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Republicans turn up heat on Gonzales
By Seth Stern and Keith Perine
Congressional Quarterly
April 23, 2007
Congressional Republicans stepped up their calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign last week after a confrontational hearing over his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee persistently hammered away at Gonzales during a daylong appearance April 19, criticizing the way the Justice Department handled the firings last year and aggressively challenging his explanation for the events surrounding them.
“I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered,” said Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a Judiciary Committee member. “I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.”
The next day, the message man for the House GOP called for Gonzales to be replaced. “I think that they would be well-served by fresh leadership,” Rep. Adam H. Putnam of Florida, the Republican Conference chairman, told CNN.
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said April 20 that Gonzales should take the weekend to consider his status.
“If he and the president decide that he cannot be an effective leader moving forward, then he should resign,” Sessions said. “The bottom line is that he must do what is in the best interest of the Department of Justice.”
During the Senate Judiciary hearing, Gonzales said he had no intention of leaving his post as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. “I believe I continue to be effective as the attorney general of the United States,” he said.
Gonzales was by turns contrite and combative during the hearing. His inability to recall several details about the firings left lawmakers on both sides of the panel, including some key GOP senators, scratching their heads.
“Mr. Attorney General, most of this is a stretch,” said Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “I think it’s clear to me that some of these people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or at the White House, and, you know, we made up reasons to fire them.”
At the start of the hearing, the panel’s ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, warned that Gonzales bore the burden of proving he could regain his credibility and remain in his job.
“This is as important a hearing as I can recall, short of the confirmation of Supreme Court justices; more important than your confirmation hearing. In a sense, it is a re-confirmation hearing,” Specter said.
Gonzales apologized for the way the firings were handled but stood by last year’s decision to replace the eight U.S. attorneys. He took responsibility but repeatedly painted the target list of U.S. attorneys as wholly the work of other department officials.
His answers did not satisfy most members of the committee of either party. Specter said there has been “a mishandling of the issue from the beginning to today by the attorney general” that has undercut Gonzales’ credibility and his ability to continue leading the Justice Department. Specter said he would talk with Bush but would not yet make a specific recommendation about Gonzales’ fate.
Sessions said he “was taken aback” by Gonzales’ statement that he could not recall a November 2006 meeting in which he and senior Justice Department officials discussed the firings of several U.S. attorneys.
Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ former chief of staff, told the panel last month that Gonzales had attended the meeting where Sampson and other Justice officials discussed a plan for firing federal prosecutors. Gonzales said although he has seen his calendar entry for the Nov. 27 meeting, “I have no recollection” it took place.
“To say he had no recollection whatsoever of that meeting, I have to think about that,” Sessions said.
Kansas Republican Sam Brownback also expressed misgivings. “I think there’s a question of laxness in his management style that’s dogging him,” Brownback said, but added, “I question whether that merits terminating somebody.”
House Subpoenas
In the House, the Judiciary Committee postponed consideration April 18 of resolutions requesting a subpoena and court-ordered immunity for a former Justice Department official who asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the U.S. attorney flap.
Monica Goodling resigned this month from her position as the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House and counsel to Gonzales.
Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., said he delayed a vote on the resolutions at the request of committee Republicans. Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel’s ranking Republican, said the delay allowed the committee to listen first to Gonzales’ testimony and make sure the immunity request does not interfere with a probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general. He said Republicans are likely to support the motion when it comes to a vote.
Under federal law, congressional committees can request court-ordered immunity with a two-thirds vote of the full panel. The Democratic majority would need four GOP votes to pass the resolution.
On April 16, the House Judiciary panel announced that it would expand its investigation into the matter, requesting interviews with eight additional Justice Department officials, including U.S. attorneys in Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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