Editorials on
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Purge of Prosecutors
Threatens AG's Job

Miami Herald 14mar2007

How far we have come in the seven days since Attorney General Alberto Gonzales airily dismissed the purge of U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice as just "an overblown personnel matter." In a brief news conference Tuesday, a chastened Gonzales admitted that mistakes were made and that he was not fully aware of everything that was going on in his own department. These are two very big strikes against him.

Gonzales has a long way to go if he wants to restore confidence in his ability to run one of the most important departments in the federal government. He was obliged to own up to the reality of this scandal not out of a sudden attack of candor but rather because a series of revelations have blown the cover off the official White House version of events.

First it was said that the attorneys were removed for performing poorly on the job — but then came the disclosure that six of the seven U.S. attorneys had been rated as "well regarded," "capable" or "very competent" in official evaluations prior to the dismissals.

Then Gonzales and other administration officials said no political considerations were involved. That story, too, quickly fell apart. In one instance, Republican members of Congress had complained about foot-dragging on the part of New Mexico's U.S. attorney in a case involving allegations of vote fraud by Democrats. The state GOP chairman also complained to Karl Rove, the White House political advisor.

The White House was intimately involved in the entire process, despite earlier denials of playing a role. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' closest aide, had been working with former White House counsel Harriet Miers for well over a year on the dismissals and had even prepared an elaborate, five-step plan for firing the U.S. attorneys that included calls to prepare to withstand the "political upheaval" that would ensue.

Sampson resigned Monday night. Miers left her job back on Jan. 31, but both they and others need to answer questions from Congress about this scandal. Who originated the idea for the firings? Did Rove have a hand in the dismissals? Why were these particular U.S. attorneys selected? And what role was played by the president, who passed along complaints to Gonzales that some prosecutors were not pursuing vote fraud issues aggressively?

As for Gonzales, his job is hanging by a thread. Sampson claims he had not disclosed his extensive communications with Miers, but it's hard to believe that he kept such matters secret from his boss. Gonzales, above all, needs to come clean on all such matters. Failure to do so would be strike three.

Gonzales on the Griddle

Editorial / Chicago Tribune 14mar2007

Did the attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, engineer the dismissals of several federal prosecutors for partisan political reasons?

That is what the Bush White House and the U.S. Department of Justice need to explain to the American people. At this writing the answer to that question isn't clear — passionate claims from some members of Congress to the contrary.

If the administration wanted to create tremendous suspicion about its motives for the dismissals, it did an excellent job. E-mails released Tuesday documented a long-running conversation between then-White House counsel Harriet Miers and Gonzales' top aide about firing some of the lead federal prosecutors across the U.S. — with Miers raising the possibility early in 2005 of replacing all 93 of them with fresh faces for President Bush's second term.

The aide, Kyle Sampson, resigned this week. The Associated Press, quoting unnamed "authorities," reported Tuesday that Sampson had failed to brief other senior Justice officials of his discussions with Miers about the firings.

Whatever the exact chain of events — and fear not, as Congress probes, we're all likely to read exactly who did what and when — the emerging picture is of a colossal bungling ... or much worse. And perhaps not unexpected. This page warned in August 2005 that some of this state's GOP powers might be mounting pressure to have the administration oust U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, a fearless fighter against public corruption.

Gonzales took responsibility Tuesday for the way Justice handled the dismissals — particularly his department's slow-footedness in telling Congress that the White House had been involved in discussions about the firings.

But Gonzales, essentially echoing a bill of particulars Justice has issued about the fired prosecutors, also insisted that those dismissals were justified. That was Gonzales' response to assertions last week from some of the fired prosecutors. They said they felt muscled by Republican politicians in their home states to speed investigations of Democrats in potential cases of voter fraud. If that pressure did occur as alleged, those members of Congress need to answer for meddling improperly in federal investigations.

Given the nation's cleaved politics, the issue of prosecutor dismissals isn't getting much dispassionate discussion from friends and foes of the White House. Example: When the president told the attorney general last fall that he had received complaints about some prosecutors not aggressively pursuing voter-fraud cases, was he appropriately informing the prosecutors' boss, or was he blackballing them?

