Gonzales Faces New Round Of Questioning

(AP)  Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confidently deflected House Democrats' demands Thursday for details in the firings of U.S. attorneys, appearing ever more likely to survive accusations that the dismissals were politically motivated.

Republican lawmakers rushed to Gonzales' defense as the attorney general denied anew that the firings last year were improper.

The mostly muted five-hour hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee was a sharp contrast to Gonzales' sometimes testy appearance three weeks ago when Senate Republicans questioned his competence to run the Justice Department. One senator at that session joined a small GOP chorus saying he should step down.

"I will work as hard as I can, working with this committee and working with DOJ employees, to reassure the American people that this department is focused on doing its job," Gonzales said Thursday.

That didn't satisfy exasperated Democrats who accused Gonzales of being evasive.

"Your reputation is on the line, Mr. Attorney General. What do you have to say for yourself?" asked Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., adding that the "buck stops at the top."

"I accept responsibility," Gonzales answered,

President Bush has steadfastly stood by Gonzales, his longtime counselor and friend. Even career Justice Department staffers angered by the attorney general's response to the firings concede Gonzales appears to have beaten back calls to leave.

Republicans sought to portray the controversy as losing steam, and they pushed their Democratic counterparts to wrap up the congressional probe that has dogged the Justice Department since the beginning of the year.

"The list of accusations has mushroomed, but the evidence of wrongdoing has not," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, top Republican on the committee. "If there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues."

Still, Gonzales acknowledged low morale at the department. Career prosecutors have said that is stunting hiring, and private defense attorneys say it has led to government hesitation and indecisiveness in some courtrooms. Gonzales maintained, however, that the department's independence is intact.

"Contrary to being gun shy, this process is somewhat liberating in terms of going forward," he said.

Gonzales repeatedly said he was unaware of many of the factors leading up to the dismissals because he relied on his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to carry them out. He also said he could not clarify parts of the firing process that remain murky in his own mind while investigations of the dismissals continue.

He said he has "no basis to believe" that Todd Graves, the former prosecutor in Kansas City, Mo., left in early 2006 because he refused to endorse Justice Department allegations about voter fraud in Missouri. Gonzales praised the work of Debra Yang, formerly the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, who resigned in October to take a higher paying job at a private firm.

Neither Graves nor Yang are among the eight prosecutors whose dismissals are being investigated, but questions about their resignations have recently surfaced.

Gonzales denied that Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, demanded last fall's ouster of then-New Mexico prosecutor David Iglesias. But he acknowledged that Rove had complained about stagnant voter fraud cases in three districts, including New Mexico, and noted those concerns were echoed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Those complaints spurred suspicions that Iglesias was improperly fired because he refused to target Democrats.

On the other side, GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner leaned on Gonzales on Thursday to speed the department's corruption investigation of Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana.

"Congressman, you know I cannot talk about that," Gonzales told Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

"Well, everybody's talking about it except you," Sensenbrenner answered. "The people's confidence in your department has been further eroded, separate and apart from the U.S. attorney controversy, because of the delay in dealing with this matter."

Thursday's hearing served up more political bickering but few new facts about the firings.

At one point, as many as nine Capitol Police officers escorted a half-dozen protesters from the room out of concern they would disrupt the hearing.

Despite Committee Chairman John Conyers' plea that the hearing focus on the fired prosecutors, Republicans asked Gonzales about a range of topics, including terrorism and intellectual property theft. For his part, Gonzales mostly stuck to a script of accepting responsibility and pushing beyond the controversy — to Democrats' obvious skepticism.

"You have a situation where most people believe that you didn't tell the truth about the U.S. attorneys," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. "If most people believe that the United States attorney general has not told the truth about why these U.S. attorneys were fired, how can they have confidence in your job?"

"I don't believe that's an accurate statement," Gonzales responded. "And what I'm trying to do in appearances like this is to set the record straight."

[unclereggie2]

I have a hard time believing these people will actually leave when their term is up. Let us impeach now.
Posted by ainttaken at 09:27 AM : May 11, 2007

Are you reading my mind ainttaken? My concern exactly. What if they don't want to leave yet because they're not done yet?

