Given what Republican lawmakers said on the Sunday morning shows, one has to assume Alberto Gonzales’ public-relations offensive isn’t going very well.
Three Republican senators voiced fresh concerns on Sunday about Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s handling of the dismissals of eight United States attorneys amid questions about whether the firings were politically motivated.
The comments, made in separate televised interviews by Republicans with histories of breaking with the White House, provided further indication of waning support for Mr. Gonzales where he needs it most, among fellow Republicans.
Questions over Mr. Gonzales’s future intensified on both sides of the aisle this weekend, after the release of Justice Department documents late Friday that detailed plans for a meeting between Mr. Gonzales and his aides in which they discussed the dismissals last year, 10 days before most of them happened. Mr. Gonzales had previously said that he was “not involved in any discussions about what was going on” and that he had mostly followed the process from a distance.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he spoke with Gonzales on Saturday and told him “he was going to have to have an explanation as to why he said he wasn’t involved in discussions … and now you have these e-mails which appear to contradict that…. We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful. And if we find he has not been candid and truthful, that’s a very compelling reason for him not to stay on.”
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) was even more direct. “He does have a credibility problem,” Hagel said, adding, “I think he’s going to have some difficulties.” Asked if Gonzales could serve effectively given the questions about his credibility, Hagel responded, “Well, I do not.”
And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) acknowledged that Gonzales has lost credibility, and added, “He’s going to have to prove to us that there was a legitimate reason this was poorly handled.”
As of late last week, the Bush gang’s plan seemed to be focused on shoring up GOP support. They might want to consider Plan B.
A variety of other key purge scandal updates from the last 24 hours:
* Still more evidence that politics motivated John McKay’s dismissal in Seattle: “[McKay], who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy, William Kelley, ‘asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me.'”
* Two weeks ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was reluctant to call on Gonzales to resign. Not anymore: “I believe he should step down. And I don’t like saying this. This is not my natural personality at all. But I think the nation is not well served by this. I think we need to get at the bottom of why these resignations were made, who ordered them, and what the strategy was.”
* Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), not surprisingly, isn’t troubled by what he’s learned. “[U]nless there is clear evidence that the attorney general deliberately lied or misled Congress, I see no reason to call for his resignation,” Hatch said.
* Tim Russert raised an interesting angle yesterday: “If the attorney general is saying that these attorney — U.S. attorneys lost his confidence because of their performance-related reasons, then he obviously reviewed the cases, reviewed their situations, reviewed their work records and came out with this reason for their dismissal. That means he was intimately involved.”
* Interesting rumblings about the “coronation” of the new U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Rachel Paulose.
* Robert Kuttner argued in the Boston Globe, “The House of Representatives should begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”
* TP: On March 14, 2007, principal associate deputy attorney general William Moschella insisted that he pursued changes in the Patriot Act — that allowed the President to unilaterally install U.S. attorneys — “on his own, without the knowledge or coordination of his superiors at the Justice Department or anyone at the White House.” But as TPMmuckraker notes, new e-mails “suggest that he discussed the need for proposed changes with other Justice Department officials on Nov. 11, 2005, around the time when the bill was being drawn up.”
* No one can figure out why Margaret Chiara was fired in Michigan.
* No one can figure out why Daniel Bogden was fired in Nevada.
* White House aides have given public testimony on the Hill at least 73 times since 1944.
* ABC: “Justice Department officials announced Thursday night that earlier this week Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asked the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to investigate the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. OPR will be joined in the probe by the Justice Department’s office of Inspector General which had independently launched its own investigation.”
* Bloomberg: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he doesn’t expect Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to survive the uproar over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and predicted he will be gone in a month, ‘one way or the other.'”
* And kudos to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) for having the guts to admit he’s a hack: There is “nothing wrong with firing a U.S. attorney for the reason of politics.”