The Obfuscation Report

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, corruption

# posted by The Punisher @ Wednesday, July 25, 2007 0 comments

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Stephen Cambone, War Criminals

# posted by The Punisher @ Tuesday, June 26, 2007 3 comments

July 2-9, 2007 issue - A new battle has erupted over Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to submit to an executive order requiring a government review of his handling of classified documents. But the dispute could also raise questions for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. For the past four years, Cheney's office has failed to comply with an executive order requiring all federal offices—including those in the White House—to annually report to the National Archives on how they safeguard classified documents. Cheney's hard-line chief of staff, David Addington, has made the novel argument that the veep doesn't have to comply on the ground that, because the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, his office is not really part of the executive branch.

Cheney's position so frustrated J. William Leonard, the chief of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the order, that he complained in January to Gonzales. In a letter, Leonard wrote that Cheney's position was inconsistent with the "plain text reading" of the executive order and asked the attorney general for an official ruling. But Gonzales never responded, thereby permitting Cheney to continue blocking Leonard from conducting even a routine inspection of how the veep's office was handling classified documents, according to correspondence released by House Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman.

Why didn't Gonzales act on Leonard's request? His aides assured reporters that Leonard's letter has been "under review" for the past five months—by Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). But on June 4, an OLC lawyer denied a Freedom of Information Act request about the Cheney dispute asserting that OLC had "no documents" on the matter, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NEWSWEEK. Steve Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists researcher who filed the request, said he found the denial letter "puzzling and inexplicable"—especially since Leonard had copied OLC chief Steve Bradbury on his original letter to Gonzales. The FOIA response has piqued the interest of congressional investigators, who note Bradbury is the same official in charge of vetting all document requests from Congress about the U.S. attorneys flap. Asked about the apparent discrepancy, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the OLC response "was and remains accurate" because Leonard's letter had generated no "substantive work product."

Waxman told NEWSWEEK he now plans to investigate the handling of the issue by Justice as well as Cheney's refusal to comply with the executive order, which he called part of a "pattern" of stonewalling by the veep. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said, "We're confident we are conducting the office properly under the law." She also pointed to comments by White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said that Bush, not the National Archives, was the "sole enforcer" of the executive order relating to classified information.

—Michael Isikoff

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney Branch, War Criminals

# posted by The Punisher @ Monday, June 25, 2007 0 comments

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had once again bypassed the Senate and used an obscure Patriot Act provision to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in California.

The authority Gonzales used was at the heart of the U.S. attorney scandal, and was banned in a bill that passed both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support earlier this year. The legislation was sent to the President for his signature on June 4. During a hearing today, Leahy blasted Bush for stalling:

That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president’s desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can’t bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

It’s almost like they live in an alternate world, as though they’re not realizing the reaction of Democrats and Republicans about this misuse of this power. That’s wrong.

But now President Bush has what he wanted. Thanks to his delay, Alberto Gonzales was able to install George Cardona as an interim U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California. Tonight, the White House released a two-line statement:

On June 14, 2007, the President signed into law:

S. 214, the “Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007.”

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, loyal Bushies, U.S. Attorneys

# posted by David @ Friday, June 15, 2007 0 comments

In a damaging revelation made late in her testimony today, Monica Goodling disclosed that right before she took a leave of absence from the Department of Justice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally attempted to shape her future testimony to Congress about the U.S. attorney purge.

Describing it as an “uncomfortable” conversation, Goodling claimed that in a personal meeting with Gonzales, he “laid out for me his general recollection…of some of the process…regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys.” After he had “laid out a little bit of it,” Gonzales asked Goodling if she “had any reaction to his iteration.” She then added:

I remember thinking at that point that this was something that we were all going to have to talk about, and I didn’t know that it was — I just — I didn’t know that it was maybe appropriate for us to talk about that at that point.

Gonzales’ conversation with Goodling took place on either March 14th or 15th, a week after “the House Judiciary Committee requested that Goodling testify before the committee.” Goodling’s testimony indicates that the Attorney General may have crossed “into a borderline area of coaching a likely witness before the eventual testimony.” More importantly, Gonzales’ attempts to coach a witness could potentially be viewed as an obstruction of justice. Here’s 18 USC section 1505:

Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede…the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress–

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Yet another example of why there is “no confidence” in Alberto Gonzales.

Transcript:

GOODLING: I had decided that I couldn’t continue working on his staff because of the circumstances. I felt that I was somewhat paralyzed. I just felt like I — I was distraught. And I felt that I wanted to make a transfer.

So I went back to ask him if it would be possible for me to transfer out of his office. He said that he would need to think about that. And I think he was, you know, trying to, you know, just trying to chat. I was on his staff. But he then proceeded to say, Let me tell you what I can remember. And he kind of — he laid out for me his general recollection of…

DAVIS: Recollection of what, Ms. Goodling?

GOODLING: Of some of the process. DAVIS: Some of the process regarding what?

GOODLING: Some of the process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys. And he — he just — he laid out a little bit of it, and then he asked me if he thought — if I had any reaction to his iteration.

