Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Speaking with reporters after the conclusion of today’s testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Schumer (Dem. - N.Y.) (inset below, with Preet Bharara, his Chief Counsel on the Committee) said that there are two outstanding issues that remain to be answered:

First, “should Gonzales stay as Attorney General.” His testimony today, Schumer said, “made it more conclusive that he shouldn’t.” He asserted that “even the White House, as intransigient as they are today, will not keep him.”

Second, there is still no answer about how the names of the eight fired federal prosecutors got on to the list that led of fired attorneys.

“Today’s hearing,” Schumer said, “certainly puts more pressure on the White House to allow [the Senate] to interview Rove, Miers, and others in the White House.”

“Where nobody at Department of Justice can say where the names come from,” the New York Senator concluded, “that points to the White House.”

The strongest criticism at today’s Senate hearing early this afternoon came from Sen. Tom Coburn (Rep. - Okla.) (inset) when told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directly that he should resign.

Coburn was outraged that Gonzales refused to give the eight fired U.S. Attorneys reasons for their being fired from their jobs.

Gonzales’ response? “As a legal matter, they’re not entitled to” have reasons for losing their jobs. He beleives that any mistakes he made were “moral,” not legal. “One of the things I would have done would have been to be more respectful,” he explained, and done a better job of communicating with U.S. Attorneys.

It’s the Attorney General’s stock “Cool Hand Luke” defense admitting that he’s had a big problem with failing to communicate effectively with U.S. Atorneys.

“Why would we not use the same standards to judge your performance as we did to judge those dismissed U.S. Attorneys?” Coburn continued.

Gonzales refused to answer the question, even after it was repeated several times. Instead he resorted to several of his standard rebuffs to questions that put him in a defensive position, saying either: “I think that’s a fair question,” or that “the department under my leadership has done some great things.”

A classic negotiation strategy that many litigators are familiar with: attempt to diffuse the conflict by acknowledging the interrogators concerns, show some level of acceptance of responsibility for errors, and then site one’s accomplishments.

Gonzales tells Sen. Jeff Sessions (Rep. - Ala.) that he has “no recollection” of the November 27, 2006 meeting in his office that an e-mail from Kyle Sampson shows was being held to discuss U.S. Attorney appointments.

This was in response to a question by Sessions tracking the chronology of Gonzales’ changing recollections of his involvement attending meetings and seeing documents related to U.S. Attorney firings.  Sessions reminded Gonzales:  “[Y]ou stated that I was not involved in seeing any memoes or any discussions” regarding the U.S. Attorney firings.

Sessions stressed that the Attorney General’s answer “is troubling to me.”

Statement of Chairman Patrick Leahy,
Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing On “Department Of Justice Oversight”
Witness: Attorney General Gonzales
April 19, 2007

This week we join in mourning the tragic killings at Virginia Tech on Monday. The innocent lives of students and professors are a terrible loss for their families and friends and for their community. It affects us all. We honor them and mourn their loss.

I expect that in the days ahead, as we learn more about what happened, how it happened and perhaps why it happened, we will have debate and discussion and perhaps legislative proposals to consider. I look forward to working with Department of Justice and specifically with Regina Schofield, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, and others to make improvements that can increase the safety and security of our children and grandchildren in schools and colleges.

Today, the Department of Justice is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history. There is the growing scandal swirling around the dismissal and replacement of several prosecutors, and persistent efforts to undermine and marginalize career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division and elsewhere in the Department.

We hear disturbing reports that politics may have played a role in a growing number of cases. I have warned for years against the lack of prosecutorial experience and judgment throughout the leadership ranks of the Department. We are seeing the results amid rising crime, rampant war profiteering, abandonment of civil rights and voting rights enforcement efforts, and lack of accountability. This Justice Department seems to have lost its way.

The Department of Justice must not be reduced to another political arm of the White House. The Department of Justice must be worthy of its name. The trust and confidence of the American people in federal law enforcement must be restored.

Since Attorney General Gonzales last appeared before this Committee on January 18th, we have heard sworn testimony from the former U.S. Attorneys forced from office and from his former Chief of Staff. Their testimony sharply contradicts the accounts of the plan to replace U.S. Attorneys that the Attorney General provided to this Committee under oath in January and to the American people during his March 13th press conference.

