When the chips are down ...

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is being sued by a group of law students over the Justice Department hiring practices at the time he oversaw it. The matter at the core of the suit was the Department's rejection of a number of Ivy league-educated law school graduates who applied for positions within the Department largely on the grounds of their apparent political leanings rather than for any reason related to actual qualifications.

Instead, a number of applicants were chosen from 3rd and 4th-tier law schools largely on the basis of their conservative politics rather than their knowledge of the law.

Normally such a case would be defended by the Justice Department's civil division, and even though Gonzales is no longer a Federal employee it would be entirely appropriate for the division to represent him, given he is being sued for actions taken while he was head of the Department. However, instead Gonzales has asked for private counsel, and Justice has agreed to foot the bill, at up to $24,000 a month.

So I guess all those lawyers with proper political backgrounds are great for hiring when you are busy illegally politicizing the Justice Department, but when it comes time to actually be brought to court over the affair one wants those hoity-toity well-educated lawyers to handle your defense.

The beat goes on ...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is testifying before Congress again. One wonders why. He continues to apparently have no knowledge whatsoever about how his office works. When asked outright how many attorneys he had fired he claimed not to know. He doesn't know, his aides all don't know, no one knows.

Apparently, some magical list * poofed * into existence on his desk with a series of names of people to be fired, and Gonzales simply signed the list without questioning it ... because, you know, it's not like attorneys to be skeptical or ask questions of anything. One assumes the mystical appearance of the list suddenly appearing in front of him convinced him of it's divine provenance, or something like that. Who was he to question God (or President Bush -- apparently members of the current administration often conflate the two).

Gonzales claimed he hadn't made the now infamous hospital-room trip to visit John Ashcroft in order to get Ashcroft to overturn his deputy's decision vis-a-vis the warrentless surveillance program not having sufficient legal authority. Shortly after, he was forced to admit he did take a reauthorization order with him on his little foray. What, he just took that along as some bed time reading? That's a close an admission of lying to Congress as one is likely to get.

Senator Patrick Leahy has flat out told Gonzales "I don't trust you." Other Senators have followed in the same vein. Senator Herb Kohl asked why Gonzales should be kept on, which Gonzales admitted "That's a very good question, Senator", before going on to give a not very good response.

Same game, second round. Gonzales knows nothing, hears nothing, does nothing, yet somehow expects people to have confidence in his ability to repair the credibility and morale issues within the department. Why not? It's the same tack the administration is taking on Iraq: "Sure, we've botched everything horribly, we lied about our motivations for invading in the first place, we've repeatedly been completely wrong on our predictions for how things would work out, but trust us - this time we really are on the road to stability there." A decade from now, these folks would still be asking for "six more months", and blaming "defeatist liberal attitudes" for the ongoing lack of progress.

The House judiciary committee will move forward with pressing contempt charges against Harriett Miers and Joshua Bolton tomorrow. It's a complete waste of time -- the word is already out on the street any statutory contempt case won't be prosecuted by the US Attorney's office. That's the same US Attorney's office presided over by the oh-so-incompetent Alberto Gonzales. If there is one thing we can trust him on, it's that the office certainly won't do anything to support a Congressional investigation into possible wrong-doings within ... well ... within itself. Still, I guess formalities must be preserved. I don't believe there has been an inherent contempt case tried within Congress since the 1930's, I am looking forward to witnessing a small piece of history.

While Gonzales and the administration are doing their best to be obstructionist, Republicans in Congress don't want to get left out of the fun. Remember all those complaints they had about Democratic filibusters? Remember the nuclear option? Apparently they feel no need to lead by example. McClatchy Newspapers had an article last week highlighting just how out-of-hand things have become.

While the number of filibusters has definitely been on a general upward rise, the current group of Republicans is on pace shatter the old record of 58 in a two-year session. With 42 cloture votes so far (that's nearly 1/6 of all Senate votes, according to the article, if the pace were maintained it would lead to 153 over the course of the term.

Of course, that isn't enough ... when legislation does get passed, such as an ethics bill which garnered a 97-2 majority, things get held up ... either it's our own Senator Jon Kyl placing a secret hold, or it's delays in naming members to a committee negotiating differences with the House. It's the best of all worlds! All those Republican Senators can claim they voted for the ethics bill without, you know, actually having to take a chance on those tighter standards actually being applied.

It's just part of the "game" now. Filibuster everything, hold stuff that you don't think can be safely filibustered, and then claim Democrats aren't getting anything done. Meanwhile, smile and discuss the need for "more bipartisanship".

Just another day in D.C.

Attorney Firing Catch-22

The President yesterday claimed executive privilege in suggesting former staffers Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor should not testify before Congress regarding the basis for deciding which attorneys were let go from the Attorney General's office last fall.

