Within the past hour, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged that mistakes were made in the way eight U.S. Attorneys were fired. But he says, "I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision.' In other words, it was the right decision to fire qualified prosecutors; lie about the firings by saying they were based on performance not politics; lie to Congress about never purging U.S. Attorneys for political reasons; and push your staff overboard once they were caught lying on your behalf. Gonzales needs to be criminally convicted at best, and fired at worst. He should not be afforded the superficial dignity of resigning.
Two years ago, the White House, via failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers (who had discussed her brilliant idea with political adviser Karl Rove), suggested that the Justice Department fire ALL U.S. Attorneys--a dumb move, but one that would have at least had the pretense of treating them all equally, not politically.
Gonzales thought that firing a smaller group wouldn't leave such a vacuum. So the next month, Gonzales' chief-of-staff, Kyle Sampson, e-mailed Miers a list ranking all 93 U.S. Attorneys as:
Strong - "exhibited loyalty" to the Administration
Weak - "prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives"
Not a very sophisticated analysis, but one that cuts to the chase. . . But even under this shallow assessment, only three of the eight fired were given low rankings (Chiara, Cummins and Lam). Two were acually given strong evaluations (Iglesias and Ryan)! The Administration can't even follow its own hit list, however ill-conceived, but how did Iglesias end up getting terminated? Easy. Senator Pete Dominici (R-N.M.) was mad at him for not indicting certain Democrats, before the election, in a public corruption investigation. After Iglesias was canned, Miers' dputy noted that Domenici's camp was "happy as a claim" Sampson wrote a week later, "Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool)." (His words, not mine).
Sampson then had another stroke of genius: this is a good way to test-drive one of the little-known cookies slipped into the Patriot Act, which allows the Attorney General to name interim replacements without them having to go through Senate confirmation. In Sampson's own words, by avoiding Senate confirmation,
"We can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1) our preferred person appointed and 2) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political cost to the White House."
The significance of this is illustrated by Rove's interest in appointing his buddy Tim Griffin, an Arkansas prosecutor and former colleague. Justice officials wanted desperately to bypass the two Democratic senators in Arkansas, who would have torpedoed the appointment.
In October 2006, Bush mentioned complaints to Gonzales about, ironically, voter-fraud investigations -- not beause the Republicans had stolen two Presidential elections, but because Republicans were concerned that convicted (likely Democratic) felons were allowed to cast ballots.
Eight U.S. Attorneys were eventually fired en masse. But just as troubling as the Patriot Act provision that allowed the Executive to bypass judicial confirmation, is the fact that the White House and Justice Department acted hand-in-glove in the massacre. The Justice Department is supposed to be independent. If anything, it should act as a watchdog, not a lap dog. Gonzales apparently still considers himself the President's counsel, and puts politics about the Constitutio and the rule of law. I suggest we fire Gonzales as the actual prosecutor who does not understand his role viz-a-viz the Administration.
Harriet Miers, White House counsel: RESIGNED
Michael Battle, Justice Department hatchet-man: RESIGNED
Kyle Sampson, Gonzales chief-of-staff: RESIGNED
William Moschella, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General: WAITING
Paul J. McNulty, Deputy Attorney General: WE'RE WAITING
Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General: WE'RE WAITING . . .
Karl Rove, White House political adviser: WE'RE WAITING . . .