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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (339495)	8/1/2007 8:53:24 AM
From: stan_hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Gawd I hope they eventually nail this lying little motherfucker -- Gonzales's Woes Create Legal Liability for Bush Administration bloomberg.com By Robert Schmidt Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has gone from being a political embarrassment to a legal liability for the White House. President George W. Bush resisted pressure to fire Gonzales, claiming Democrats in Congress were on a witch hunt. Lawmakers haven't backed off, hammering away at the attorney general's credibility. Gonzales now faces demands for a criminal investigation and calls for his impeachment. ``Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, it gets worse,' said Douglas Kmiec, a former Justice Department legal counsel in the Reagan administration. ``The natural progression of this is not healthy for the department and is not favorable for the attorney general.' Six months after revelations over the ouster of nine federal prosecutors ignited a firestorm, Democrats are demanding the appointment of a special counsel to probe whether Gonzales lied under oath about the firings and Bush's anti-terrorism surveillance program. Gonzales, 51, has until the end of this week to review his congressional testimony and correct any misstatements. His response may determine whether influential lawmakers -- such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and the panel's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- join the chorus for an independent inquiry. Congress and the White House are already embroiled in a battle over executive privilege that could be headed for a showdown in court. Bush has refused to provide documents sought by the lawmakers investigating the firings, and top aides have defied subpoenas to testify under oath. Democratic Allegations At the heart of Gonzales's troubles are Democratic allegations he committed perjury on several occasions. Gonzales says he told the truth and Bush is sticking by him. Democrats say Gonzales may have lied when he testified that he hadn't talked to other Justice Department officials about the prosecutor firings. Monica Goodling, Gonzales's former counsel, testified in May that Gonzales made her feel ``uncomfortable' by raising the matter with her, suggesting he may have tried to influence her recollection of events. Gonzales told Congress last week that he was ``trying to console and reassure an emotionally distraught woman.' He also asserted in 2006 Senate testimony that ``there has not been any serious disagreement' in the administration over the interception of suspected terrorists' international phone calls and e-mails without court warrants. Resignation Threat That was contradicted in congressional testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Both said there was dissent and Comey said top Justice Department officials threatened to resign until Bush stepped in to engineer a compromise. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24 that the internal debate involved intelligence activities other than the domestic spying program the senators were inquiring about. The Justice Department says Gonzales is constrained because the spying involves classified information. Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said last week that ``confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum.' Yesterday, 15 House Democrats introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into whether there are ``sufficient grounds' to impeach Gonzales. Independent Prosecutor The call for an independent prosecutor on the perjury allegations was made last week by Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. They asked Solicitor General Paul Clement to appoint a lawyer from outside the Justice Department to decide whether Gonzales should be charged with obstruction of justice and perjury. Clement, the administration's top courtroom lawyer, is acting attorney general in matters in which Gonzales has recused himself. Legal experts say perjury cases are tough to prove. ``You need to be precise, to show there is no wiggle room or ambiguity in the answers the person gave,' said Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor and now a professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York. ``I'm not sure it's as clear here as some of the Democrats claim.' Hurdles Any special counsel would face major obstacles, including handling classified information and dealing with a charged political climate, said Kmiec, the former Justice legal counsel who is now a professor at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California. Clement wouldn't ``want the job of appointing anyone, and I'd be very surprised if there is anyone not a partisan who would want the job,' Kmiec said. Whatever the outcome of the investigations, the administration may still want to stick with Gonzales, said one former Justice Department official. Gonzales's successor would have to be ``very independent and spotlessly clean' to get confirmed by the Senate, said Philip Heymann, a professor at Harvard Law School who was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. ``It's risky in a lot of ways for the administration,' he said. ``The alternative is a politically weak attorney general or a dangerously independent attorney general.' Last Updated: August 1, 2007 00:05 EDT