Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

On Tuesday this blog predicted that Gonzales was having sit downs with U.S. Attorneys during his week-long national sexual predator awareness public awareness campaign.

Now the New York Times reports in Thursday’s edition that this was exactly what the Attorney General was doing:

While Mr. Gonzales’s trip was part of a long-scheduled tour, he has been meeting in recent days with prosecutors in an effort to repair the damage caused by the dismissals.

Gonzales met with U.S. Attorneys from Western states while in Denver.  In Chicago he met with Patrick Fitzgerald, Special Prosecutor of Scoober Libby fame and Chicago U.S. Attorney. Also in attendance, the Times reports, were “Steven M. Biskupic and Erik C. Peterson of Wisconsin; Joseph S. Van Bokkelen of Indiana; Craig S. Morford of Tennessee; and James A. McDevitt of Washington State.”

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is avoiding heading back to Washington like a cat avoids the neighborhood dog.

He continues his cross-country travels to U.S. Attorneys offices, speaking about the DOJ’s new campaign against child predators, Project Safe Childhood.

The unspoken component of these visits, however, is likely to be his attempts to gauge support for his remaining in office, and do a litmus test of how the DOJ’s frontline U.S. Attorneys view the nation’s top federal prosecutor.  And as this blog suggested earlier this week, speaking about protecting America’s kids from child predators is not something that the public, or Congress, will be able to poke criticism at lightly.

Gonzales has visited, or will be visiting, the following U.S. Attorneys’ offices as part of his latest campaign:

• St. Loui, MO (U.S. Attorneys Catherine Hanaway - Eastern District, Bradley Schlozman - Western District)
• Denver, CO (U.S. Attorney Troy Eid)
• Chicago, IL (U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald)
• Cincinnati, OH (U.S. Attorney Gregory G. Lockhart)

Fitzgerald and Gonzales are likely to have had a ’sit-down’ to discuss the unkind mention of the U.S. Attorney / Special Prosecutor’s performance by higher ups in DOJ e-mails.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was considered as a possible U.S. Attorney to be fired, according to new documents released by the Dept. of Justice.

The Washington Post reports that Fitzgerald was ranked “below “strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty” to the administration but above “weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.”

echnorati: U.S. Attorney, U.S. Senate, Justice+Department, White House, Patrick Fitzgerald