Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has friends in high places raising money for the embattled lawyer’s trust fund set up for his legal defense.

Gonzales resigned from his position as the country’s top lawyer on September 17, 2007.

According to the Washington Post, Ford Motor Co.’s General Counsel David Leitch (inset) is spearheading the fundraising effort. He worked under Gonzales as White House Deputy Counsel when Gonzales served as White House Counsel.

Leitch’s Ford bio says that, while working for Gonzales and Bush, “he advised the President and his staff on a variety of legal issues, including issues involving the war on terror, judicial nominations, legislative proposals and ethics.”

Although he is not currently facing criminal charges of wrongdoing related to the politically-motivated firing of career federal prosecutors, Gonzales retained high-powered D.C. white collar criminal defense lawyer George J. Terwilliger, III at White & Case in all matters related to the Justice Department Inspector General’s ongoing investigation of the firings debacle.

According to an ABA book on the Patriot Act, Patriot Debates: Experts Debate the USA PATRIOT Act, Terwilliger, takes a hard line against illegal immigration — the very route that brought his Gonzales’ family to Texas from Mexico decades ago.

The book explains that:

George Terwilliger urges aggressive legal action to control illegal immigration. He supports a national identity card, an approach to applicants for entry that differentiates by likely threat, an end to the release of asylum claimants while their cases are pending, the exclusion of illegal immigrants, with jail terms for repeat offenders, and the fingerprinting of all foreign visitors and immigrants.

Terwilliger’s law firm bio also notes that he “was a leader of President George W. Bush’s legal team during the Florida election recount,” and ensuing Bush v. Gore litigation.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is planning to make a quiet, low-key exit from the Justice Department at the end of the month, according to the Washington Post.

Does he have any regrets, a reporter asked Gonzales in Iowa on Tuesday. The Attorney General’s response: “Well, of course, we’re all human, and all of us make mistakes, and the thing that’s important is to identify when those mistakes are made, acknowledge the mistakes, correct the mistakes and then you move on, and that’s what I’ve endeavored to do as Attorney General.”

Translation: The former White House counsel wants folks to know that he’s actually not infallible, that he messes up (hey, “we’re all human”), and that he’ll take a hit for President Bush whenever he can.

In the end, Alberto Gonzales’ lapdog loyalty to his boss was his greatest downfall, not only for the Attorney General, but for the administration that he was brought in to serve.

That is what Gonzales’ resignation has taught the country.

The country’s top lawyer never proved himself to be an independent thinker. Gonzales is a sycophant, a yes-man to sign off on President Bush’s legal policies.

The Washington Post emphasizes that “realities trumped loyalty” when the White House and GOP could not halt bi-partisan attacks over politically-motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys, and absence of real leadership inside the Justice Department.

In the end, there is only one lapdog that President Bush can still call upon for true loyalty: his name is Barney.

New York Times Washington correspondent Philip Shenon has a terrific video piece on Attorney General Gonzales’ resignation from the “Texas Mafia.”

Shenon explains that this described “the small group of aides that Bush brought with him to Washington from Texas.” In addition to Gonzales, that group also included another Texas lawyer: former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.