Bush places himself in an interesting position with the claim. While the privilege certainly exists, it's not an expressed right of the Executive branch, and thus may be denied under certain circumstances. Generally, court cases have found that the "closer" one is to the President, the stronger the privilege is. Cases have also determined that direct communication with the President merits stronger protection than communications with other staffers. Attempts to apply executive privilege claims to such communications have lost in court several times in the past -- something which this administration surely knows.

Sooo ... either Bush is simply throwing roadblocks in the way, knowing he has a losing case but intentionally trying to slow things down (and hey, maybe a court will rule his way against precedent), or he plans to assert the "stronger" form of executive privilege, in which case he will have to confess he was, to some degree, involved in the entire sordid affair to a degree he has so far denied.

In other words, he's either a liar or intentionally obstructing a legal investigation. If I had to guess it's the latter, done in an attempt to keep Alberto Gonzales from even more embarrassing disclosures. Neither is good, though.

Various blogs are reporting Taylor will appear before Congress tomorrow anyway, despite the President's assertion. As she is now a private citizen, it doesn't look like there is anyway for the administration to prevent her testimony, should she choose to give it. It remains to be seen if she does much more than assert her 5th Amendment rights on any of the more interesting questions.

"Heck of a job, Albie!"

Somehow, Alberto Gonzales retains his job.

It's worth bringing up again, in light of James Comey's breath-taking testimony last week, and with Monica Goodling scheduled to testify before the Senate tomorrow ... how exactly does this man continue to hold a high position in government?

Gonzales has, in the last few months, either lied under oath in his testimony before Congress or shown himself to be completely incapable of fulfilling the job requirements of the position he holds. There is no third alternative. Now we have Comey testifying that, while serving as Presidential counselor, Gonzales attempted to induce then US Attorney General John Ashcroft (Gonzales' predecessor), who was recovering from gall-bladder surgery and still in a drugged state in ICU, to reauthorize a wiretapping program (which involved wiretapping of US citizens) which Comey, acting as AG while Ashcroft was recovering, had previously refused to sign off on. Is this the ethical standard we are willing to accept from the top-ranking lawyer in our government?

By the way, a "scaled-back" version of that wire-tapping program was subsequently declared Unconstitutional in a US District Court. The administration is currently appealing the decision.

It will be interesting to hear what Goodling has to say tomorrow. Apparently, whatever it is, she thought it might open her to criminal prosecution ... but it's going to be tough for her to top Comey's revelations.

Walking a tightrope

U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales will testify before Congress today about the prosecutor purge, after a two-day delay caused by the horrifying events at Virginia Tech.

Gonzales unquestionably would have preferred to testify on Tuesday rather than have proceedings delayed for the reason they were. Still, he may have needed the extra time, as accounts from last week indicated the pre-testimony practice sessions were not going well.

Gonzales has a difficult task. Virtually everything he has said previously about the affair has been shown to be false, or at least been challenged, by the testimony of others (most notably, his former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson), or by emails and other documents which have since been submitted to the investigating committee.

Two of his top aides, Sampson and Monica Goodling, who served as the department's chief liaison with the White House, have resigned over the affair. Goodling has refused to testify before Congress, pleading her 5th Amendment rights.

Somehow, Gonzales will have to navigate between admitting to lying to Congress about his role in the matter without relying on a defense that would indicate he was so far out of the loop as to be incompetent, while at the same time presenting reasons for firing the prosecutors which are reasonable and sufficient to quiet the speculation they were let go purely for political reasons.

I'm very surprised things have come this far. I honestly thought Gonzales would have resigned before this, particularly with an increasing number of Republicans calling for him to step down. Unless Gonzales miraculously manages the difficult task before him (and, really, how has his handling of the affair done anything to inspire confidence that he is up to the challenge) I don't see how this can possibly end well for either himself or the White House. As a long time personal friend of our President, I expected Gonzales to fall on his sword before this.

It's a very fine line he has to walk ... should he navigate it safely, he might consider changing his name to Wallenda.

Update: The morning testimony, from what I have seen (not watching live, just picking up running commentary and a few clips of CSPAN coverage) has not been good for Gonzales. Fairly early in the proceedings Sen. Feinstein forced him to admit he made the decision to fire the prosecutors (a decision he originally denied making in his testimony last month), purportedly for "performance reasons", without first looking at their performance evaluations. Things haven't notably improved.

TPM Muckracker has running commentary with related video clips.

Update 2: Things haven't gone any better for Gonzales in the afternoon. Apparently CNN had a TV spot in which they mentioned some of the comments from White House staffers viewing the testimony. These included (via Atrios):

* "Going down in flames."
* "Not doing himself any favors."
* "Watching clubbing a baby seal." (watching testimony)
* "Very troubling."
* "Don't understand that tactic Gonzales used."

At least one other Republican Senator, Tom Coburn, openly called for Gonzales to resign during his allotted questioning time.