March 15, 2007

If This Is True, Gonzalez is Toast.

Via TPM, the National Journal is reporting that Gonzalez asked Bush to end an internal Justice Department probe that was focusing on his own actions:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

If this is true (that's a big if: this is the National Journal, which isn't what I would call a wonderful source), then Gonzalez should resign. He should consider himself lucky if he isn't prosecuted.

Posted by baltar at March 15, 2007 12:51 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Corruption | J. Edgar Hoover | Law and the Courts | Politics


Comments

1) Why on Earth isn't the National Journal a "wonderful source"? I think it's one of the most reliable media outlets.

2) Gonzalez will be around until Bush decides it's too costly to keep him around. Respect for the law? Competence? We know well that that's not what keeps you serving in the Bush administration. If however you get Arlen Specter and maybe another half dozen Republican senators calling for his head (or at least conveying that privately, but firmly, to the White House) he could be gone quite soon.

Posted by: Armand at March 15, 2007 01:18 PM | PERMALINK

National Journal is a bit too right-wingy for me; I wonder if it colors the information (as, for example the Economist has moved its news coverage to the right in the last year).

I'm not sure that loyalty is at issue here: Gonzalez may have done something that gets most (respectable) Republican senators to call for his head. If this story is true, Gonzalez derailed an investigation that was aiming towards him. You can't explain that away.

Posted by: baltar at March 15, 2007 01:23 PM | PERMALINK

gonzales is not going anywhere. criminalizing good faith attempts to protect the country during a time of war should be treason. if they keep grasping at straws like this the democrats are well on their way to losing in '08. im an independent but it would be worth it just to see the incredilous posts of liberal bloggers.

Posted by: jobie at March 15, 2007 03:25 PM | PERMALINK


whats with having to put an email address? way to chill expression

Posted by: noname at March 15, 2007 03:26 PM | PERMALINK

Murray Waas is pretty much a classic-issue Washington investigative reporter; I wouldn't worry too much about bias here.

That said, one would THINK that AG would be resigning at this point, but the bar for ethics-related resignation in this administration hasn't just been raised, it has been shot in to orbit. I mean, what if Bush just refuses to stop standing by him?

Posted by: jacflash at March 15, 2007 03:33 PM | PERMALINK

whoever runs this site is a nazi facist who does not have enough confidence in their own views to allow free expression. no wonder no one comes here. fyi: people dont like nazis.

Posted by: d at March 15, 2007 03:40 PM | PERMALINK

A personal note to the impatient commenter who likes to accuse us of being "facists": the world doesn't revolve around you. Just because your comments get caught in the spam queue while the mods are busy, doesn't mean you are being censored. On the other hand, being too stupid to realize that your messages are simply stuck in the queue probably should earn deletion.

Yet we are benevolent despots, and publish your comments anyway, for the world to see your charm and powers of reason.

As to being Facists, well, both Baltar and I did watch a lot of A Team back in the day, but I was more of a Murdock fan.

Posted by: binky at March 15, 2007 06:21 PM | PERMALINK

Uh, "Jobie," if you think firing seven or eight prosecutors for ostensibly not doing enough on voter fraud (but, in practice, firing them because they weren't beating up the democrats enough) has anything at all to do with national security or terrorism, then I have a bridge to sell you. This isn't about protecting the country, it was all about politics.

Posted by: baltar at March 15, 2007 06:28 PM | PERMALINK

Dude, you're correct that people don't like Nazis. That's why we want to say bye-bye to the politically-driven prosecutions, y'know?

And I think henceforth anyone who starts with the "time of war" bullshit to justify flagrantly unconstitutional nonsense should be immediately issued an M16 and dropped in the Pakistani mountains to look for Osama. Who's with me?

Posted by: jacflash at March 15, 2007 06:41 PM | PERMALINK

OK, guys, having caught up with TPM, I think it's time to lay odds on AG departing tomorrow afternoon. (It's Friday; that's when these things are done.) What do you think? 1 in 3?

Posted by: jacflash at March 15, 2007 07:30 PM | PERMALINK

I really loved this quote for the pure naked slime factor (my bold):

"We should gum this to death," Sampson wrote to a White House aide on Dec. 19. "[A]sk the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."

You can almost hear the the snorts and gurgles which pass for laughter as he types 'good faith' can't you?

Although it is hard to compete with something that uses the phrase "loyal bushies".

Posted by: binky at March 15, 2007 08:23 PM | PERMALINK

uh, jumpin jac flash, i think the next person who dismisses out of hand this "time of war" thing and dismisses out of hand the idea that old interpretations of the constitution might leave us ill-equipped to deal with the security threat presented by islamic terrorism should be handed a cup of coffee and dropped into a corner office on the 52nd floor of the world trade center, or handed a mop and placed on the USS Cole. This "time of war" has been going on for 25 years, and before you start whining about "well when is this perpetual war going to end?", let me suggest that you dont hold your breath. Whether or not people like you want to acknowledge it, the actions of a certain minority of the islamic world indicate we've been at war for a whole. And if you think the Constitution only exists to give you the right "to be left alone" then speak, speak, because your opinions are probably great comedy.

Posted by: noone at March 15, 2007 11:26 PM | PERMALINK


and whoever said that i think the world revolves around me, i'm just making sure you aren't censoring opinions that you dont like and giving a false impression of the views of people in cyberspace. of course this blog usually is an echo chamber naturally enough.

Posted by: lll at March 15, 2007 11:32 PM | PERMALINK

Rohrbacher got on the bandwagon last night. I think we're up to 50-50.

