By Kenneth J. Theisen, 4/20/07
On April 19, 2007 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the firings of U.S.
Prosecutors. Gonzales” testimony was
billed as “his last chance” to adequately explain his role in the dismissals. But by all accounts he failed to garner any
additional support from his performance.
Despite his far less than stellar appearance, the President
still expressed support for his long-time friend and attorney. White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino was trotted out by the regime to issue a statement to
the media as she has repeatedly done in the past on behalf of Bush when the
Attorney General has been under attack. She issued a statement stating Bush was
“pleased with the attorney general’s testimony,” and claiming
“he answered all of the senators’ questions and provided thousands of
pages of documents. He again showed that
nothing improper occurred.” She went on to state the Attorney General
“has the full confidence of the president.”
He should have Bush’s confidence. All of Gonzales” actions in this most recent
scandal were performed for the Bush regime in its attempt to expand and
consolidate its power over the 93 U.S. attorneys across the
nation. Gonzales has been on the leading
edge in helping the president expand and abuse his power since the regime stole
the 2000 election. Whether he is justifying
torture, authoring signing statements to legislation to ignore or re-interpret
laws, providing legal arguments for massive spying, or otherwise using the
power of the Department of Justice to prosecute and persecute people, the
Attorney General has been right by Bush’s side all the way.
But Bush’s support has not stopped others on the right from
abandoning Gonzales. Right-wing Senator Tom Coburn during Gonzales” testimony
called on him to resign. He asked
Gonzales, “Why should you not be judged by the same standards at which you
judged these dismissed U.S.
attorneys?” He went on to say that the
dismissals were “handled incompetently, the communication was atrocious,
it was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there were misstatements. … I
believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered.
And I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.”
Republican Senator Arlen Specter also took jabs at Gonzales.
During the hearing, Specter told Gonzales his testimony was
“significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts.” Later
reporters told Specter that Gonzales had stated “I don’t recall” 55 times
in his first round of questioning. Specter claimed, “That’s an
improvement, I’d say.”
During the last three months, Gonzales” veracity and memory
has repeatedly come into question. He
initially claimed that all the fired attorneys were dismissed due to
“performance-related issues.” When that
lie was exposed, he said he was barely involved in the firings. On March 30,
Gonzales stated to reporters, “I don’t recall being involved in
deliberations involving the question of whether or not a U.S. attorney
should or should not be asked to resign. I signed off on the recommendations
and signed off on the implementation plan. And that’s the extent of my
involvement.”
But then his chief aide, Kyle Sampson, contradicted that
statement in March 29, 2007 testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee. He told the Senate that he
had regularly briefed Gonzales on the firings starting in December 2004 and
that Gonzales attended a November 27, 2006 high-level meeting where the firings
were the agenda item. The attorneys were
fired on December 7, 2006 a few days after the meeting.
In addition to Sampson’s testimony, thousands of documents
and e-mails revealed that not only was Gonzales intimately involved in the
firings, but so were other top Bush aides such as Karl Rove and Harriet Miers,
former White House Counsel. One of
Rove’s former aides replaced one of the fired prosecutors and Miers had actually
suggested firing all 93 U.S. Attorneys.
As the scandal began to implicate more of those at the top
of the regime, the White House recently revealed that thousands of e-mails
written on Republican National Committee accounts, but used by White House
aides, were missing. These include almost
all of Karl Rove’s e-mails. It has
become clear that political motives were a major factor in the firings.
Congress has threatened to issue subpoenas to many top White House aides and is
also seeking internal White house e-mails and records.
In his most recent testimony, Gonzales did nothing to
improve his reputation for veracity or get the White House off the hook. Even though he spent weeks preparing for this
hearing, he claimed lack of memory at key points in his testimony. He stated, “I recall making the
decision” to fire the attorneys.
But when he was asked when this occurred he said “Senator, I don’t
recall when the decision was made.”
While Gonzales was testifying, Republican Senator Lindsey
Graham intimated that Gonzales was simply trying to make up reasons the
attorneys were fired. He stated, “Mr. Attorney General, most of this is a
stretch. 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.”
But this scandal did not start because of personality
conflicts. The Bush regime wanted
political loyalty from all 93 prosecutors.
U.S. Attorneys are in charge of 93 prosecutors” offices across the
country. They choose to prosecute or not
prosecute violations of U.S. laws such as those covering corruption, voting
fraud, “terrorism,” immigration, white collar crimes, etc. These are highly
political jobs with vast prosecutorial powers and the regime needs to keep
these prosecutors in line as it implements its fascist agenda. What better way to do this than to fire a few
prosecutors as a warning to all the others?
So far Congress in its investigation has only scratched the
surface. It is obvious that some of those fired such as the U.S. Attorney in
San Diego had upset the Bush regime.
That attorney prosecuted Republican Representative Duke Cunningham and
exposed major corruption of a Republican congressmen. This and other corruption cases allowed the
Democrats to label the Republicans as corrupt and cost Republican seats in the
2006 elections. That same attorney was
labeled as weak on prosecuting immigrants for immigration violations. In the
firing of Prosecutor David Iglesias, he upset the regime by failing to bring an
indictment against Democrats before the 2006 election. These are just two
examples.
As subpoenas are issued, “lost” e-mails are recovered or
stay lost, and others testify, we will learn more about the Bush regime motives
in the firing scandal. But as Bush’s support for Gonzales makes clear, the
regime has not backed off from its agenda. But there are splits in the ruling circles as
indicated by the comments by the three Republican senators quoted here. Even supporters of the Bush regime are being
worn down by having to constantly defend all the outrages of the
administration.
Just as the Bush regime presses forward on implementing its
agenda, it is even more crucial that we raise our demands and put them forward
to all who despise this regime. Yes, Gonzales should resign or be fired, but the
entire regime needs to be driven from power, not just him. When Donald Rumsfeld was forced to resign as
Defense Secretary, this did not stop the regime’s imperialist wars. In fact the
regime has escalated the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. If Gonzales should leave office this is a
victory, but that alone will not stop torture, the assaults on our
Constitutional rights, or any of the other attacks he has led while in office.
Bush and his entire regime must go and we all have the responsibility for
making this day occur sooner, rather than later.