{"id":13609,"date":"2007-11-15T15:50:31","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T20:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13609.html"},"modified":"2007-11-15T15:50:31","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T20:50:31","slug":"gonzales-establishes-legal-defense-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gonzales-establishes-legal-defense-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Gonzales establishes legal defense fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Attorneys General, upon stepping down, move to private-sector legal work. Some take on faculty positions at respected law schools. And then there’s Alberto Gonzales, arguably the worst Attorney General in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

Since resigning in disgrace, Gonzales has retained<\/a> a high-powered DC criminal-defense lawyer to represent him. Given that the U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal charges against Gonzales<\/a>, it was probably a good move.<\/p>\n

It’s reached the point at which Gonzales’ friends have had to create a legal defense fund<\/a> for the embattled former AG.<\/p>\n

Supporters of former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales have created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, which are mounting in the face of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness.<\/p>\n

The establishment of a legal defense fund for the nation’s former chief law enforcement officer underscores the potential peril confronting Gonzales, who is one of a handful of attorneys general to face potential criminal charges for actions taken in office.<\/p>\n

David G. Leitch, a Gonzales friend and general counsel at the Ford Motor Co., wrote in an e-mail solicitation to potential contributors last month that Gonzales is “innocent of any wrongdoing” but does not have the means to pay for his legal defense after a career spent mostly in public service.<\/p>\n

“In the hyper-politicized atmosphere that has descended on Washington, an innocent man cannot simply trust that the truth will out,” Leitch wrote. “He must engage highly competent legal counsel to represent him. That costs money, money that Al Gonzales doesn’t have.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poor Fredo.
\n
\nI’d add, by the way, that the Inspector General’s probe of Gonzales’ alleged perjury and obstruction is only half of Gonzales’ problem. The newly-reinvigorated investigation from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility principally focuses on his role in covering up his own alleged wrongdoing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales’s role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general. […]<\/p>\n

Stephen Gillers, a law professor at the New York University School of Law and an expert on legal ethics issues, questioned Gonzales’s role in advising Bush in any capacity about the probe after he learned that his own conduct might be scrutinized: “If the attorney general was on notice that he was a person of interest to the OPR inquiry, he should have stepped aside and not been involved in any decisions about the scope or the continuation of the investigation.”<\/p>\n

Robert Litt, a principal associate deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, agreed. Gonzales “should have recused himself. He should not have played a role in an investigation that touches upon him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With that in mind, Gonzales might face charges as a result of two separate<\/i> investigations.<\/p>\n

If he’s really lucky, Gonzales will be charged with wrongdoing quickly, so he can go to trial and get convicted — before Bush leaves office. Given what the president did for Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales has to assume he’ll be protected.<\/p>\n

Of course, if the legal consequences come after<\/em> January 2009, Fredo will have a much tougher time. I don’t imagine a Democratic president will take pity on him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Attorneys General, upon stepping down, move to private-sector legal work. Some take on faculty positions at respected law schools. And then there’s Alberto Gonzales, arguably the worst Attorney General in U.S. history. Since resigning in disgrace, Gonzales has retained a high-powered DC criminal-defense lawyer to represent him. Given that the U.S. Inspector General may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}