Didn't see this diaried yet.
Apparently, Gonzales--he of the "I can't recall" tribe--was told about violations days before denying violations occured:
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Of course, the FBI's spokesperson says that The Big G was speaking "in context" of reports by the inspector general and, I quote:
"The statements from the attorney general are consistent with statements from other officials at the FBI and the department," [Brian] Roehrkasse said. He added that many of the violations the FBI disclosed were not legal violations and instead involved procedural safeguards or even typographical errors.
Apparently, "typographical errors" and "procedural safeguards" are serious enough to notify the President's Oversight Intelligence Board, which happened in each of these violations.
Read the whole article, it goes into good detail about the violations and if I quoted all the good parts, I'd violate Fair Use.
Looks like Gonzales "didn't recall" a hell of a lot of violations, and looks like he's been a pretty brazen liar.
Fire up the impeachment mobile.
UPDATE: Petronella found a juicy quote and speculates that this must be one of those pesky "typographical errors:"
The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.
Damn you, typos!
UPDATE 2: Hey, look what happens when TheBlaz doesn't get enough sleep! Oh, well. Tomorrow's another day. Go read the two diaries, they're good stuff.