Did Attorney Scandal Hearing Put the 'Gone' in Gonzales?

By David Swanson, Tomdispatch.com. Posted April 20, 2007.

When can we put the "consensus" of the senior leadership of the Department of Justice, CSLDJ (pronounced Con Sell Dodge), under oath and ask it questions and then impeach it?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee today that nothing improper has been done and that, in addition, he's not to blame for it, because he simply obeyed the CSLDJ, although he does not actually remember having done so. And if members of the CSLDJ contradict Gonzales or have acted in ways he does not approve of, well, you'll just have to ask Mr. Sampson about that.

Kyle Sampson, Gonzo's Chief of Staff, is a gentleman who well deserves his name given the apparently superhuman feat he's performed of running the Department of Justice for years in exactly the direction his boss did not want it to go. That being said, Gonzales stands by every decision he never made, even the ones he remembers not making.

Daniel Metcalf, a senior attorney at the DOJ who retired in January, recently suggested that Gonzales' Justice Department is run on the basis of consensus and group responsibility precisely because that minimizes personal risk, and that minimizing personal risk is the top goal of many new people at the Justice Department, whose inexperience in the processes of government is "surpassed only by their evident disdain for it." The buck doesn't stop anywhere.

At most, the Attorney General is responsible for a nickel or so of it. And this dodge is not completely ineffective. While several Senators Thursday morning tried to pin Gonzales down on what specifically he had done, only one Senator briefly touched on the point that Gonzales is actually responsible for what his chief of staff does, even if Gonzales claims to have known nothing about it; nor did any Senators even raise the question of the President's responsibility.

A number of bloggers have followed through the finer points of this scandal, and some of them prepared questions ahead of time that they hoped the Senators would ask. At least in the pre-lunch session of the hearing that I watched, the Senators did not live up to the standards of the bloggers. Of the long list of questions posted at Slate, for instance, some were asked or partially asked, but others missed entirely. And the five lines of questioning so powerfully laid out by The Anonymous Liberal set much too high a mark for a hearing led by these Senators, and possibly for any hearing in which only short blocks of time are available to Senators alternating between Democrats and Republicans. (Which reminds me of the other question raised by this hearing: Is there a way to forcefully ask Orrin Hatch to join the eight attorneys in retirement?)

This was the first question the Anonymous Liberal wanted asked:

"Is it your testimony, sir, that the President was not involved in this process, that you made the final call?

"If no: Please explain the extent of the President's involvement. Did he sign off on the final list? Was he given prior notification that these eight attorneys would be asked to resign?

"If yes: You are aware, sir, are you not, that by statute, the power to remove U.S. Attorneys belongs to the President, not the Attorney General? ÖIs it your practice to exercise exclusively presidential powers without getting the president's signoff?"

Anon had this follow up:

"The Albuquerque Journal recently reported that Senator Pete Domenici called you in the Spring of 2006 and told you that he wanted David Iglesias removed from his position as U.S. Attorney for New Mexico. According to the Journal, you refused and told Domenici that you would only do so on orders from the President. Is that account accurate?"

While the Senators never rose to this level of sharp questioning, Thursday's hearing began well -- with Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT.) stressing that testimony the AG had already provided under oath had been contradicted by new evidence. Nothing Gonzales would later say provided reason to doubt that he has committed perjury.

Leahy then remarked on the historic nature of the crisis and pointed out that the 2006 election "rejected a unitary approach to government, an administration without checks and balances." He denounced "Katrina-style cronyism and unfettered White House unilateralism." He even said that Gonzales "cannot expect immunity for the policies of torture he developed as White House Counsel." But why can't he? He was already made Attorney General, wasn't he? His boss at the White House goes on torturing, doesn't he?

Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA.), who is usually much better at talking than acting, did indeed talk a good line, addressing Gonzales this way:

"You said you were not involved in any discussions, and then your subordinates testified to the contrary. You said you did not see memoranda, but your subordinates testified under oath you were at meetings where memoranda were distributed. You said you were not involved in deliberations, but your subordinates said you were. You have a heavy burden of proof to reestablish your credibility."

See more stories tagged with: democrats, senate, gonzales, leahy, attorney scandal

David Swanson is the Washington Director of Democrats.com and co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and of the Backbone Campaign. His website is Swanson.org. In April 2007, Swanson began consulting part-time for Kucinich for President 2008.