And I remember thinking at that point that this was something that we were all going to have to talk about, and I didn’t know that it was — I just — I didn’t know that it was maybe appropriate for us to talk about that at that point, and so I just didn’t. As far as I can remember, I just didn’t respond.

.GOODLING: And so I just didn’t. As far as I can remember, I just didn’t respond.

JACKSON-LEE: The time of the gentleman has expired. We now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Gutierrez for five minutes.

GUTIERREZ: Thank you very much.

I would like to yield my time to Mr. Davis.

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez.

Had you finished your answer, Ms. Goodling, regarding your conversation with the attorney general?

GOODLING: I think there was a little bit more to the discussion, but I’m having trouble remembering it.

DAVIS: Well, let me try to help you a little bit. I know it’s been a long day, and so let me try to help you a little bit.

You said that you thought part of the conversation was inappropriate with the attorney general. Did you say that, Ms. Goodling?

GOODLING: I don’t know if I said — I didn’t know if I meant to say inappropriate. I said it made me a little uncomfortable.

DAVIS: What was it that made you uncomfortable about your conversation with the attorney general, Mr. Gonzales.

GOODLING: I just — I did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened, and I just thought maybe we shouldn’t have that conversation.

GOODLING: So I didn’t respond to what he said.

DAVIS: Why did you think it might be inappropriate for you to have this conversation with the attorney general?

GOODLING: I just knew that, at some point, we would probably all have to talk about our conversations and I just — I’m not saying that I — I’m not saying that I definitely thought it was inappropriate. I think, in all fairness, that he was just talking to someone on his staff and I was distraught and I was asking for a transfer. And I think he was being kind. He’s a very kind man. But I just didn’t know that I thought that maybe this was a conversation that we should be having.

DAVIS: Ms. Goodling, did you tell the attorney general that you felt that part of his testimony, or part of his public statements, were not fully accurate.

GOODLING: No, I didn’t.

DAVIS: And was there a reason why you didn’t share with the attorney general that part of what he had said to the committee or the public might not be accurate?

GOODLING: I just — I feel like it — I feel like after he had the press conference, people came out fairly soon and said that they thought the statements were inaccurate. I don’t think that I needed to do that. I think that other people had already raised questions about that.

DAVIS: Do you think the attorney general appreciated that he had made statements that were not accurate?

GOODLING: I don’t know.

DAVIS: Did you ask him?

GOODLING: No, I didn’t.

DAVIS: Do you think the attorney general would have been concerned about making public statements that were not accurate?

GOODLING: I don’t know what he — I know that he testified before the Senate, and he clarified his remarks from his press conference. So I believe he cared about the fact that he didn’t express everything in the best way that he could. And I think he’s already apologized for that and tried to clarify it.

DAVIS: Let me ask you this, Ms. Goodling: During the conversation that you’ve said made you somewhat uncomfortable with the attorney general, did the attorney general discuss the circumstances around any of the terminations of the U.S. attorneys?

GOODLING: He discussed a little bit.

As I recall, he just said that he thought that everybody that was on the list was on the list for a performance-related reason, and that he had been upset with the deputy because he thought that the deputy had indicated that — by testifying about Mr. Cummins, that there was — that the only reason there was to relieve him in order to give Mr. Griffin a chance to serve.

He said that he thought, when he heard that, that that was wrong, that he really thought that Mr. Cummins was on the list because there was a performance reason there, too.

And — I think there was more to the discussion. That’s the part I’m remembering right now. But I think he just kind of laid out what he remembered and what he thought. And then he asked me if I had any reaction to it. DAVIS: Do you know — let me ask you this way. You say the attorney general asked if you had any reaction to what he said.

Do you think, Ms. Goodling, the attorney general was trying to shape your recollection?

GOODLING: No. I think he was just asking if I had any different…

DAVIS: But it made you uncomfortable.

GOODLING: I just did not know if it was a conversation that we should be having, and so I just — just didn’t say anything.

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, obstruction of justice, U.S. Attorneys

# posted by David @ Thursday, May 24, 2007 0 comments

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, copyright infringement, Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, RIAA

# posted by David @ Tuesday, May 22, 2007 0 comments

WASHINGTON - Two Senate Democrats said Thursday they will seek a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over accusations that he carried out President Bush's political agenda at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, who have led the investigation into the conduct of White House officials and Gonzales, said the attorney general has become too weakened to run the department.

"It seems the only person who has confidence in the attorney general is President Bush," Schumer told reporters. "The president long ago should have asked the attorney general to step down."

"I think the time has come for the Senate to express its will," Feinstein said. "We lack confidence in the attorney general."

Schumer said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid supports the resolution and would try to bring it to a floor vote next week. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, too, was expected to sign on.

"I have absolutely no confidence in the attorney general or his leadership," Leahy, D-Vt, said earlier in the day.

Schumer predicted the resolution, which has yet to be finalized, would win support from at least the 60 senators required to beat a filibuster.

