Well, mainstream media, better late than never. Yesterday evening CNN picked up on the story of Bradley Schlozman, the former US Attorney in Kansas City, who, if you’ve been reading TPMmuckraker at all for the past 3 weeks, you’ll know is at the epicenter of the Bush administration’s dramatic reshaping of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. In fact, CNN wasn’t the only one turning its gaze Schlozman’s way yesterday: the same evening the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Mr. Schlozman a letter requesting his cooperation in their ongoing investigation of the U.S. Attorney firings.

So we figured today’s episode of TPMtv would be a good opportunity to look back and recap our coverage of Bradley Schlozman: who he is and just how he fits into the U.S. Attorney scandal and particularly the Bush administration’s “war on voter fraud.”

Our story begins in May of 2003 when Bradley Schlozman became Deputy Assistant Attorney General and later Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. His tenure in the Civil Rights Division is filled with controversy – Paul Kiel of course has already reported on Schlozman’s highly questionable applicant screening practices and attorney evaluation practices.

But today we focus on the role Schlozman played in two major voter-fraud related stories in 2005.

The first is a voter ID law that was passed in Georgia in 2005. The law came up for review to the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, which Schlozman was directly supervising as a division head. The career lawyers and analysts at the Department of Justice believed the law violated voting rights. Georgia state Rep. Sue Burmeister – the sponsor of the bill in question – probably didn’t help her cause much when she told voting section staff that "if there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud," and that "when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls." But Schlozman overruled the recommendations of others below him in the department and tried to cram the law through. A federal circuit judge later threw out the law, calling it an unconstitutional, Jim Crow-era poll tax.

The second story involves Bradley Schlozman’s manful attempts to get states, particularly swing states, to be more aggressive in purging their voter rolls. In October of 2005 Schlozman authorized a lawsuit against the state of Missouri for failure to maintain its voter rolls. A federal judge tossed out the lawsuit last month. Remember, this is all in the context of efforts to suppress Democratic voter turnout in key swing states, Missouri being an obvious one.

So – voter ID law in Georgia, voter roll lawsuit in Missouri. What does sterling work like that earn Schlozman? Ding ding ding ding ding!!! That’s right, it’s a fabulous new appointment as interim United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri! Schlozman (who had exactly zero prosecutorial experience up until then) was in fact the first U.S. Attorney appointed under that new provision of the USA Patriot that allows interim U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation. Schlozman was appointed on March 23, 2006, exactly 2 weeks after President Bush signed the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act into law.

Once U.S. Attorney in Kansas City, Schlozman was right back to his old tricks. In the face of a longstanding DoJ policy against prosecutors bringing indictments close to an election, Schlozman prosecuted four ACORN workers for allegedly filing false voter registration forms. Schlozman’s office brought the indictments 5 days before the November midterm elections, at the climax of one of the closest Senate races in the country.

Schlozman's history of bald-faced partisanship effectively nullified any chance of permanent Senate confirmation (remember, in March congress passed a law reversing the USA Patriot Act provision and mandating Senate confirmation for U.S. Attorneys). The administration finally nominated a permanent replacement for Missouri's Western District in January of 2007, just two days before Alberto Gonzales testified the first time before the Senate. But Schlozman didn’t stray far – he was rewarded again with a new position at main Justice. He’s now a counselor at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, in essence acting as a supervisor to all U.S. Attorneys across the country.

And now of course, Schlozman has been contacted by the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked to cooperate with their ongoing investigation into the U.S. Attorney scandal. Keep your eyes on TPMmuckraker for the latest details. They’re sure to be juicy.

After the break, we play a fun little clip of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), doing his darnedest to nail down a timeframe for when we can expect to see some progress from the troop surge in Iraq. Tip to Republican leaders: ix-nay on the an-B-play.