When are they going to impeach this lying thug? This SOB has lied under oath so many times, he's made it into a joke. His department is not functioning. This is the United States Justice Department we are talking about here. Bush isn't going to fire him, and I don't understand why we don't start the impeachments with this goon.
Gonzales Denies Improper Pressure on Ashcroft
By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, July 24 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales denied on Tuesday that he had improperly pressured John Ashcroft to sign an authorization for the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program in 2004 when Mr. Ashcroft, his predecessor, lay in a hospital bed, in pain and on sedatives after surgery.
Mr. Gonzales, in an acrimonious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that hours before the hospital confrontation, the White House had summoned Congressional leaders to an emergency meeting to discuss ways to head off a revolt at the Justice Department against the security agency program.
Mr. Gonzales said that he and Andrew H. Card Jr., then White House chief of staff, had tried to obtain Mr. Ashcroft’s approval as a last resort, after the lawmakers rejected emergency legislation but recommended that the program should continue despite the Justice Department’s opposition. Mr. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, said he felt compelled to enlist Mr. Ashcroft’s help to obtain the reauthorization.
“Obviously, there was concern about General Ashcroft’s condition, and we would not have sought, nor did we intend to get any approval from General Ashcroft if in fact he wasn’t fully competent to make that decision,” Mr. Gonzales testified.
But some Congressional Democrats disputed Mr. Gonzales’s account of the White House meeting, and Justice Department aides acknowledged in a background briefing for reporters after the hearing that his “linguistic parsing” had caused confusion.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, who attended the 2004 meeting as the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Mr. Gonzales’s account “untruthful.” Mr. Rockefeller said he believed Mr. Gonzales was deliberately misleading Congress about the showdown over the N.S.A. program inside the Bush administration.
Mr. Gonzales endured the nearly four-hour battering at the hearing with a calm, sometimes bewildered expression. He insisted he would stay on as attorney general despite his low credibility in Congress.
Democratic lawmakers portrayed the Justice Department as rudderless and demoralized, and they voiced deep skepticism about his leadership, often with sarcastic and derisive criticism. For the first time, several lawmakers suggested his statements about the surveillance programs were so misleading that his testimony might lead to potential legal sanction.
“I just don’t trust you,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont and the panel’s chairman, who urged Mr. Gonzales to review carefully his testimony — a warning that committee lawyers would examine it for possible intentional misstatements. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s senior Republican who has long been critical of Mr. Gonzales, went further, saying, “Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.”
Mr. Gonzales’s account added fresh detail to what was previously known about the hospital confrontation in which Mr. Ashcroft, who had had gallbladder surgery, and other senior Justice Department officials had threatened to resign until President Bush agreed to modify the program.
His account also contrasted sharply with the recollection of James B. Comey, a former deputy attorney general who worked under both Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Comey testified before the committee in May that he had been “very angry” during the hospital encounter because “I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man.”
Mr. Comey said he and Mr. Ashcroft had serious reservations about renewing the surveillance authorization based on a legal review by the Justice Department. The intelligence-gathering operation was later modified, in ways that are still not clear, to overcome Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey’s main objections.
At the hearing, several senators attacked Mr. Gonzales’s assertions under oath in testimony last year that there had been no disagreement inside the Bush administration over the N.S.A. surveillance program.
Mr. Specter asked Mr. Gonzales, “What credibility is left for you when you say there’s no disagreement?”
In answers that seemed to perplex and further exasperate senators, Mr. Gonzales said his past testimony about the program was correct. He said there was no debate about the N.S.A. program whose existence was confirmed by Mr. Bush in December 2005, after it was disclosed by The New York Times.
He insisted, however, that there were other “intelligence activities” that prompted the dispute in 2004 in which Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey and other Justice Department officials had threatened to quit.
Some senators expressed disbelief at the distinction Mr. Gonzales was seeking to make. “You’re not being straightforward with this committee,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said. “You’re deceiving us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25gonzales.html?pagewanted=print
Gonzales Denies Improper Pressure on Ashcroft
By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, July 24 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales denied on Tuesday that he had improperly pressured John Ashcroft to sign an authorization for the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program in 2004 when Mr. Ashcroft, his predecessor, lay in a hospital bed, in pain and on sedatives after surgery.
Mr. Gonzales, in an acrimonious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that hours before the hospital confrontation, the White House had summoned Congressional leaders to an emergency meeting to discuss ways to head off a revolt at the Justice Department against the security agency program.
Mr. Gonzales said that he and Andrew H. Card Jr., then White House chief of staff, had tried to obtain Mr. Ashcroft’s approval as a last resort, after the lawmakers rejected emergency legislation but recommended that the program should continue despite the Justice Department’s opposition. Mr. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, said he felt compelled to enlist Mr. Ashcroft’s help to obtain the reauthorization.
“Obviously, there was concern about General Ashcroft’s condition, and we would not have sought, nor did we intend to get any approval from General Ashcroft if in fact he wasn’t fully competent to make that decision,” Mr. Gonzales testified.
But some Congressional Democrats disputed Mr. Gonzales’s account of the White House meeting, and Justice Department aides acknowledged in a background briefing for reporters after the hearing that his “linguistic parsing” had caused confusion.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, who attended the 2004 meeting as the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Mr. Gonzales’s account “untruthful.” Mr. Rockefeller said he believed Mr. Gonzales was deliberately misleading Congress about the showdown over the N.S.A. program inside the Bush administration.
Mr. Gonzales endured the nearly four-hour battering at the hearing with a calm, sometimes bewildered expression. He insisted he would stay on as attorney general despite his low credibility in Congress.
Democratic lawmakers portrayed the Justice Department as rudderless and demoralized, and they voiced deep skepticism about his leadership, often with sarcastic and derisive criticism. For the first time, several lawmakers suggested his statements about the surveillance programs were so misleading that his testimony might lead to potential legal sanction.
“I just don’t trust you,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont and the panel’s chairman, who urged Mr. Gonzales to review carefully his testimony — a warning that committee lawyers would examine it for possible intentional misstatements. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s senior Republican who has long been critical of Mr. Gonzales, went further, saying, “Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.”
Mr. Gonzales’s account added fresh detail to what was previously known about the hospital confrontation in which Mr. Ashcroft, who had had gallbladder surgery, and other senior Justice Department officials had threatened to resign until President Bush agreed to modify the program.
His account also contrasted sharply with the recollection of James B. Comey, a former deputy attorney general who worked under both Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Comey testified before the committee in May that he had been “very angry” during the hospital encounter because “I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man.”
Mr. Comey said he and Mr. Ashcroft had serious reservations about renewing the surveillance authorization based on a legal review by the Justice Department. The intelligence-gathering operation was later modified, in ways that are still not clear, to overcome Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey’s main objections.
At the hearing, several senators attacked Mr. Gonzales’s assertions under oath in testimony last year that there had been no disagreement inside the Bush administration over the N.S.A. surveillance program.
Mr. Specter asked Mr. Gonzales, “What credibility is left for you when you say there’s no disagreement?”
In answers that seemed to perplex and further exasperate senators, Mr. Gonzales said his past testimony about the program was correct. He said there was no debate about the N.S.A. program whose existence was confirmed by Mr. Bush in December 2005, after it was disclosed by The New York Times.
He insisted, however, that there were other “intelligence activities” that prompted the dispute in 2004 in which Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey and other Justice Department officials had threatened to quit.
Some senators expressed disbelief at the distinction Mr. Gonzales was seeking to make. “You’re not being straightforward with this committee,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said. “You’re deceiving us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25gonzales.html?pagewanted=print
squad............