There has been much focus on the contradiction between the March 13 AG Gonzales press conference, where he said:
What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not as strong performers and weak performers. And, so far as I knew, my chief of staff was in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district. And that’s what I knew. But, again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the Department. But that is, in essence, what I knew about the process. I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That’s basically what I knew as the Attorney General.
And the report yesterday that he was, in fact at a meeting where he and several other members of his staff discussed the plan and where he signed off on it.
But, his testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee in January provides an even stronger basis to question his veracity (and therefore the credibility of the Administration).
On January 18, 2007 AG Gonzales appeared before the Committee and Sen. Feinstein asked him about the U.S. Attorney firings. He took that opportunity to say two things:
- How committed he was to have the Senate approve appointments of U.S. Attorneys, and
- How the appointment of the right people to act as U.S. Attorney was so important to him, personally.
Here are some quotes from that hearing:
And so, let me publicly pre-empt, sort of, the question you’re gonna ask me and that is I am fully committed, and the administration is fully committed to insure that with respect to every United States attorney position in this country we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney.
and also:
Sen. Feinstein: And I’m very concerned because technically, under the Patriot Act, you can appoint someone without confirmation for the remainder of the President’s term. I don’t believe you should do that. We are going to try to change the law back.
Attorney General: Senator, may I just say that I don’t think there is any evidence that that is what I’m trying to do. In fact, to the contrary, the evidence is quite clear that what we’re trying to do is to insure that for the people in each of these respective districts we have the very best possible representative for the department of justice and that we are working to nominate people and that we are working with home state senators to get U.S. Attorneys nominated. So the evidence is just quite contrary to what you’re possibly suggesting.
And again:
Sen. Feinstein: Well, let me just say one thing. I believe very strongly that these positions should come to this committee for confirmation.
AG They are, Senator.
And again:
Sen. Cornyn: ...My understanding is that prior to the re-authorization of the Patriot Act the Attorney General had the authority to appoint an interim United States attorney for a a period of up to 120 days, after which the Courts, before the U.S. Attorney would appear would make a longer-term interim appointment until such time as the President nominated and the Senate confirmed as a permanent United States Attorney. Is that correct?
AG That is correct. (snip) And I’ve said to the committee today, under oath, that we are fully committed to try to find Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed U.S. Attorneys for every position. But they’re too important to let go unfiled for any period of time, quite frankly. And, it’s very very important for me, on an interim basis the qualifications and the judgment of the individuals serving in that position.
And again:
Sen. Sessions And if a United States Attorney is appointed by the power of the...and the U.S. Attorney is part of the executive branch, you would bring that nomination to the Senate for our up or down vote, would you not?
AG Again, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I’m fully committed to work with the Senate to insure that we have Presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed U.S. Attorneys in every district.
Of course, this was fully contradicted by the emails released by the Justice Department. What they really intended to do was exactly what Sen. Feinstein was afraid of: appoint "interim" U.S. Attorneys whose "interim" appointments would last for TWO YEARS.
Why? Because they knew that people like Diane Feinstein would have a fit if they did things in the open, and you can't get much more open than a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
So, there goes point number one.
And now for point number two, i.e. how important having the right person in the job of U.S. Attorney was for AG Gonzales personnally. More quotes from the January 18 Judiciary Committee hearing:
AG But they’re [the U.S. Attorney positions] too important to let go unfilled for any period of time, quite frankly. And, it’s very very important for me, on an interim basis the qualifications and the judgment of the individuals serving in that position.
And again:
AG I do want to say, however, that, and I’ve said this publicly a lot, recently, it seems, the U.S. Attorney positions are very very important to me personally. They are my representative in the community. They are the face of the Administration, quite frankly. They’re often viewed as the leader of the law enforcement effort in a community, not just by state and locals, but by other Federal components. And so I care very much about who my U.S. Attorney is in a particular District. That’s very very important to me.
And, finally:
AG Now these [U.S. Attorney appointments] are, of course, very very important and I don’t have the luxury of letting vacancies sit vacant, and so I have an obligation to the people in those districts to appoint interims. And, of course, even though they may be an interim appointment, their judgment, their experience or qualifications are still nonetheless very, very important to me.