Similarly, when Sampson sent a five-point "Plan for Replacing Certain United States Attorneys" to the White House before the firings, was he preparing administration officials for protests likely to follow, or was he overly involving the White House in what should be a Justice action? (Step 3 of Sampson's plan, "Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval," predicted that fired prosecutors would make "strenuous" efforts to keep their jobs by appealing to other officials in the Bush administration.)

This is a fast-evolving story, with crucial events and motives still to be probed and explained, by the administration and the Congress. As the facts of this disturbing but still incomplete narrative come together, we're likely as a nation to learn if the answer to the question that opens this editorial is yes or no.

If it's yes, Gonzales should resign.

White House Tried to Politicize Justice

Editorial Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 14mar2007

If you are inclined to think questions raised over the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys amount to a tempest in a teapot, a political dustup engineered by Democrats now that they control Congress, think again. This is a deadly serious issue that goes to the integrity of the American system of justice. It involves the abuse of prosecutorial power, obstructing justice and lying to or at least misleading Congress.

In federal court, the U.S. government is a 900-pound gorilla. Its prosecutorial power and influence should never be unleashed for political reasons. All good U.S. attorneys know that. They are political players who owe their jobs to party connections, but they understand that once installed they must leave politics at the office door.

The Bush administration, long accused of failing to recognize the distinction between running for office and governing, appears to have crossed that line. It now appears that the administration repeatedly pushed federal prosecutors to investigate Democrats on accusations of crimes like "voter fraud" — accusations the prosecutors found to be bogus. Worse yet, some prosecutors, like Carol Lam of San Diego, had the gall to go after corrupt Republicans instead.

In recent years, mostly bogus charges of "voter fraud" have been used by Republicans, with some success, to depress voter turnout — on the generally accurate reasoning that lower turnout favors Republicans. Former Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, a Republican, beat the fraud drum for eight years despite lacking any evidence that voter fraud had been a problem.

The fired U.S. attorneys — good Republicans all — declined to play the game, and when a cockamamie plan arose in the White House and Justice Department to fire a slew of U.S. attorneys, their names were at the top of the list. They were not "strong performers," in Justice Department parlance, because they hadn't "exhibited loyalty."

Documents released by the White House on Monday show that at least three high-ranking Justice Department officials — including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — were wrong when they testified to congressional committees that the attorneys were fired for poor performance. Whether those officials lied or were misinformed remains to be established.

But the general outline of this scandal is taking shape: The Bush administration attempted to corrupt politically the work of U.S. attorneys in a number of American cities. Here's the pregnant question now being asked: If the fired attorneys refused to play ball, which of those attorneys remaining in office did not refuse?

Heckuva Job, Alberto

Editorial / New York Daily News 14mar2007

The Justice Department's summary sacking of eight federal prosecutors is right up there on the bungle meter, once again distressingly pointing to the nature of this administration's management skills, which are all too often dumbo.

U.S. attorneys serve at a president's pleasure; the possibility of removal comes with the job. But matters of the law of the land warrant some solemnity, and these dismissals were unprofessional backdoor jobs, ham-handedly carried out by Justice axmen, including a top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Why were the prosecutors dismissed? Gonzales on Tuesday offered up the familiar "mistakes were made" defense, conceding maybe the fired parties should have been given explanations. And, oh yeah, Justice gave Congress false information, a mistake laid at the feet of said top aide, Kyle Sampson, who quit Monday.

Sampson's e-mails make clear that this episode was anything but the routine personnel issue of Gonzales' gloss. It smells of cronyism in that Sampson clumsily attempted to keep the firings off the public radar screen, and there's a scent of political interference in that a Republican senator and a Republican congresswoman had pressured one of the dismissed prosecutors to speed a probe of Democrats before an election.

The White House and Gonzales insist that, on the merits, the firings were justified. But they've advanced no persuasive evidence. Congressional scrutiny is well deserved.

Time To Resign

Editorial / Fort Worth Star-Telegram 14mar2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' strong words during a Tuesday news conference were glaringly different from the clueless tap dance he has been stomping out since assuming the office of the people's lawyer.

"I am responsible for what happens in the Department of Justice," Gonzales said, in what was billed as his chance to douse the flames that erupted over the firings of eight federal prosecutors. "I acknowledge mistakes were made. I accept responsibility."

