Gonzales Goes But Investigation Must Continue
Facing the prospect of increasingly aggressive congressional inquiries into his politicization of the Department of Justice, as well as an energetic House push for his impeachment, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced that he will resign effective September 17.
Gonzales, the former White House counsel who made clear during his two-and-a-half-year tenure as the nation’s top cop that he served President Bush rather than the Constitution, is announcing his exit strategy just days before the Congress returns from a summer break during which senators and representatives had gotten an earful about the need to get rid of Gonzales.
A proposal by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee, a respected former prosecutor, to have the House Judiciary Committee investigate whether Gonzales should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, attracted 27 cosponsors during the current recess and would have drawn many more with the return of the House in early September.
The Attorney General was ripe for impeachment because of a rapidly broadening recognition that he had displayed a blatant disregard for the law since his arrival in Washington in 2001 at the side of his longtime friend and political benefactor George Bush.
Gonzales, whose signature line was a declaration that he served “at the pleasure of the president,” made it his business as White House counsel and attorney general to do just that.
As counsel from 2001 to 2005, Gonzales blocked requests from the General Accounting Office for information about Enron officials meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force. He refused requests from congressional committees for information that the House and Senate had a right — and a need. He made the legal case for torture, despite the fact that the Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment. He outlined schemes for subverting the judicial system and its rules by making terror suspects eligible for military tribunals. He helped convince Bush to refuse to afford prisoners held at Guantanamo the basic protections afforded prisoner-of-war under treaties the United States had accepted as the law of the land.
As the nation’s 80th Attorney General — a position he took in February, 2005, after the Senate vote 60-36 to confirm his nomination — Gonzales extended his representation of Bush into should be an independent federal agency. He defended the president’s authorization of an illegal warrantless wiretapping program. He accepted the “extraordinary rendition” of suspects from U.S. custody to that of torture regimes. And he turned the Department of Justice into an extension of Karl Rove’s White House political shop.
Revelations about the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys who were seen by the administration as insufficiently political in their investigations and prosecutions opened up an investigation that has begun to confirm a broad scheme to politicize the Justice Department’s work in the area of voting rights — a scheme apparently designed by Rove to suppress turnout by minorities and others who might vote Democratic.
The investigation into those machinations has hit the administration hard — so hard that the president is now jettisoning his oldest and closest aides in order to prevent the inquiry from evolving into a serious examination of his own lawlessness.
Today’s exit announcement by Gonzales comes just days after Rove signaled his plan to go.
The important thing now is to make sure that the administration does not succeed in using high-profile departures to shut down — or, at the very least, to diminish the seriousness and the extent of — those inquiries.
When Rove announced the he was leaving, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, made it clear that the political aide remained a target of broad inquiries by the judiciary committees of the House and Senate.
“Mr. Rove acted as if he was above the law. That is wrong, Leahy said at the time. “Now that he is leaving the White House while under subpoena, I continue to ask what Mr. Rove and others at the White House are so desperate to hide. Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue.”
Referencing the growing sense that the inquiry into wrongdoing in and around the Justice Department could yet be the undoing of the Bush-Cheney administration, Leahy added, “The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list. There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelopes Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.”
The “list” referenced by Leahy gets longer with the news that Gonzales is going.
But the essential question with regard to Gonzales remains the same as the question that Leahy laid down when Rove said he would go: What are these people so desperate to hide?
The answer is that, just as Gonzales and Rove served Bush rather than the Constitution, they now seek with their resignations to protect Bush — and Vice President Cheney — from investigations that are necessary to any serious effort to restore the primacy of the founding document in the affairs of the nation.
Only a continued inquiry into the lawlessness of the soon-to-be-former Attorney General will achieve what is the essential purpose of this Congress: the restoring of the rule of law to a country deeply damaged by petty little men who chose personal loyalties and political expediency over their duty to the Republic.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’”
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
Bet it won’t.
The rats are jumping off a sinking ship.
Not to worry, the Democrats will keep it afloat. Since they dance for the same He-who-calls-the-tune that the Republicans essentially serve, the Democratic tw-step will just eliminate the kick and add a spin.
September 17th… so, three weeks to clear his desk, feed the shredder, wipe the disk, etc.
So can we now expect Attorney General Harriet Myers? Or Oliver North?
I just hope “Out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t become the new position the Congress & American public take. These enemies of the Constitution, within & even running away from this administration, still need to be held accountable for their actions & damage done.
If someone robs a 7-11 they can’t just tell the police, “Well it’s ok, because I’m just going to go home now”, right?
Militantliberal wonders, “So can we now expect Attorney General Harriet Myers? Or Oliver North?” Try Chertoff.
Hope Gonzales leaves the shredder behind when he leaves. That way Chertoff (with the votes of the “going along to get along” Democrats) will be able to finish shredding what’s left of the Constitution.
America’s chief law enforcement officer? Ha! What a joke!
Here’s my suggestion for Attorney General: Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Or perhaps Marjorie Cohn, President of the Lawyer’s Guild.
When pigs fly.
Oh, the Democrats may well keep up the charade of investigative committees, if only to showcase their performance skills. I noticed during the “Fitzmas” frenzy that for some strange reason, even progressives are readily enthralled by politicians or prosecutors who imply that they are Saint George, ready and willing to slay the dragon.
But the dragon always leaves unscathed, usually to write a “best-seller” and reappear on teevee. I expect, as usual, that the Democrats will stop short of aggressively, not to say ruthlessly, pursuing the known and unknown irregularities (crimes) in which Gonzalez and his cronies are involved. After all, as they are always quick to protest, We the People want bipartisan cooperation, not wars of attrition.
Despite scientific evidence possibly to the contrary, I feel strongly certain that, “special interrogation techniques”, applied to both Rove and Gonzales would quickly yield high value intelligence critically important and vital for America’s continuing national security.
