EDITORIAL: OPINION: Gonzales Should Go
By The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.
May 25–President Bush pledged during a news conference Thursday that he would address any wrongdoing in his Justice Department related to the firings of eight federal prosecutors. Well, what is he waiting for?
The evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales oversaw the politically motivated firings is overwhelming. Furthermore, recent testimony by former Justice Department employees revealed alarming stories about actions by Gonzales.
During testimony last week, former Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Comey described a bizarre scene in 2004 in which Gonzales, who then was White House counsel, and White House chief of staff Andrew Card visited a seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital. Gonzales and Card tried to persuade Ashcroft to approve a domestic surveillance program that already had been found by the Justice Department to be unconstitutional.
To his credit, Ashcroft refused. Comey, who was acting attorney general while Ashcroft recovered and who was in the room, also refused. He said he had been angry that Gonzales and Card had tried to take advantage of “a very sick man.”
This week, Gonzales’ former White House liaison Monica Goodling, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, told members how Gonzales tried to review the details of the prosecutor firings with her. Goodling said that she had been emotionally “paralyzed” at the time and had asked to be transferred off Gonzales’ staff. The discussion, she said, seemed improper to her, as if Gonzales were trying to coach her as a witness.
This testimony merely adds to the picture of Gonzales as White House toady. As official counsel, he, not Ashcroft, should have been the one to raise doubts about the legality of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.
But even before these stories surfaced, ample evidence existed to show the firing of the eight prosecutors was improper. And those firings raise more questions about how other federal prosecutors might have been pressured to do the bidding of White House operatives.
We hope the congressional investigation can trace the line of command to whichever White House officials were calling the shots. Clearly, however, Gonzales needs to go.
But Bush apparently has no intention of firing him. After promising to address wrongdoing at the Justice Department, he reiterated his full confidence in Gonzales and said the congressional hearings were politically motivated.
On Thursday, the Senate scheduled a no-confidence vote on Gonzales in mid-June. But only the president can force him to leave.
Gonzales should relieve the president of that task and resign.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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