LEAHY: Mr. Attorney General, late last week, the White House spokesperson claimed an unknown number of e-mails, including those of Karl Rove, from both White House accounts and apparently those sent or received using political Republican National Committee accounts, were lost. And Mr. Rove’s attorney, in the investigation that led to Scooter Libby’s conviction for lying suggested that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, a part of the Department of Justice, obtained all of Mr. Rove’s e-mails as part of the investigation into the leak of the identity of a covert CIA operative. If that is the case, those e-mails would be in your possession or in the possession of the Department of Justice. What do we have to do to obtain Mr. Rove’s e-mails relevant to the development and implementation of the plan to replace U.S. attorneys and the committee’s investigation into that matter?
GONZALES: Senator, I was not aware that — I didn’t see that article. I wasn’t aware that Mr. Fitzgerald had that information or if, in fact, the department still has that information. So I’d have to go back and look to see what, in fact, the facts are.
LEAHY: If he does have the information, and it involves e-mails relevant to the development and implementation of the U.S. attorneys plan…
GONZALES: Senator, I believe that those — well, I don’t have the answer to that, Senator. I know that they’re of interest to the committee, and obviously the department wants to be cooperative with the committee. There may be White House equities here that need to be considered, and so…
LEAHY: We’re not talking about e-mails from the president. In fact, the president doesn’t use e-mail, as I understand. Am I right?
GONZALES: As far as I know that’s correct, sir. But the fact that they may have been communications over an RNC account doesn’t mean that they’re not presidential records. If in fact relates to government business, and they’re transmitted over an RNC account, they could nonetheless be presidential records. And so there would be a governmental interest — a White House interest in those records.
LEAHY: These are records supposedly that were lost, though.
GONZALES: Senator, I don’t know…
LEAHY: Are they there or aren’t they there?
GONZALES: What I’m saying is, is if in fact they exist…
The fact that Alberto Gonzales is lying, or that he is incompetent, or that he is partisan are difficult problems. But the biggest problem is that he is a political operative. It overwhelms all of the others. He was testifying in a Congressional Hearing where he was literally fighting for his own reputation, yet he spontaneously brought up an Administration issue, not in response to direct questions, and argued for it.
Another example [in the words of John Dean]:
Some of the most important and revealing information during this hearing did not come from Gonzales, but rather from the newest member of the committee, freshman Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D.RI). Senator Whitehouse is the former Attorney General of Rhode Island, and a former U.S. Attorney. He thus understands well how the Justice Department should operate, and how it actually is operating.
In a premise to a question for Gonzales, Senator Whitehouse said he had found correspondence in the files of the Senate Judiciary Committee from the days when Orrin Hatch was chairman relating to an investigation of the relationship between the Clinton White House and the Justice Department (under Attorney General Janet Reno). Hatch was concerned about the independence of the Department of Justice, so he wanted to know who in the White House could speak with whom in the Justice Department. The correspondence showed that four people in the White House (the President, Vice President, chief of staff, and White House counsel) could speak with three people in the Justice Department (the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney and the Associate Attorney General) – period.
Senator Whitehouse discovered – and created a chart to make the point – that in the Bush White House, a shocking 417 people could speak with 30 different people in the Justice Department. It was a jaw-dropper. As Chairman Leahy said, when he asked Senator Whitehouse to continue when his time expired, in his thirty years on the Judiciary Committee, he had never seen anything like the open contacts from the White House to the Justice Department that had occurred in the Bush Administration.
Gonzales really had no response when asked about this subject. But this information shows that, in this Administration, the Department of Justice has become a mere political appendage of the White House. (I have a number of friends who are career professionals at the Department of Justice, and since Gonzales arrived, they have said that morale at the department has tanked, for they all feel the politicization of the place, and they do not like it. Many of these gifted, experienced professionals are leaving, which will hurt the Department, the government, and ultimately all of us.)
Are the Democrats in Congress up to the task of investigating all this stuff? Rove and company have people everywhere. I thought I knew corruption with Nixon and Ken Lay but I don’t think they come close to this sick hunger for power. It really scares me. They are very evil people.
It’s sickening. Just sickening.