Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales
Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales
Senators Say Attorney General Fired Prosecutors Without Explanation
By Paul Kane and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 8, 2007; 5:28 PM
Senior Senate Republicans today delivered scathing criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales for his handling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, joining Democrats in charging that the prosecutors were dismissed without adequate explanation.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that Gonzales’s status as the nation’s leading law enforcement officer might not last through the remainder of President Bush’s term, pointedly disputing the attorney general’s public rationale for the mass firings.
“One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later,” Specter said at a committee hearing where a new round of subpoenas to the Justice Department was considered.
After the meeting, Specter declined to elaborate on that remark, but told reporters that most of the blame for the ongoing controversy rests with the attorney general. “It’s snowballing, mostly with the help of the Department of Justice,” he said.
Two of the Justice Department’s most vocal defenders on the issue, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), also had sharp words for senior Justice Department officials who attacked the credibility of the prosecutors publicly by saying they performed poorly at their jobs. WOW!! that is shocking!!
“Some people’s reputations are going to suffer needlessly,” Kyl said. “Hopefully we can get to the point where we say, ‘These people did a great job.’”
Sessions said the firings were handled in an “unhealthy” manner. “They really should have talked with these people in far more detail,” he added.
Kyl and Sessions said, however, that the evidence does not yet point to a widespread conspiracy to oust the prosecutors for political motives. Both said it was within Bush’s right to ask for the resignations of the eight prosecutors. ha!
The remarks from a trio of top Republicans marked the strongest criticism so far from Bush administration allies in the controversy. Senior Democrats on the panel continued to sharply criticize the firings.
The eight prosecutors were dismissed last year, seven of them on Dec. 7. The Justice Department has said that all but one were fired for “performance” issues, including failing to adhere to Bush administration policy on a number of matters. The other was removed to make way for an ally of White House political adviser Karl Rove.
One of the U.S. attorneys, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, has charged that he was let go after a conflict with Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R.-N.M.) over a corruption investigation involving Democrats that his office was pursuing. He has testified to Congress that both called him shortly before the 2006 election to pressure him on the timing of indictments. Domenici and Wilson have acknowledged phoning Iglesias but said they were not trying to sway his investigation.
Specter said that an op-ed article by Gonzales that appeared in USA Today yesterday, in which he said the firings were an “overblown personnel matter,” only served to exacerbate the problem. “I hardly think it’s a personnel matter, and I hardly think it’s been overblown,” he said.
He read portions of the Gonzales article, pausing to critique each one. He added that the suggestion that the attorney general had lost “confidence” in the prosecutors needlessly suggested they performed poorly at their jobs.
“There will always be a black mark against them,” Specter said.
Committee Republicans objected to issuing subpoenas to force the testimony of Gonzales’s inner circle of aides, instead arguing that the panel should continue to negotiate for their testimony on a voluntary basis. Democrats agreed with that idea, saying they would be willing to conduct interviews in private if that produced information they are seeking about the decision-making process behind the mass firing.
Also today, a liberal-leaning advocacy group formally requested a third ethics investigation in the controversy. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the House ethics committee to investigate allegations that a top aide to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) called the U.S. attorney in Seattle to inquire about a vote fraud case.
Former U.S. attorney John McKay said Hastings’s chief of staff called him shortly after a hotly disputed gubernatorial race inquiring about the pending inquiry, but McKay said he cut the call short. Hastings and his former aide, Ed Cassidy, have characterized the call as routine and appropriate.
CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said that Hastings, ranking member of the House ethics panel, “attempted to use the criminal justice system to interfere with a gubernatorial election.”
Hastings and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), who chairs the House ethics committee, declined comment. They said they were forbidden from talking about any internal issues on the panel, which is officially called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
CREW has also filed requests for probes of Domenici and Wilson. The Senate Ethics Committee has announced a preliminary inquiry into the Domenici call.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030801087_pf.html