This article is about the U.S. Attorney. For the entrepreneur/restaurateur, see Todd Graves (entrepreneur).
Todd Graves was United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. He took his oath of office on September 17, 2001, initially as an interim United States attorney appointed by the U.S. District Court, on September 17, 2001, and his presidential appointment by George W. Bush was formally confirmed by the United States Senate on October 11, 2001. He resigned effective March 24, 2006.[1][2]
Graves initially appeared on a list of 12 U.S. attorneys slated to be dismissed. Seven on that list were dismissed on December 7, 2006. In April 2007 Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse declined to discuss redacted names on the list. He said the Justice Department withheld the names of prosecutors who had been considered for possible dismissal to protect their reputations and "their ability to function effectively as U.S. attorneys or professionals in other roles."[3] On May 9, 2007, Graves disclosed and confirmed for the first time that he had been forced out by the Department of Justice, and had not departed on his own initiative.[4]
His successor in office was interim attorney Bradley Schlozman. After resigning from his position as U.S. attorney, he formed the law firm of Graves Bartle & Marcus, LLC, based in Kansas City, Missouri.
Before the dismissal, Graves was best known as the prosecutor of the Miracle Cars scam.
Graves was born and raised in Tarkio, Missouri. He is the brother of U.S. Representative Sam Graves of Missouri's 6th congressional district.
Graves received an undergraduate degree in agricultural economics, with a minor in political science, from the University of Missouri, and a law degree and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Virginia in 1991.[5]
Right out of law school, Graves was employed as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Missouri, and served that year as a staff assistant on the Governor’s Commission on Crime. From 1992 to 1994, Graves was in private practice with the law firm of Bryan Cave.[5]
In 1994 he was elected as Platte County Prosecuting Attorney (at the time, he was the youngest full-time prosecuting attorney in Missouri), and re-elected in 1998, an office that he held until his US Attorney appointment.[5]
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In January, 2006, Graves was asked to step down from his job by Michael A. Battle, then director of the Justice department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.[6]
Sen. Christopher S. Bond, on Graves' request, asked the White House for an extension of Graves's tenure so that he could finish an important case; the request was not granted.[6]
Graves had clashed with Justice's civil rights division over a federal lawsuit involving Missouri's voter rolls. DOJ was pushing for a lawsuit against Missouri accusing the state of failing to eliminate ineligible people from voter rolls. Graves refused to sign off on the lawsuit, which was subsequently authorized by Bradley Schlozman.[6][7]
In April 2007, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.[6]
After Graves' resignation, Schlozman succeeded him, remaining for a year until the Senate, in April 2007, confirmed John Wood for the job. Wood was a counselor to the deputy attorney general and is a son of Bond's first cousin.[6]
In October 2008, Senator Kit Bond apologized to Todd Graves, after a U.S. Justice Department report cited Bond forcing Graves out over a disagreement with Representative Sam Graves.[8] Following the report, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials involved in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys broke the law.[9] Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an Ethics Committee complaint against Bond over his role in the ouster of Graves.[10]