Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Refusing to acknowledge that e-mails and testimony by his former Chief of Staff show that Gonzales was keenly involved in the process of firing U.S. Attorneys, Alberto Gonzales told reporters in Boston yesterday that “[t]here obviously remains some confusion about my involvement.”

White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino defended President Bush yesterday, saying that he still has “100 percent confidence in the Attorney General.”

On Thursday Perino told reporters that presidential appointees essential had to “pleasure” the President, explaining that appointees who “fail to continue to keep the President’s pleasure” will be out of a job.

The Attorney General must be doing something right if he’s still “keep[ing] the President’s pleasure.”  The majority of Congress doesn’t appear to share agree.  Neither do conservative think tank analysts and publications.

Things have gone from bad, to worse, to almost rock-bottom for America’s top prosecutor this week.

Today, Gonzales had another press conference in Boston about the DOJ’s educational outreach to kids about child predators. But it was at that conference that he dismissed the latest questions by reporters about calls Democrats and Republicans who’ve called for his resignation:  “I am fighting for the truth,” he responded.

The truth is that:

* A Nov. 2006 e-mail shows that the Attorney General meeting with top Justice Department aides to discuss the planned replacement and firing of U.S. Attorneys;

* On March 13th, he was caught lying to reporters about his knowledge and involvement in firing eight U.S. Attorneys, telling them: “I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood” about terminating U.S. Attorneys.

*  On March 26th, NBC correspondent Pete Williams (a former Pentagon spokesman) gave a ’softball interview’ with Gonzales, putting him on a soapbox to attempt to explain his denials of knowledge and inolvement what is now largely known as a series of politically motivated terminations of career federal prosecutors.

The Justice Department remains in a complete state of disarray.  It is utterly dysfunctional.  A competent CEO would never have conducted him or herself the way that Gonzales since this scandal broke.

Important questions remain:  How long will Gonzales remain in office?  Will Bush utlimately force his buddy ‘Fredo’ out? Will Gonzales conduct hurt the reputations of career prosecutors, through no fault of their own?

Conservatives take note: The National Review, is calling for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

Having defended America’s lead prosecutor in the past, the magazines editors issued a call for his resignation early Wednesday morning:

While we defended him from some of the outlandish charges made during his confirmation hearings, we have never seen evidence that he has a fine legal mind, good judgment, or managerial ability. Nor has his conduct at any stage of this controversy gained our confidence.

His claim not to have been involved in the firings suggests that he was either deceptive or inexcusably detached from the operations of his own department (emphasis added).

Terse words for a presidential appointee they once supported.

In what will be his sixth visit with U.S. Attorneys in a little more than a week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is likely to be holding another sit-down with U.S. Attorneys upset about the reasons behind firings of their fellow prosecutors.

Today Gonzales is in Boston attending another Project Safe Childhood event to highlight the Justice Department’s new ad campaign to alert children and parents to the dangers of sexual predators.

Gonzales is likely to face more tough questions from federal prosecutors about the Justice Department’s dysfunctional operational status this month following intensive scrutiny by Congress, journalists, and the American public over his contradictory statements about the apparently political firing of eight U.S. Attorneys.