Gonzales Knows a Shiny Object When He Sees One

by emptywheel

(Photo by Kuni Takahashi/Chicago Tribune)

No, I don't mean Fitzgerald is a shiny object. In fact, he looks downright morose, sitting next to one of the men who has shredded our Constitution. (Though notice, Fitz wore his seersuckery gray suit we made fun of in the trial--wearing his Sunday best for AG AG, I see!)

What I mean is the shiny object of the November 27 meeting. If you click through and watch the video, you will see precisely what question got Abu Gonzales so scared he ran away: When did you approve the final list of USAs to be sacked?

"It was sometime in the Fall of 2006," Abu Gonzales answered, then showed Chicago the hand and walked away.

It's a curious answer and an equally curious moment to abandon the Press Conference. After all, as I pointed out just after the most recent document dump, the November 27 meeting, at which Abu G purportedly approved the list, does not answer the outstanding questions--not about the gap, and not about the decision to fire the USAs. Most importantly, that November 27 meeting still doesn't explain how we go from wondering whether Harriet's boss needs to approve the firings on November 15 (just as Bush left town for two weeks) to when the WH says "we're a go" on December 4, just after Bush has returned to DC.

Call me crazy, but I suspect there's a very good reason Abu G is being so vague--and skittish. Wanna bet that November 27 meeting is not what he's most worried about?

Comments

[mainsailset]

It occured to me that Abu may have just looked into Fitz's face and seen for the first time the intent stare of a Special Prosecuting Attorney looking at Abu. That Fitz stare, that never gives anything away, could have jarred Abu right out of his skivies!

[lemondloulou]

Wouldn't we all love to know how much money the WH has invested in this bogus publicity stunt that AGAG is on. It allows him to get out in the public eye with one of those "can't argue with that" policies and not have to answer any real questions. Pure political genius. Rove is nothing if not inspired.

[obsessed]

I keep reading that the "special prosecutor law" has lapsed. What does this mean? By what means might we get some sort of independent prosecutor involved in this since have the DOJ investigate itself seems patently ridiculous.

On the other hand, are we better off without another 4 year, slow moving, ultra-secretive, low-yielding investigation?

What, in your humble opinion, is the best game plan?

[Neil]

Obsessed, there was a law that defined the role of a 'special prosecutor'. It lapsed and it was not renewd. The last person to act under that authority was Ken Starr. It's been said that his $75 million tab and the results he delivered - he turned his investigation of the Clinton whitewater deal into a national symposium on sex - is the reason the statute was not renewed.

When the AG (finally) recused himself from the CIA leak case investigation, the AG's office needed to appoint a 'special counsel' to investigate the smoke to determine if there was fire. Fitz got the job. His authority was differnt than a special prosecutor. He had no authority to write a report or to disclose the proceedings of secret grand jury testimony.

There is no indication that a 'special counsel' will be appointed to investigate DOJ in the termination of the US Attorneys. Congress is investigating using its oversight powers to determine if the terminations were proper.

There's lots of news in the case. Keep reading!

[ab initio]

This drip-drip-drip is not doing the WH or the Republicans any good. Abu is on TV every day and each time he comes across as trying to hide something and not being truthful. Which of course is the fact.

The American people may not be able to connect all the dots like EW does but they realize where there's smoke there's fire.

Let the WH continue to stonewall as more leaks and documents pop up. Hopefully Conyers and Leahy will start to lay it out in black & white the concerted effort by the WH to use the power of the executive and specifically the DoJ to disenfranchise Americans (particularly Dems) with regard to their vote and to use prosecutorial powers as witch hunts on Dem officials and candidates while at the same time obstructing investigations and prosecutions of Republican criminality.

I really hope the Congress will start a specific investigation into the role of the WH in trying to obstruct the Cunningham/Wade/Foggo; Abramoff and all related matters; NH phone jamming; and other key activities of the Rovian operation to "cement" a Republican majority enterprise to loot taxpayers and subvert the constitution.

[JGabriel]

EW: "If you ... watch the video, you will see precisely what question got Abu Gonzales so scared he ran away: When did you approve the final list of USAs to be sacked?

"It was sometime in the Fall of 2006," Abu Gonzales answered, then showed Chicago the hand and walked away.

[...]

Call me crazy, but I suspect there's a very good reason Abu G is being so vague--and skittish. Wanna bet that November 27 meeting is not what he's most worried about?"

You may be right, in fact I'm sure you are -- but I also suspect Gonzo is shellshocked. He can't even handle the most basic of his PR duties anymore. If he can't do that, then even Gonzo himself must know he has to resign soon.