Five Republican senators have called outright for Gonzales' resignation, including Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who added his voice Thursday. Several other Republicans have suggested that Gonzales consider stepping down.

One of the latter group, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, has left no doubt that he thinks Gonzales should leave. But he told The Associated Press that he wanted to see Schumer's resolution before saying he would vote for it.

The announcement is the latest in a series of blows suffered by Gonzales this week, including new criticism from Republicans and the prediction of one GOP veteran that the investigation into the firings of federal prosecutors would end with the attorney general's resignation.

Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said earlier Thursday that the Justice Department can't properly protect the nation from terrorism or oversee Bush's no-warrant eavesdropping program with Gonzales at the helm.

"I have a sense that when we finish our investigation, we may have the conclusion of the tenure of the attorney general," Specter said during a committee hearing. "I think when our investigation is concluded, it'll be clear even to the attorney general and the president that we're looking at a dysfunctional department which is vital to the national welfare."

His comment echoed new criticism of Gonzales this week. Former deputy attorney general James Comey testified that Gonzales tried to get his predecessor as attorney general, John Ashcroft, to approve Bush's eavesdropping program as Ashcroft lay in intensive care.

Asked twice during a news conference Thursday if he personally ordered Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft's hospital room, Bush refused to answer.

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen. I'm not going to talk about it," Bush said.

The tale inspired Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to become the fourth Republican senator to call for Gonzales' resignation. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., joined in the criticism.

"When you have to spend more time up here on Capitol Hill instead of running the Justice Department, maybe you ought to think about it," Roberts told The Associated Press.

Support for Gonzales fading

Bush has stood by his longtime friend and adviser, the key to Gonzales' hold on his job.

But just when some predicted that Gonzales had survived the furors over the firings, Comey's testimony helped broaden the Democrat-led probe into whether the attorney general politicized the Justice department at the White House's behest.

Gonzales has said only eight U.S. attorneys were targeted for dismissal. But the Justice Department, over nearly two years, listed as many as 26 prosecutors after concerns were raised about their performances, a senior government official familiar with the process said Thursday.

The Justice Department said it fully supports all of its current U.S. attorneys. The list of 26 names was first reported Thursday by The Washington Post.

More hearings set for next week

Many of the names on various and changing lists of prosecutors under scrutiny "clearly did not represent the final actions or views of the department's leadership or the attorney general," said Justice spokesman Dean Boyd. He said the lists "reflect Kyle Sampson's thoughts for discussion during the consultation process."

Sampson, Gonzales' former chief of staff, oversaw the review that drove the firings. He resigned in March as a result of the department's botched handling of the dismissals.

The developments came as Democrats sought more testimony from current and former Justice Department officials. House Democrats announced that Gonzales' former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, would testify next week under a grant of immunity.

At issue is whether the department, at the White House's urging, tried to cause problems for Democrats by facilitating voter fraud cases and others involving corruption.

Comey's testimony this week further weakened Gonzales among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Democrats said his testimony appeared to contradict Gonzales' account of the no-warrant eavesdropping program in February 2006, when he told two congressional panels that there had "not been any serious disagreement about the program."

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman said Gonzales' testimony "was and remains accurate."

Joining Hagel in demanding Gonzales' resignation are GOP Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona, who is a presidential candidate. House Republican Conference Chair Adam Putman of Florida also has called for a new attorney general.

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, liar

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, May 17, 2007 0 comments

As if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales didn't have enough trouble, now comes word that, before coming to the Justice Department, Gonzales preyed on the infirm.

In hair-raising testimony before a Senate committee yesterday, Jim Comey, the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, described what might be called the Wednesday Night Massacre of March 10, 2004. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card staged a bedside ambush of Attorney General John Ashcroft while he lay in intensive care. Comey, serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's incapacitation, testified about how, on a tip from Ashcroft's wife, he intercepted the pair in Ashcroft's hospital room.

"The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey told the spellbound senators. "They came over and stood by the bed." They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on an eavesdropping plan that Comey and others at the Justice Department had already called legally indefensible.

Ashcroft "lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter" -- that Comey was right. "And as he laid back down, he said, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.' And he pointed to me."

Gonzales and Card "did not acknowledge me," Comey testified. "They turned and walked from the room."

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee stared. The lone Republican in attendance, Arlen Specter (Pa.), looked down. The 6-foot-8 Comey, slightly hunched in the witness chair, swallowed frequently and kept his hands in his lap as he spun a narrative worthy of Dashiell Hammett.

"I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," Comey told the quiet chamber. His voice grew thick and he cleared his throat as he explained how he prepared to resign. "I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis."

Comey had come before the committee to discuss Gonzales's botched firing of U.S. attorneys. Instead, under questioning from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), he gave his account of Gonzales's dark-of-night attempt to emasculate the department he would soon lead. The testimony had all the more impact because it came the morning after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty became the fourth senior official to resign in the prosecutor mess.