The Committee is still seeking documents, information and testimony so that we may know all of the facts, the whole truth, surrounding the replacement of these prosecutors who had been appointed by President Bush.

One thing already abundantly clear is that if the phrase Aperformance related@ is to retain any meaning, that rationale should be withdrawn as the justification for the firing of David Iglesias, John McKay, Daniel Bogden, Paul Charlton, Carol Lam and perhaps others. Indeed, the apparent reason for these terminations has much more to do with politics than performance.

In his written testimony for this hearing and his newspaper columns, the Attorney General makes the conclusory statement that “nothing improper” occurred.

The truth is that these firings have yet to be explained and there is mounting evidence of improper considerations and actions resulting in these dismissals.

The dismissed U.S. Attorneys have testified under oath that they believe political influence resulted in their being replaced. If they are right, the mixing of partisan political goals into federal law enforcement is highly improper. The Attorney General’s own former Chief of Staff testified under oath that Karl Rove complained to Attorney General Gonzales about David Iglesias not being aggressive enough against so-called voter fraud, which explains his being added to the list.

With respect to Mr. Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, the evidence shows that he was held in high regard, considered for promotion to the highest levels of the Department and chosen by the Department to train other U.S. attorneys in the investigation and prosecution of voter fraud.

Then as the election approached in 2006, Administration officials received calls from New Mexico Republicans complaining that Mr. Iglesias would not rush an investigation and indictments before the November election.

True accountability means being forthcoming, and true accountability requires consequences for bad actions. This hearing is such an opportunity.

Last November, the American people rejected this Administration’s unilateral approach to government and to the President acting without constitutional checks and balances. Rather than heed that call, within days of that election, senior White House and Justice Department staff finalized plans to proceed with the simultaneous mass firings of a large number of top federal prosecutors.

By so doing, they sent the unmistakable message — not only to those forced out but also to those who remained — that traditional, independent law enforcement by U.S. Attorneys would no longer be tolerated by this Administration. Instead, partisan loyalty had become the yardstick by which all would be judged.

I cannot excuse the Attorney General’s actions and his failures from the outset to be forthright with us, with these prosecutors and with the American people.

The White House political operatives who helped spearhead this plan did not have effective and objective law enforcement as their principal goal. They would be happy to reduce United States Attorneys offices to another political arm of the Administration.

If nothing improper was done, people need to stop hiding the facts and need to tell the truth, the whole truth. If the White House did nothing wrong, then show us. Show us the documents and provide us with the sworn testimony of what was done – why, and by whom. If there is nothing to hide, then the White House should quit hiding it.

Quit claiming the e-mails cannot be produced and quit contending that the American people and their duly elected representatives cannot see and know the truth. I trust that after weeks of preparation for this hearing, the Attorney General’s past failures to give a complete and accurate explanation of these firings will not be repeated here today.

There has always been a tacit and carefully balanced intersection between politics and our law enforcement system, but it has been limited to the entrance ramp of the nomination and confirmation process. Instead of an entrance ramp, this Administration seems to have envisioned a political toll road.

Real oversight has returned to Capitol Hill, and the investigation of this affair already has pulled back the curtain to reveal unbridled political meddling, Katrina-style cronyism and unfettered White House unilateralism that has been directed at one of our most precious national assets, our law enforcement and legal system.

Earlier in this process, it seemed that the Administration was concluding that any answer will do, whether it was rooted in the facts, or not. Those days are behind us. Just any answer won’t do anymore. We need the facts, and we will pursue the facts until we get to the truth.

Just as respect for the United States as a leader on human rights has been diminished during the last six years, the current actions have served to undercut confidence in United States Attorneys.

Just as Mr. Gonzales cannot claim immunity for the policies and practices regarding torture that were developed under his watch while White House counsel, he cannot escape accountability for signing off on this plan to undercut effective federal prosecutors and to infect federal law enforcement with narrow political goals.

His actions have served to undermine public confidence in federal law enforcement and the rule of law. By getting to the truth, we can take a step toward restoring that trust.