He's going to have to be impeached. He's not leaving voluntarily and Bush... I mean Dick... no, I mean Karl... will not ask him to leave.
One would think that with the new testimony and evidence that has come to light that congress would be almost compelled to impeach.
“The dissent related to other intelligence activities,” Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. “The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.” “Not the TSP?” responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.” “It was not,” Gonzales answered. “It was about other intelligence activities.” The full Document that confirms the Gang of Eight meetings on TSP and contradicts Gonzales' testimony Note all attendees on March 10, 2004
I Gonzales really that dumb to think people would not be able to find out about this when he prepared to testify this week?
Not really He probably just thinks that congress is too much of a p***y to do anything about it. So far he's right...
I think Gonzale(s)z should keep testifying, and then when he is done lying, throw it all at him. Make him pay for every bit of it.
So now we have three different contradictions to Gonzales' testimony... Members of the gang of eight The memo to Hastert from Negroponte FBI director Robert S. Mueller Poor gonzo -- Mueller Contradicts Gonzales Testimony, Confirms NSA Program Was Subject Of Hospital Visit Speaking with the House Judiciary Committee today, FBI director Robert S. Mueller contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ sworn Senate testimony from Tuesday, confirming that the “terrorist surveillance program” run by the National Security Agency (NSA) was the subject of discussion during Gonzales’ controversial visit to former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital bed. Gonzales had testified that it was about “other intelligence activities”. http://thinkprogress.org/
NYTs calls for Gonzales' impeachment -- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Mr. Gonzales’s Never-Ending Story Published: July 29, 2007 President Bush often insists he has to be the decider — ignoring Congress and the public when it comes to the tough matters on war, terrorism and torture, even deciding whether an ordinary man in Florida should be allowed to let his wife die with dignity. Apparently that burden does not apply to the functioning of one of the most vital government agencies, the Justice Department. Americans have been waiting months for Mr. Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can’t tell the truth. Mr. Bush refused to fire him after it was clear Mr. Gonzales lied about his role in the political purge of nine federal prosecutors. And he is still refusing to do so — even after testimony by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, that suggests that Mr. Gonzales either lied to Congress about Mr. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation or at the very least twisted the truth so badly that it amounts to the same thing. Mr. Gonzales has now told Congress twice that there was no dissent in the government about Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mails without obtaining the legally required warrant. Mr. Mueller and James Comey, a former deputy attorney general, say that is not true. Not only was there disagreement, but they also say that they almost resigned over the dispute. Both men say that in March 2004 — when Mr. Gonzales was still the White House counsel — the Justice Department refused to endorse a continuation of the wiretapping program because it was illegal. (Mr. Comey was running the department temporarily because Attorney General John Ashcroft had emergency surgery.) Unwilling to accept that conclusion, Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping. Mr. Comey and Mr. Mueller intercepted the White House team, and they say they watched as a groggy Mr. Ashcroft refused to sign off on the wiretapping and told the White House officials to leave. Mr. Comey said the White House later modified the eavesdropping program enough for the Justice Department to sign off. Last week, Mr. Gonzales denied that account. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee the dispute was not about the wiretapping operation but was over “other intelligence activities.” He declined to say what those were. Lawmakers who have been briefed on the administration’s activities said the dispute was about the one eavesdropping program that has been disclosed. So did Mr. Comey. And so did Mr. Mueller, most recently on Thursday in a House hearing. He said he had kept notes. That was plain enough. It confirmed what most people long ago concluded: that Mr. Gonzales is more concerned about doing political-damage control for Mr. Bush — in this case insisting that there was never a Justice Department objection to a clearly illegal program — than in doing his duty. But the White House continued to defend him. As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up. Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request. If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.