Gonzales quit to avoid being impeached which the president cannot pardon and which would prevent him ever again “serving” as an appointed officer for the United States. Also, with congress in recess, Bush can make recess appointment(s) regardless of what he may have promised Harry Reid.
Democrats/Republicans = either side of the plutocrat’s coin. Dem candidates have been chosen. They are ALL Republican Lite. Progressive Dems have no chance. They only serve to keep us in the DLC’s clutches. The Green Party, the largest, international and fastest growing progressive party is our our chance to win!
How about Rove or Chernoff or Giulani as successors?
Some of you who don’t like the democrats don’t give them credit for anything. If the democrats hsdn’t been in the majority and stared the investigation of Gonzales he would have stayed until 2009 corrupting the office of the AG as usual so give credit where credit is due.We must give the democrats a bigger majority in 2009 and replace Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid they are what’s wrong with the democrats.
abbybwood
2 million lawyers and these two !!!!!
The conservatives are going to look for someone from the south. Liberty university law school’s dean is more likely than these two.
Gonzo will walk without a scratch, maybe a medal or two, the standard loyalbushie book deal, and, of course, a multi-million dollar lobbyscum job.
Once again, the bank robber gets away with the loot, hides on our front porch, and flip us the bird every time we walk past.
“Some of you who don’t like the democrats don’t give them credit for anything. If the democrats hsdn’t been in the majority and stared the investigation of Gonzales he would have stayed until 2009 corrupting the office of the AG as usual so give credit where credit is due”
Absolutely — but they wouldn’t have achieved it without the vigorous & vehement opposition to the war. And as an email from my local representative in Congress showed, they’re using the congressional investigations as a way of avoiding impeaching Bush & ending the war.
The Repuklicans achieve power by shamelss audacity, and the only way to drive them out & drown them in the bathtub is by audacity backed by principle & even by fanaticism.
As for the Gonzales trick, this is a way of getting the Solicitor General, to whom Sen. Leahy was addressing the appeal for further investigation, into the position of Atty General, and he’ll say, “Well, I can’t use the powers of this office to investigate my immediate predecessor, can I?” He’s also described in the MSM as an “affable conservative”, which means he’s out to fook us all & they’ve been ordered to lubricate the orifice . . .
Impeachment hearings must start now!!! All of these war criminals are resigning for a reason. There must be accountability to restore our republic. Gonzo was just used as a tool to push all of these constitution destroying legislations. We need an AG who will uphold the law and defend the constitution and not be a coverup artist for bush and his minions. RON PAUL is our only hope !!!!
Clyde Paige, I agree.
Sadly, I’m not going to hold out much hope that we’ll ever get to the bottom of the Bush administrations wrong doing. I hope we do, but at this point would be surprised.
I just read a bizarre story saying that an officer in Bush’s motorcade crashed and died in New Mexico (it’s the second time this happened) when Bush was on his way to the airport from a fundraiser for Senator Pete Dominici. Now, Dominici’s name has come up again and again for having pressured the New Mexico US Attorney David Inglesias to speed up an investigation into Democrats so that the news would spread before the November 2006 election. It also has come up that Domenici let it be known to Gonzalez? Rove? (we still have no answers), that Inglesias should be fired, and so he was, placing him at the center of the US Attorney firing scandal.
Now, why the HELL has the question of investigating Domenici NEVER even been raised, as far as I know? It’s clearly business as usual, and I’m sure Bush is more than happy to help him out with raising funds. Does anyone know about this? Anyone out there from New Mexico?
It’s the same question someone on the commondreams blog asked a few weeks ago about the Libby/Plame afffair…why the HELL was there no punishment for the guy who actually leaked Plame’s name to the press, Richard Armitage, venerable underling to Colin Powell?
There are so many unpunished crimes.
And hey, while I’m at it, what about the anthrax investigation???? Isn’t it about time the FBI wrapped that up?
Gonzales is small potatoes compared to the US ruling elite and their top lackies. Like a good little Nazi, Gonzales was just following orders and obediently covering up for his superiors - who in his own words, made his “dreams come true”.
Since the US instigated invasion of Iraq over 800,000 Iraqis have died, over a million murdered - and we should worry about maybe a dozen or so American lawyers who were unjustly fired or a spy’s cover being blown? Hello??!! Is anyone there??!!
The USA’s political system is rotten to the core. It kills, cripples, and tortures more people BY FAR than any other world power. It struts around on the world stage like a bully on crack and steroids. It’s a menace to the human race and must be DISARMED.
It’s a matter of priorities. Do we go for those darn squirrels that are eating the bird food, or do we go for the packs of rabid dogs that are killing thousands of children?
It is my belief that the Plame outing and the attorney firings both lead back to the Big Turdblossom himself, Karl Rove. I would love to see Karl Rove for once in his life being held fully accountable for his dirty tactics. He richly deserves that perp frog walk in chains.
I remember Al Franken back in 2000 saying the Republicans were like a pack of pit bulls under Rove while the Democrats were like family old hound dogs on the couch licking themselves. In 2004, the Democrats seized defeat from the jaws of victory. And now I am getting extremely impatient with the Democrat leadership. This is a case where you need a pack of pit bulls closing in for the kill. And the Democrats still seem to be the family hound dogs.
I pretty much agree with all of the above. If my NEW congressman does not do his sworn job, AND investigations do not lead to criminal charges (impeachment), then you can bet that these “young neos” WILL be back in power later in life. Also, I’ll do everything to replace the DO NOTHING during the next election.
I just woke up from a nightmare.
Rove and Gonzalez as co-praetors(proconsuls a la Bremer) of Iran after our upcoming ’shock and awe’ pre-emptive strikes cripple the country’s infrastructure.