Republican: Gonzales ‘Should Be Fired’
By Laurie Kellman THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.
Gonzales has been fending off Democratic demands for his firing in the wake of disclosures surrounding the ousters of eight U.S. attorneys — dismissals Democrats have characterized as a politically motivated purge.
Support from many Republicans had been muted, but there was no outright GOP call for his dismissal until now.
“I think the president should replace him,” Sununu said. “I think the attorney general should be fired.”
Bush, at a news conference in Mexico, told reporters when asked about the controversy: “Mistakes were made. And I’m frankly not happy about them.”
But the president expressed confidence in Gonzales, a longtime friend, and defended the firings. “What Al did and what the Justice Department did was appropriate,” he said.
Still, Bush left himself room to sack the attorney general.
“What was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to the Congress,” Bush said. “And Al’s got work to do up there.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday she thinks the ouster of San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was connected to Lam’s prosecution of former GOP congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, even though the Bush administration has denied it.
“In my heart of hearts I do, no matter what they say,” said Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said.
“The fact is there are additional investigations that have come from that. The fact is that the day before she left office she filed two additional indictments,” Feinstein said, referring to charges Lam filed last month against an ex-CIA official and a defense contractor tied to Cunningham.
“Now they weren’t of members of Congress,” Feinstein added. “But whether this has had a chilling effect over that investigation I don’t know. But I’m concerned about it.”
The developments unfolded as presidential aides labored to protect White House political director Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers from congressional subpoenas. The Senate Judiciary Committee was considering seeking subpoenas for Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and five Justice Department officials.
The White House dispatched presidential counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill to negotiate the terms of any testimony by White House aides in an institutional tug of war reminiscent of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals.
Sununu has long been a critic of what he has said were the White House’s disregard for civil liberties in its war on terrorism and played a large part in forcing the administration to accept new curbs on its power during the reauthorization of the Patriot Act last year.
On Tuesday, he said firings of the prosecutors, together with a report last Friday by the Justice Department’s inspector general criticizing the administration’s use of secret national security letters to obtain personal records in terrorism probes, shattered his confidence in Gonzales.”
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