Gonzales' Testimony

The short version is that Gonzales said nothing new today.

The slightly longer answer is that there were no smoking guns found, but with nothing new coming out, he clearly didn't help his case at all. Most Democrats questioned him hard but the real story is that some Republicans did too and several senators from both sides called for him to resign.

Gonzales' story is that he started the process and delegated it to his senior staff. He has no reason to believe anything improper was done. They came back with a recommendation and he signed off on it. Mistakes were made in how this all blew up and he's committed to fixing them.

Honestly, that's his story. He repeated the above things over and over again. He didn't offer much depth beyond the sentences in the above paragraph. He didn't say for example why he had no reason to believe anything improper was done. When asked about what the process for putting people on the list was he said he didn't know, that Kyle Sampson did that. When asked how he knew the process prevented something improper from happening he said he trusted his staff. When told that Kyle Sampson said he had no safeguard in the process to prevent something improper from happening because he was just the aggregator, Gonzales said he wouldn't attempt to answer for what Sampson believed his role was.

The Senators had 7 minutes to ask questions in two rounds. it's a really annoying process because it's not enough time to get to any depth. Particularly when the witness can stall. Nevertheless, over 7 hours a few senators managed to follow a train of thought.

Arlen Specter (R-PA) began by slapping down Gonzales for saying "Senator I prepare for every hearing". He struck back with "Do you prepare for your press conferences?" Later on in a response to Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Gonzales said "The reasons my statements were incorrect was that I did not go back and review the record." but no one connected the two. Specter listed several ways Gonzales was involved in the decision to fire the US Attorneys and asked if he could characterize that as being merely "a limited extent" as Gonzales had called it. Gonzales said it was and Specter couldn't understand that. Specter was apparently trying to get him to take the mistake approach as opposed to incompetent approach but Gonzales wasn't going there, deliberately.

Ted Kennedy (D-MA) then went with the track of, how can you know that none of them were removed for improper reasons since you had a limited involvement, the process wasn't rigorous and you left it basically to someone else? Gonzales said he relied on the consensus recommendation of his senior staff. Kennedy asked "At the time you made the judgement and decision, you didn't really know the actual reason when you approved the removal, at the time" and Gonzales' answer was "For two I didn't, for the others I did know the reasons independently so I wasn't surprised they were on the list." Kennedy points out "We're reminded that the documents don't show any clear rationale for the decisions." and mentions the standard DOJ performance evaluation process is known as EARS and it seems Gonzales never reviewed this.

Diane Feinstein (D-CA) asked about the amendment to the US Patriot Act that allows the AG to replace US Attorneys without the consent of the Senate. Now I find this a little dumb as the Senate did in fact vote in favor of this. But Gonzales again has no recollection of when this idea started other than that it goes back to 2004. He approves it because he "doesn't like the 'judiciary' [I think he meant legislature] deciding who's on my staff."

Feinstein then went into details on US Attorney Carol Lam. She was distinguished, one of the top 10 US Attorneys and the best on corruption cases and yet DOJ never told her that there were performance issues. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) followed up on the Carol Lam issue. He said Kyle Sampson said no one from the department talked to Carol Lam. Gonzales said she was aware but in further questioning it's because Congressmen expressed concerns to her, but no one from DOJ did. "Is it DOJ policy to let Congress communicate their department concerns?"

Gonzales kept saying "I'm not aware of anything improper" occurring but Russ Feingold (D-WI) (and others) keep saying how he didn't look into it so how can he know? But no one came out and said to him that being unaware of something you didn't investigate isn't valid.

Jeff Sessions (R-AL) actually asked real questions about Gonzales' lack of memory though he also seemed to imply that Sen. Domenici's inquirey to David Iglesias about a case was ok, Gonzales disagreed with that.

