Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

The U.S. Department of Justice released a new round of e-mails late this afternoon to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

According to the Washington Post, the newly released documents lay blame for any discrepancy on Gonzales’ ex-Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson.

Letters to the Chairs of both Committees from Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Hertling admitted that there were “contradictions” in earlier documents:

…it appears that  certain statements in the February 23 letter are contradicted by Department documents included  in our production in connection with the Committees’ review of the resignations of U.S.  Attorneys. We sincerely regret any inaccuracy.

The newly released docs total some 202 pages.

In a hint of things to come, Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (Dem. - Vt.) and House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (Dem. - Mich.) told White House Counsel Fred Fielding that they know of at least several non-White House e-mails sent between a White House staffer and senior DOJ aides.

The e-mails were reportedly among J. Scott Jennings, a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy of Director of Public Affairs at the White House, former DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson, and Monica Goodling, a DOJ Counsel and liason to the White House.

Leahy and Conyers advised the White House lawyer that they

“have already received a document showing communications between D. Kyle Sampson, the Attorney General’s former chief of staff, and J. Scott Jennings, the Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs at the White House (who you offered for an off-the-record interview), in which Mr. Jennings does not use his White House e-mail account but an e-mail account at the Republican National Committee designated “gwb43.com.” There is another, similar use of a nongovernmental e-mail account in an exchange including Mr. Jennings and Monica Goodling, the Justice Department official who was the White House liaison and who recently invoked her privilege against self-incrimination.”

They refer to Rep. Henry Waxman’s recent directives to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Bush-Cheney ‘04 Campaign to preserve all non-governmental e-mails used by White House officials to transact and communicate official government business.

The recent prosecution and conviction of ex-Cheney aide Scooter Libby revealed that White House staff used non-government e-mail accounts when communicating on official White House business.

You can read Leahy’s and Conyer’s letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding here:

Continuing his nearly week-long Red state meetings with U.S. attorneys to tout the DOJ’s new ad campaign focusing on the dangers of child predators, Gonzales is in Houston this morning meeting the U.S. Attorney Donald DeGabrielle, Jr. and others.

But some parts of Houston have already sent the U.S. Attorney General a loud and clear message, telling him to resign over the U.S. Attorney firings controversy.

That is the crux of a well-time column by the Houston Chronicle’s Cragg Hines this morning.  Titled “Why Gonzales should be shown the exit very soon,” Hines has a few hard-hitting observations for the AG when he reads his the Chron this morning:

Either Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is lying or his Justice Department was running amok on its own.

In either case, Gonzales should be sent on his way.

Hines says that Gonzales’ resignition is “overdue.”

Here is the newly disclosed e-mail placing Alberto Gonzales at an hour-long meeting on Monday, November 27, 2006 in the “AG’s conference room” to discuss U.S. Attorney appointments with top Justice Department aides:

For visually challenged bloggers with text voice readers, GonzalesWatch.com has transcribed the text of these e-mail images for you below:

Kyle Sampson
Chief of Staff
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
(202) 514-2001 wk.
(202) 305-5289 cell
kyle.sampson@usdoj.govTracking: Recipient Read
Beach, Andrew Read: 11/21/2006 6:54 PM