(HT Josh and crew, who still own this story.)

Posted by: jacflash at March 16, 2007 07:39 AM | PERMALINK

'noone', you are a brainwashed sheep. Have you actually LOOKED at this thing you're so terrified of? This "war" which has ostensibly been going on for 25 years has killed 3000 people on US soil. How many people have drowned in swimming pools over that time frame? Get some perspective, will ya?

Really, this guy says it pretty well.

Posted by: jacflash at March 16, 2007 09:38 AM | PERMALINK

in 25 years, more people have probably died in hunting accidents. i'm guessing III and noone et al aren't interested in a "War on Hunting," but why not, with each (Republican) American life held so dear that we can dispense with the legal niceties that limn the formation of this great nation?

with yesterday's revelations, this story just keeps getting juicier. am i the only one who hears, in the correspondence highlighted by binky, echoes of those horribly gleeful "fleece granny" phone conversations that came out of the enron investigation?

and since this is a discussion, perhaps III or noone would be kind enough to point out how Gonzalez interfering with an investigation that was likely to touch upon his own p[olitical witchhunt a) aided the War on Terror(TM) or b) isn't much worse than Bill Clinton lying about his sex life.

what interests me is whether this is the beginning of a cascade of revelations of misconduct. anywhere you poke this White House something ugly squirts out, and with Democrats in power the poking's a whole lot easier.

Posted by: moon at March 16, 2007 09:58 AM | PERMALINK

thats EXACTLY the problem with your worldview. its reactive, it lacks any imagination as to where the world might be heading, how our conception of costs and consequences might have to change. Thank you for pointing it out better than I could have myself. The day before 9/11 the body count was less than a thousand...and then what happened? Its truly scary that 9/11 did not jolt a significant (if minority) constituency in the United States to realize the stakes in the war against terrorism are not simply an acceptable amount of casualties. swimming pools do not kill people, people kill people. terrorists, on the other hand, kill people. what will the body count have to be next time before you are convinced? 12,000 (another three fold increase)? 50,000? Will it depend on the method employed (conventional explosion vs. dirty bomb)? seriously what WILL you respond to? excuse me if I dont buy into your strategy of "bury my head in the sand so I dont feel the need to put myself out and when the bomb hits it will be so quick I wont feel a thing anyway". I wonder why.

Posted by: kfjfj at March 16, 2007 03:20 PM | PERMALINK

How is eliminating basic American freedoms not "reactive"? How is secretly eavesdropping on millions of private conversations between American citizens consistent with freedom? If you wreck the bargain the American people have with their government, what's left to protect?

At some point the country isn't worth defending anymore. Think about that.

Posted by: jacflash at March 16, 2007 05:56 PM | PERMALINK

Uh, "kfjfj", no one is arguing that we "bury our heads in the sand." In fact, Islamic fundamentalism is a threat to our country; the debate isn't over whether to do anything, but what to do. We have responded to 9/11; no one argued we shouldn't. The debate is over what the response should be. I don't believe that this administration's response to 9/11 (both domestic and foreign) is appropriate to the threat. I have argued this in multiple posts.

Offer a cogent defense of this foreign or domestic policy, and we might have a debate. As it is, you are just blowing smoke.

Posted by: baltar at March 17, 2007 12:01 AM | PERMALINK

well i wrote a post but it didnt get posted, this was like two days ago. pitty because it would have blown away jac flash's bit about "after a while there's nothing left to defend". lol and i guess part of question is when you think that point has been reached. i giess i just dont think the sky is falling. isnt it funny how there are scare mongers on both sides?? funny but not surprising. baltar you say i'm blowing smoke? and you are...?

Posted by: tww at March 18, 2007 04:35 PM | PERMALINK

well you are being exceedingly vague - and not giving us any details whatsoever about what would have "blown away" jacflash.

sorry if something you wrote got deleted. we get a mountain of spam and every so often "real" comments get deleted as we clean it out - including a few that we write ourselves.

Posted by: Armand at March 18, 2007 04:43 PM | PERMALINK

pitty because it would have blown away jac flash's bit about "after a while there's nothing left to defend".

Gosh, I had an imaginary deleted comment that blew away your blowing, too. Funny coincidence, that. You think maybe it's a communist plot?

Posted by: jacflash at March 18, 2007 05:51 PM | PERMALINK

Well, bloody hell, "tww", just rewrite the post. I'm sorry if something got deleted; we make mistakes. I'll be delighted to be shown to be wrong. I might learn something.

Posted by: baltar at March 18, 2007 09:25 PM | PERMALINK


Helpful hint: using a series of constantly changing spameriffic "names" is a surefire way to get caught by the spam killer.


Posted by: binky at March 18, 2007 09:41 PM | PERMALINK

That lefty rag, the Wall Street Journal, has a brief post about how just since the eruption of scandal Gonzalez filled the long empty public integrity positions.

Posted by: binky at March 18, 2007 11:58 PM | PERMALINK

Now Binky, don't frighten the troll away. We haven't had a good fight around here in quite a while (Morris - come back!).

Logic and evidence tend to discourage them; save that for later. This is the "useless slogans" section of the fight.

(Of course, it is par for the course that Gonzalez hasn't filled those posts; public integrity ranks far down the scale in this administration.)

Posted by: baltar at March 19, 2007 12:11 AM | PERMALINK

Oopsie! Mess with big pharma, get put on the "to be fired" list.

Posted by: binky at August 1, 2007 11:35 AM | PERMALINK
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