Too bad this comes months late and falls light-years short of repairing the damage Gonzales has done to his own credibility.

Gonzales admitted Tuesday that former White House counsel Harriet Miers suggested replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys back in 2005, right after he joined the Bush Cabinet.

"It was a bad idea, and I rejected it," Gonzales said.

Revelations that ousting eight U.S. attorneys was just a hint of what this administration really wanted doesn't make this episode any less distasteful.

Gonzales went on to say that he "delegated" the responsibility for evaluating the job performances of all U.S. attorneys to his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. If Gonzales is to be believed, he left sole discretion to an aide to decide who was fired and who stayed.

It's hard to determine which is more troubling — the possibility that Gonzales knew what his chief of staff was doing and lied about it, or that he didn't have a clue as to the political manipulation that was going on right under his nose.

Throughout the weekend TV gabfests — before the damning documents and e-mails detailing the extent of communication between Sampson and White House officials were revealed — Gonzales apologists repeatedly said that the attorney general serves at the pleasure of the appointing president. Others drilled home the point that federal prosecutors do the same.

Gonzales repeated this mantra on Tuesday.

"All political appointees can be removed by the president for any reason, and I stand by the decision," he said before abruptly ending the news conference.

It's true that U.S. attorneys serve until the president asks them to move on. But Justice Department officials, including Gonzales, had insisted that most of the firings were because of performance issues. Gonzales himself said in a newspaper commentary that the prosecutors had lost his confidence.

But is he now saying that the president had a hand in removing the prosecutors? Even if it's perfectly legitimate for the president to do so, it's difficult to make that argument credibly after Gonzales has spent so much time and energy trying to persuade the American people otherwise.

Gonzales pledged to find out what went wrong, assess accountability and make sure it doesn't happen in the future. But that promise was missing an important element if he truly believes — as he claimed — that he is ultimately responsible for everything that occurs in the Justice Department on his watch.

If Gonzales expects Sampson's resignation on Monday will put an end to this ugly chapter, he's woefully mistaken. Gonzales' ineffectiveness and poor decision-making have thoroughly compromised his leadership ability and damaged his department.

When your first instinct is to protect a politician instead of the American people, you have no business being the nation's attorney general.

Loyalty to a president is an admirable trait. Loyalty to a fault is not.

During his Tuesday news conference, Gonzales repeatedly said, "I accept ... I regret ... I accept ... I regret ..."

What was missing: "I resign."

Exit Gonzales

Editorial / Sacramento Bee 14mar2007

We haven't seen a renegade U.S. Justice Department like this since John Mitchell ran it for President Nixon.

With a new Congress beginning to exercise serious oversight, the problems at the Justice Department and with its leader, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, are becoming clearer by the day.

And what is becoming most clear is that Gonzales must go.

The United States needs an attorney general who has respect for the rule of law. What's happening at the Justice Department shows a pattern of contempt and politicization of the law, and disrespect for the country's system of checks and balances.

Tuesday, Gonzales addressed the issue of the day: the firing of U.S. attorneys in December. "Mistakes were made," he said. But the problems go far beyond mismanagement and institutional missteps.

Here are just three practices that have eroded confidence in the Justice Department:

MASS FIRINGS OF FEDERAL PROSECUTORS: Traditionally, a new president replaces all 93 U.S. attorneys with nominees who are then confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Typically they serve with independence until the president leaves office. But not in this White House.

This administration has fired its own U.S. attorneys midstream, something the Congressional Research Service deems extremely rare. Only five of 486 U.S. attorneys have been removed midterm in 25 years.

We now know that late in 2005, then-White House legal counsel Harriet Miers asked the Justice Department whether it would be feasible to replace all 93 U.S. attorneys. Shortly afterward, the administration requested a last-minute change to the USA Patriot Act that would give Gonzales authority to appoint interim federal prosecutors to indefinite terms without Senate confirmation. The provision didn't appear in the original bills passed by the House and Senate, and thus never got a hearing. But it wound up in the final bill. With that backdoor language in place, the purge began.

Gonzales said Tuesday he personally rejected the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys as too disruptive, but his chief of staff spent last year drawing up a list of "weak performers" (a characterization that the job evaluations of those fired don't bear out). Leaders in Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have raised concerns that the eight lost their jobs because they were too aggressive in going after Republicans in public corruption cases and not aggressive enough in going after Democrats.