If Comey's testimony had the grip of mystery yesterday, Gonzales's defense had the feel of farce, as he heaped blame on McNulty for the mishandled firings. "The deputy attorney general is the direct supervisor of the United States attorneys," Gonzales volunteered at a National Press Club breakfast. He added: "I went back to the deputy attorney general and I asked Paul, 'Do you still stand by the recommendations?' And he said, 'Yes.' "

At the hearing, Specter offered a different view of McNulty's departure. "It's embarrassing for a professional to work for the Department of Justice today," he said, calling the resignation "evidence that the department really cannot function with the continued leadership or lack of leadership of Attorney General Gonzales."

Despite public pleas from a "lonely" Specter, the other Republicans on the committee didn't risk an appearance. Even the White House declined to counter Comey, who has a reputation for honesty. "You've got somebody who has splashy testimony on Capitol Hill -- good for him," presidential press secretary Tony Snow dodged.

In truth, nothing Snow could have said would have matched Comey's testimony. Comey recounted how, while driving home at 8 p.m. on that day in 2004, he got word that Mrs. Ashcroft had received a call -- possibly from President Bush himself -- to say Gonzales and Card were coming.

"I told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly," Comey testified. "I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail. . . . I raced to the hospital room, entered." The room was dark, and Ashcroft was "pretty bad off."

In Comey's account, he got FBI Director Robert Mueller to tell his agents guarding Ashcroft not to let Card and Gonzales evict Comey from the room. A few minutes after the bedside confrontation, Card called the hospital. He "demanded that I come to the White House immediately," Comey testified. "I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present."

"He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.' " After Card demanded to know if Comey was "refusing to come to the White House," Comey, with the solicitor general, finally arrived at the West Wing at 11 p.m. His narrative covered the next two days, ending when Bush intervened and avoided a spate of resignations.

The senators had some trouble finding words for what they had heard. "This story makes me gulp," Schumer said.

Specter invoked the firing of the Watergate prosecutor. "It has some characteristics of the Saturday Night Massacre," he said. And the senator left little doubt about whom he blamed.

"Can you give us an example of an exercise of good judgment by Alberto Gonzales?" he asked.

This time, Comey had no narrative. "Let the record show a very long pause," Specter said.

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Resign

# posted by The Punisher @ Wednesday, May 16, 2007 0 comments

-- Glenn Greenwald

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Glenn Greenwald, James Comey, John Ashcroft, NSA, warrantless surveillance

# posted by David @ Wednesday, May 16, 2007 0 comments

WASHINGTON, May 11 — Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

Ms. Ashton’s ouster — she left the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for another Justice Department post two weeks later — was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.

Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.

And she helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

By the time Ms. Goodling resigned in April — after her role in the firing of the prosecutors became public and she had been promoted to the role of White House liaison — she and other senior department officials had revamped personnel practices affecting employees from the top of the agency to the bottom.

The people who spoke about Ms. Goodling’s role at the department, including eight current Justice Department lawyers and staff, did so only on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Several added that they found her activities objectionable and damaging to the integrity of the department.

Ms. Goodling, who is under investigation by the department’s inspector general and ethics office, as well as Congress, has declined to testify before a House panel, citing her Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid making self-incriminating statements. Her lawyer, John M. Dowd, declined to comment on Friday.

A judge in Federal District Court in Washington signed an order Friday to grant Ms. Goodling limited immunity, which will allow House investigators to compel her to answer questions.

Justice Department officials declined to respond to questions about Ms. Goodling’s actions and refused to allow some agency employees to speak with a reporter about them.

“Whether or not Ms. Goodling engaged in prohibited personnel practices is the subject of an ongoing investigation,” a written statement said. “Given the ongoing nature of the investigation, we are unable to comment on the allegations.”

H. E. Cummins III, one of the fired prosecutors, said Justice Department officials should have recognized that Ms. Goodling’s strategy was flawed from the start.

“She was inexperienced, way too naïve and a little overzealous,” said Mr. Cummins, a Republican from Arkansas. “She might have somehow figured that what she was doing was the right thing. But a more experienced person would understand you don’t help the party by trying to put political people in there. You put the best people you can find in there.”

Ms. Goodling, now 33, arrived at the department at the start of the Bush administration after working as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Her legal experience was limited; she had graduated in 1999 from Regent University School of Law, which was founded by Pat Robertson. Deeply religious and politically conservative, Ms. Goodling seemed to believe that part of her job was to bring people with similar values into the Justice Department, several former colleagues said.

She joined the department in the press office. Soon after, two lawyers said, Ms. Goodling complained that staff members in Puerto Rico had used rap music in a public service announcement intended to discourage gun crime.

“That is just outrageous,” she told one department lawyer. “How could they use government money for an ad that featured rap music? That kind of music glorifies violence.”

Ms. Goodling’s shift to the executive office, which oversees budgets, management and performance evaluations of United States attorneys, occurred as officials in the White House and Justice Department were considering replacing a number of the top prosecutors. The first lists of possible targets had already been drawn up. But while those lists were being refined, Ms. Goodling, who would become deputy director of the executive office, was quietly helping make other changes.