That last possibility seems to be the most plausible. NYT: Data Mining Program at Center of Ashcroft Hospital Room Showdown "A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5009567.html WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales must quickly clarify apparent contradictions in his testimony about warrantless spying or risk a possible perjury investigation, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said today. "This is going to have a devastating effect on law enforcement throughout the country if it's not cleared up," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "If he doesn't correct it, then I think that there are so many errors in there that the pressure will lead very, very heavily to whether it's a special prosecutor, a special counsel, efforts within the Congress." Leahy also said he was ready to work with the Bush administration to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists. President Bush used his weekly radio address Saturday to urge Congress to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 so the law can better keep pace with the latest technology used by terrorists. Democrats have indicated they do not want to rush ahead with any changes, seeking to ensure civil liberties are protected and the executive branch is not granted unfettered surveillance powers. But the Bush administration says its latest request is narrowly drawn and urgently needed to stymie terrorist threats. "The proposal would make clear that court orders are not necessary to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets overseas," the national intelligence director, Mike McConnell, wrote congressional leaders Friday. He urged action before Congress departs on a monthlong summer vacation in early August. Last week, four Democrats on Leahy's committee asked Solicitor General Paul Clement for the special probe of Gonzales. The request came after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller appeared to contradict Gonzales' statements to Congress about internal administration dissent over the president's secretive wiretapping program. Gonzales told that committee the program was not at issue when then-White House counsel Gonzales made a dramatic visit to Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004. Mueller, before the House Judiciary Committee, said it was. The apparent contradiction only compounded problems for Gonzales, who is losing support among members of both parties even as he retains Bush's. The nation's top law enforcement official has faced growing questions about his credibility and apparent misstatements since Congress began investigating the firings of federal prosecutors seven months ago. Today, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on Leahy's committee, made clear that he believed the Justice Department would be better off without Gonzales. But he said it would be premature to begin a perjury investigation until the committee could find out the facts. Specter noted that he and Leahy had not yet been fully briefed on the administration's classified spy programs and thus could not determine whether it was true, as the White House has asserted, that the hospital dispute did not center on the surveillance program but a separate facet that remains classified. The New York Times, citing anonymous government officials it declined to name, reported today that the 2004 dispute was over computer searches through massive electronic databases, which contain records of phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans. If the dispute chiefly involved data mining rather than eavesdropping, that raised the question as to whether Gonzales might be technically correct, according to the report. "So let's give him a chance," said Specter, who said he will be briefed on the classified programs Monday. "The Judiciary Committee is not in the business of setting up perjury prosecutions." Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., one of the senators who has called for the perjury investigation, said even if the latest contradiction was over a more technical point, it still warranted a special review. "The truth is that the attorney general, in my view, has at least lied to Congress and may have committed perjury, and I think we need to have somebody who's able to look at both the classified and nonclassified material in a way that he can actually determine whether or not criminal charges have to be pursued," Feingold said. Leahy declined to say whether he would support a special investigation should Gonzales fail to correct his testimony in a meaningful way. He said he would discuss the matter with Specter in hopes of achieving a bipartisan approach. "He has a week," said Leahy, referring to Gonzales. "But you have to follow the law. I have to follow the law. They should have to follow the law. That's the bottom line." Leahy sent a letter to Gonzales on Thursday giving him a week to resolve any inconsistencies in his testimony. Leahy and Specter appeared on CBS' Face the Nation, and Feingold spoke on Fox News Sunday.
WOW!!! It's pretty bad when Larry King pretty much calls you a liar. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V3X3hNtrGhg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V3X3hNtrGhg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
FBI VS Justice Department, Round 1, GO! Somebody please grab the popcorn http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_...-07-30_freeze_dc_lawmen_feud_over_gonzo_.html
What will Rush say? U.S. Attorney Became Target After Rebuffing Justice Dept. By Amy Goldstein and Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, August 1, 2007; Page A01 The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired. Brownlee ultimately kept his job. But as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales confronts withering criticism over the dismissals, the episode in the OxyContin case provides fresh evidence of efforts by senior officials in the department's headquarters to sway the work of U.S. attorneys' offices. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073102163.html?hpid=topnews
The essence of the republican party -- GOP Senator: Attorney General 'wily,' 'misleading,' but not criminal Nick Juliano Published: Thursday August 2, 2007 The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee refused Thursday to join a Democratic push for a special prosecutor's investigation of whether Alberto Gonzales perjured himself in Congressional testimony. "He was telling only a part of the facts, really playing a cat-and-mouse game with congressional oversight," Specter said. "I do not believe that there is a perjury prosecution in the matter." Specter then quoted from a Supreme Court decision that warned perjury shouldn't be pursued "simply because a wily witness succeeds in derailing the questioner so long as the witness speaks the literal truth even where the answers were ... shrewdly calculated to evade." "Well I think that describes Attorney General Gonzales, where you have a wily witness, who has evaded the information which this Senate oversight committee was entitled to," Specter said. "Now just because it wasn't perjury doesn't mean it's the way the highest ranking legal officer ought to respond to a Senate inquiry." Earlier this week, Specter requested clarification of Gonzales' previous testimony about a secret surveillance program authorized by the administration. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Gonzales responded in separate letters that Democrats said were overly legalistic and did not prove Gonzales did not lie to the committee. "The Attorney General continues to avoid responsibility for his false testimony," Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). "It is time for a special counsel to investigate this serious matter.” Specter did not join in that view, although he was clearly still unsatisfied with the Attorney General's explanation. Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy also criticized Gonzales' response, saying it lacked "full candor." http://rawstory.com/news/2007/GOP_Senator_Attorney_General_wily_misleading_0802.html
Well I'll be damned! -- Sen Specter: I Think We Need To Finish This Investigation And Find A Way To End The Tenure Of Attorney General Gonzales" WASHINGTON - Senators of both parties have shifted from simple disapproval of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to tactical planning for how to get rid of him if he does not correct what they say are inconsistencies in his sworn congressional testimony. Senate officials say they expect some response from the embattled attorney general by Friday, the deadline set by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. But if Gonzales does not satisfy committee members, they are likely to shift quickly to an effort to oust him. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/02/sen-specter-i-think-we-n_n_58942.html#comments YEAH!!!!
sweet. The guy is such an embarrassment. It is amazing that among an embarrassment of an administration he distinguishes himself as particularly embarrassing.
HOOOO!!!!! BREAKING CNN: Gonzales has resigned, officials say Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, senior administration officials told CNN today. Many lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have long called for his ouster after the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006. http://www.cnn.com/
