“Was there a concerted campaign led by the White House to bring more voter fraud cases, and to what extent did it factor into the firings, and to what extent could that be seen as partisan?” Wow, that’s a whopper of a question. You might find some answers in articles like these: How U.S. attorneys were used to spread voter-fraud fears (Salon, March 21st), White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections (McClatchy, May 10th), Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals (Washington Post, May 14th). But Alberto Gonzales has an answer for you that requires much less reading: “No.” In today’s episode of TPMtv, we ponder whether or not that answer is to be believed.

By now we’ve all heard that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty resigned on Monday – we’ll have much more on that today and in the coming days on TPM and TPMmuckraker. But today we’d like to talk a little more about voter fraud.

In his response to a question Tuesday morning at the National Press Club, Attorney General Gonzales said, “No, there was no-… there was-… I’m not aware of any concentrated effort by the White House to promote a voter fraud prosecution campaign.” Sure, last October Karl Rove raised concerns with Gonzales about voter fraud in three jurisdictions, but why shouldn’t he have? Voter fraud is a bad thing, Gonzales reminds us. It’s against the law. It's stealing. Did we mention it’s against the law? And the Justice Department has an obligation to pursue it.

Look, we may not believe most things that come out of Alberto Gonzales’s mouth, but we actually do agree with him on that - voter fraud is in fact illegal. No one is denying that it’s illegal. But whether or not voter fraud is a bad thing is not the question here. The question here is whether or not the White House cooked up accusations of voter fraud to suppress voter turnout, specifically among African-American and Latino voters.

On that note, we show you a clip of FOX News from Monday evening. It’s a segment discussing the various possible primary dates in the early primary states like Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The commentator notes that one issue raised by these dates moving around is that...

The South Carolina GOP must also deal with the possibility of double voting. The South Carolina Democratic Party primary is set for January 29th. It’s likely the two parties will have contests on separate days, and in an open registration state that means there’s an opportunity, although an illegal one, for a South Carolinian to attempt to vote in both primaries.

If you watch the clip you may notice that not only is voter fraud a possibility that only the GOP "must deal with," but also the B-roll FOX chose to use for the segment includes only images of African-Americans. Oohhhh, that’s what voter fraud looks like. Now it all becomes clear, name to face, so forth. Thanks FOX!

What this is about is suppressing voter turnout among minorities, among those who traditionally have been inclined to vote Democratic.

Then there’s that recent story about a robo-call campaign in Camden, New Jersey, in which voters received calls impersonating the U.S. Attorney’s office that threatened jail time for those who sold their votes. The whole thing raises some serious questions about voter suppression. Combine that with a campaign during last year’s election in which Missouri voters were told they would be sent to prison if they voted in the wrong precinct – about which we’ll be talking more in the coming days – and you start to see a pattern emerge…

After the break we take one last loving look back at Alberto Gonzales’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, May 10th. The Attorney General certainly has a confidence-inspiring way with words.