Although he didn't watch the hearing, Bud Cummins, former US attorney in Arkansas, had something to say about Sara Taylor's testimony. He wants to know who else was involved in that "slander." Alex Koppelman reports on Cummins' reactions.
"I appreciate her stated intention to not inflict further injury, but the fact is, my professional reputation has already been slandered," Cummins said in an e-mail after reading the transcript. "All that remains is to find out who it was that was slandering it. If she was repeating something she heard, she should say who it was that said it, unless perhaps it was President Bush, which I sincerely doubt. It would be quite helpful to me really if she would divulge the identity of that person. I would like to know, because it is my belief that none of the people in a position to know whether or not I was lazy felt that way. I doubt the information is privileged."
The whole US attorney mess was badly handled.
"[Taylor's] statements seemed to reflect an overall recognition that this whole affair was essentially a bad plan executed poorly (or a series of bad plans executed poorly), which is absolutely the truth. They never should have asked DOJ to make these changes for these reasons anyway, and DOJ (Sampson's) belief that it was in any way appropriate to make the changes in such a disrespectful manner was about the worst execution imaginable. The decision to suggest that some or all of these were performance based decisions after the fact to somehow justify them was the biggest mistake of all."
