Revising and Extending My Remarks

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Two weeks ago, in my farewell post to TPMmuckraker alum Paul Kiel, I noted his critical and too-little-credited role in our coverage of the US Attorney firing scandal. But while that is entirely accurate, I failed to note an important part of the story.

By the time the story really broke open it was just me and Paul working the story at TPM since Justin Rood had already moved on to his current job at ABC’s The Blotter. But key work on the story happened before a lot of the public and the rest of the news media really began to take notice — particularly the initial work of compiling the initial list of seven US Attorneys who we then believed (and now know) had been fired. This was in some ways the Rosetta Stone from which the rest of the story unfolded over the spring and summer of 2007. And Justin was every bit a part of that reporting.

This is of course sort of inside baseball. It doesn’t change the merits or implications of the story. But it’s one that we’re proud of here at TPM and one that’s gotten a lot of attention. So I wanted to clarify this point and set the record straight.

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