OK. We get it. These appointments, even though they may be interim appointments are not just important, not just very important, not just very, very important, but very, very important to the Attorney General personally.
Now, let's go forward again to March 13 and the AG's press conference, with its liberal dose of the passive voice:
What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not as strong performers and weak performers. And, so far as I knew, my chief of staff was in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district. And that’s what I knew
And again:
...when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions made that I’m not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated. We have people who are confirmed by the Senate. Who by statute have been delegated the authority to make decisions.
Mr. Sampson was charged with directing the process to ascertain who were weak performers, where we could do better in districts around the country...That was the role that he had when he was in the Department of Justice under General Ashcroft, and so naturally when questions came with respect to the evaluation of performances of U.S. Attorneys, it would be Kyle Sampson who would drive that effort.
And then:
...the charge of the chief of staff here was to drive this process. And the mistake that occurred here was that information that he had was not shared with individuals within the department who was then going to provide information and testimony to the Congress.
And then:
I just explained for Pete the extent of my knowledge that I had about the process. I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood. What I knew was that there was an ongoing effort that was led by Mr. Sampson vetted throughout the Department of Justice to ascertain where we could make improvements in U.S. Attorney performances around the country.
OK. So, again we have this very, very important thing. To the AG personally. It was that persons of high caliber represent him in the community. It was important to see if they could do better.
And he wants us to believe that his chief of staff was given no other guidance than that?
How would that have gone? Maybe something like this:
Harriet Myers: Gee, Mr. President, I think that we ought to fire all of the U.S. Attorneys. They serve only at your pleasure, you know.
Karl Rove: That's right. Only at your pleasure. We can get rid of all 93 of them right now if we want.
The President: Am I still pleased with them?
Harriet: I'm not sure. What do you think, Karl?
Rove: I'm not sure either. I'll ask the Attorney General.
AG Gonzales: These positions are very, very important to me. Personally. So, I think that Kyle Sampson should be given complete responsibility to determine who is still pleasing the President.
Rove: Should we develop any general criteria for determining who are the "weak performers?"
AG Gonzales. No. As I said, these positions are very, very important to me. Personally. So, I don't see any reason to have any discussions with anyone about the standards we are going to use to decide who is going to get fired and who is going to stay. Just let 'er roll, I say. Everyone on my staff does a heckuva job, so I don't see any reason to get involved.
Rove: Ok. Just let the President know after your subordinates have decided who has stopped pleasing him. That's the best way for all of us to carry out this very, very important function.
AG Gonzales: Yeah. It is very, very important. To me. Personally.
If you would like to listen to the press conference or the Judiciary Committee hearing, go to C-SPAN, type in "gonzales" in the "search" window and follow the links for these videos.
The portions of the Judiciary Committee hearing covering the U.S. Attorneys are at approximately 1:13, 1:34 and 2:18.
I don't see how any thinking person can simultaneously believe that Kyle Sampson had complete responsibility for this process and that who the U.S. Attorneys are is a very, very important thing to AG Gonzales. Personally.
These are two contradictory thoughts.
So, either the Attorney General of the United States really doesn't care who his U.S. Attorneys are and what criteria should be used to evaluate whether they stay or go.
Or, the Attorney General of the United States does care, a lot, about who his U.S. Attorneys are and therefore is involved in determining, at a minimum, what the criteria should be to judge their performance when someone at the White House decides it's time for a purge.
Now, I know that emptywheel has correctly said that AG Gonzales is only the latest shiny object the White House is flashing before us to distract us from the fundamentally political project this episode was (for more on that see Talking Points Memo here - can you spell vote suppression?)
But, in order to get to that underlying (pun intended) story, you also have to knock down the "front" story.
So, tell me. How important were the U.S. Attorneys to AG Gonzales? Important? Very important? Very, very important? Very, very important to him, personally?
Or was Kyle Sampson off on a lark of his own? For two years?