With the machinations now public, Gonzales has backed off appointing U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. But have we seen the end of partisan prosecutorial actions?

SEARCHES OF AMERICANS' PERSONAL RECORDS UNDER THE USA PATRIOT ACT: The Patriot Act, enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, contains a "National Security Letter" provision that allows FBI field supervisors to demand anyone's phone, e-mail, business and financial records without probable cause that the person has committed a crime and without prior approval of a court.

Gonzales' Justice Department told Congress that during 2005 the government made 9,254 National Security Letter requests concerning U.S. residents. At the time, that didn't ring alarms; in the year before the Patriot Act, the government made 8,500 requests.

But Friday's inspector general's report on the use of the letters tells a different story entirely. The number of requests in 2005 was 47,000; between 2003 and 2005, it was 143,000. Worse, the FBI in many cases demanded people's records without getting National Security Letters, in nonemergency situations and where there was no authorized ongoing investigation.

Gonzalez offered an unsatisfactory response: "We are going to make things right as soon as possible." How does he make right the lies his assistant told Congress?

WARRANTLESS DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE: News reports have revealed that the administration has been eavesdropping on the overseas phone calls and e-mails of Americans and others in the United States without court-approved warrants. That's an end run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress passed and the president signed in 1978. Now that the practice is publicly known, Gonzales says the administration will seek warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But, he told the U.S. Senate, he still believes the president has "inherent power" to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without court-approved warrants.

The three examples point to an attorney general with a view that suggests the president is above the law, that the law is somehow an obstacle to be evaded or a tool to be wielded against political opponents. A fundamental premise of this country is respect for the rule of law. How, then, can the country continue to employ a chief law enforcement officer who sends signals that undermine that very foundation?

source: 14mar2007

Bush Upset Over Flawed Attorney Firings

MERRILL HARTSON / AP 14mar2007

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Wednesday he is troubled by the Justice Department's misleading explanations to Congress of why it fired eight U.S. attorneys and expected his attorney general to fix them.

Bush said he stood by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales amid calls for his ouster.

``Mistakes were made. And I'm frankly not happy about them,'' Bush told reporters at a news conference in Mexico, where he is wrapping up a weeklong trip to Latin America.

``Any time anybody goes up to Capitol Hill, they've got to make sure they fully understand the facts and how they characterize the issue to members of Congress,'' Bush said. ``And the fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like that there was not straightforward communication troubles me and it troubles the attorney general. So he took action, and he needs to continue to take action.''

The president called the actual firings ``entirely appropriate'' and noted that U.S attorneys serve at his pleasure. ``Past administrations have removed U.S. attorneys. It's their right to do so,'' Bush said.

Critics have said the firings appeared to be politically motivated, and some of the prosecutors who were dismissed in a Dec. 7 purge said they felt pressure by Republican lawmakers to investigate more Democrats in the months leading up to elections.

Bush said he did receive complaints about U.S. attorneys, and recalled a congressional visit when senators ``were talking about U.S. attorneys.'' He said he did not remember any specific names of prosecutors mentioned.

``But I never brought up a specific case or gave him specific instructions,'' Bush said, referring to Gonzales. ``What Al did and what the Justice Department did was appropriate. ... What was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to the Congress.''

Back in Washington, White House Counsel Fred Fielding was to visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday for meetings with House and Senate committee staff members about requests for testimony from top presidential aides. The focus of the discussion, according to two Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, was whether senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and other officials would testify.

Additionally, Gonzales was expected to go discuss the firings with lawmakers later in the week. Those meetings were not expected to be public, a Justice Department spokesman said.

For nearly two months, Democrats have accused the department of playing politics with the prosecutors' jobs. Top Justice officials, including Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, have maintained in congressional testimony the dismissals were based on the prosecutors' performance, not politics.

The fired prosecutors headed the U.S. attorneys' offices in Albuquerque, N.M.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Las Vegas; Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix; San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

But e-mails released between Miers and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' then-top aide, showed a two-year campaign between the White House and the Justice Department to fire prosecutors. The correspondence also included e-mails from J. Scott Jennings, the White House deputy political director, who used an e-mail address registered to the Republican National Committee.