In addition to making clear that she wanted Ms. Ashton out, a Justice Department employee still in that office said, Ms. Goodling took actions that encouraged a second experienced prosecutor, Kelly Shackelford, to move on. James B. Comey, who served as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, said Ms. Ashton and Ms. Shackelford were excellent lawyers, whose politics he did not know nor would he ever have asked. Ms. Ashton and Ms. Shackelford declined to comment.

Ms. Goodling helped recruit new office managers who included John Nowacki, another Regent University graduate, who had little experience as a prosecutor, but had previously served as the director of legal policy at a conservative research group, the Free Congress Foundation.

She also insisted that she be given final approval in hiring assistant United States attorneys in offices where there was an interim chief prosecutor. Interim United States attorneys always had to seek permission for hiring, but the review was typically lower level and involved checking that sufficient slots were available, current and former employees said.

But Ms. Goodling’s reviews delayed hiring decisions for weeks or months, creating problems in busy offices, and her concerns at times appeared to be for partisan reasons.

In one case, Ms. Goodling told a federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia that she was not signing off on an applicant who had graduated from Howard University Law School, and then worked at the Environmental Protection Agency.

“He appeared, based on his résumé, to be a liberal Democrat,” Ms. Goodling told Jeffrey A. Taylor, the acting United States attorney in Washington, according to two of the department employees who asked not to be named. “That wasn’t what she was looking for.”

Mr. Taylor ultimately found a way to go around Ms. Goodling in hiring the applicant.

She appeared to take similar concerns about political leanings into account when making decisions about promotions and special assignments for Justice Department lawyers.

Robert Nicholson, a career lawyer from the Southern District of Florida, was asked some unusual questions when he applied for a post at the Justice Department headquarters, according to two department lawyers, including Margaret M. Chiara, the former chief prosecutor Western Michigan.

“Which Supreme Court justice do you most admire and why? Which legislator do you most admire and why? And which president do you most admire and why?” Mr. Nicholson was asked by Ms. Goodling, according to Ms. Chiara and the other lawyer, who asked not to be named.

Mr. Nicholson, who did not get the job, did not dispute the account, but he declined to comment, citing the investigation of Ms. Goodling.

In another instance, two Justice Department officials said, Ms. Goodling decided she did not like the applicants for one prestigious posting at department headquarters and decided to offer the job to David C. Woll Jr., a young lawyer who she knew was a Republican. In the interview, a department official said, she asked Mr. Woll if he had ever cheated on his wife. Mr. Woll declined to comment for this article.

Last month, a group of department employees wrote anonymously to Congressional investigators alleging that political considerations were influencing the selection of summer interns and applicants for the Attorney General’s Honors Program, which hires promising lawyers right out of law school. The letter did not say if Ms. Goodling was involved in the process. Department officials declined to comment on the matter.

Hundreds of applications for the honors slots were winnowed by career lawyers, then reviewed by top political appointees, who removed many candidates, the letter said. “Most of those struck from the list had interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for ‘liberal’ causes, or otherwise appeared to have ‘liberal’ leanings,” the letter said.

Ms. Goodling worked less than a year at the executive office, then moved to the attorney general’s office, where she became the White House liaison and collected a $133,000 annual salary, according to federal records. She insisted that she retain her power to review hiring of assistant United States attorneys, two department employees said.

Her mandate over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signed a confidential memorandum delegating to her and D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, the power to appoint or fire all department political appointees other than the United States attorneys. That included interim United States attorneys and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters.

At the same time, Ms. Goodling, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Nowacki, according to e-mail released to Congressional investigators, were helping prepare the final list of United States attorneys to be dismissed. Ms. Goodling was also calling around the country trying to identify up-and-coming lawyers — and good Republicans — who could replace them, said one Justice Department official who received such a call.

Mr. Comey said that if the accusations about Ms. Goodling’s partisan actions were true, the damage was deep and real.

“I don’t know how you would put that genie back in the bottle, if people started to believe we were hiring our A.U.S.A.s (Assistant United States Attorneys) for political reasons,” he said at a House hearing this month. “I don’t know that there’s any window you can go to to get the department’s reputation back if that kind of stuff is going on.”

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

# posted by David @ Saturday, May 12, 2007 0 comments

The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.

In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role.

Brad Berenson, an attorney for Sampson, said in an interview that his client did not intend to mislead Congress. Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate.

The withheld e-mails show that Sampson's draft was forwarded for review to Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel, who approved the language saying that Justice was not aware of Rove having played any role in supporting Griffin. But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the forefront of Griffin's nomination.

Several of the e-mails that the Bush administration is withholding from Congress, as well as papers from the White House counsel's office describing other withheld documents, were made available to National Journal by a senior executive branch official, who said that the administration has inappropriately kept many of them from Congress.

The senior official said that Gonzales, in preparing for testimony before Congress, has personally reviewed the withheld records and has a responsibility to make public any information he has about efforts by his former chief of staff, other department aides, and White House officials to conceal Rove's role.

