Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Alberto Gonzales is getting criticism from a former senior Justice Department official under Ronald Reagan, Utah trial and appeals lawyer Harold Christensen.

In 1988 Christensen served as Acting U.S. Attorney General for several months after Edwina Meese resigned from the DOJ’s top position, until Richard ‘Dick’ Thornburgh was appointed to the new role.

Christensen’s primary role was  as Deputy Attorney General under Meese and Thornburgh.  He is an experienced litigator.

In an interview with the Salt Lake City Tribune, Christensen suggested that Gonzales fails to appreciate that a U.S. Attorney must remain independent of political winds that can shift blow down from the White House.  Gonzales’ loyalty to President Bush may have clouded his professional judgment:

The attorney general must not be tethered to the political skirts of the White House, Christensen said…”[Alberto Gonzales] doesn’t get it. His loyalty to the president has gotten in the way of his loyalty to the department and to justice.”

A U.S. Attorney General who sorely lacks a sense of loyalty to the administration of justice is no longer able to serve the country’s legal needs.

Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be doing America a huge favor by resigning, along with remaining top aides at the Justice Department. That is what former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich (inset, left), took on Fox News Sunday in an interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace.

Gonzales had no allies on the show. Gingrich appeared with Sen. Charles Schumer, a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that is scheduled to hear the Attorney General testify on Tuesday, April 17th.

According to Gingrich, “the country, in fact, would be much better served to have a new team at the Justice Department, across the board.”

Another black mark against Gonzales.  The Attorney General’s days in office as a rubber-stamp lawman for the White House are clearly numbered.

A new investigation reveals that embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pushed through the highly questionable Secretary of Homeland Security nomination of Bernard Kerik (inset, left), the NYPD’s former top cop, despite a checkered past of ethics violations and links to a convicted New Jersey businessman with reported links to the DiTomasso organized crime family.

At the time Kerik was being considered for the Bush cabinet position, Gonzales was still working as White House Counsel. The Washington Post reports that “Gonzales, as White House counsel, failed to stop [Kerik’s] nomination despite the many warning signs. ‘The vetting process clearly broke down,’ said a senior White House official. ‘This should not happen.’ ”

Lawrence Ray, a New Jersey businessman who was indicted along with organized crime figures in 2000, told the Washington Post that he was the one who kept feeding information about Kerik’s questionable ties during the vetting process for the Homeland Security position. Ray was the best man at Kerik’s 1999 wedding.

One person who the Post says had inside knowledge of Ray’s criminal prosecution at the time he was considered for the DHS chief position was Julie Myers (inset). She was a federal prosecutor in the case against Ray and reputed members of the DiTomasso organized crime family when she worked for the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn at the time. When Kerik was being considered for a position as Secretary of Homeland Security, Myers had just started “working in the White House personnel office on the staffing of the Homeland Security and Justice departments.”

In 2001, Ray pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the Brooklyn federal indictment.

Ray says he was continually feeding information to the feds about Kerik:

“[telling] the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office as early as 1999, as he tried to stave off indictment, that he had incriminating information about Kerik. After his guilty plea in 2001, Ray said, he told the FBI that Kerik had agreed to help Interstate Industrial and its owners, the DiTomasso family, try to win city business despite their alleged ties with organized crime. At the time, Kerik solicited and received gifts from company sources, including $165,000 in renovations for his apartment.

“They knew 100 percent of it,” Ray said. “There was no way they didn’t. I was driving the ball on that.”

Despite red flags raised over Kerik’s DHS consideration by White House aides at the time, Gonzales led the vetting process, overlooking these red flags. Due to the need to keep candidates’ identities secret before their nomination, Gonzales’ White House Counsel office was in charge of vetting, leaving the FBI out of any necessary background investigation until the nomination would have actually been submitted.

The White Ethics Counsel at the time, Nanette Everson, was “kept on the sideline for the heavy-duty part of the vetting.” Who was the lawyer controlling Kerik’s push to the top for Pre. Bush? Alberto Gonzales.