GOP Allies Concerned About Gonzales

March 13, 2007 — -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is finding few friends on Capitol Hill this week, even among his political party and even after he admitted in a press conference on Tuesday that "mistakes were made" in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Gonzales maintains he did nothing wrong in the firings and said Tuesday he would not resign over the flap.

Democrats say the firings were politically motivated, and e-mails and letters released to House and Senate investigative subcommittees today seem to show that officials in the White House created a target list of U.S. attorneys they wanted gone.

Republicans -- even normally staunch supporters of Gonzales and the White House -- are not defending the attorney general, but are saying there should be an investigation of the firings before a judgment.

Texas Republican John Cornyn, for instance, said at a press conference on Tuesday that he has known Gonzales for a long time and wants to let him have the chance to "explain himself."

"In Texas, we have a fair trial and then the hanging," said Cornyn, who, like Gonzales, sat on the Texas Supreme Court before coming to Washington.

Cornyn is generally considered one of the White House's staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, but Tuesday he said he is concerned about the U.S. attorneys matter. He was appearing, oddly enough, at a conference with Vermont Democrats and they were introducing, oddly enough, a bipartisan sunshine bill that would promote openness in government and set time limits for Freedom of Information Act requests, among other things.

It is Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who will run the congressional investigation into Gonzales' actions. Cornyn said that, "This has to be a fair examination. It should not be partisan." But at the same time, he said, "I support Sen. Leahy in his efforts to get the facts."

"I talked with the attorney general this morning," Leahy said calmly to reporters. He said he had brought up to Gonzales that there had been congressional hearings on the U.S. attorneys -- back in January, Gonzales had assured senators he would never fire a U.S. attorney for political reasons -- but it was through the newspaper that Leahy said he learned about the e-mails that make a White House connection to the Justice Department firings.

"I just about boiled over as I read in the paper information we should have been told, information we could have been told," Leahy said.

Leahy would not say whether he will subpoena presidential counselor Karl Rove or former White House counsel Harriet Miers, indicating he hoped they would come before his committee willingly. No word on that yet, but Leahy did address the possibility that those two could be shielded by the White House from testifying as a matter of executive privilege. "There is really only one person," Leahy said, "who gets executive privilege: the president."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was not as cautious as Leahy. He wants Gonzales to resign immediately. Few Democrats have joined Schumer in this call so far, but the list is growing.

Schumer listened to Gonzales' presser and, on the Senate floor, said he was not convinced. Gonzales, according to Schumer, should still resign. Gonzales' argument that he was unaware of what was going on, if true, said Schumer, is further evidence that Gonzales is not fit for the job of attorney general.

"[Gonzales] said I am ultimately responsible, but simply claiming responsibility is not enough," said Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. "He said I was not involved in any memos or discussions of what was going on. Mr. President, did the attorney general not know that eight U.S. attorneys were to be fired? If he didn't know, he shouldn't be attorney general. That's not a minor personnel decision ... To simply say the decisions were delegated, that's a bizarre misuse of power."

For Schumer, the U.S. attorneys story is not the only reason for Gonzales to go, but it is the straw that breaks the camel's back. "On issue after issue after issue," Schumer said, "the attorney general has not stood up. The attorney general misconceives his role. He misconceives his role because he still sees himself as counsel to the president, his previous job, where you rubber stamp everything the president does ... but when you're attorney general, you swear to the Constitution to uphold it and defend it. That's his role."

The call by Schumer for Gonzales to resign brought the ire of Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican of the Judiciary Committee, but not because he necessarily thinks Gonzales should keep his job. He wants to take part in Leahy's hearings before passing judgment.

"I regret that I could not be here when Sen. Schumer was on the floor earlier today," said Specter. "He has made public statements about the attorney general politicizing matters, but let's get the facts."

Not all Republican senators are frustrated with Gonzales because the U.S. attorneys may have been fired for political reasons. Nevada Republican John Ensign held his own press conference today to complain about Gonzales, but not for politically motivated firings.

Quite the opposite. Ensign is frustrated that Gonzales did not contact him before firing Las Vegas U.S. attorney Dan Bogden. Ensign would have told Gonzales not to fire Bogden. Not only that, nobody from the Department of Justice spoke with Bogden before his firing. And Ensign is piping mad.

"I am not a person who raises his voice very often," said Ensign on Tuesday. "My staff can testify to my frustration when I learned that [Deputy Attorney General Paul] McNulty had not spoken with Dan."

Bogden was fired, according to Gonzales, because he was not being aggressive enough in prosecuting obscenity and terrorism cases. (There was an amusing moment during the House hearing last week when a congressman, in asking Bogden why he was fired, asked what exactly qualified as "obscenity" in Las Vegas). Bogden testified under subpoena last week before the House Judiciary Committee.

But Ensign argued Tuesday that the U.S. attorney office in Las Vegas, even though it is the fastest growing city in the country and a "magnet" for terrorists, received less funding in recent years and has not been able to hire new attorneys, going from 77 in 2003 to 71 now. "These things were not taken into account" when Bogden was fired, said Ensign.

Bogden told the committee last week that William Mercer, who was then nominated to be deputy attorney general, told him he was fired because it "would be an opportunity to put others into those positions so they could build their résumés and get experience so that for future possibilities of becoming federal judges or other political type positions, they could better handle it."

The system by which U.S. attorneys are let go is broken, said Ensign, who met with Gonzales in his Capitol Hill office on Friday, and has spoken with him since. Ensign said Gonzales has promised him that the system is being re-evaluated and fixed.