"If [Gonzales] didn't know everything that was going on when it went down, that is one thing," this official said. "But he knows and understands chapter and verse. If there was an effort within Justice and the White House to mislead Congress, it is his duty to disclose that to Congress. As the country's chief law enforcement official, he has a higher duty to disclose than to protect himself or the administration."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto denied that the White House was withholding records in the Justice Department's possession, and he said that Gonzales could make many of them public at any time. "The White House is neither guiding nor directing the Justice Department's decisions on privileged documents," Fratto said. "They make those decisions on their own."

Two senior administration officials told National Journal they were frustrated with decisions by Gonzales not to release some of the documents held by the Justice Department. One of the officials charged that "Gonzales is doing this to save his own neck," at the expense of the administration. The same official said that senior aides to Gonzales have been refusing to turn over many relevant documents to Congress, and that the attorney general's top aides have been selectively leaking portions of them to the media to portray themselves in a favorable light.

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., subpoenaed the Justice Department, demanding all e-mails between department officials and Rove and others at the White House regarding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

In a May 2 letter to Gonzales, Leahy said that the committee was subpoenaing the records because "the department's production of documents has been selective and incomplete.... In addition, to date, the department has yet to provide the committee with... any assurance that a preservation order was issued to prevent the loss or destruction of documents."

Separately, six senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- three Democrats and three Republicans -- complained to Gonzales last week that they had not been told anything about a confidential order he signed in March 2006, which delegated the authority to hire and fire many of the department's most senior political appointees to Sampson and to Monica Goodling, who at the time was the Justice Department's liaison to the White House.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he was infuriated that he knew nothing of the existence of the order until it was disclosed by National Journal.

"Pardon me if I raise my voice," Specter said.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd denied that the department was withholding any records from Congress to conceal wrongdoing by administration officials. "The Justice Department has already turned over 6,000 pages of documents and e-mails to House and Senate committees and voluntarily provided for interviews of numerous senior DOJ officials," Boyd said.

In earlier correspondence with Congress, the department said it had not turned over many documents that Congress had requested because of "confidentiality and privacy" concerns; it also said it would not turn over documents related to answering queries from Congress and the press about the U.S. attorney firings.

Fratto, the White House spokesperson, said, "No White House documents are available except under the conditions offered by White House counsel Fred Fielding to the Judiciary committees." Fielding has offered to allow Congress to interview Rove and other White House officials on the condition that they wouldn't be required to provide formal testimony under oath and that no transcript would be made of what they said. Fratto said that if Congress agreed to those conditions, the White House "would make available the relevant documents at that time."

In the interim, Fratto said, "the White House retains its rights and privileges over those documents."

A senior Justice Department official said in an interview that it was the discovery of a December 19, 2006, e-mail from Sampson to Oprison -- in which Sampson wrote that "getting [Griffin] appointed was important" to Rove and to then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers -- that prompted the Justice Department to repudiate the February 23 letter to four Senate Democrats.

The February 23 letter, signed by acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling, stated, "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin," and added that the department "is not aware of anyone lobbying, either inside or outside of the administration, for Mr. Griffin's appointment."

Sampson testified before Congress that he drafted the February 23 letter even though he had conferred with the White House about appointing Griffin. Sampson testified that he included the language about Rove not being involved because he didn't know for a fact that Rove was pushing for his former aide's appointment.

"I knew that [Rove deputies] Sara Taylor and Scott Jennings had expressed interest in promoting Mr. Griffin for appointment to be U.S. attorney, and I assumed, because they reported to Karl Rove, that he was interested in that," Sampson said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29. "But later in February, when I participated in the drafting of that [February 23] letter, I did not remember then ever having talked to Mr. Rove about it. I don't remember now ever having talked to Mr. Rove about it. I'm not sure whether Mr. Rove was supportive of Mr. Griffin's appointment."

Berenson, Sampson's attorney, says that Sampson consulted with the White House before including the language in the February 23 letter to Congress that the Justice Department was "not aware of Karl Rove playing a role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." Berenson said, "Kyle didn't want to traffic in assumptions, so he circulated the letter to the White House for confirmation whether what he believed to be true was accurate or not. He drafted the letter according to his understanding of the facts, and he circulated it beforehand to other people for clearance to assure that it accorded with their understanding of the facts."

The withheld e-mails obtained by National Journal show that on February 23, as he was working on a final draft of the letter, Sampson consulted with Oprison. "Chris, please review this version," Sampson asked in one e-mail regarding the draft.

Fratto, the White House spokesman, said in an interview that Oprison "had no reason to believe" that the reference to Rove was inaccurate and cleared the letter. Asked about the December 19 e-mail in which Sampson told Oprison that Griffin's appointment was important to Rove and Miers, Fratto said: "Chris did not recall Karl's interest when he reviewed the letter."

