2006, President Bush nominated Mr. Mercer to serve as Associate Attorney General, the third highest ranking official in the department.⁵ He was charged, among other things, with formulating policies for US Attorneys and with what appear to be substantial oversight duties for them.

Part of his job was formulation of policy along with some oversight of the 93 US Attorneys ... while he himself was serving as a US Attorney. Reading through the emails and other documents made available by the House Judiciary Committee, it becomes obvious that Mercer was involved with the planning and execution of the recent US Attorney purge.

Oh, sorry: it wasn't just the emails ...

Mercer made national headlines when two of the "resigned" U.S. Attorneys -- Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona -- testified before a Congressional Subcommittee that they had spoken with him regarding their dismissals.

And what was it Mr. Mercer told them? They had bad performance reviews? They were [Fill- in-the-blank] ? What was the excuse de jour when these US Attorneys spoke with their "boss"?

Bogden testified that Mercer had explained to him that the Administration had a "very short, two year window of opportunity concerning the United States attorney positions". He also testified to the committee that Mercer told him "this would be an opportunity to put others into those positions so they could build their résumés and get experience as an United States attorney so that for future possibilities of being federal judges or other political type positions, they could be better enhanced to do so."⁸

Now, Mercer's name has been added to the short list of Department of Justice (DOJ) officials that will be subpoenaed to testify in the ongoing investigation into the U.S. Attorney purges.⁹

The Case of the Missing Attorney, William Mercer, Montana

Kyle Sampson, (former) Chief of Staff to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales

Kyle Sampson's name has also surfaced as part of the current congressional investigation into White House involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings. In mid-March, he resigned from his position as the Attorney General's chief of staff due to the backlash resulting from his involvement in the fiasco. Source

In 1993 Kyle Sampson graduated from Brigham Young University, from there moving on to the University of Chicago Law School. He has served as counsel to Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and -- also under Gonzales -- from 2001-2003 served as deputy White House counsel.

He joined the Justice Department in 2003 as a counselor to Ashcroft, and stayed on when Gonzales became attorney general. He became chief of staff in September 2005. Source

Kyle has been hanging around long enough to have earned the title "Loyal Bushie." Perhaps that's why Nicholas von Hoffman in The Nation points out ...

Hence it fell to Kyle Sampson to get rid of the federal prosecutors without bothering the boss. Kyle was the right person to do it.

[...]

Howard Hughes had a bunch of bright guys like Kyle working for him. They made sure the late billionaire had fresh Kleenex boxes for his feet so he could walk around in his Las Vegas penthouse and be OK.

Kyle is like that. In effect he was seeing to it that his boss, Alberto, had fresh Kleenex boxes to cover his tootsies.

We do know (thanks to the House Judiciary Committee making the documents public) that "the judge" (Gonzales' nickname) and Sampson discussed the dismissal of US Attorneys.

"Judge and I discussed briefly a couple of weeks ago ... As an operational matter, we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current US Attorneys - the underperforming ones." (Email from Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff to AG Gonzales, to David Leitch, Deputy White House Counsel, 1/9/05)

Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Gonzales's Chief of Staff, and Chris Oprison, of the Office of White House Counsel, openly talked about using their new authority to go around the Senate on the nomination of J. Timothy Griffin in Arkansas. Source

Kyle Sampson has worked for Alberto Gonzales - in high ranking positions since 2001 when he became Deputy White House counsel to Gonzales' White House counsel. Loyalty rewarded? Ladder-climbing?

Michael Elston, Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty

Who is Michael J. Elson, now serving as chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty? Elston first caught our attention when he was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Apparently it was Mr. Elston who called H.E. "Bud" Cummins to "discourage him from talking to the media." Source

Background

Before joining the Department of Justice, Elston was an Associate with Shughart Thomson & Kilroy (1997-99), an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (1995-99), and a Law Clerk to Judge Pasco M. Bowman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (1994-96).Source

Mr. Elston has served as a federal prosecutor since 1999. He is also a co-author -- along with Sara Sun Beale, William C. Bryson, James E. Felman -- of Grand Jury Law and Practice.

And this book was cited in a hearing on "Constitutional Rights and the Grand Jury in a hearing before the Subcommittee on the Judiciary -- House of Representatives on July 27, 2000.

The purpose of the subcommittee was:

Today, this subcommittee convenes to hear testimony on the history of the Federal grand jury system—its origins and its evolution—and to discuss the plethora of constitutional issues that arise within the Federal grand jury system. We will hear from two Federal prosecutors, including the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, and three distinguished law professors who have taken a keen interest in and who have written about the Federal grand jury system. And I might add, that I understand we will probably hear some discussion about recommendations and proposals in reference to reform of the grand jury system. So I look forward to your testimony and that discussion today. Source

Elston's book in is cited in Footnote 1 of the report, which reads in part:

Although the grand jury has been praised as an important safeguard of individual liberty, it originated as a prosecutorial tool designed to increase criminal prosecutions, enhance the crown's authority, and indirectly to raise revenues when property owned by persons convicted of crimes was forfeited to the state.

[...]

This discussion is drawn from Chapter 1 of Sara Sun Beale, William C. Bryson, James E. Felman, & Michael J. Elston, Grand Jury Law and Practice (2nd ed. 1997).

So these are the three "minor" players that conceived, planned and executed the purges ... and we the public are left with only questions.

Will they testify? Or will they, like Monica Goodling, "plead the 5th"? (Good thing they hadn't gotten to interpreting that amendment yet.) Will we ever know the "whole truth and nothing but the truth"? Do they even know what truth is?

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