Resigning. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales . . .

by: Betsy L. Angert

Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 08:00:00 AM EDT

Eight United States prosecutors were fired.  The reasons for their release seemed suspicious.  The tales, statements of purpose,  the specifics are forever changing.  There is reason for concern.

Seven U.S. attorneys were fired on Dec. 7, and another was let go months earlier, with little explanation from Justice Department officials, who later told Congress that the dismissals were related to their performance in office. Several former prosecutors have since alleged intimidation, including improper telephone calls from GOP lawmakers or their aides, and have alleged threats of retaliation by a Justice Department official.

"better off" if he resigned.

"There is very little credibility in the Justice Department right now," Biden said.  He cited what he said were abuses of power dating to Gonzales' tenure as White House counsel in which he advocated aggressive interrogations of suspected terrorists that pushed the boundaries of the law.

"I think Gonzales has lost the confidence of the vast majority of the American people," he said. "I think he's lost the confidence of the Congress."

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the committee, said Gonzales' resignation was a "question for the president and the attorney general."

"I do think there have been lots of problems," said Specter, who last week suggested that a Gonzales tenure may have run its course. "Before we come to conclusions, I think we need to know more facts."

Mr. Gonzales, who worked as Mr. Bush's legal counsel in Texas and has been propelled since then to ever more prominent positions by the president, is a close friend of Mr. Bush, enjoying movie nights at the White House and visits to Camp David.

Admittedly, "Mistakes were made."  However, high officials did not make them, or perhaps they did.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales took responsibility yesterday for "mistakes" related to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year but rejected calls for his resignation from Democrats who accuse him of misleading Congress.

"I acknowledge that mistakes were made here.  I accept that responsibility," Gonzales said. He said he did not know the details of the plan to fire the prosecutors, but he defended the dismissals: "I stand by the decision, and I think it was a right decision."

The remarks came after the Justice Department released e-mails and other documents showing that, despite months of administration statements to the contrary, the White House more than two years ago initiated the process that led to the dismissals, and that the decisions were heavily influenced by assessments of the prosecutors' political loyalty.  President Bush and senior White House adviser Karl Rove also separately passed along complaints to Gonzales that prosecutors were not aggressively pursuing voter-fraud cases, officials said.

In defending themselves yesterday, Gonzales and the White House implicitly laid much of the blame for miscommunication with Congress on D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned Monday as Gonzales's chief of staff as the result of not telling other Justice officials about his extensive communications with the White House about the dismissals.

Gonzales, likening himself to a chief executive who delegates responsibility to others, said he knew few details about how Sampson was orchestrating the prosecutors' removal.

"I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on," he said. "That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

Gonzales said he accepted Sampson's resignation because, by withholding information from other Justice officials, he led them to provide "incomplete information" in testimony to Congress.  Gonzales did not comment on his own testimony in January, when he assured senators that he would never fire a U.S. attorney for political reasons.

The administration, which has offered varying explanations for the dismissals over the past three months, also returned to arguments yesterday that the U.S. attorneys were dismissed for performance-related reasons and that the removals were well within presidential prerogatives. Bartlett said it is "highly unlikely" that the administration would allow Rove or Miers to testify before Congress.

The Justice e-mails and internal documents, which were first reported yesterday by The Washington Post, show that political loyalty and positions on signature GOP policy issues loomed large in weighing whether a prosecutor should be dismissed. One e-mail from Sampson, for example, notes that the appointment of Griffin in Little Rock "was important to Harriet, Karl, etc."

The documents also illustrate that after nearly two years of debate, the dismissal of the seven prosecutors in December was carried out under a plan by Sampson that provided step-by-step guidance on how the prosecutors would be fired, who would be notified and how to deal with criticism.  One section of the plan was titled "Preparing for Political Upheaval."

The first Democrat to call for Gonzales to resign, said the latest revelations show a "breach of trust." He said Sampson's departure increased the pressure on Gonzales to do the same.

"In fact, it raises the temperature.  Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the fall guy," Schumer said, referring to the former vice presidential aide recently convicted of perjury.

McGovern: Cheney must go
Says Libby's conviction points to vice president's involvement in CIA leak
By John Nichols
The Capitol Times

George McGovern has a word for Vice President Dick Cheney: "Resign."

Responding to Tuesday's conviction of Cheney's former chief-of-staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI - after a trial that revealed Cheney's intimate involvement with a scheme to discredit a critic of the administration's war policies - the former congressman, senator and presidential candidate said it was time for the vice president to go.

"What we have learned about how he has conducted himself leaves no doubt that he should be out of office," McGovern says of Cheney. "If he had any respect for the Constitution or the country, he would resign."

And if Cheney does not take the liberal Democrat's counsel?

"There is no question in my mind that Cheney has committed impeachable offenses.  So has George Bush," argues McGovern.  "Bush is much more impeachable than Richard Nixon was.  That's been clear for some time.  There does not seem to be much sentiment for impeachment in Congress now, but around the country people are fed up with this administration."

Some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Gonzales.  Senators John Sununu, Susan Collins [Maine], Norm Coleman [Minnesota] and Gordon Smith [Oregon], are all questioning the judgment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  Nevertheless, the President of the United States remains steadfast in his support of the man that serves at his pleasure, or did.  This most recent event might shake a White House that continues to stand against all rights or reason.

Bush on Wednesday defended the firings but criticized how they were explained to Congress. The president said he still had confidence in the attorney general but implied that his support was conditioned on Gonzales patching things up with lawmakers.

Please peruse the propaganda and particulars . . .