A congressional investigator questioned whether the White House counsel's office would sign off on the letter without asking Rove himself whether it was accurate. The investigator also noted that publicly released Justice Department records show that Taylor and Jennings, both top aides to Rove, worked closely with Griffin to have him installed as U.S. attorney. In response Fratto said: "We have no record of that letter ever leaving the White House counsel's office."

Oprison, in turn, consulted with White House Counsel Fred Fielding and Deputy White House Counsel Bill Kelley in approving the draft of the letter, according to White House records.

Sampson also played a central role in the drafting of a January 31, 2007, letter from acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling to Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., implying that the White House had never contemplated using an obscure provision in the USA PATRIOT Act that would allow it to install Griffin as a U.S. attorney without having Griffin undergo Senate confirmation. Gonzales and Sampson have since testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that they did indeed consider using the PATRIOT Act to install Griffin as a federal prosecutor.

The withheld records show that Oprison assisted Sampson in drafting the January 31 letter. Previously disclosed Justice Department records show that Sampson and Oprison had worked closely together in devising the original plan to install Griffin as U.S. attorney under the PATRIOT Act provisions.

Bud Cummins, who was fired as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas to make room for Griffin, has told the House Judiciary Committee that he personally contacted senior Justice Department officials on January 19, 2007, the day after Gonzales testified to Congress on the firing of Cummins and seven other U.S. attorneys.

Cummins said he warned department officials of very serious "misleading statements" about the U.S. attorney firings. Foremost among his concerns was that Gonzales had said that the Justice Department would never utilize the PATRIOT Act to install new U.S. attorneys by circumventing the Senate confirmation process. Cummins wrote the House Judiciary Committee that he believed that Gonzales's testimony was incorrect because both Griffin and a senior Justice Department official had told him that consideration had indeed been given to using the PATRIOT Act.

A senior Justice Department official told him, Cummins said, that using the PATRIOT Act to install Griffin "might have been the White House plan," but the White House had "never read DOJ into that plan." Cummins said he replied, "If that was the case, then we had better gag Tim Griffin, because Griffin was telling too many people … that he could stay as [U.S. attorney] whether he was ever appointed or not."

Gonzales had testified at the January 18 hearing: "Let me publicly sort of pre-empt perhaps a question you're going to ask me, and that is, I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney.... I think a United States attorney,... as the law enforcement leader, my representative in the community;... has greater imprimatur of authority, if in fact that person's been confirmed by the Senate."

A senior Justice Department official said that the statement was truthful because by then Gonzales had abandoned the idea of using the PATRIOT Act to permanently install Griffin, and he was speaking about future appointments.

But despite Cummins's warning, Gonzales's testimony, and department officials' own knowledge that the PATRIOT Act had been discussed as a way to install Griffin, senior Justice Department officials continued to make claims to Congress that the Bush administration had never contemplated using the PATRIOT Act to bypass the confirmation process.

On January 31, 2007, Hertling wrote Pryor to say that "not once" had the Bush "administration sought to avoid the Senate confirmation process" by exploiting the PATRIOT Act. "As the Attorney General has stated to you," Hertling wrote, "the Administration is committed to having a Senate confirmed United States Attorney for all 94 districts. At no time has the Administration sought to avoid the Senate confirmation process by appointing an interim United States Attorney and then refusing to move forward... on the selection, nomination and confirmation of a new United States Attorney. Not once."

In drafting the letter, Sampson consulted with Sara Taylor, the White House political director and an aide to Rove. Taylor had been aware of considerations that the PATRIOT Act might be invoked to permanently install Griffin, according to withheld administration papers. In an e-mail -- among those that the Justice Department has withheld from Congress -- Taylor wrote: "I'm concerned we imply that we'll pull down Griffin's nomination should Pryor object."

The senior executive branch official who read the e-mail said it was significant because Taylor signed off on the letter despite the fact that Taylor, Oprison, and other White House officials knew that the administration had indeed considered using the PATRIOT Act to make Griffin a U.S. attorney.

Fratto said he believed that the e-mail showed that Taylor wanted to use the Senate confirmation process to have Griffin made U.S. attorney without using the PATRIOT Act. "We battle with the Senate with nominations every day," Fratto said. "It is very important to us.... That's what Sara was saying: 'We shouldn't imply we're willing to walk away from the nomination.'"

Berenson said that the letter was technically accurate because Sampson and Oprison never ultimately implemented the plan to install Griffin as U.S. attorney through the PATRIOT Act provision. "The principals never adopted it, and it was never done," Berenson said. "The statement in the letter is accurate."

Griffin faced an uphill battle to win Senate confirmation because, in addition to having served as an aide to Rove, he had served as the research director of the Republican National Committee in 2004, when he had been in charge of opposition research efforts against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. He had been involved in similar efforts against Al Gore four years earlier as the RNC's deputy research director.

Griffin's supporters have said that he was highly qualified to be a U.S. attorney because he had served in the Judge Advocate General Corps in the U.S. Army Reserve, and briefly was a special assistant U.S. attorney.

