Mr. Gonzales' woes
First published: Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Editorial
Times Union
If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales thought he had dodged a bullet
recently when Senate Republicans blocked a no-confidence vote, he
surely has a different view today. Not only has the Senate Judiciary
Committee subpoenaed two White House aides in an ongoing
investigation into the firing of eight federal prosecutors, but Mr.
Gonzales is also under investigation by his own Justice Department
for possibly trying to influence the testimony about the firings by a
former subordinate, Monica Goodling.
All well and good, and overdue. Yet there is more to be done. The
Senate Judiciary Committee has to keep its focus on an even larger
issue -- namely, how Mr. Gonzales tried to get former Attorney
General John Ashcroft to authorize illegal eavesdropping on America's
e-mails and telephone calls to people outside the U.S.
It is crucial to find out if Mr. Gonzales was involved in illegal
eavesdropping. But to get at the truth of that matter, the committee
might well have to go far beyond subpoenaing former White House
counsel Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, former White House political
director, who are being asked to tell what they know about the
prosecutor firings. In the spying case, the committee might have to
subpoena Karl Rove, President Bush's top political strategist, and
even Vice President Cheney. The senators should not shrink from that
responsibility.
In recent testimony before the committee, James Comey, a former
deputy attorney general, recounted how Mr. Gonzales, who was then
White House counsel, and Andrew Card, then White House chief of
staff, had gone to the bedside of former Attorney General John
Ashcroft in an attempt to get his approval for the National Security
Agency to spy on Americans' phone calls and e-mails without having to
secure a legally required court warrant. Mr. Ashcroft refused, and so
did Mr. Comey.
The story was even more compelling because of Mr. Comey's revelation
that 10 Justice Department officials, including FBI Director Robert
Mueller, were prepared to resign if the warrantless spying were
authorized.
More recently, Mr. Comey has provided an answer, in response to
written questions from the committee, that points directly at Vice
President Cheney. According to Mr. Comey, Mr. Cheney urged the
wiretaps during a high-level White House meeting on March 9, 2004,
the day before Mr. Ashcroft was approached in the hospital. Mr.
Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their
objections to the warrantless surveillance, Mr. Comey said. Later,
the vice president's office blocked the promotion of one of the
Justice Department officials who raised objections, a lawyer named
Patrick Philbin.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer says that Mr. Comey's responses confirm
"what we suspected for a while -- that White House hands guided
Justice Department business. The vice president's fingerprints are
all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the
obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?"
And exactly what role did Mr. Gonzales play?
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=599083&category=OPI
NION&BCCode=&newsdate=6/19/2007
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get real. like jesus would ever own a gun or vote republican.
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