NewsTrust - U.S. Attorney Firings - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

The Former Attorney General’s Legal Bills

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Nov. 20 (Editorial) - It is galling to think that Mr. Gonzales, whose department trampled over the rights of so many people, is having taxpayers pay for private counsel, but it may be appropriate.

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How to Rig an Election, the 2008 Edition

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Esquire - By John H. Richardson - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - In Michigan, they tried to block the votes of people who had lost their homes to foreclosure. In Montana, they challenged some six thousand voters for filing change-of-address forms. According to The New York Times, nine states have broken the law by using Social Security data to purge registration lists. CBS found voter purges under way in 19 states. In Ohio, Republicans are fighting a bitter legal battle to challenge 660,000 new voters. There's a new voter ID law in Indiana. Pima County, Arizona now requires birth certificates at the polls.

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Silence in the Senate

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:21:08 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 13 (Editorial) - The most remarkable thing about the debate on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week was what didn't happen. Barely a word was said in praise him or his management of the Justice Department. The message was clear even though the Republicans prevented a no-confidence vote through the threat of a filibuster -- a tactic that until recently they claimed to abhor. The sound of Mr. Gonzales not being defended was deafening.

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Alberto Gonzales Displays Contempt for Congress, And Perhaps the Department of Justice As Well

Fri, 18 May 2007 10:03:17 -0700

FindLaw - By John W. Dean - May. 18 (Opinion) - Congress could hold Gonzales in contempt by a simple majority vote (and that would not be difficult to obtain, given the feelings in both chambers about this Attorney General). It could hold him in contempt for his failure to respond to the subpoena he virtually ignored, or for his lies to the Senate Judiciary Committee....Congress could --taking a page from Gonzales's playbook -- send fifteen plainclothes Capitol Hill police officers to arrest the Attorney General and take him into custody. Either the House or Senate, alone, would have the power to hold him until the end of the 110th Congress. In truth, a majority of either chamber of Congress has more power than a president, the Department of Justice, and federal courts to take summary actions against those who refuse to honor its processes.

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Caller ID

Fri, 18 May 2007 18:28:53 -0700

Washington Post - May. 18 (Editorial) - It matters enormously ... whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

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More stonewalling at Justice

Tue, 15 May 2007 17:18:08 -0700

Chicago Tribune - May. 15 (Editorial) - The controversy over the removal of several U.S. attorneys last year has been spreading by the week. But Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales sees no reason to change his approach, which is modeled on Muhammad Ali's famous rope-a-dope. At a hearing last week before the House Judiciary Committee, he evaded precise answers and professed a poor memory, while insisting that the decision to sack the prosecutors was utterly sound. The apparent administration hope is that by denying and stonewalling, Gonzales can not only save his job but eventually exhaust all interest in the matter.

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The U.S. Attorney, the G.O.P. Congressman and the Timely Job Offer

Fri, 04 May 2007 09:15:01 -0700

New York Times - By Adam Cohen - May. 04 (Editorial) - If the United States attorney scandal has made one thing clear, it is that the riskiest job in the Bush administration is being a prosecutor investigating a Republican member of Congress. Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego, was fired after she put Randy Cunningham, known as Duke, in prison. Paul Charlton, in Arizona, was dismissed while he was investigating Rick Renzi. Dan Bogden, in Nevada, was fired while he was reportedly investigating Jim Gibbons, a congressman who was elected governor last year.

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Maybe Gonzales Won't Recall His Painful Day on the Hill

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:20:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dana Milbank - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - Alberto Gonzales's tenure as attorney general was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. yesterday by Tom Coburn, M.D. The good doctor, who also happens to be a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made this clinical judgment after watching Gonzales suffer through four hours of painful testimony. The Oklahoman listed the cause of death as management failure and other complications of the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

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The White House truth gap

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:31:07 -0700

Boston Globe - By Joan Vennochi - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - The embattled attorney general is scheduled to testify today to explain the circumstances around the firings. His appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. So far, Gonzales admits to "missteps" that include conflicting statements about his personal involvement in the matter. At a March 13 news conference, Gonzales said that he "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on." However, in a statement prepared for delivery to the Senate committee and released over the weekend, Gonzales said that he "misspoke" on March 13. He acknowledged that he was "periodically updated" about a job performance review of the US attorneys conducted at his behest by his then chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson. Of the conficting versions he offered about his role, Gonzales said: "I certainly understand why these statements generated confusion, and I regret that."

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With 'Friends' Like These, AG May Be in Trouble

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:08:51 -0700

Washington Post - By Paul Kane - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in need of someone to pull him back from the edge of the political plank, he hasn't gotten any help today from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In fact, the most conservative member of the panel -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) -- just started the afternoon round of questioning by telling Gonzales to resign. "I believe there's consequences for mistakes," Coburn lectured Gonzales, noting that the ousted U.S. attorneys don't appear to have deserved being fired and that Gonzales himself then butchered the process. "I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered, and I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation." With that, Coburn became the first Republican on the committee to call for Gonzales's ouster. Outside of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), whose questions consisted of asking Gonzales about the sort of trips Gonzales made around the country and to the White House, none of the other Republicans on the panel has helped the attorney general.

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A Dozen Questions for Alberto Gonzales

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:14:47 -0700

New York Times - By Jeffrey Rosen, Ron Klain, Steven G. Calabresi, David C. Iglesias - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the Op-Ed page asked four legal experts to step into a senator's shoes and list three questions they would ask Mr. Gonzales.

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Senate Ethics Confirms Domenici Probe Over U.S. Attorney Firing

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:50:03 -0700

The Politico - By John Bresnahan - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - The Senate, thanks a resolution it just adopted, has confirmed that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is the subject of "preliminary inquiry" over his involvement in the firing of former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and the subsequent action by the committee with respect to that matter, if any, the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) shall be replaced by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown)."

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The Fantasy Behind the Scandal

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:11:46 -0700

New York Times - Apr. 15 (Editorial) - The more we learn about the White House's purge of United States attorneys, the more a single thread runs through it: the Bush administration's campaign to transform the minor problem of voter fraud into a supposed national scourge.

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Another Layer of Scandal

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:15:59 -0700

New York Times - Apr. 09 (Editorial) - As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

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