Pryor first raised questions about Cummins's departure as U.S. attorney. The senator had heard that, contrary to claims that Cummins had resigned voluntarily, the prosecutor had been pushed out to make room for Griffin, Pryor's chief of staff Bob Russell said in an interview.

Pryor later became suspicious that the Bush administration was attempting to bypass the Senate confirmation process by invoking the PATRIOT Act. The special authority, granted to the president, allowed interim U.S. attorneys to continue in their job indefinitely without Senate confirmation to help prosecute the war on terrorism.

Pryor, who had voted for the authority, was upset that the original purpose was now being abused to circumvent the Senate and avoid a confirmation vote on politically contentious nominees such as Griffin. He was especially upset because he had been one of only six Democratic senators to vote for Gonzales's confirmation-a vote that sparked criticism from liberal interest groups. As he saw it, he had stuck his neck out for Gonzales with his vote.

On December 15, 2006, Pryor spoke to then-White House Counsel Miers and Gonzales about the issue, Russell said. The discussion left Pryor with the impression that if Griffin was named U.S. attorney, his name would be formally sent to the Senate for confirmation.

But White House and Justice Department officials, afraid that Griffin would not be confirmed, asked Cummins to resign more quickly so that they could name Griffin as an interim U.S. attorney, which under the PATRIOT Act would allow him to forego a confirmation vote in the Senate.

On December 19, 2006, four days after Pryor and Gonzales spoke, Sampson e-mailed Oprison with a strategy to have Griffin stay permanently as U.S. attorney: "I think we should gum this to death," Sampson wrote in an e-mail turned over to Congress, "ask the Senators to give Tim a chance. meet with him. give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. they ultimately say, 'no never' (and the longer they forestall the better). Then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith' of course."

By that time, Griffin would be able to serve out the remainder of the Bush administration because of his appointment as interim U.S. attorney under the emergency provisional authority of the PATRIOT Act.

Sampson added in his e-mail: "The only thing really at work here is a repeal of the AG's appointment authority. There is some risk that we'll lose that authority, but if we don't ever exercise it then what's the point of having it."

Sampson concluded in the e-mail: "I'm not 100 percent sure that Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.," referring to Miers and Rove.

The next day, on December 20, Cummins formally resigned as U.S. attorney and Griffin was named as his interim replacement. Cummins said in an interview that officials at Justice sped up the timetable on his departure, going so far as to call him on a cellphone when he was on a hunting trip with his son to say he must leave on December 20.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said: "To the extent Kyle Sampson in his e-mail suggested there was an attempt to circumvent the process, this was dismissed by the Attorney General and does not represent the views or final actions of the Department as our record demonstrates."

Gonzales, during his recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, was asked whether he would have invoked the PATRIOT Act to permanently install Griffin as U.S. attorney. He replied: "I never liked this idea. I wouldn't consider it and didn't consider it." But later in his testimony, Gonzales said he dropped the idea only after he had spoken to Pryor and determined that it was politically untenable to move forward.

In one of the e-mails that the White House has withheld from Congress, and obtained by National Journal, Sampson wrote to six other senior Justice Department officials and derided Pryor's letter: "The PDF below is an outrageous letter we got from Sen. Pryor; we don't think it has hit the press yet."

Sampson said that the Justice Department had been asked to "respond to the allegation that we troglodytes discrimatorialy [sic] passed over the FASU [First Assistant U.S. Attorney] because she is apparently a mother out on maternity leave."

In fact, a Justice Department spokesperson had told the press, and senior Justice officials had told Pryor in a private meeting, that although it was the common practice when a U.S. attorney resigned to name the first assistant U.S. attorney in the office as the interim, they had not done so in the case of Cummins's departure because his first assistant, Jane Duke, was about to go on maternity leave.

But other Justice Department records show that Sampson and the White House had decided to name Griffin as a U.S. attorney in June 2006 even before Duke knew she was pregnant. And the records show that they attempted to name Griffin as an interim U.S. attorney to either enhance the possibility that he would be confirmed by the Senate or to circumvent Senate confirmation completely.

Cummins said in a letter to Congress that after he heard the claims that Duke had not been named as his interim successor because of her pregnancy, he immediately called a senior Justice Department official to complain that the assertion was untrue:

"I told [the senior official] that most people in our relatively small legal community had instantly mocked that statement because it was obvious Tim Griffin had been here for months for the purpose of taking over on my departure [and] because no person was aware of any conversations or communications that might demonstrate that appointing the First Assistant was EVER a consideration."

-- Click here for more coverage of the Justice Department from Murray Waas.

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Arlen Specter, Bush Administration, D. Kyle Sampson, Karl Rove, Monica Goodling, Patriot Act, U.S. Attorneys

# posted by David @ Thursday, May 10, 2007 0 comments

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, incompetent, Pathetic

# posted by The Punisher @ Monday, April 23, 2007 0 comments

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, George W. Bush, Justice Department, Monica Goodling, U.S. Attorneys

# posted by David @ Monday, April 09, 2007 0 comments