Tag: Alberto Gonzales (page 4)

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Marcy Wheeler live-blogged it over at Firedoglake.

The MSM is reporting on Comey's testimony regarding Alberto Gonzales' and Andrew Cards' 2004 hospital visit to former Attorney General John Ashcroft to get him to sign off on an extension of Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program.

I covered that extensively here and here in January, 2006, including reporting from the New York Times and Newsweek.

Think Progress has the transcript of today's Comey testimony.

Did Comey add anything today to the story that wasn't previously known? Is it really as shocking as Charles Schumer makes it sound? Or should Schumer have done something about it back in 2006 when the story was widely reported and we were all complaining about it?

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan granted the House Judiciary Committee's request for immunity for Monica Goodling so she can be forced to testify at an upcoming hearing. I've uploaded the immunity application and order (pdf.)

The New York Times adds a new name to the mix:

Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

The Times also reports details of the questions Goodling asked applicants, including whether they ever committed adultery:

Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

More....

Are you ready for another U.S. attorney scandal? We haven't talked about Bradley Schlozman, but this NY Times editorial tells the story:

From the facts available, it looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schlozman [as US Attorney in Missouri] was to help Republicans win a pivotal Missouri Senate race.

Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, was facing a strong challenge from Claire McCaskill last year when the United States attorney, Todd Graves, resigned suddenly. Mr. Graves suspects that he may have been pushed out in part because he refused to support a baseless lawsuit against the state of Missouri that could have led to voters’ being wrongly removed from the rolls.

Schlozman had no reservations about interfering with the election.

Days before the election, he announced indictments of four people who were registering voters for the liberal group Acorn on charges of submitting false registration forms.

What were Schlozman's qualifications?

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It's official. The Justice Department will allow the House Judiciary Committee to offer limited immunity to Monica Goodling for her testimony about the U.S. Attorney firings and Alberto Gonzales' role in them.

The move means that Goodling is likely to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee on a broad range of questions about the firings that she helped coordinate, including the extent of involvement by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and the White House, officials said.

I'm not sure what the "limited" qualifier means in this case. According to the letter sent by DOJ, it sounds like they are agreeing to whatever immunity the House asks for.

The Judge is expected to grant the request Friday.

Update: Another name to add to the mix: Jay Apperson. The line that caught my eye:

When he was counsel to a House subcommittee in 2005, Jay Apperson resigned after writing a letter to a federal judge in his boss's name, demanding a tougher sentence for a drug courier. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia in the 1990s, he infuriated fellow prosecutors when he facetiously suggested a White History Month to complement Black History Month.

Update: Think Progress has Sen. Patrick Leahy's response to Murray's disclosure.

*****

Murray Waas breaks new ground in the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, by unconvering a secret, March 2006 order signed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broadly delegating hiring and firing of non-civil service Justice Department officials, including high-level staff at the Criminal Division, to his then Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and to Monica Goodling who became his White House liason a month after the order was signed.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

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It's Friday afternoon and time for a new document dump over at the House Judiciary Committee which is investigating the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

The documents are here.

Another group were released yesterday, available here.

TPM readers will be analyzing them in the comments here.

Christy at Firedoglake discusses James Comey's upcoming testimony before the Committee next Thursday. He was No. 2 at DOJ.

Think Progress reports that the House Judiciary Committee has voted to grant Monica Goodling immunity for her testimony about the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

On MSNBC yesterday, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, in addition to saying he filed a Complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales (and Goodling) for violating the Hatch Act,

It’s is something I filed back on April 3 of this year…based on, you know, Special Counsel having powers to investigate where evidence goes. I actually filed a Hatch Act complaint against Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and Goodling and they’re already getting documents from the Justice Department and possibly from the White House. […]

...I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom. I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and have her describe the process between the information flow between the White House counsel, White House and the Justice Department, I believe the picture becomes a lot clearer.

As to Rove,

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Conservative and liberal bloggers alike are predicting a downfall for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

If you missed today's hearing, and don't have the time to watch it, here's the full transcript.

And this from the New York Times news article (not editorial) on the hearing:

In more than five hours of often-combative testimony, Mr. Gonzales, who sat grim-faced, clasping his hands and hunched over, struggled to offer a coherent explanation for the dismissals. He apologized for his mistakes in what he described as a flawed process, but defended the removal of eight United States attorneys as proper.

I'm not as charged up about this as most people. What will change with Gonzales gone? Bush will appoint another one of his loyal faves to replace him. The war on drugs, war on civil liberties and trend towards draconian sentences will continue. Say what you want about Gonzales, he's nowhere near the threat to constitutional rights that John Ashcroft was. He's continued Ashcroft's policies, but he seems to be more of a follower than a take-charge innovator of new ways to deprive people of their freedom.

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Via Think Progress: Former President Bill Clinton said on Larry King Live tonight that Alberto Gonzales should resign.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing "starring" beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, begins this morning. Watch it on C-Span3 and CNN (for now), or, on line here.

Give us your thoughts on the hearings.

Via Kevin Drum, "Liberal" intern applicants summarily rejected by Gonzo Justice Dept.:

After choosing potential candidates to interview, the division personnel forwarded their lists to the Office of Attorney Recruitment Management for what was traditionally final approval. This is no longer a final step, however, because the list had to go higher — to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. When the list of potential interviewees was returned this year, it had been cut dramatically. ....When division personnel staff later compared the remaining interviewees with the candidates struck from the list, one common denominator appeared repeatedly: most of those struck from the list had interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a "liberal" cause, or otherwise appeared to have "liberal" leanings. Summa cum laude graduates of both Yale and Harvard were rejected for interviews.

But Gonzales tells us that the Justice Department does not make decisions based on political considerations. As usual with Gonzo, the exact opposite of what he says appears to be the truth.

Via Josh Marshall, McClatchy reports:

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

And Attorney General Gonzales says his department does not based policies on politics. Riiiiight.