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) followed up on Carol Lam and then talkeda about how on Dec 15 Gonzales talked to Senator Mark Pryor (D-AK) assuring him that he'd seek confirmation. But in an email 4 days later Kyle Sampson distributed a detailed plan to avoid Senate confirmation. Senator Pryor has uncharacteristically come out and said Gonzales "lied to him" Gonzales says that Sampson testified that Gonzales rejected the plan but Schumer points out the testimony says he rejected the plan in February but in December Sampson says you approved it.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked: "Was this really performance based or did these people just run afoul of personality conflicts in the office and we were trying to make up reasons to fire them because we wanted to get rid of them?" Gonzales said that if you look at the documentation I think there is documentation supporting these decis..." and Graham cut him off saying "most of this is a stretch. I think it's clear to me that most of the people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and we made up reasons to fire them, some of it sounds good, some of it doesn't and that's the lesson to be learned here. He followed up saying he didn't believe in the conspiracy theories but as you said "sometimes it just came down to these were not the right people at the right time" If I applied that standard to you what would you say?" Gonzales replied that he thinks he can still do a good job.

Dick Derbin (D-IL) asked about Karl Rove and that didn't get too far. Same with questions about Patrick Fitzgerald. But in an answer to a question on Sen. Domenici improperly calling David Iglesias, Gonzales said that it was wrong but since Iglesias didn't report it to the DOJ so he should have been fired.

Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) asked how Gonzales could be sure that no improper considerations influenced the process. Gonzales said he wouldn't do that and neither would his people. Cardin pointed out that Kyle Sampson testified that "Local political concerns from partisans may have been influential in the firing" but Gonzales stuck to the line. Cardin said that Sampson testified that there were no safeguards in the process to avoid improper influence and still Gonzales stuck by his statements that he now knows the process was flawed but has no knowledge that anything improper was done.

Tom Coburn (R-OK) was pretty calm but said "You said earlier this was an unfortunate episode. You also said that these attorneys were evaluated based on their leadership skills and management skills and you answered a question from Senator Graham earlier about your position in light of all this. Why would we not use the same standards in handling this event that you applied to these same individuals." Gonzales replied that he admitted mistakes and will work to correct them.

Coburn went on: "To me there has to be consequences to accepting responsibility. I would just say Mr. Attorney General it's my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. It was handled incompetently, the communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It was generous to say there were misstatements, that's a generous statement, and I believe that you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered and I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation."

Gonzales said "I don't know whether or not that that puts everything behind us quite frankly.. I know the mistakes that were made here and am committed to fix those mistakes and I'm committed to working with you to restore the faith and confidence that you need to work with me." Coburn replied: "Mr. Attorney General you set the standard, you said leadership skills, management skills. They were sorely lacking in this instance and the responsibility is to start with a clean slate; a new set of leadership skills a new set of management skills. To heal this in the country to restore the confidence in this country"

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned Gonzales at this point and I've blogged about that already.

Jon Kyl (R-AZ) followed up on this and then talks about internet gambling

Pat Leahy (D-VT) asked about the White House and RNC email accounts and policies. And then pointed out how so many different statements by Gonzales have varied and that he doesn't know what is the complete record. Gonzales didn't help, merely saying he takes responsibility for his misstatements and if there are specific questions he'll be happy to answer. I want to know what happened to telling the whole truth?

Arlen Specter (R-PA) then talked about VA Tech, the FBI abusing National Security Letters, and the FISA Court and the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Diane Feinstein (D-CA) tried to track down how the list was formed but didn't get anywhere. She pointed out that i was almost 10% of the US Attorneys on the list. Kyle Sampson said he didn't put people on the list he was merely the aggregator. Mike Battle the Dir of the Executive Office of US Attorneys said he had no input. Bill Mercer acting Associate Attorney General and number 3 at DOJ said "I didn't understand there was a list, I didn't a list, it was just that any time I had a particular concern I made it known to different people". "You said you didn't know the reasons US Attorneys were put on the list until after you decided to fire them." She tried to find out the people that put names on and off the list and didn't get an answer.

