Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

The Senate Judiciary Committee continues its full-court press against Alberto Gonzales before he testifies next Tuesday about his role and knowledge in the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal.

Thanks to their friends at The American Spectator, detailed information information has come to light about information that the Committee apparently isn’t getting.  Apparently lots of it. One Justice Department attorney told the conservative magazine that “the [C]ommittee just isn’t asking the right questions.”

If they had, DOJ insiders said, they might be finding files and binders with “overviews and evaluations of at least a dozen current and now-former U.S. Attorneys.”

“According to sources inside the Department of Justice, a series of files and documents that could prove critical to the congressional investigation into the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys remain in the office of the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) and the Executive Office for the U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), which is technically overseen by the DAG office. These documents have not been requested by congressional investigators, and the DAG and EOUSA staff have not let it be known to Congress that they exist.”

The materials were reportedly in the offices of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and Michael Battle, the extraordinarily recent Ex-Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.  Only one week after the Spectator article appeared, a press release yesterday announced that Battle was joining D.C. litigation firm Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP.

Sampson, Goodling, Battle…which senior DOJ aide to Gonzales will be next to make a fast exit from the DOJ’s sinking ship?

The missing docs, the Committee says, “are reported to contain information about the status of each U.S. Attorney for an early December meeting in Washington, D.C. for all 93 U.S. Attorneys, including material about why particular U.S. Attorneys were on his or her way out.”

This recent document demand was signed by Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (Dem. - Vt.), Ranking Member Arlen Specter (Rep. - Pa.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Dem. - Cal.), and Sen. Charles Schumer (Dem. - N.Y.).

You can read the complete Senate Judiciary Committe letter below.