Summer - Fall 2005: Complaints about US Attorney in Missouri Go to Justice Department

The complaints against US Attorney Todd Graves of Missouri from Jack Bartling, the legal counsel for Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO—see Spring 2005), make their way to the Justice Department. Bartling, who later cooperates with the Justice Department investigators looking into the 2006 US Attorney purge (see September 29, 2008), says he understood from his conversations with officials in the White House Counsel’s Office that the matter is now in the hands of the Justice Department. Moreover, Bartling goes to Washington to interview for a position in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General in the fall of 2005, and during the interview process speaks to Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. Elston asks Bartling if Bond is still interested in removing Graves from his position. Elston will also speak to the investigators, and will tell them that he learned that Graves had lost Bond’s support from Bond’s staff, and not from someone in the Justice Department. Elston will also say that he did not discuss with Bartling the reasons why Graves should be fired, but he knows enough about the discord between the Bond staff and the staff of US Representative Sam Graves (R-MO), Todd Graves’s brother, to make some assumptions about the reason for the request. Elston will say he does not bring the matter to the attention of McNulty or anyone else in the department. [US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 9/29/2008]