Eye On America | Gonzales case indicates administration’s disregard for legal process

Ross Weingarten Columnist

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ congressional testimony concerning the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year has not received the full media attention that it deserves as of late. Gonzales’s refusal to admit wrongdoing is just the latest in a long line of political blunders by this administration, and one that proves just how arrogant and, at times, idiotic, the White House can be.

The issue at stake is whether or not Gonzales fired the eight prosecutors because they acted in a manner that was politically disagreeable to the Republican machine, particularly President Bush and his top advisor, Karl Rove. If this were the case, Gonzales would ultimately be dismissed as the top prosecutor in the country. Gonzales told members of Congress that while he believes the process leading up to the firings was flawed, “I firmly believe that nothing improper occurred.” Yet in the aftermath of his Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, it is hard to find anyone on Capitol Hill, even a Republican, who believes the Attorney General when he says that the terminations were not simply based on partisan politics.

At the hearings, Gonzales repeatedly denied any erroneous action in the removal process, yet could not come up with a reasonable explanation for why the prosecutors were fired. Often, he claimed ignorance, saying that he didn’t recall the discussions and transactions that took place on the eve of the firings. Instead of repentance, the Attorney General was combative and accusatory himself. According to The Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, Gonzales acted like a child who was caught in a lie, unable to admit to his mistake and accusing others of falsely accusing him. Even Republicans were disgusted with his conduct.

The irony here is that of course the firings were political! Both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan removed virtually every U.S. attorney on staff with little explanation after they arrived in office. The President has a right to remove prosecutors, and had Gonzales simply said that he was only following his boss’ orders and given no other reasoning, the scandal would have died before it gained footing. While it is strange that Bush chose to do so in the middle of a term, he still has the right to fire federal prosecutors. But instead of simply admitting the obvious and moving on, Gonzales maintained that the removal of chief prosecutors, many of them Bush appointees, had nothing to do with their loyalty to Bush or failure to investigate allegations of Democratic voter fraud. Yeah, right.

The Attorney General must be fired, although Bush maintains that he is happy with the job Gonzales has done. Perhaps this is because Gonzales is covering up for his boss and not telling investigators that it was the President and Rove who demanded the prosecutors be fired. Whatever the case, Bush must cut his losses and move on.

There are issues here that go much deeper than the fate of Gonzales. The first is the complete and utter mishandling of the ordeal by the White House. Gonzales’ lack of respect for the legal and investigative process that has displayed itself last week is characteristic of the Bush administration. His tone of deference and his vague denials show that Bush and his cronies have little regard for the structures in place meant to check politicians and law-makers. There is little doubt that the eight U.S. Attorneys were fired because of their insistence on investigating Republican officials for misconduct. In other words, they were fired for doing their jobs. What’s worse is that I highly doubt that Bush, Rove or Gonzales saw anything wrong with this at the time. These three act like armed bandits walking into a Western town: the rules of the town, in this case Washington, don’t apply to them.

However, the fact that Republican senators, particularly Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, the highest ranking Republican on the committee, are willing to defy the president and his administration so freely shows that the strangle-hold that Bush’s “us versus. them” mentality had on Capitol Hill is coming to an end. When politicians and law-makers make a mistake, they should be punished for it accordingly, regardless of their party. It seems like punishment is coming soon for Gonzales. Now, if we could only get the President to feel the same way.