There isn’t any other way to paint this picture. Additional emails released last night show that Gonzales was very involved in the decision to fire several US attorneys for political reasons, in direct opposition to his testimony before Congress on this point, and to his prior public statements (via TPMmuckraker):
Internal Bush administration e-mails suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have played a bigger role than he has acknowledged in the plan to fire several U.S. attorneys.
The e-mails, delivered to Congress Friday night, show that Gonzales attended an hour long meeting on the firings on Nov. 27, 2006 – 10 days before seven U.S. attorneys were told to resign. The attorney general’s participation in the session calls into question his assertion that he was essentially in the dark about the firings.
At a news conference last week, Gonzales said that he was aware that his aides were working on a plan to fire several U.S. attorneys but that he left the details to Kyle Sampson, his then-chief of staff, and other aides. Sampson agreed on Friday to testify about his role in the firings at a Senate hearing next week. […]
The Nov. 27 meeting in Gonzales’ conference room came as Sampson was still trying to decide which federal prosecutors would be asked to step down. His final list targeted seven U.S. attorneys, who were told on Dec. 7 that they were being ousted. Another prosecutor had been asked to step down months earlier. […]
“Another late-night document delivery has produced evidence of the attorney general’s involvement much earlier than he previously acknowledged. … This puts the attorney general front and center in these matters, contrary to information that had previously been provided to the public and Congress,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the latest e-mails could increase the pressure on Gonzales to resign. Sampson’s scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday should shed more light on Gonzales’ role.
“If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as attorney general,” said Schumer, who has already called on Gonzales to step down.
Here’s what Gonzales said publicly before the release of this latest batch of emails gave the lie to his earlier proclamations that he wasn’t involved in the process:
(Update below the fold)
“What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers. And so far as I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that’s what I knew. But again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That’s basically what I knew as the Attorney General.” …
“I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood. What I knew was that there was ongoing effort that was led by Mr. Sampson, vetted through the Department of Justice, to ascertain where we could make improvements in U.S. attorney performances around the country.”
On January 18, 2007 (in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee):
“I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons, or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation.”
Too bad Fitzgerald isn’t investigating this case. If he was, he’d have another indictment ready to present to the Grand Jury for the Worst Attorney General in Our History. Wouldn’t even have to get anyone to testify under oath. Res ipsa loquitur: the facts speak for themselves.
Not only is Gonzales exposed as a liar to Congress and the American public by this latest release of Justice Department documents (and who knows what they are still withholding from the House and Senate committees?), but the latest documents also tie the White House ever more firmly to the scandal:
In a Dec. 3, 2006, e-mail released Friday night, Scott Jennings, one of presidential adviser Karl Rove’s aides, asked Sampson if he had a list of “all vacant, or about-to-be vacant, US Attorney slots.” Jennings’ request came on a Sunday, so Sampson offered to send it to him the next day.
Jennings, a political operative, had earlier passed along complaints from Republican Party activists about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired from his job in New Mexico. Some Republicans were angry that Iglesias hadn’t been more aggressive in investigating Democrats.
The e-mails also show that administration officials struggled to find a way to justify the firings and considered citing immigration enforcement simply because three of the fired prosecutors were stationed near the border with Mexico. While the e-mails don’t provide evidence of partisan motives for the firings, they seem to undercut the administration’s explanation that the prosecutors were dismissed for poor performance.
“The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DOJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts,” Tasia Scolinos, a senior public affairs specialist at the Justice Department, told Catherine Martin, a White House communications adviser, in an e-mail.
“Which ones are they?” Martin replied.
Scolinos was clearly unprepared for the furor that resulted from the dismissals.
“I think most of them will resign quietly – they don’t get anything out of making it public,” she told Martin. “I don’t see it as being a national story – especially if it phases in over a few months.”
The fishing around for any excuse to justify the firings, such as the alleged lax prosecution of immigration cases by three US attorneys on Sampson’s short list, is quite damning, as is the belief that the fired US attorneys would keep their mouths shut. Read the entire McClatchey article, or TPMmuckraker’s summary of the high points for even more evidence of the Bush administration’s perfidy and lies regarding this burgeoning scandal.
My guess? This reaches directly to the President himself, which is why the White House has been so adamant that no one close to Bush will testify under oath. We are looking at one more incident justifying impeachment, friends, one more in a lengthening list. Time to put the screws to our Democratic representatives, because impeachment definitely is an option that should be back on the table.
Update [2007-3-24 12:46:46 by Steven D]: The AP is now reporting that unnamed aides to Gonzales now admit the Attorney General approved the plan to fire the US attorneys at the November 27, 2006 meeting described in one of the emails released in yesterday’s document dump:
At the Nov. 27 meeting, the attorney general and at least five top department officials discussed a five-step plan for carrying out the firings, Gonzales’ aides said late Friday.
At that session, Gonzales signed off on the plan, drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week.
A Justice aide closely involved in the dismissals, White House liaison Monica Goodling, also has taken a leave of absence, two officials said. […]
[The release of the documents last night which implicate Gonzales in the decision to fire the US Attorneys] came hours after Sampson agreed to testify at a Senate inquiry this coming week into the prosecutors’ firings.
Has the decision been made to throw Gonzales overboard? Sure looks like it after this revelation, which further cements that “Abu” Gonzales has been lying through his teeth about his role in these firings.
