Gonzales, Take 2:
Law.com has this summary of AG Alberto Gonzales's testimony today before the House Judiciary committee. Meanwhile, Murray Waas has an interesting story on some withheld e-mails relating to the case.
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Man, I guess some insanely paranoid delusions just never go out of style.
More interestingly, I wonder when Congress is going to ask for the communications between various senators and house members suggesting the WH appoint certain people to US Attorney positions, fire others, and engage in various enforcement activities while abstaining from other enforcement actions. I'm sure the boobs in charge of responding to that request for documents will be similarly obtuse, slow to produce and inept in producing a (truthful and effective) communications strategy. If Congress really cared about the American people, they would do this and treat us to the entertainment of a scandal involving DOJ lying to Congress about the existence of communications between Congress and Justice on this topic. Senator Schumer's cross examination of Gonzales alone would be priceless beyond compare: "Did I, or did I not, send you a letter attempting to exert political pressure to influence the conduct of various investigations and personnel decisions? And did you not lie about receiving that letter, when you said 'I was not pressured to hire "x" or to undertake certain investigations in New York State'?" Hooo boy, watching the AG step in that one, would be hilarious. Funnier than the new Shrek film, anyways.
The subsequent perjury charges would also generate buckets of laughs. I guess if the AG was too spineless to defend himself on the merits ('hell yes, political considerations enter into US Attorney hiring and firing - you want I should ignore your input, senator?') at the outset, he probably deserves this.
I presume that the OLC staffer in question has committed a violation of the bar, but I doubt you'll see much come of it.
I understand how you could be crackpot enough to believe that Gonzales is being truthful (even when his story changes from week to week, even when he contradicts himself, even when he can't remember important meetings or discussions, etc.) But by what possible standard could the DOJ communications strategy be considered effective? Even most of the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee don't believe that his testimony has been truthful and it has generated weeks and weeks of news stories destroying the DOJ's reputation.
As a newspaper reporter with a long memory, the image that springs to mind is Nixon turning over lots and lots of pages -- all except the ones that counted.
Case closed as far as I'm concerned. Honest people don't behave that way.
But if Al Maviva knows where the Democrat bodies are buried, hand me the spade.
"If you can't dazzle them with daring, then bury them in bullsh*t."
Has the entire administration learned nothing from Scooter Libby?
Nick
1. Gonzales: "I think I may be aware of that." Apparently, AGAG couldn't quite remember whether or not he was supposed to have forgotten.
2. Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT): "I’m really tired of ... repeated use of the word corruption." This coming from the employer and enabler of David Safavian (convicted Abramoff player), I can only imagine how tired he is of hearing about corruption.
Didn't Gonzales say in sworn testimony the last go round that the attorneys were fired for performance reasons and that it was not a political process?
and
So let me get this straght - they claim they aren't withholding documents, and at the same time they're saying that they'll keep withholding documents until congress agrees to their deal to allow Rove to testify in secret without a transcript and without him being under oath.
Large brass ones. That's all I can say.
It's a little difficult to backtrack and say the firing was just to put someone different in when you've been swearing up and down for months that that wasn't the reason, and it was performance issues, instead.
This position would be much more persuasive if the DOJ had told that to all the prosecutors (not just Cummings) and stated that as their position, both publicly and to Congress. As they didn't, it seems fairly clear they were trying to hide something-- whether that was just something politically embarrassing or something more nefarious remains to be seen.
The executive would still have the duty to respond. Congress' oversight powers allows hearings into matters upon which they may propose legislation.
The Constitution allows Congress to decide who (among the President, heads of departments, or courts) gets to appoint (and presumably fire) US Attorneys. Currently, Congress has given that power to the President.
It seems pretty clear that if the President is exercising that power in a way that Congress feels he should not be doing, they can always change who they give the power to (or otherwise make changes in the law relating to US Attorneys--subject to veto, of course.
Which--I think--raises an interesting question concerning Executive Privilege: If Congress' legitimately is inquiring inquiry what formed the basis for the President's decision, should Executive Privilege be available to shield the basis of that decision?
They didn't want to say that because a lot of the replacements were unqualified hacks. So the administration looks TERRBILE when they state that they are replacing a number of well-qualified and respected USAs with some very questionable people merely because they have been loyal to the administration. Hence, creating vacancies through performance-related firings. And then filling the vacancies with the "loyal bushies," hoping that no one cares much about the replacements since they don't have to be confirmed by the Senate. It looks a lot better than merely saying "yeah, we're replacing good people with bad people and you're going to like it, suckers."
Also -- as was said repeatedly when this scandal broke beyond the confines of Josh Marshall's blog -- the Patriot Act had changed the law so that no confirmation hearings were needed for replacements.
The White House couldn't afford to come out &say it was arbitrarily replacing attorneys, b/c that would've cued the Congress to have 2d thoughts about the confirmation power it had relinquished.
And of course, the Dec. 7 firings were a consequence of the Democratic takeover of Congress -- they had to get the new folks in before the Dems came in and perhaps restored the confirmation power.
Not the sharpest tools in the shed.
Even if Congress overturned that section, that wouldn't be the sort of scandal that moves voters. It looks to the average person to be just another partisan political battle (good luck convincing people that party hacks haven't been routinely chosen by the President for U.S. Attorney positions).
Nick
How easy to make that claim without noting any of the actual polls of what average people think, which might complicate that position a bit.
Since the White House/DOJ haven't been doing anything like standing up for a right to put in whoever they want to put in and telling Congress to jump in a lake, polling about a situation where it seems that every word out of their mouths is a lie, including "and" and "the", really isn't much help. Lying to Congress and obstruction of justice bother average voters - and even many committed partisans of the side that's busy digging itself a hole.
Nick
I'm sure there are more possibilities.