Today's NY Times editorial has some good advice for the Senators on the Judiciary Committee. Today's hearing shouldn't be a love-fest. There are major, major problems facing our system of justice. Many of those serious issues were created by Alberto Gonzales and his boss, George Bush. Gonzales is gone, but that boss remains:
Alberto Gonzales left behind a Justice Department that is not worthy of the name. Prosecutions were launched to help Republican candidates win elections. Lawyers were hired for nonpolitical jobs based on their politics and their sworn loyalty to the White House. The department — which is supposed to defend the Constitution — cheered on the Bush administration’s unconstitutional tactics in the war on terror.
Mr. Mukasey has a good reputation as a lawyer and a judge. But that is not enough. The Senate needs to know what he intends to do to set the Justice Department right. Will he lead an investigation of the still-festering United States attorneys scandal? Will he cooperate with Congressional investigators, make documents available and seek to obtain testimony from Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, who have made baseless claims of executive privilege?
How will he ensure that his staff’s loyalty is to justice, not to the president’s political team — especially since many of the top lawyers are “loyal Bushies” hired by the old regime?
Mr. Mukasey should be asked what he thinks about holding detainees indefinitely in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and denying them habeas corpus rights. He should be made to explain which interrogation techniques he considers to be torture. He should be asked what he intends to do to end illegal domestic spying programs and whether he would turn over to Congress all of the documents relating to these policies.
Mukasey should be asked those questions. More importantly, he should answer all those questions. And, he must be held accountable.
Ha. I just said someone in the Bush administration should be held accountable. That's a good one.
What a legacy. Secret opinions from the new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, gave the green light to torture:
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
Gonzales may be leaving, but his legacy of lying lives on. Bush's Attorney General is being investigated by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice. They're concerned about Alberto's "truthfulness." They should be:
Justice Department investigators are examining the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony to Congress on the firings of federal prosecutors and domestic wiretapping.
The effort, disclosed in a letter released on Thursday, is a sign that political controversy over Gonzales' conduct will continue well beyond his resignation announced this week.
"The current attorney general is leaving, but these questions remain," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who sought the examination.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a letter released by Leahy that concerns over the truthfulness of Gonzales' testimony to the committee on July 24 and other times would be covered as part of probes already under way.
If Gonzales is replaced by Homeland Insecurity head Michael Chertoff, CNN reports sources say that DHS will be headed up by Clay Johnson III, the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.
It would be yet another hack appointment, a friend of Bush, completely unqualified to defend the homeland, as it were. Think Progress:
Johnson, who has no homeland security experience, is a professional Bush loyalist. While Johnson may have familiarity with some aspects of DHS's budget, he appears to have no experience in the many responsibilities of the department, including immigration, air travel security, disaster response, and other aspects of our nation’s homeland defense.
I thought about taking on a different topic, but it seems pretty useless on a day like today. So I thought I'd add my two cents on Gonzalez.
What's striking to me is how little sadness there is on the right that he is leaving. A quick look over at The Corner shows that most conservatives there view his departure with relief. Michelle Malkin wasn't upset to seem him go either. A quick blogosphere check shows that most on the right are okay with this decision.
But I wonder why Republicans and wingnuts aren't angry about Gonzo's departure. Gonzalez has been radioactive for months now. He became the walking symbol of the Bush Administration's failures - incompetence, corruption and cronyism (loyalty uber alles).
For him to resign now - after the disastrous appearances on the Hill, after his deceptions, after stubbornly refusing to do so months ago when it could have stemmed the tide - well, it seems like defusing a bomb after it had already gone off. It's like Rumsfeld all over again.
This departure brings back memories of the phrase, the Mayberry Machiavellis. Bush and friends seem intent on going down hard and taking the GOP with them.
Just watched Bush, who it appears is, in fact, angry. He thinks Gonzo's name was "dragged through the mud." As you can see below, he also thinks his A.G. "is a man of integrity, decency and principle." In the real world, none of those descriptors apply to Gonzales:
Been collecting some of the early reaction to the announcement that Alberto Gonzales has resigned. We'll post more as they come in...
