[GOLAGLULT]

It's being reported in alternative media that there is a voter purge issue entangled in the Justice Department ongoing saga of corruption. This is evidently being ignored/hushed in coverage by the corporate news media for a while now.. It involves the Schloz (Bradley Schlozman) and Todd Graves. A google News search revealed only 113 results for "Schlozman Todd Graves". I will try to post more when I find it, but in the meantime
there's this, from an article in the St. Louis Dispatch:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...0?OpenDocument

Political storm brews over testimony
By Philip Dine
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
06/06/2007

WASHINGTON — The former U.S. attorney in Kansas City testified Tuesday that he approved indictments against a voter-registration group four days before last year's hotly contested Missouri Senate election because he regarded Justice Department guidelines against such actions as "informal."

Bradley Schlozman, now a high-ranking Justice Department official, said he was not particularly familiar with the part of the Justice Department manual that discouraged such indictments just before elections, but added, "I believe I was probably aware of it."

Schlozman, a Republican, repeatedly told the Senate Judiciary Committee he did not recall conversations or events about various issues. But he firmly denied any wrongdoing, responding to sharp questioning by Democrats. He also said he had no role in the removal of his predecessor, Todd Graves.

At the same time, he defended filing the voter-fraud indictments. "I did not think it was going to influence the election at all," Schlozman said.

Graves had declined to open an investigation into the alleged voter fraud case before he was replaced by Schlozman.

Graves is among the federal prosecutors whose removal last year by the Justice Department has sparked a congressional investigation into whether the process was politicized.

He testified Tuesday that he disapproved of the filing of the vote-fraud case.

"It would have been my understanding that you would not do that," Graves said. "... It surprised me that they'd been filed that close to an election."

He also said, "To this day, I am a committed Republican conservative, but when you put the suit on you leave that aside."

But it was Schlozman's appearance that sparked fireworks. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that in 30 years on the panel he had never seen a witness so unprepared and unresponsive.

"It seems you are trying to break Attorney General (Alberto) Gonzales' record of saying, 'I don't recall, I don't remember,'" Leahy said.

Several committee members said they thought the vote-fraud case was meant to influence the election, in which then-Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., was trying to ward off a challenge from Claire McCaskill, who won a narrow victory.

Democrats cited a U.S. attorney's office news release about the indictment, which was promptly used by Missouri Republicans to attack McCaskill.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., read from a Nov. 2 news release from the Missouri Republican Party decrying liberal attempts to "steal the election" and referring an assault on the electoral system by a left-wing group with ties to McCaskill.

Asked if that sounded like an attempt to use the suit to influence the election, Schlozman said, "I don't know."

Feingold responded, "I think you know."

Schlozman said he had cleared his action with a public integrity office at the Justice Department, which told him it was all right because the suit didn't involve interviewing any specific voters.

Leahy asked Schlozman to provide relevant e-mail or other documents, pledging he would issue a subpoena for both the documents and Schlozman if the material wasn't supplied voluntarily.

On another matter, Schlozman acknowledged that he may have "boasted" about hiring Republicans and conservatives for nonpolitical positions at the Justice Department, but he maintained he was even-handed in hiring attorneys, asking both conservative and liberal groups for recommendations. When senators named the conservative groups he had consulted and then asked him to name a single liberal group, he was unable to do so.

In his testimony, Graves said he was "immediately angry" when he heard the recent House testimony by former Justice Department official Monica Goodling, which Graves said was an attempt to "turn the blame on someone else" for her own mistakes."

"It was a slur against my name, and I took it very personally," Graves said.

Graves also revealed that he had a major run-in with the Justice Department in 2003, which wanted him to go easier on a man accused of cross-burning in western Missouri. Graves objected. Schlozman was appointed to deal with Graves in that instance.

Justice to appeal

Meanwhile, this week the Department of Justice served notice that it planned to appeal a federal judge's decision in a voter suit brought by the Justice Department against Missouri in 2005.

In April, U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey ruled the department had not proved violations of the National Voter Registration Act in its suit alleging that Missouri kept improper voter lists.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said in a statement Tuesday that she was "very disappointed that the U.S. Department of Justice seems determined to continue this unnecessary and costly lawsuit." She noted that the judge had found no evidence of voter fraud in Missouri.