According to Yahoo News:
Lawmakers also are questioning what role White House officials, including chief political strategist Karl Rove, played in the firings."This took place inside the Justice Department," Cheney said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "The one who needs to answer to that and lay out on the record the specifics of what transpired is the attorney general, and he'll do so."
But Gonzales will say:
In his 25-page statement, Gonzales apologized for embarrassing the eight U.S. attorneys and their families *** [and] maintained the firings were not improper, but said he remembers having only an indirect role in the plans beyond approving them.
This photo is as inexplicable as the combined Cheney/Gonzales explanations discussed herein---
However, a story out of New Mexico casts a new light on the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias: http://www.abqjourna...
The Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday that:
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.
But our esteemed Vice President said anything that happened was all inside the Justice Department. Could Mr. Cheney be, uh, doing you know what with the truth?
According to the Journal:
In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out. Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president. At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president. Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue. The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.
As to those (like Congressman Tom Davis) who maintain "nothing illegal has happened" the Iglesias case is especially interesting because there are indications Sen. Domenici was anxious to have an indictment come out of Iglesias' office before the hot November 2006 New Mexico congressional contest. Senate and House Democrats have focused on a telephone call Domenici made to Iglesias in October.
Iglesias testified before the congressional committees that Domenici called him at home and asked if indictments were imminent in a public corruption investigation of Albuquerque's Metropolitan Courthouse construction. Iglesias told him indictments were not expected anytime soon.
Iglesias testified that Domenici said, "I'm very sorry to hear that." And then hung up.
Gonzales also has stated that he trusted his most senior aides to select prosecutors who would be asked to resign, based on their performance. "It was to be a group of officials, including the deputy attorney general, who were much more knowledgeable than I about the performance of each U.S. attorney," he said. "But Gonzales indicated he could not definitively say whether he was involved in decisions on selecting which prosecutors would be targeted."
Having worked in a federal prosecutor's office, I personally find that nearly impossible to believe. If true, it smacks of the highest level of incompetence on Gonzales' part. The local U.S. attorneys are some of the most critical employees within DOJ. We had something of an equivalent at the FTC and the regional office heads' work was scrutinized with a fine tooth comb at headquarters.
From Gonzales' statement, as reported, it would appear he is engaging in a classic "passing the buck" and "I was out of the loop" defense. The only problem is that Cheney is saying something different. And now the Albuquerque Journal claims to have good sources disputing Cheney's statement that the White House was out of the loop.
There's more analysis of the Albuquerque story at TPM Muckraker. http://www.tpmmuckra... However, I am not sure TPM had seen the story on the Gonzales testimony.
It will be interesting to see the April 17 hearing.
My bet? Cheney and Gonzales are both lying. There was intervention from Rove/Bush at the White House and Gonzales knew all about it, ans was involved in the decisional process.
In today's NYT Adam Cohen provided the best summary that I have seen so far of another episode in this emerging narrative of pressing for prosecutions to help Republicans win elections.
The U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, seems to have managed to hang on to his job by mounting a Kafkaesque prosecution against Georgia Thompson on a corruption charge utterly lacking in evidence. The goal was to swing the Wisconsin govenor's race to the Republican column. This is the case which was recently reversed by an appellate judge as being "beyond thin" after less than a half hour of oral arguments.
Here a link to Adam Cohen's piece on this bogus prosecution. It is a truly chilling story, the human face of which is Georgia Thompson, an innocent Wisconsin government employee who lost her job and her house and was imprisoned as a result of this bogus case brought by Biskupic.
Would someone in the MSM please interview Georgia Thompson and her appeals attorney?
Is not this kind of prosecutorial malfeasance good reason for removal of Biskupic--by impeachment if necessary?
I hope the wronged state employee is able to obtain some sort of compensation, if only by a legislative authorization. It is difficult to bring damage cases against government officials under sovereign immunity principles.
The misuse of the prosecutorial and judicial process for private gain is about the lowest one can go, shy of murder and physical torture. Does anyone remember the enemies list compiled by Charles Colson? http://en.wikipedia....