Thompson Campaign Courts Rove Protege, Not Their Best Move

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Amidst the “Fred Thomspson to announce” clamor, TPMmuckraker spotted a Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) article that claims Thompson’s campaign is courting Timothy Griffin. Griffin is the young prosecutor and Karl Rove protégé who was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas in December of 2006. His appointment has received a great deal of criticism within the broiling U.S. Attorney firings scandal, as it is believed that former U.S. Attn. Bud Cummins was removed only to make room for Rove’s lackey.

But that’s not all the dirt on Griffin according to Monica Goodling’s long-awaited testimony last week. Goodling claimed that her former coworker Paul McNulty falsely testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee when he claimed he had no information about Griffin’s involvement in “caging” (a voter suppression technique). Greg Palast noted back in March that according to BBC Television, Griffin headed up a scheme to suppress 70,000 citizens’ votes before the 2004 election, targeting black soldiers and homeless men and women. This, by the way, is illegal. Strangely, no one in the media is touching this, except, of course, Palast, who after Goodling’s testimony cried out for people to pay attention to this scandal. Although, in doing so, he got McNulty’s name wrong, calling him Kyle Sampson. (Oops, wrong resigned-DOJ official, Greg.) There is bound to be more news on this front but in the meantime a note to Thompson: I don’t think this is your best move.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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