Gonzales Squirms

You can listen to the Senate Judiciary hearing with AG Alberto Gonzales on NPR radio or watch it on C-SPAN 3 TV (which will probably repeat it tonight). These sources also have coverage on their websites. In fact, C-SPAN.org already has a download available of this morning's session. Here's their special page devoted to the attorney firings, which contains numerous links to news, documents and videos. Here's the NPR.org website.

I watched an early portion of today's Gonzales hearing and my first reaction was that he isn't smirking much anymore. You know the infamous smirk. It usually appears when Gonzales is being coy with the facts. This morning, however, the smirk was much more rare, replaced with grimacing, sweating, fumbling, mumbling, knocking into the microphone and squirming in his seat as he got grilled on his involvement in the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. In the part I watched, Sen. Arlen Specter was the roughest on Alberto -- breaking in repeatedly to contest what Gonzales was saying and pressuring him to answer the questions. He also stated that Alberto's opening testimony continued “a pattern of not being candid.”

Gonzales' fall back line appears to be, "I can't recall," and he's using it often. He's also claiming that his involvement with evaluating and criticizing some of those fired was somehow separate from "the process" used to decide which attorneys to can that was led by his Deputy, Kyle Sampson. Gonzales says his criticisms were merely part of his usual job of supervising the attorneys. Right. Talk about desperate compartmentalizing.

According to a report on NPR.org:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' claim that he had only a limited role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys was challenged repeatedly Thursday by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a highly contentious hearing, Gonzales insisted that the firings were proper and not part of a political effort to interfere with ongoing prosecutions.

But lawmakers from both parties appeared incredulous at Gonzales' failure to recall numerous meetings and discussions that led up to the firings, and his insistence that he relied on subordinates at the Justice Department in coming up with the list of who should be fired.

As to the firing of David Iglesias:

Gonzales also acknowledged that he had had a conversation with White House political adviser Karl Rove and President Bush about complaints that former U.S. attorney David Iglesias was not pursuing voter fraud cases more aggressively in New Mexico. But Gonzales said he did not know how and when Iglesias' name was added to the list of those recommended for firing, although he said he was not "surprised" to see the name there.

Good for the Goose But Not for the Gander?
Another bone of contention? Gonzales claims that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego was fired in part because she wasn't getting enough illegal immigration convictions in her border state, and that she was devoting too much time to white collar crime. At the same time, Iglesias reportedly was shut down on his request to hire more attorneys to conduct illegal immigration cases because the Justice Department wanted him to concentrate on white collar crime.

Does that mean that New Mexico isn't considered a border state with numerous illegal immigration problems, just like Southern California? Or just that Bush's Justice Department was interested in pursuing white collar crime only if those indicted were primarily Democrats, as was the case with Iglesias and the courthouse indictments? Remember, it was Carol Lam who prosecuted the outrageous corruption of Repub Rep. Duke Cunningham. She was fired, it just so happens, when the corruption case widened to include subpoenas of other powerful Republicans. Iglesias, on the other hand, was berated for not going fast enough on indictments that primarily targeted Democrats. It's been widely reported that indictments of Democrats have heavily outnumbered indictments of Republicans in recent years. Reeks of politics to me.

The NPR.org site also has links to selected audio clips of the testimony today.