Appearing Wednesday on NBC's ``Today'' show, Gonzales said he had a ``general knowledge'' of Sampson's conversations with Miers about the prosecutors, but said ``I was obviously not aware of all communications.''

``We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened,'' Gonzales said. ``We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here.''

Several Democrats have called for Gonzales' resignation, among them presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.

``The buck should stop somewhere,'' Clinton said in an interview with ABC's ``Good Morning America'' which was broadcast Wednesday morning. She added that Bush ``needs to be very forthcoming — what did he say, what did he know, what did he do?'' and that Rove also ``owes the Congress and the country an explanation'' for his role in the affair.

Gonzales accepted Sampson's resignation this week; Miers had left the administration earlier this year.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Gonzales came under withering criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, the attorney general and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller admitted that the FBI had improperly, and at times illegally, used the USA Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal information about Americans in terrorism investigations.

Gonzales, himself a former White House counsel, has been friends with Bush for years, going back to when he served as Bush's secretary of state in Texas.

Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

source: 14mar2007

Gonzales Says His Future Depends on Bush

MERRILL HARTSON / AP 14mar2007

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday it's up to President Bush whether he remains in the administration and said he wants to stay and explain to Congress the circumstances surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

Amid an escalating political row and calls from some Democrats for his resignation, Gonzales said, "I work for the American people and serve at the pleasure of the president."

"I think you can look at the record of the department in terms of what we've done ... going after child predators, public corruption cases," he said on NBC's "Today" show. "I think our record is outstanding."

Critics charge that the prosecutors were ousted because of political considerations.

Gonzales acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were made in the handling of the U.S. attorney firings and said he wanted to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.

"I think we've done a good job in managing the department. .. Things are going to happen," he said. "We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened. ... We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here."

"I didn't become attorney general by quitting," Gonzales said on CBS's "The Early Show."

Several Democrats have called for Gonzales' resignation, among them presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.

"The buck should stop somewhere," Clinton said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" which was broadcast Wednesday morning. She added that Bush "needs to be very forthcoming — what did he say, what did he know, what did he do?" and that high-level White House adviser Karl Rove also "owes the Congress and the country an explanation" for his role in the affair.

The firestorm of criticism has erupted in the wake of the disclosure of e-mails within the administration which showed that Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, had discussed the possible firings of U.S. attorneys in early 2005 with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

Gonzales accepted Sampson's resignation this week; Miers had left the administration earlier this year.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Gonzales came under withering criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, the attorney general and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller admitted that the FBI had improperly, and at times illegally, used the USA Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal information about Americans in terrorism investigations.

Gonzales, himself a former White House counsel, has been friends with Bush for years, going back to when he served as Bush's secretary of state in Texas. Bush retains full confidence in the attorney general, spokesman Dan Bartlett, traveling with Bush in Mexico, said Wednesday. "He's a standup guy," Bartlett said of Gonzales.

As for the firings, Bartlett said White House officials had heard complaints from members of Congress regarding prosecutors and Bush had raised the subject during an October 2006 meeting with Gonzales. He described the exchange as "offhand" and said Bush did not name any specific prosecutors but did identify their states.

"This briefly came up and the president said, 'I've been hearing about this election fraud issue from members of Congress and want to be sure you're on top of it as well,' " Bartlett said.

Bartlett said that Gonzales had responded, "I know, and we're looking at those issues."

In the NBC appearance Wednesday, Gonzales said he had a "general knowledge" of Sampson's conversations with Miers about the prosecutors, but said "I was obviously not aware of all communications."

"I think we have an obligation to ensure where we can improve upon performance around the country," he said.

One of the ousted U.S. attorneys, David Iglesias, who was the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, told Congress had had received a call from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., that he considered intimidating. Democrats in Congress have charged that some prosecutors were sacked because there was a belief within the administration that they were not moving quickly enough on political corruption cases involving Democrats.

Domenici acknowledged calling Iglesias but denied trying to put any pressure on the prosecutor to speed up his investigation.

Asked Wednesday if politics played a role in the firings, Gonzales said, "These firings were not politically motivated. They were not done in retaliation. They were not done to interfere with a public corruption case."

source: 14mar2007