There have been a variety of interesting updates on the purge scandal over the last half-day, so how about another round-up?
* The document dump that was rumored for late yesterday afternoon has been put off until Monday. That’s for the best — late-Friday is the worst time for such things.
* Also delayed was an expected announcement from the White House counsel’s office on whether the president’s lawyers would allow Karl Rove and other top aides to testify under oath.
“Given the importance of the issues under consideration, and the presidential principles involved, we need more time to resolve them,” Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said Friday.
* Alberto Gonzales, struggling to keep his job, held a conference call with all of the U.S. Attorneys nationwide yesterday, during which he apologized for the way in which events have unfolded.
Gonzales apologized to the prosecutors not for the firings but for their execution, including for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance, according to people familiar with the afternoon conference call.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Gonzales said, according to one lawyer familiar with the conversation. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said Gonzales acknowledged that he’d seemed too detached during his news conference earlier this week. He told the prosecutors that he “should have known” about the dismissal planning by his former chief of staff.
“I want you to feel like you can be open with me,” Gonzales told the attorneys, and he gave his assurance that their independence was expected and that they wouldn’t be punished.
Unlike those other guys who were fired for not being “loyal Bushies.”
* A fourth Republican lawmaker has called for Gonzales’ ouster: Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) said Gonzales “has become a lightning rod and has distracted” from the Justice Department’s mission.
* CBS News reports: Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that President Bush is in “his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire.” But sources also said Gonzales’ firing is just a matter of time. The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source tells CBS News he’s never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action.
* Remember when we learned earlier this week that Kyle Sampson had resigned as Gonzales’ chief of staff? As it turns out, this wasn’t quite right — NPR discovered that Gonzales “started to set up a new office for Sampson” in the Justice Department, and Sampson only resigned on Tuesday when “the scandal surrounding eight fired U.S. Attorneys continued to grow.” A Justice official told NPR that “there were discussions about whether or not he would be detailed elsewhere as he was transitioning out and ultimately it was decided not to go that direction.” (Yes, the Bush gang can’t even get resignations right.)
* The NYT reported that “some Republicans say the administration will have little choice but to let Mr. Rove talk in some fashion, preferably in private.”
* Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wrote an op-ed for the LA Times summarizing why this controversy is important.
* And former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins, who the Justice Department admits was fired to make room for a Karl Rove protege, told Paul Kiel yesterday that he believes the DoJ
fabricated reasons to fire the other purged prosecutors. Cummins, a life-long Republican, said this was a “reluctant conclusion,” but one he was forced to reach and tell others about. “When they made the decision to lie about these seven people to Congress, that’s when the trouble started,” he said.