Today Cheney flies to a carrier and screams at the Iranian shore that we're not kidding. We'll *** you up.

For the 2nd time in aqs many days we are getting the "alert! alert!" Guess what? At the same time we are debating the circumstances of a "supplemental" war funding bill, "senior administration" officials are leaking to the gullible press that our troops are in fact under immediate threat! Gasp! Yikes! Red alert!

Come on people. Wake up. You're being played, big time.

[teeus]

"teeus" you say, "Just because someone CAN do something, doesn't mean they SHOULD do something."

The President believed that he SHOULD....HE CAN and he did. If you don't believe that he SHOULD, that's your problem! I believe a President SHOULD do what he/she believes that they SHOULD do, without checking first to see if the general public agrees! What the President did was legal and all of these hearings are nothing more than a "waste of time"!
Posted by Uncle_James

Okay, you are one scary man.

All I know is that if Clinton has done this--fired USAttys for the sole purpose of sliding political operatives into those spots, so they could easily make trouble for republican candidates, and trying to discourage republicans from voting, you wouldn't be so blasi about it. Heck, you'd probably want him tarred and feathered.

Being a hypocrite doesn't become you.

[nyckate]

If an ordinary "joe-citizen" told the IRS or a US Federal Court "he couldn't recall" actions he'd taken he would already be behind bars serving out a lengthy federal prison term.

What makes Bushies and Bush defenders think that BushCo is above the law??

[victoriarum]

Why is it the common person is expected to remember everything we say or do but, when you are in a position of power having a problem of not recalling something is acceptable.

Pray for Peace, God Bless.

[misha131]

Accepting AG Gonzales claim that he is a fact witnes and cannot do investigations in his department now around matters of interest to the Congressional committees. (Which probably also means he can not effectively run significant portions of his department now.) The question is who in the Department is not a fact witness that can also answer to document production, research departmental records and interact with the congressional committees with the authority of the AG to access departmental records in support of this investigation.

[comfortmd1]

just have rove and the republicans delete all the condemning emails "accidentally" made on non-trackable systems and the whole thing disappears. Gonzales is smiling and confident now because, after the servers were purged, there really IS little evidence of guilt. Stupid congressmen and senators that are satisfied with this whole outcome.

[firststate]

unclereggie2
I only wish that they were all really the bumbling fools that they work to appear to be. There is some really intelligent, but malevolent direction going on behind the scenes. Someone is choreographing the planned transition from a democratic republic to a centralized, one party totalitarian government. The depths to which they will sink is only now becoming apparent. By attempting to politicize career professionals, the administration is like a disease attacking the body of our government. They have inserted political cancer cells in the vital nonpartisan organs of our government.

They lack the character of the true revolutionary who openly attacks institutions, instead, are attempting to conduct a quiet coup. They want ideological control over the mechanisms by which the government functions. The political party litmus test isn't likely unique to the DOJ, but is just the first to have been discovered, even though it was probably one of the last to implement it. They've worked to subvert our government under the guise of a war-time administration acting to "protect" us.

[unclereggie2]

The Peter Principle surely applies here - "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

And the ancillary theorem also seems to apply here - "...or, if that level of incompetence exceeds the capacity of the hierarchy to sustain it, the employee is simple dismissed for cause."

[firststate]

I wonder if Gonzales would change his mind about the enhanced interrogation techniques that he said didn't rise to the level of torture when he authorized them, if he were interrogated under those methods. I'd be willing to wager that his memory would improve both dramatically and quickly.

The systemic changes using political party affiliation in the hiring of career professionals is the more dangerous problem at DOJ and other agencies. These are the people who actually run the machinery of government and an attempt to pervert the hiring process so that one party is given preferential treatment raises the specter of every modern totalitarian regime. It has no place, here and there are laws to prevent its happening here. When the people who are responsible for enforcing the laws are themselves committing the same criminal acts in their own department, who's going to enforce the laws on the enforcers?

If the Congress chose to impeach Mr. Gonzales, it might elicit some interesting details about the way they've been breaking laws as they enforce the ones they choose.

[unclereggie2]

Cna your spell S.T.O.N.E.W.A.L.L?