Gonzales's Trail of Comments May Haunt Him
When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday regarding his role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, his previous statements on this subject could come back to haunt him. In particular, Democrats on the committee will zoom in on three different occasions in which Gonzales addressed the controversy. At issue: what he knew, when he knew it, how involved he was in the firings, and why he and others in the department have given conflicting accounts of the decision making.
Gonzales has significantly addressed the controversy three times in public over the past month:
Gonzales Press Conference, March 13, 2007
Gonzales largely professed ignorance and blamed much of the fiasco on his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who resigned under fire. Here are some of his comments:
As we can all imagine in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice, nor am I aware of all decisions. As a general matter, some two years ago, I was made aware of a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the United States attorneys. That was immediately rejected by me. I felt that that was a bad idea and it was disruptive.
What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers. And so far as I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers. What were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew.
Mr. Sampson was charged with directing the process to ascertain who were weak performers, where we could do better in districts around the country.
But the charge for the chief of staff here was to drive this process and the mistake that occurred here was that information that he had was not shared with individuals within the department who were then going to be providing testimony and information to the Congress.
NBC News Interview, March 27, 2007
During this interview, Gonzales backpedaled on his press conference remarks but still maintained that he was largely uninvolved in the nitty-gritty of which U.S. attorneys should be fired and who should be hired in their place.
When I said on March 13 that I wasn't involved, what I meant was that I–I had not been involved, was not involved in the deliberations over whether or not United States attorneys should resign.
After I became attorney general, I had Kyle Sampson coordinate a department review of the performance of United States attorneys. And I expected him to–to consult with appropriate Department of Justice officials who had information and knowledge about the performance of United States attorneys. From time to time, Mr. Sampson would tell me something that would confirm in my mind that that process was ongoing.
For example, I recall him mention[ing] to me that–inquiry from the White House about where were we in–in identifying underperformers? And there are other similar-type reminders that occurred during this process that I'm going to discuss specifically with the Congress. I was never focused on specific concerns about United States attorneys as to whether or not they should be asked to resign. I was more focused on identify[ing]–or making sure that the White House was aprop–was appropriately advised of the progress of our review. And I was also concerned to ensure that the appropriate Department of Justice officials, people who know–knew about the performance of–of United States attorneys, that they were involved in the process.
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