UPDATE: Just added statements from Pelosi and Conyers below -- and now also Senator Clinton. Bush is speaking at 11:50 a.m. Word is that he's not happy and is going to express his displeasure. Whatever. His A.G. is a liar -- that's standard operating procedure for Bush, but for most of the rest of us, that's a problem.
Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove. This resignation is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House.
Senator Patrick Leahy, who will oversee the confirmation hearing for the next AG, had this to say:
Reacting to press reports about the resignation, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he hopes that Gonzales’s decision “will be a step toward getting to the truth about the level of political influence this White House wields over the Department of Justice and toward reconstituting its leadership so that the American people can renew their faith in its role as our leading law enforcement agency.”
Leahy added that under Gonzales, “the Department of Justice suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence.”
Senator John Cornyn is on CNN right now defending Gonzales. He thinks this is a "sad day" and "sad commentary." That's rich.
The resignation of Attorney General Gonzales is long overdue. The rampant politicization of federal law enforcement that occurred under his tenure seriously eroded public confidence in our justice system.
The President must now restore credibility to the office of the Attorney General. Given the serious loss of public trust and the disarray at the Department of Justice, the American people must have absolute confidence in the integrity of the next Attorney General as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and as defender of our constitution independent of political influence. The President’s nominee must have the character and stature to command that confidence.
The nominee must also pledge to cooperate with ongoing congressional oversight into the conduct of the White House in the politicization of federal law enforcement. Hearings on the nominee will provide Congress with another opportunity to examine the new, flawed FISA law and will aid in our efforts to improve it.
Chair of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers:
It is a sad day when the Attorney General of the United States resigns amid a cloud of suspicion that the system of justice has been manipulated for political purposes. More than accountability, we need answers. Unfortunately, the continued stonewalling of the White House in the U.S. Attorney scandal has deprived the American people of the truth. If the power of the prosecutor has been misused in the name of partisanship, we deserve a full airing of the facts. The responsibility to uncover these facts is still on the Congress, and the Judiciary Committee in particular.
Hillary Clinton weighs in -- with a warning shot about the next nominee:
This resignation is long overdue, and so is the appointment of an Attorney General who will put the rule of law and our Constitution above partisan politics.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took an oath to uphold our Constitution and respect the rule of law, but time and time again, he demonstrated that his loyalties lie with the President and his political agenda, not the American people or the evenhanded and impartial enforcement of our laws. In his actions and inaction, from warantless wiretaps to the firing of U.S. Attorneys, his loyalty was to the President, not the American people.
The Department’s hardworking lawyers, law enforcement officers, and staff are trusted to defend our Constitution, not one Administration or political party. That trust is central to the sanctity of the rule of law and the vitality of our democracy. Because he betrayed his obligations and the trust of the American people, I welcome today’s announcement that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned his post as Attorney General of the United States.
My hope is that the President will select a new Attorney General who will respect the rule of law and abandon partisanship, who will serve the American people and not the President’s political ideology, and who will answer to the Constitution and not political operatives. It is past time to clean up this mess and restore non-partisan accountability and competence to the Department of Justice.
The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is one more reminder that the President must appoint someone to lead the Department of Justice with the leadership and competence necessary to defend the Constitution.
Gonzales himself is doing a press conference at 10:30 a.m. Will he take questions? And, if so, how many questions won't he answer.
Bush is doing a statement at 11:50 a.m. from Crawford before he heads out to raise campaign funds for Senator Domenici in NM, then Congressman Dave Reichert in Washington. (Don't forget, you can help Burn Bush for Burner to counter that visit.)
Is Michael Chertoff, the current Secretary of Homeland Security, in Texas with Bush? His name is being mentioned by all the punditry. And, how interesting that Bush would name Chertoff two years after they both oversaw the Katrina response debacle.
UPDATE 9:52 a.m.: CNN just reported that Bush will only make a statement, no questions. And, no replacement will be named.
The very controversial, embattled, lying Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has resigned:
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.
Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.
Mr. Bush has not yet chosen a replacement but will not leave the position open long, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Attorney General's resignation had not yet been made public.
NBC reporting possible replacements are Michael Chertoff and Orrin Hatch.