She pointed out the 3 page document for the firing process at the November 27th meeting. She started with an aside that part of the plan mentioned that in districts losing an Attorney if they had a Republican Senator, they were called, but if they had a Democratic Senator, instead of the Senator getting called the "political lead" was called. Isn't that nice. But she didn't ask him why that was or if he approved of it.

Then she said that it said "on the question of who decided, the talking point is that the administration made the determination to seek the resignations, not any specific person at the White House or the DOJ" and she added that "to this time we do not know who actually selected the people to be put on the list. I would like to know who selected the individuals that were on that list. Somebody had to, a human being had to". Gonzales said that while he wasn't going to characterize Mr. Sampson's testimony but talked about what he thought was supposed to happen. But Feinstein didn't say, I don't want to know what you thought was supposed to happen, but five months later I want to know what actually did happen, why can't we know this by now?

Said that we know the White House was involved in the removal of Bud Cummins; Karl Rove called you and asked about 3 districts; the President about New Mexico in fall of '06 and Harriet Miers about Debra Lang from Los Angeles (she resigned). "Given all this, how could you say just 3 weeks ago that the WH did not play a role in adding or removing names from the list?" Gonzales just said that in his mind he didn't relate these conversations to the ongoing process of evaluations.

Gonzales said: "You the committee I'm assuming, I'm presuming has interviewed the people involved in this process and could ask that question. I would like to know, I would like to ask that question but out of respect for this investigation I have no done so. The only thing that I can do today is to give you the information that I know, the truth as I recall it, that's what I'm trying to do here today is to tell you that I received the recommendation, what I presumed, most importantly what I cared about was did this reflect the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney General, that would be the most important thing I cared about." I don't know why this isn't grounds for him to resign based on incompetence.

Gonzales brought up Carol Lam, "I believe based on my review of the documents, that MIss Lam knew that there were concerns or certainly there was an interest in her her performance with respect to immigration prosecutions. I don't know whether or not Miss Lam knew that the DOJ had concerns or if things didn't change that she might lose her job."

Feinstein said "Let me tell you we all get concerns, all the time. But if I were employed by justice I would be curious what my bosses think not the flak that I may or may not be getting from other places because the flak to some extent comes with the territory." Gonzales replied "Senator I expected that my concerns about her immigration prosecution numbers and her gun prosecution numbers would be communicated to Miss Lam." and Feinstein said "But two months before she was fired in a letter to me, [Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General] William Moschella said that everything was fine with her immigration numbers and she has told us she was never contacted by the department about immigration. My time is up." Her time and out then and Gonzales didn't answer. When Leahy gave him time to answer, he didn't.

Later on Whitehouse made two more interesting points. He said that over the years there have been more and more safeguards put in place to prevent improper communications between the White House and the DOJ. He had a chart with how the Clinton administration had it structured. There were only 4 people in the Clinton White House that could communicate with DOJ and only 3 in DOJ that could talk to the White House. He then pointed out that under Bush there are 400+ people in the White House that can communicate with the DOJ and 30+ in the DOJ that can talk to the White House. Gonzales merely said he thought controlling it was important.

Senator Whitehouse then went on about a conversation that Harriet Miers had with a US Attorney McKay and she told him he mishandled a case. Apparently this is a precise legal term and to use that term she'd have to have had access to information that she shouldn't have. Gonzales didn't have an answer about it but there are ongoing investigations into this. Apparently Gonzales had the Office of Professional Responsibility but they don't normally investigate such things and their reports are not public. Whitehouse asked why he choose them and if this fact was relevant to the decision. Gonzales merely said that the Office of the InSpecter General is now investigating it but they choose to do so on their own and he can't claim responsibility for that. And that he's rescued himself during the investigation so he can't comment on it. WTF?

When the hearing ended the audience started chanting "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, Gonzales, Goodbye". Someone yelled out "74 times, I don't recall, how did he get through law school?"

After the testimony the White House put out this statement saying in part "President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General's testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the Senators' questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred." After this we found out the president had not seen the testimony.