Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), weary of fighting to get honest answers out of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the political firings of eight federal prosecutors, took the unexpected step last week of sending Gonzales a list of the questions he should expect when he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Leahy, the committee's Chairman, sent a letter to Gonzales on July 17 pointing out the number of times the embattled Attorney General said he could "not recall" in response to previous direct questioning on his department's operations and saying that he "would like to avoid a repeat of that performance."
"When you last testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19, 2007, you often responded to questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle that you could 'not recall,'" wrote Leahy in his letter to Gonzales. "By some counts, you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, and the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times. As a result, the Committee's efforts to conduct oversight were hampered."
So Leahy sent questions in advance hoping to give Gonzales a week to think about some better responses to the questions surrounding the U.S. Attorney firings, National Security Letter abuses and the White House's warrantless domestic spying program.
According to Leahy's office, the Judiciary Chairman "put the Attorney General on notice that the Committee would expect answers on inconsistencies in the Attorney General's public statements and testimony involving the firing of several U.S. Attorneys as well as the President's warrantless wiretapping program" including the following:
"On April 19, you testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that you had not spoken with anyone involved in the firings about that process because you did not want to interfere with the investigation. Again, on May 10, you testified to the House Judiciary Committee that you had not spoken with anyone involved in order to protect the integrity of the investigation. Then on May 23, Monica Goodling testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that she had an 'uncomfortable' conversation with you during which you outlined your recollection of what happened and asked her for her reaction to your version. Is Ms. Goodling's testimony accurate, and if so, how do you account for your previous, uncorrected testimony to this Committee?"
"On April 19 you testified before this Committee that your former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson was responsible for putting together the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired. But on May 15, the day after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced his intention to resign, you said that the firings were largely Mr. McNulty's responsibility. Mr. McNulty has said that he had very limited involvement in the decision of which U.S. Attorneys to fire. Please describe all of your interactions with Mr. McNulty related to the replacement of the nine U.S. Attorneys and your understanding of his role in deciding which U.S. Attorneys would be fired. Why has your description of who made the decisions, and who was most involved in the decision-making process, changed over time?"
"When you were asked on February 6, 2006 if any senior Justice Department officials, including your former deputy, James Comey, expressed concerns about the Bush Administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program, you testified: 'I do not believe that these DOJ officials . . . had concerns about this program.' Mr. Comey subsequently testified on May 15, 2007 that on March 9, 2004, he informed you, as White House counsel, and others including the Vice President, that the Justice Department had concluded that the Administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program did not have a legal basis. He testified that you and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to circumvent him, in his role as Acting Attorney General, by rushing to the hospital bedside of ailing former Attorney General John Ashcroft to try to persuade him to certify the program. Please provide a full explanation for the legal authorization for the President's warrantless electronic surveillance program in March and April 2004."
You can also expect some tough questioning from Russ Feingold (D-WI) who has long been in Gonzales's face about the illegal domestic spying program and was a leader in trying to secure a no-confidence vote on the Attorney General last month.
"I voted against Alberto Gonzales to be the Attorney General because I was not convinced he would put the rule of law, and the interests of the country, above those of the President and the Administration," said Feingold in June. "Unfortunately, those concerns have been realized over and over. He has failed in a very significant way. He should resign."
We'll see if the hearings on Tuesday move us closer to that point.
What's the point of portraying timid invertebrates as
"heroes"? Neither Leahy nor Feingold is a hero. Rather, they're both standing by impotently Bush while destroys the Constitution. (That's of course when they're not actively assisting him.)
Is either of these jellyfish fighting for impeachment, which is absolutely necessary in order to save the republic? If they're not doing that, anything else they may be doing is equivalent to shuffling papers while Rome burns. Your big strong hero Feingold went on national TV yesterday to whimper pathetically that though he realizes Bush & Cheney have committed impeachable offenses & have violated fundamental constitutional principles, he won't push for impeachment because "it's too divisive" and will distract Congress from all its other important work(!)
If defending the Constitution isn't important, what could be so important about Congress's "other work"?
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1232 comments)
on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 1:13:25 PM
Would serve the committee right for providing the tough questions in advance.
The only value in providing the questions in advance is that some smarter minds than Gonzales (who is really a smiling idiot) can write the lies for him.
by
Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 720 comments)
on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 2:53:32 PM
"Here are those questions you'll be asked, Mr. Gonzales. Make sure you come up with something other than 'I can't recall' in response to the ones you feel might criminally implicate you or any other member of the Bush administration. And please feel free to go off on plenty of bullshit tangents in your non-responses, so I can pretend to be mad and waste a bunch of time calling you on the carpet about offenses for which you will never have to face any real accountability. Looking forward to Tuesday. Let's have lunch after the hearing!
Yours Truly,
PL"
by
John Perry (31 articles, 32 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 4:24:44 PM
So all these people have testified as to their version of the story. So if "I can't remember" Gonzales says he can't remember, then the committee will say "then we'll have to go with their version." At this point Gonzo is f*cked.
by
skyreader7 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 181 comments)
on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 11:29:52 PM
it's just more senatorial bullshit to baffle and dazzle that masses - bush has outright defied their authority by saying he is going to break the law and order the justice dept. not to follow up on contempt of court charges - and that move effectively renders their questioning and their so-called investigation dead. It's going nowhere fast. About the only move they have left is to start impeachment proceedings - yeah, yeah, I know, I know - "but wah-wah they do not have the votes so it would be pointless..." Wrong, it would not be pointless, they could use it as a tremendous bully pulpit to get this in the public eye and to get people thinking, talking, and questioning. I could go on, but this is just more of the same ol' dog & pony show.
by
RCG (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 348 comments)
on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 1:57:26 AM
Our elected Representatives don’t seem concerned about Bush’s lawless rampage, and they definitely aren’t interested in attempting to check his endless empowerment of himself at the expense of our “balance of powers” or Humpty Dumpty constitution, but don’t worry, they’ve got rock solid plans to win the next election . . . forget Impeachment though.
The Problem is: “All the King’s horses and All the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”
It sure appears that Humpty has been dumped.
.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 8:33:47 AM
8 comments
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