Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales
Senators Say Attorney General Fired Prosecutors Without Explanation
By Paul Kane and Dan Eggen
Washington Post
Senior Senate Republicans today delivered scathing criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales for his handling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, joining Democrats in charging that the prosecutors were dismissed without adequate explanation.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that Gonzales's status as the nation's leading law enforcement officer might not last through the remainder of President Bush's term, pointedly disputing the attorney general's public rationale for the mass firings.
"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said at a committee hearing where a new round of subpoenas to the Justice Department was considered.
After the meeting, Specter declined to elaborate on that remark, but told reporters that most of the blame for the ongoing controversy rests with the attorney general. "It's snowballing, mostly with the help of the Department of Justice," he said.
(Continued here.)
By Paul Kane and Dan Eggen
Washington Post
Senior Senate Republicans today delivered scathing criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales for his handling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, joining Democrats in charging that the prosecutors were dismissed without adequate explanation.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that Gonzales's status as the nation's leading law enforcement officer might not last through the remainder of President Bush's term, pointedly disputing the attorney general's public rationale for the mass firings.
"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said at a committee hearing where a new round of subpoenas to the Justice Department was considered.
After the meeting, Specter declined to elaborate on that remark, but told reporters that most of the blame for the ongoing controversy rests with the attorney general. "It's snowballing, mostly with the help of the Department of Justice," he said.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
1. When I read in the Strib that Norm Coleman is breaking out of his "Rove Protective Bubble" and voting more "Mainstream Minnesota", I only wish he had a tenth of the backbone that Arlen Specter has exhibited. Specter stood up to the Religious Right who wanted to strip him of his Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. Specter challenged the AG on wiretapping (OK, he backed down from how far he should have gone but at least he didn't "round-file-it" like Sen. Roberts did with his Committees review of prewar intelligence.) And Specter wants to amend the legislation that prohibits the right to habeas corpus.
For more of how Specter could be Coleman's role model, read my commentary
http://minnesotacentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/senator-coleman-needs-to-follow-sen.html
2. Today's must read is Paul Krugman's NYT column entitled "Department of Injustice." Some of the key points are :
"The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny."
[SNIP]
"Fortunately, Mr. Rove’s smear-and-fear tactics fell short last November. I say fortunately, because without Democrats in control of Congress, able to hold hearings and issue subpoenas, the prosecutor purge would probably have become yet another suppressed Bush-era scandal — a huge abuse of power that somehow never became front-page news."
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