[Note from AJ: Everybody is saying Chertoff -- current Department of Homeland Security Secretary -- is the replacement. Whoever it is, the confirmation hearings should take a long, hard look at what the nominee thinks of the political influence within the Justice Department. And if it is Chertoff, the confirmation hearings for his replacement at DHS should be similarly rigorous.
On the other hand, since Congress isn't in session, are we looking at recess appointments?? How this plays out will be very interesting.]
Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.
There's a general perception in America that Democrats are weak and have no backbone. Democrats can't be trusted with defense, with our military, with the war on terror because they don't know how to fight, lack the will to fight. As an acquaintance said to me before the 2004 elections, she hated Bush, but with regards to Kerry said: "He doesn't defend himself, how is he going to defend my kids?"
So today we find out from the Washington Post that Attorney General Gonzales perjured himself again last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The number of times Gonzales has committed this crime - and it is a crime - is heading towards ten or so, if not more.
Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital room confrontation in March 2004 with Alberto R. Gonzales, who wanted Ashcroft to approve a warrantless wiretapping program over Justice Department objections, according to notes from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that were released yesterday.
One of Mueller's entries in five pages of a daily log pertaining to the dispute also indicated that Ashcroft's deputy was so concerned about undue pressure by Gonzales and other White House aides for the attorney general to back the wiretapping program that the deputy asked Mueller to bar anyone other than relatives from later entering Ashcroft's hospital room.
Mueller's description of Ashcroft's physical condition that night contrasts with testimony last month from Gonzales, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ashcroft was "lucid" and "did most of the talking" during the brief visit. It also confirms an account of the episode by former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, who said Ashcroft told the two men he was not well enough to make decisions in the hospital.
So what does Judiciary Committee chair Senator Leahy plan to do about it? Hold more hearings? Ooh, scary. We have a criminal as the top law enforcement officer in the land and you people do nothing about it except hold hearings and issue press releases. He has lied to you. He has even lied to you when you asked him about his previous lies. Yet you do nothing. We have a word for people like you. It's "chump." You have the power of the purse. You have the power to defund Gonzales 100% if he doesn't step down. You have the power to defund the US attorney for DC if he won't file charges. You have the power to impeach Gonzles. But instead you hold hearings. When I worked for Ted Stevens, in the minority in the early 90s, with Clinton as president, we simply moved ahead with plans to cut the budget of a senior agency official who crossed our path. It worked wonders.
No Bush official should give the Democrats the time of day. They should just lie, cheat and steal - break the law when they don't get their away, and tell the Dems to go to hell. Hell, it's what the Bushies are already doing, with impunity. Everyone knows the Democrats won't do a damn thing anyway. So if they're going to act like chumps, why not play them like chumps? I really think the only way things are going to change in our country is for everyone and everything to hit rock bottom. The Republicans are going to have to destroy our country in order for Democrats to start defending it.
And the Democrats wonder why people label us the party of wimps?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could see his influence over death penalty decisions increase under new regulations expected to be approved soon by the Justice Department, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Implementing a "little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act," the Justice Department rules give Gonzales authority that had previously been held by federal judges to decide whether states are providing adequate council for defendants in death penalty cases, according to the Times.
"The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years," reports Richard B. Schmitt in the Times Tuesday.
Ok, this is like a bad movie. The embattled lying Attorney General flew into Baghdad because, get this -- he's helping with that country's fledgling system of justice. Well, if Gonzales is involved, the Iraqis don't stand a chance. But, let's be real. Gonzales is in Iraq for p.r. reasons and, of course, he's getting the perfunctory briefing from the Iraqi spin machine:
Gonzales got an update from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and also planned to meet with Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and other U.S. and Iraqi officials, the statement said.
So, expect to hear from Gonzales that he's seeing "progress" and "the surge is working." It's actually pathetic that the Bush administration thinks having Gonzales join their public relations offensive will help them with their Iraq spin. But, then again, the Bush team does know how to manipulate the traditional media.
Did anyone think he'd actually show, given the continual corruption, lies and obfuscation coming out of this White House? (Raw Story):
White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday.
...The House Judiciary Committee initiated criminal contempt of Congress charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton last month after they refused to comply with subpoenas demanding their testimony.
