Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

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.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ credibility for truth-telling hit a new low yesterday when FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that warrantless wiretapping was a hotly disputed issue within the Bush administration when John Ashcroft was U.S. Attorney and Gonzales was White House Counsel.

The revelation came when Mueller testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee about warrantless wiretapping and President Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program run through the National Security Agency.

The disclosure of then White House Counsel Gonzales’ late-night dash to the hospital room where former Attorney General John Ashcroft was gravely ill with a pancreatitis attack, with Deputy A.G. James Comey was at his bedside.

According to Comey’s testimony, Gonzales tried to make an end-run around a highly debated program. Without disclosing sensitive details of the program, it was subsequently revealed that the Justice Department had already concluded that warrantless wiretapping under President Bush’s program was unconstitutional.

Mueller’s confirmation that warrantless wiretapping was hotly debated is at odds with Gonzales’ current and prior testimony before Congress. It clearly looks like Gonzales lied about the controversy and took a chance that he wouldn’t get caught. Will he face any consequences? That’s the real question.

In the old days, having a “party line” meant that telephone customers shared the same network line for their calls. If someone picked up the phone when you were on a call with someone else, they could ‘join the party’ by eavesdropping in on your most intimate details, or joining the conversation.

Today, when somebody listens in on your phone call, there’s a whole new legal meaning associated with it. Now, unless the government has a warrant, it can’t eavesdrop on your phone calls.

At least that was the case until Sept. 11th came along.

Then President George W. Bush decided that it was O.K. to have a “terrorist surveillance program” to listen to conversations and open e-mails without first getting a judge to authorize a warrant.

When he was White House Counsel, Gonzales believed that this was a necessary legal Texas two-step dance around the Fourth Amendment and Supreme Court case law on searches and seizure.

Despite years of requests for more information about the program, the White House, Dick Cheney, and Department of Justice Lawyers haven’t been forthcoming about the legal rationale and due process considerations behind the decision to use warrantless wiretaps inside the U.S.

Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that its time to set things straight by issuing subpoenas for the DOJ, the White House, Cheney, and the National Security Council for documents about the surveillance program. Documents produced in response to the subpoenas are due on July 18, 2007.

This is bound it end up in federal court.

Wall Street Journal editorial board member Kimberley Strassel has a column this morning attacking Sen. Charle’s Schumer’s criticism of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, calling the New York Democrat’s actions an effort to “ride the steady drip-drip of negative Bush headlines all the way to more Senate seats and the Oval Office.” She poo-poo’s Schumer’s introduction of the new Senate ‘no-confidence’ resolution on Gonzales.

Incredibly, she argues that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony on how then White-House Counsel Gonzales and Andrew Card tried to override Attorney General John Ashcroft’s conclusion that a warrantless domestic surveillance program was unconstititonal, and get Ashcroft to do an about-face when he was seriously ill and hospitalized. Strassel says that Comey’s testimony was somehow “staged,” and that Schumer “cooked up this dramatic event…a week in advance.”

Strassel’s greatest fear? That Schumer’s efforts could ultimately “hamstring the president’s surveillance powers.” Wouldn’t that just be illegal and unconstitutional alleged “surveillance powers?”

She conveniently forgets to mention that Schumer originally supported the war in Iraq, and that he has been realist on continuing the war on terror, wherever it is in the world. Earlier this year, Schumer reiterated this set of beliefs, arguing that “if we beef up human intelligence, provide our military with stronger and more adept strike forces, and work in a more multi lateral way, we could focus on the small groups of terrorists without fighting large-scale wars like we are in Iraq.”