Gonzalez is probably experiencing very deep depression right now, something he may have no prior experience with. I don't think he's reacting rationally anymore, just desperately repeating whatever platitudes have been vetted by the WH, appropriate or not, and hoping they'll deflect the attention.

Then he cuts and runs when they don't.

So I'm not sure how much we can really read into Gonzalez's responses. If he's no longer acting rationally, it could become easy to overanalyze his responses. He might not be reacting to the outside world anymore so much as an internal feeling of "I can't take this anymore" helplessness.

Not that I'm recommending pity or sympathy for Gonzalez. He's still a totrture-endorsing, manipulative, toadying, scum. I'm just pointing out that it's likely he's not even remotely mentally healthy at this point. And that we need to take that into account when assessing his reactions.

.

[martin]

"What need we fear who knows it, when none can call
our power to account?

--Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?"

Macbeth | Act V, Scene 1

[Neil]

"Today, the only way to get to the bottom of the United States attorney scandal -- which involved the administration's firing of nearly 10 percent of America's top prosecutors -- is to ...appoint a special prosecutor."

- Neil Katyal, New York Times Op-Ed

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/opinion/27katyal.html

[emptywheel]

Though, Neil, I vote against Fitz, for several reasons (too polarizing). My pick is Peter Zeidenberg, who worked on teh Libby case and put Safavian in jail. Probably not as strictly apolitical as Fitz. But he'd have more time to make the case I think. And he'd have a bit more fun with it...

[Bugboy]

When Gonzo blurted out that "I've already answered that question!" last night, it was almost like one of those possessions on TV where you see this other face ghost over his, only this time it was Bush's. Scary.

[hauksdottir]

If Abu doesn't want to answer questions, perhaps we can hand him over to the CIA for delivering to one of their black holes until he is ready to talk? Since he approved torturing suspects, and stripped habeas corpus from our bill of rights, he can't possibly object to being treated as he has treated others!

Justice may be a lady, but she is a lady with a sword.

[Canuck Stuck in Muck]

I gotta tell ya, this is gettin' interestin'. Let me see...WH (in fact office of the VPOTUS) contracts with MZM, $140K to screen for anthrax. The Dukestir gets $140K shortly thereafter from MZM's Wade. Wilkes is a lifelong friend of Foggo, #3 at the CIA, who invited his boss, Porter Goss, to poker/cigar/hooker parties at the Watergate, and fed his lifelong friend contracts for black ops, which are untraceable. Wilkes brags that he's got the VP in his pocket. Doolittle's involved. So is Jerry Lewis. Abramoff and Doolittle are tight. Abramoff and Buckham are tight. Abramoff and DeLay are tight. Abramoff and Doolittle's wife, and Buckham's wife, and his own wife are tight, and Abramoff lends his closest aide to Rove (Ralston), who uses unofficial email routes to communicate with Abramoff, and Rove uses the RNC web 95% of the time, and Rove outed Valerie Plame, and Rove arranged for all the US attourneys to get sacked for not being loyal bushies, and Lam's investigation is languishing, and the tobacco case was gutted, and Abramoff is getting his sentence reduced and Griles gets off nearly Scott free.

Am I forgetting anything?

[P J Evans]

Gonzo knows where Shrub's skeletons are stashed. Shrub is, as we've seen, vindictive as well as secrecy-obsessed - he won't want Gonzo loose where he can talk.

Gonzo needs to become paranoid and also needs to tell all to the friendly committees in Congress. That's his protection.

[kspena]

Is it Murphy's Law that says 'people get promoted to the level of their incompetence'? Or is it, 'if anything can go wrong, it will'? In either case they are both describtions of what is happening in this administration.

I don't think this Texas gang can successfully coordinate this thing. They're too accustomed to shooting from the hip. If you look at Rove's and Bush's responses, they're just as incoherent as Gonzalez's have been. Their usual tactic in times of exposure, as we know, has been to unite to smash their opponents one by one then hide behind a simplistic denial. ('I never met Joe Wilson'). I don't think the gang ever expected to face a complex, morphing Congressional inquiry or the public's gaze head-on, and they're clearly not prepared. Fred Fielding is surely an experienced lawyer, but I don't think he can save them.

If Bush is looking for a 'way out', he may be ready to use it. A Russian news article claims that Good Friday, April 6th has been selected at the day for bombing Iran. "Operation Bite: April 6 sneak attack by US forces against Iran planned, Russian military sources warn." See Online Journal or Intelligence Daily.com.