It remains unclear whether Rove will face similar charges. A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman told RAW STORY Wednesday night that if Rove followed through in refusing to testify, the committee could decide to issue criminal charges later. The aide said no decisions had been made yet.
And what would be the reason NOT to bring the hammer down on Turdblossom?
With potential perjury accusations hanging over him, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday acknowledging he "may have created confusion" in his previous testimony.
..."I recognize that the use of the term 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' and my shorthand reference to the 'program' publicly 'described by the President' may have created confusion, particularly for those who are knowledgeable about the NSA activities authorized in the presidential order described by the DNI [director of national intelligence], and who may be accustomed to thinking of them or referring to them together as a single NSA 'program,' " Gonzales wrote.
...Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes of his concern with "suggestions that my testimony was misleading." But he said he did not mean to mislead senators and was "determined to address any such impression."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wasn't buying it.
"The attorney general's legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States," Leahy said.
From their lips to Congress' ears. I don't support impeachment to "get even." In this case, the man in charge of the "Justice" in the middle of a war is a known repeat criminal. That is unacceptable any time, let alone now. He won't go, he won't repent for his crimes. Impeach him.
Apparently, after eating a nice meal and suffering from food coma, Jonah Goldberg diverted from party orthodoxy and condemned the AG.
But my longstanding position is that the only possible defense of Gonzales against charges of villainy is rank incompetence. I've wanted to see him go for a very long time. So, while I very much doubt that Schumer-esque conspiracies have that much weight, I think Gonzales has long, long, long outserved whatever usefulness he might once have had. And — hey — maybe he actually did perjure himself.
A half hour later, Rich Lowry made sure the base got its daily dose of red meat.
This time I think [Gonzalez is] just being smeared. We'll have editorial up in the morning. From the parts of the transcript I've read he was badgered in a way meant to obscure the reasonable distinctions he was trying to make and set up this perjury accusation. Nasty stuff...
Phew! For a second there, I thought some folks at the National Review were actually starting to look at the facts and change their opinion of the Bush Administration. Thank God Lowry cleared that up for me.
No one could have predicted that a man who repeatedly lies to Congress, with impunity, would lie to Congress again (or, more accurately, again and again and again and again and again and again (give or take a few)). Honestly, I hope he keeps lying to them and getting away with it until the Democrats grow some backbone. He's making fools of them, he's breaking the law, and they're letting him. And they wonder why their approval rating stinks.
Enough with the hearings. The Senate Dems held yet another hearing to interrogate a guy who lies at hearings. And what a surprise, the habitual liar, who never gets punished for lying, showed no remorse about having lied.
Has no one in Congress ever had children?
In the next 3 months Congress will have to pass the appropriations bill funding Mr. Gonzales' cushy job for another, his final, year. If the Dems in Congress insist on doing nothing serious about this man's crimes, then they deserve what they get.
Wow. The terrorism excuse really is the last refuge for all the losers in the Bush administration. It would be one thing if they were actually doing something to protect us -- instead of letting Osama Bin Laden reconstitute and still rule the very terror network that attacked America. Instead, the Bushies play the terrorism card when they're in trouble. For them, it's just a political issue:
Mr. Gonzales said he wanted to focus on his department’s “No. 1 priority, keeping our country safe from terrorists, and the urgent need, quite frankly, for more help from Congress in this fight.” Specifically, he said, Congress should update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to address the vast advances in telecommunications technology in recent years and ease restrictions on gathering intelligence.
So Gonzales got pummeled by the Senators on the Judiciary Committee today -- including Specter, but this paragraph sums up the situation:
Yet for all the hostility vented at Mr. Gonzales, there was no sign that today’s hearing would change anything. President Bush has repeatedly said he stands behind Mr. Gonzales, his old friend from Texas.
And, together, Bush and Gonzales have made the country less safe.
Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced a new firestorm on Tuesday sparked by a report he may have misled lawmakers in 2005 about civil liberty violations by the FBI.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, responded by promising that Gonzales would face tough questions about this and other matters at a hearing planned by his panel later this month.
No, not tough questions? Whatever will he do? Probably what he's done at every other hearing - lie with impunity. I mean, seriously, the man keeps lying to you at hearing after hearing, so you're calling another hearing?
