Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did not comply with the subpoena that the House Committee on the Judiary served him with last week.

The subpoena required him to produce undisclosed documents in the U.S. Attorney firings investigation by 2:00 p.m. today.

The Senate Judiciary Committee opted to postpone the hearing where U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will testify about his role and knowledge of events in the U.S. Attorney firings scandal.

The hearing will now take place on Thurday, Arpil 19, 2007 instead of Tuesday, April 17th.

Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy made the decision in light of the tragedy today at Virginia Tech University where scores of students were slain by an apparently lone gunman who attacked students in class and a dormitory. Leahy said that “I am sure that [the Attorney General] will want to be dealing with matters of the shooting.”

A review of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ 25-pages of prepared testimony slated for tomorrow’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing paints a portrait of America’s top prosecutor determined to make his last stand.

Gonzlaes’ own words show that he’s in a desperate situation right now. The fact that his statement is so lengthy shows that he is doing everything possible to take time away from the Committee, and divert attention to topics for which he can either try and claim success (terror-related convictions), or for which the public may be less likely to criticize him (e.g., prosecuting pedophiles and sexual predators).

The Attorney General is asserting a “Cool Hand Luke” defense: that if he’s guilty of anything, it’s only a failure to communicate effectively with the U.S. Attorneys under his charge. He acknowledges that “in all cases, I should have communicated [the DOJ’s] concerns [to prosecutors who were fired] more effectively, and I should have informed them of my decisions in a more dignified manner.”

Lack of dignity is not a federal offense. Giving false testimony is, however. As Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Member Sen. Arlen Specter emphasized on ABC’s meet the press yesterday, if Gonzales fails to testify truthfully about his knowledge and role in the prosecutors’ firings, he could face up to five years in in jail for lying under oath. Even the Justice Department’s U.S. Attorney’s Manual gives detailed background information on prosecuting people accused of giving false testimony under oath.

The Attorney General almost certainly will not be able to read from his entire prepared testimony. Doing so would take precious time away from the Committee and intent on getting to the bottom of the firings debacle. It would also give Gonzales a certain degree control over the proceedings. The Committee will never let this happen.

The overwhelming majority of issues covered by Gonzales in his statement are simply attempts at diverting attention from the subject at hand. The average American is probably less likely to care about the Attorney General’s discussion of gang violence, domestic violence, intellectual property crimes, and Native American law enforcement issues. Today’s Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that they simply don’t trust Gonzales’ ability to tell the truth. When he says he’s done “nothing improper,” they don’t believe him.

Not since the days of Watergate when former President Nixon tried, unsuccessfully, to tell America: “I am not a crook,” will serious attention be paid to Gonzales statements. The public, lawyers, and politicians of every persuasion will be watching.

You’d think that after federal prosecutors achieved a phenomenal track record in white collar criminal, corporate malfeasance, and obstruction of justice cases, the U.S. Attorney General would learn that e-mails can be a gold mine when it comes to putting the accused in a tough spot.

Apparently, Alberto Gonzales must never have taken a continuing legal education seminar on electronic evidence and discovery. The e-mail from Kyle Sampson placing Gonzales at a November 27, 2007 meeting to discuss firing U.S. Attorneys hasn’t disappeared. Gonzales was there with Sampson and other senor aides including Monica Goodling, Michael Battle, and Michael Elston is coming back to haunt the Attorney General.

Today the Washington Post reports that Michael Battle, the former Director of the DOJ’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, told Senate and House investigators that Gonzales was not only at the meeting, but that “a memo on the firings was distributed” to those attending it.

Gonzales’ former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson already placed Gonzales at the November 27, 2006 DOJ meeting on the firings.

Now that Battle has told investigators that Gonzales was privy to not only discussins but written materials on the firing of prosecutors at the meeting, he’s digging himself a deeper hole to get out of when testifying tomorrow.