[Dismayed]

A search for operation bite on Goggle finds numerous referances to the above. I wouldn't know how to begin to get a grasp on the credibility of the reports, but it comes from a supposedly credible Russian journalist, and carries some seemingly credible quotes from Russian authorities. I've long thought Bush would move on Iran at some point. However, I have a very tough time believing we'll know specifics like this before the first bomb falls.

[Outahere]

My cubemate and I are having an on-going debate re whether the botched DOJ purge is just politics as usual but very badly done or truly insidiously polarizing politics. Is this new stuff really?

[Outahere]

My cubemate and I are having an on-going debate re whether the botched DOJ purge is just politics as usual but very badly done or truly insidiously polarizing politics. Is this new stuff really?

[NYT]

Check out former acting AG George Terwilliger's Op-Ed in todays WSJ. He is arguing that the Pres has the right to direct USAs to prosecute (or not) specific cases.

"Should the attorney general, with or without prompting from the president, direct a U.S. attorney to prosecute or not to prosecute a particular case, or to take care to do or refrain from doing something in the prosecution of the case, he is doing no more, or less, than exercising his constitutional and statutory responsibilities -- to, as the Constitution requires, "take care that the laws be faithfully executed.""

I haven't seen this before. So far the RW noise machine has been pushing the line that firing the USAs is perfectly legal. Arguing that the Pres is within his rights to interfere in specific cases is a new one. Its obviously a tougher sell so I wonder why Terwilliger feels the need to make it.

[Neil]

EW, I agree. There are good reasons not to choose him again so soon and there are other people (almost as good) to take on the task. As you can tell, I have a strong Fitz bias.

I learned over the weekend, the original Amherst Rugby Club was founded around 1962. A group of guys wanted to play rugby in the spring. Many of them were football players. The football coach helped get them funding and became their faculty advisor and first coach. He was 39 at the time and he practiced with them. Now I'm curious to find out how soon after Amherst went coed in 75 they formed the women's club.

Did you catch this article last Tuesday? If there was an attempt to separate Fitz from his job, he surely wouldn't have been too happy to see his boss yesterday.

Imagine any credible rating system marking Fitzy's performance at less than top rated? I cannot.

Fitzgerald Ranked During Leak Case
Justice Dept. Fired 2 With Same Rating

By Dan Eggen and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; Page A01

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031902036.html

[Neil]

In March 2005, while preparing for the firings, Mr. Gonzales’s now-jettisoned chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, produced a chart rating all 93 United States attorneys nationwide. Mr. Fitzgerald, widely admired as one of the nation’s best prosecutors (most famously of terrorists), was somehow slapped with the designation “not distinguished.”

When Will Fredo Get Whacked?
By FRANK RICH
Published: March 25, 2007

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/opinion/25rich.html?

[prostratedragon]

"WH (in fact office of the VPOTUS) contracts with MZM, $140K to screen for anthrax."

A little thing that bothers me is, if you were really worried about an anthrax-like attack penetrating the White House, why would you hire a newby firm to screen for it? I suppose they might've subcontracted out the work. Still …

[phred]

prostratedragon -- the first thing I thought of when I saw that news item about the anthrax contract being a cover for money laundering is that they did not consider mail-borne anthrax a genuine threat. Kinda raises some questions, no?

[John B.]

so, whatever DID happen to the anthrax investigation???
and why did it only get sent to the media and to Dems on Capitol Hill in the run up to the War Big Sell?

Is Rove behind this too?
Why no news on this? Our vaunted FBI can't figure out who did this?

Just asking.

[mainsailset]

Since the MZM maiden Fed contract is so inanely put together, here's a fun thought. Mr. micromanager VP takes on protecting the Pres of the United States by hiring a no experience contractor to screen the Pres's mail for anthrax & bios. Did he do this because he really didn't care if the Pres got contaminated mail and fell ill; did he do this because he was certain the FBI couldn't do the job and they needed other help; OR did he do this because he knew something about the Anthrax threat...that we don't know to this day...that made him feel safe enough from it to use the scare as a coverup for his games with MZM. Just asking who the real perpetrator of the scare is here.

[Neil]

A little thing that bothers me is, if you were really worried about an anthrax-like attack penetrating the White House, why would you hire a newby firm to screen for it? I suppose they might've subcontracted out the work.

Posted by: prostratedragon

So what are you saying...Cheney wasn't seriously concerned about the potential for an anthrax letter attack in his office? Even after attacks on The National Inquirer, Sen Leahy and Sen Daschle? Why?