Specter: DoJ can’t function with Gonzales at the helm

[maddezmom]

Source: The Hill

Specter: DoJ can’t function with Gonzales at the helm
By Jeremy Jacobs
May 15, 2007
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) leveled harsh words at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the White House Tuesday, saying it is “embarrassing for a professional to work for the Department of Justice today.”

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the 2006 firings of several U.S. attorneys, Specter told former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that he believes Paul McNulty, who stepped down from the deputy attorney general post Monday, found it difficult to serve under Gonzales.


“I think he found it difficult — really impossible — to continue to serve in the Department of Justice as a professional, which Paul McNulty was,” said Specter, the panel’s ranking member.

Specter also lambasted the testimony that Gonzales provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19 as “hard to understand.”



Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/specter-doj-cant-function-with-gonzales-at-the-helm-2007-05-15.html

[zbdent]

1. Don't worry ... Spectre

(intentionally misspelled) will kiss Bush's quickly enough ...

[Nickster]

2. I was going to say the same thing. One minute he'll attack Gonzo and then in the next breath he'll

say how the President should be able to keep an AG that he's comfortable with.

[Joe Bacon]

19. Gee, Arlen, when are you gonna call for his resignation?

God forbid Arlen acting like a senator for at least once in his life.

[tiptoe]

3. LOL! Specter's such a weasel. He postures strongly...but doesn't call for Gonzo's resignation.

...
But Specter also acknowledged that the fate of Gonzales’s tenure as attorney general is ultimately up to him and the president, even though “it is hard to see how the Department of Justice can function and perform its important duties with Mr. Gonzales remaining where he is.”

Specter added that he would not recommend to President Bush what he should do regarding Gonzales because he does not believe it his place to tell the president how to conduct the executive branch. But, he added, “I think the resignation of Mr. McNulty is another significant step and evidence that department really cannot function with the continued leadership, or lack of leadership, of Attorney General Gonzales.

“It may well be that when we get to the end of the rainbow we will find the explanation may be as simple as outright incompetence — outright incompetence,” Specter said. “To consider firing [Special Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald, which is what [former Gonzales Chief of Staff] Kyle Sampson testified to, is patently ridiculous.”

Gee, yeah, it's probably as simple as "outright...OUTRIGHT (mind you!) incompetence"
:sarcasm:

http://tinyurl.com/QKK23

[krkaufman]

20. Specter does not believe it his place to tell the president how to conduct the executive branch.

Sounds like somebody else doesn't understand his job.

[tiptoe]

22. Perhaps when Specter gets a glimpse of Palast's 500 emails (from WH/Rove/Griffin re caging

lists in the form of ~75 Excel attachments), he'll "begin to suspect" (*cough*) that what's going on with Gonzales -- former White House counsel -- is more than "outright incompetence."


Part 1- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007 Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Part 2- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007
Part 3- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007
Part 4- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007

Part 5- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007
Part 6- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007
Part 7- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007
Part 8- Greg Palast and RFK in NYC- mayday 2007

[tiptoe]

23. Also, WaPo today: "A standoff at a hospital bedside speaks volumes about Attorney General Gonzales."

Mr. Comey's Tale

Washington Post, Wednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A14

JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.
...
The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers. Remember, this was a Justice Department that had embraced an expansive view of the president's inherent constitutional powers, allowing the administration to dispense with following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Justice's conclusions are supposed to be the final word in the executive branch about what is lawful or not, and the administration has emphasized since the warrantless wiretapping story broke that it was being done under the department's supervision.

Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.

(emphases added...NB: Arlen Specter is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee)

[tiptoe]

24. Transcript: May 15, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on U.S. Attorney Firings

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on U.S. Attorney Firings

CQ Transcripts Wire
Tuesday, May 15, 2007; 1:00 PM

[OnyxCollie]

4. Specter didn't feel it was necessary to put Gonzo under oath when testifying about the NSA wiretaps.

Maybe Specter was covering for Gonzo's "incompetence" then.

[maddezmom]

5. of course he was, but now he's going to publicly out him

and privately protect him. SOP for Specter, IMO.

[krkaufman]

21. Heck, he's publicly protecting him, as well, by saying ...

... that it's really up to the President as to whether Gonzales should be removed.

No, Arlen, the Senate could demand that this untrustworthy p.o.s. be removed, based on the lies and "lack of recollection." And failing any action from Bush, Congress can remove him via impeachment.

[notadmblnd]

6. I heard it reported on CNN this afternoon that when James Comey

testified either yesterday or today, He said that Bertie and Andy Card went to the hospital when Ashcroft was in there and put pressure on him to authorize the illegal wiretapping. Comey thought it was pretty low to try and take advantage of the man while he was ill. There's hasn't been anything else on it yet, but I haven't done the google on it either,so...

I remember Ashcroft being hospitalized, but for the life Of me, I can't remember what for. Can anyone refresh my memory?

[OnyxCollie]

8. Pancreatis. nt

[annabanana]

25. gallstone pancreatitis

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/05/ltm.06.html

[xxqqqzme]

7. It is way past time for arlen to take his

magic bullet and retire to the Pennsylvania countryside. There are more than enough neo-con enablers in the house & senate. He can retire.

[truthisfreedom]

9. “it is hard to see how the Department of Justice can function and perform its important duties with

Mr. Gonzales remaining where he is.”

Sir, may I point out to you that it is not important to bushco for the DoJ to be able to "function and perform its important duties." The DoJ operates at the pleasure of this president, sir. It's a brave new world.

[mr.alleycat]

10. Wasn't it Specter that

Slipped the change in law allowing Gonzo to appoint attorneys w/o senate approval.

[OnyxCollie]

11. That's what was originally believed.

But I think it ultimately came from someone in Orrin Hatch's office.

[mr.alleycat]

14. Ok, but

They were a tag team, Specter in the senate and Hatch in the house.

[OnyxCollie]

15. Orrin Hatch is the senator from Utah. nt

[mr.alleycat]

16. duh

:blush:

[L. Coyote]

12. K&R

[hvn_nbr_2]

13. Specter does what Specter always does.

Talks big but carries a kneeling pillow to protect his knees while he's kissing *'s butt.

[Massachusetts]

17. Arlen, you're such an insightful man. Love the tie.

[L. Coyote]

18. Rec & X-Post: COHEN: Alberto Throws Paul Under Bus; Ditto James to Alberto

Kicking this issue to the top.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x890032