Another White House Staff Memeber packing her desk

Sara Taylor, who has been with the Bush WH since the beginning, is leaving for the private sector. Here's the Washington Post article about her, then I'll follow up with more from Think Progress.

Another Top Bush Aide Makes an Exit

By Michael A. Fletcher
Monday, May 28, 2007; Page A15

As the Bush administration inches closer to its concluding months, more top aides are headed out to the private sector. Sara M. Taylor, the White House political director and microtargeting guru who has been with George W. Bush from the outset of his first presidential campaign, is the latest staff member to leave the president's employ.

Taylor, 32, was one of the first people put on the payroll of the Bush campaign, trekking through snowy Washington to interview with Karl Rove and Bush, who was then governor of Texas. Taylor worked on the 2000 campaign, and later became a political aide in the White House.

In 2004, she worked on Bush's reelection campaign, where she helped refine the emerging political art of microtargeting. Working with Alex Gage of TargetPoint Consulting, Taylor was among those who helped use sophisticated analysis of consumer data to enable the Bush campaign to target potential voters even when they resided in Democratic-leaning voting districts.

The campaign developed lists of potentially sympathetic voters, based in part on computer analysis of people's spending habits. Those voters were then targeted for direct mail and other advertising. The data-mining techniques are credited with giving Republicans a decisive turnout advantage in the 2004 election; they are now commonly practiced by Democrats as well.

And now from Think Progress:

Justice Department Officials Confirm White House Instigated Plan To Bypass Senate On U.S. Attorney

Both Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson approved a plan to bypass the Senate and install Karl Rove-protege Tim Griffin as U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

But according to Karen Tumulty of Time, private testimony by Sampson reveals that the idea was “instigated” by the White House:

In private testimony that is being released this afternoon by the committee, Alberto Gonzales’s former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson told investigators that Gonzales himself initially resisted the idea of bypassing the Senators from Arkansas to install Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Pressure to do it, he suggested, was coming from officials at the White House–specifically, White House political director Sara Taylor, her deputy Scott Jennings and Chris Oprison, the associate White House counsel. Sampson described himself and Goodling as “open to the idea,” which is not the same as instigating it.

Taylor reports directly to Rove. In a Dec. 19, 2006 e-mail, Sampson said that getting Griffin “appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.”

And on another matter:

Rice, RNC subpoenas approved.“By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration’s claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.” The oversight committee “also issued subpoenas for the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents about White House e-mails on RNC accounts that have apparently gone missing.” In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee “approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors’ matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.”

So I see another subpoena coming for Sara Taylor and there could be another 5th Amendment invocation, and possibly, just possibly another request for immunity.