Timothy Griffin

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John Timothy Griffin (born August 21, 1968), was an interim United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from December 2006 to June 2007.

He was appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as an interim US Attorney to succeeding Bud Cummins. The circumstances surrounding Griffin's appointment were disclosed during the controversy about dismissed U.S. attorneys; Cummins was dismissed to make the position available to Griffin. Under a previously little-known provision of the PATRIOT Act, Griffin could have served indefinitely without Senate confirmation. Testimony from Cummins and other dismissed attorneys drew attention to a 2007 bill to overturn the PATRIOT Act provisions that permitted interim U.S. attorneys to serve unlimited terms.

Personal

Griffin was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was raised in Magnolia, Arkansas. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with his wife Elizabeth.

Education and career

Griffin is a 1990 graduate of Hendrix College, and 1994 law school graduate of Tulane University.

Griffin worked from September 1995 to January 1997 with Special Prosecutor David Barrett and his investigation of former Secretary of HUD, Henry Cisneros. In September 1999 he was Deputy Research Director for the Republican National Committee (for George W. Bush's election campaign) and during that stint was a legal advisor for the "Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team" (see Bush v. Gore). For two years after that he was Senior Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Government Reform. From March 2001 through June 2002 he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff. He then left to become Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. From September 2005 through September 2006 he worked at the White House as Karl Rove's aide, with the title of Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director in the Office of Political Affairs.

Griffin has served in the United States Army Reserve since at least 1997, serving as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) and attained the rank of Major. From May through August 2006 he served as JAG in Mosul, Iraq. Griffin worked as special assistant to Cummins from September 2006 until Cummins resigned, December 20, 2006.

2004 election controversy

Journalist and author Greg Palast alleged that Griffin was involved in an effort to target 70,000 voters - students, deployed military personnel and homeless people in predominantly African American and Democratic areas — for vote caging during the 2004 election.. Monica Goodling cited in her oral and written testimony to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary on May 23, 2007, that Griffin's alleged vote caging activities were desirable for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to be informed of, in relation to Griffin's potential Senate confirmation as a U.S. attorney.

On July 7 it was reported that "Internal city memos show the issue of Republican 'vote caging' efforts in Jacksonville's African-American neighborhoods was discussed in the weeks before the 2004 election, contradicting recent claims by former Duval County Republican leader Mike Hightower - the Bush-Cheney campaign's local chairman at the time..

US Attorney appointment

On December 15, 2006, the Justice Department announced that Griffin would be appointed interim United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas on December 20, 2006. Cummins resigned effective December 20, upon being informed of the announcement. Griffin had been working since September 2006 as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Cummins office, in anticipation of the appointment. Before a March 2006 revision to the PATRIOT Act, interim U.S. Attorneys had a 120-day term limit, pending confirmation by the Senate of a Presidential nominee. The Attorney General makes interim appointments; after the revision, the Attorney General's interim appointees had no term limit, effectively bypassing the Senate confirmation process if the President declined to put forward a nomination. Griffin was among the first group of interim attorneys appointed by the Attorney General without a term limit.

Gonzales' decision to bypass confirmation for Griffin particularly angered Arkansas' two U.S. Senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Both Lincoln and Pryor claim that Gonzales promised them Griffin would go before the Senate for confirmation. Gonzales' decision not to do so prompted Lincoln and Pryor to join many of their Democratic colleagues in demanding Gonzales' resignation or firing.

Documents released by a subsequent Congressional investigation showed that, in the summer of 2006, White House officials wanted a vacant slot in Little Rock, Arkansas, so Griffin could fill it. Prior to this he was a top Republican researcher and aide to Rove. He was hand selected by Rove to be a US Attorney. On February 16 2007, 10 days after McNulty testified that Cummins was dismissed in order to make a vacancy for Griffin to be appointed to, Griffin announced that he would not seek the presidential nomination to be U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

On March 14, 2007 the Arkansas Leader wrote about Griffin his "resignation or dismissal ought to be imminent". Gonzales testified in his January 18, 2007 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney." On May 30, 2007, Palast turned over a series of 500 emails — potential evidence of a crime — by request from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers; the e-mails were inadvertently sent to the wrong email address, by Griffin.

On May 30, 2007, Griffin resigned from his position effective June 1, 2007.

Fred Thompson presidential campaign

On May 31, 2007, the Washington Post reported speculation that Griffin was in discussions with the then-nascent Presidential campaign of Fred Dalton Thompson for a top-level post.

References

External links

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Last updated on Tuesday February 26, 2008 at 16:37:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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