Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen broke a story alleging that the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General headed by Harvard Law School graduate Glenn Fine (inset) is investigating the hiring practices of Monica Goodling, Attorney General Gonzales’ former Senior Counsel and former DOJ Liaison to the White House.

The internal DOJ probe is investigating whether Goodling violated a prohibition on giving hiring preferences to DOJ employees based upon political party affiliations, a huge federal no-no.

This surely means more billable hours for D.C. white collar criminal defense lawyer John Dowd, Goodling’s attorney. The former senior aide to Gonzales has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. The House Committee on the Judiciary granted Goodling immunity last week in exchange for her testimony and cooperation with the Committee’s work investigating U.S. Attorney firings.

By issuing a subpoena for U.S. Attorney General Gonzales today, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (Dem. - Vt.) made good on his promise last month to subpoena e-mails from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove that the White House alleged had somehow gone missing.

In his speech on the Senate floor (inset, below) on April 12, 2006, Leahy held fast to his belief that e-mail simply can’t be permanently erased and hidden from electronic discovery or and computer forensic analysis.

“[The White House and RNC] say they’ve not been preserved I don’t believe that! I don’t believe that! You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers.”

Leahy might have an important summer job for a teen hacker from his Vermont district.

Remember how Leahy responded to a White House spokesperson’s claim that Rove’s e-mails are been lost? “I’ve got a teenage kid in my neighborhood that can go get ‘em for them,” Leahy scoffed.

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today compelling the U.S. Department of Justice’s chief lawyer to produce “any and all e-mails and attachments to e-mails to, from, or copies to Karl Rove related to the Committee’s investigation” into politically motivated “hiring and firing and decision-making of United States Attorneys.”

The subpoena covers e-mail accounts at the White House, Republican National Committee, or “other account, in the possession, custody or control of the Department of Justice.”

Here is the Committee’s subpoena and formal demand.