House Panel Subpoenas Gonzales Documents

Judiciary Committee Seeks New Documents Related To U.S. Attorney Firings

(CBS/AP)  Democrats subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday for more documents, escalating their fight with the Bush administration over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

The subpoena, issued a week before Gonzales is to testify under oath before Congress about the dismissals, seeks hundreds of documents either withheld or heavily blacked out by his department. The subpoena sets a Monday deadline for Gonzales to produce the documents.

The chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee personally delivered the subpoena to the Justice Department, reports CBS News' Stephanie Lambidakis. The subpoena comes after weeks of wrangling over unredacted documents the Committee wants turned over. Investigators are especially interested in information about vulnerable U.S. attorneys who held on to their jobs.

"We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote Gonzales in a letter accompanying the subpoena. "Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs."

He characterized the subpoena as a last resort after weeks of negotiations with Justice over documents and e-mails the committee wants in its pursuit of whether any of the firings were improper.

Responding, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse stopped short of saying the department would fight the subpoena. But he said legal concerns about violating privacy rights of people mentioned in the documents have kept the Justice Department from releasing them.

"Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned," Roehrkasse said. "Because there are individuals' privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate that Congress would choose this option."

He added: "In light of these concerns, we will continue to work closely with congressional staff and we still hope and expect that we will be able to reach an accommodation with the Congress."

Roehrkasse also said that many of the documents that lawmakers now seek "have already been available to them for review" but declined to say how or where.

Conyers' counterpart, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., also asked Gonzales in a letter for documents on the firings that have been retained by the Justice Department. Such letters are sometimes preludes to a subpoena, which Leahy's committee is expected to authorize this week.

Leahy's committee also asked Gonzales for documents on a prosecution in Wisconsin that was overturned by a federal appeals court for lack of evidence. The defendant, state worker Georgia Thompson, had been accused of bid-rigging by favoring a company with ties to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

Leahy and five other Democratic senators said they were "concerned whether or not politics may have played a role" in the case against Thompson.

Together, the developments made clear that Democrats would make life for Gonzales and the Bush administration no easier in the week leading up to his long-awaited testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17.

[pakaal]

Dang, Shingles1 beat me to it! Good one! I can't believe that they're so blatent at lying to cover their illegal activities. Wait, what am I saying, of course I can believe it!

It's times like these I wish I was one of those remaining 30%-ers who still believe the Bush Administration can do no wrong. I'd love to brush this off as just a simple mistake, instead of knowing it's part of a foul coverup.

[shingles1]

Good luck in getting the emails, this is from the AP:

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.


Let's see if the liberal news media pick up on this "accidental" erasing of emails.

[us_infidel]

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, connecting the dots:
Posted by frankly6 at 11:04 AM : Apr 11, 2007

Please post the source of your information.

[frankly6]

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, connecting the dots:


The day after Carol Lam, U.S. attourney in San Diego, notified the Justice Department that her office would issue search warrants in an investigation involving Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, (CA) a co-conspirator in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, Gonzales aid Kyle Sampson sent an email to the White House mentioning a "real problem" with Carol Lam and that she should be replaced sooner than later. She was soon fired.


In testimony before Congress, Samson said that "the problem" was with her lack of success on imigration cases. However, she was ranked as the third most successful prosecutor of immigration cases in the entire country. Her coviction rate on these cases was 100%. She also received a commendation from the director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency for her performance on immigration cases.


Asked if Lam was notified of "the problem" before being abruptly fired, Samson said "uh......no".


Dan Dzwilewski, FBI special agent-in-charge in San Diego, said of Lam's dismissal, "I guarantee politics was involved." Dzwilewski was subsequently oredered to stop talking to the media.

[us_infidel]

They should just pull a Clinton and go, "documents....what documents? We don't have any documents/FBI files/billing records/etc."

See, I can play the partisan politcal game, too. Why don't you school girls just quit getting your panties in a wad of something that isn't going to amount to anything? And if it does, THEN we can have something to talk about.

I mean, in actual fact, he doesn't have to give them jack-s*it. It's his perogative to keep or get rid of them. So he got rid of them. ANd it wasn't in his first term. So what?

So some pages are blank and the have blackened out parts. Executive Priveledge. Sound familiar??? God, what a bunch of whiners.

[us_infidel]

Sieg Heil Y'all.
Posted by MCVet at 08:28 AM : Apr 11, 2007

Well, Cupcake, it's like I said before....everything with you bedwetting libs is a conspiracy (except where it involves democrats.) Ya'll like to rant and rave about how stupid Bush is, but he sure seems to be pulling the wool over your intelectually superior, "progressive" eyes, doesn't he???

So, either he's really smarter than you give him credit for, or there's really nothing there. The poor b*astard can't take a cr*p without the MSM and the dems calling for an investigation. We'll just wait and see what happens.

By the way, if you weren't getting your info from Rosie O'Lardass, you might actually go thru life a little happier. :)

[skyk-2009]

NYCKATE, I hadn't heard that one but I did hear about the 3 professional's in MN that took demotion because of this rabid Religious Nut Case they put in charge of that office. When we as a people can no longer trust our justice system we are truly in trouble. We certainly do not want a system like the one in Texas. When Bush was Govenor of Texas, anyone who dared oppose him saw investigations and charges to no end.

[nyckate]

skyk - one of the US Attorneys was fired with the pathetic excuse that he wasn't spending enough time on the job - see, he's a Reservists who in this time of war was off training, fulfilling his obligations as a reservist - something this administration would have no knowledge or experience. Oh - and nobody in his jurisdiction - not the judges or the other prosecutors complained that he wasn't getting the job done - the only ones that wanted him gone were the Bushies - seems he wasn't showing his primary loyalty to george w.

[skyk-2009]

This whole mess is starting to be revealed and I for one do not like what I'm seeing. When our Justice Department stops looking for the best and brightest in the legal field and instead starts paying off Champaign Contributors with jobs for FOURTH Rate Attorneys with NO experience from the Religious Reich... that's just totally out of bounds and MORE heads than Gonzo's needs to roll here. This thing STINKS very badly and the stench grows with every passing minute.

[mcvet]

One more thing, I read where Clintax fired all the US Attorneys, even while one or two were investigating his Whitewater dealings. I'm sure you were just as irate over that, weren't you????
Posted by us_infidel at 08:24 AM : Apr 11, 2007

Well relax there Swastika Breath. If there is no wrong doing, it there's nothing to hide why all the blackened out parts? Why Blank Pages? I mean people who have nothing to hide do those things? Hummm???? MAYBE you shouldn't buy so much of that Reich Propaganda because in the REAL World this garbage doesn't happen. Sieg Heil Y'all.