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The Rap on GonzalesEmily Bazelon answers your questions.


Posted Thursday, April 19, 2007, at 6:47 PM ET

Emily Bazelon was online at the Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, April 19, to discuss testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Senate judiciary committee. An unedited transcript of the chat follows. Slate tracked the hearings at "The Gonzales Q&A."

Emily Bazelon: Hi everyone. I've been listening to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony today, as I know some of you have, and I'm looking forward to discussing it with you. Send along all those good questions.

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Kalamazoo, Mich.: A general question: I'm struck by how completely aloof the entire exercise is -- why do senators not press home their questions and demand an answer? Are they just so exasperated that his answers are so glaringly without any substance or information? Is there any place for broaching the charge of contempt of Congress because of Gonzales' nonresponses?

Emily Bazelon: There are two problems here. The first is that each senator insists on having his or own time for questions. That makes detailed follow-ups difficult. The second problem is that of dealing with any witness who stalemates. When you get careful nonanswer after nonanswer, it's hard to score a "gotcha."

The senators are trying to show that Gonzales made false statements or misstatements the last time he testified. Prosecuting seems unlikely to me, though.

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Washington: Hello. Reports often note that Gonzales is fighting for his job -- but as a practical matter, how would a displeased Congress remove him? Do they all march single file to the White House and demand his resignation? Are flaming torches involved?

Emily Bazelon: You're right -- Congress can't remove him. He serves in the executive branch, which means that he gets to stay unless President Bush decides otherwise, or he himself decides to resign. All the senators can do is try to up the political pressure.

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Philadelphia: I find it interesting that this is the topic that Congress chose to focus on and blow up into a major scandal -- one that involves their own power, as opposed to the question of whether the FBI abused its authority in national security letters.

Emily Bazelon: Yes, and you could argue that the FBI abuses matter just as much if not more than the US attorney firings. But they lack the appeal of great political theater and telegenic spokesmen, which is what the US attorneys have proved themselves to be.

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New Orleans: Did we learn anything new? If not, does the shoe only drop if some other disclosures of impropriety occur? Regardless, it does not appear that Gonzales is in a strong position to lead the Justice Department -- what does his sticking around mean for the department through the next two years?

Emily Bazelon: I learned two new things, so far. The first is that Gonzales said that the idea of firing some US attorneys was his. His words "I believe it was my plan." That's the first time I remember him saying that.

The second thing, I think, is that the reasons behind David Iglesias' firing look more fishy, not less. Gonzales acknowledged talking to Sen. Pete Domenici and to President Bush about the voter fraud investigation that preceded Iglesias's firing. He claimed there was nothing "improper" about the firing, and made vague references to Iglesias's lack of aggressiveness. But I haven't heard him offer anything of real substance to counter the allegation that the voter fraud investigation was the real rationale. Since this accusation involves both the core of prosecutorial discretion AND the franchise, all of this should matter.

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San Diego: "This was a process ongoing that I did not have transparency into." Do they actually teach that outstanding level of doublespeak in law school, or did Mr. Gonzales learn it from some other source? Are there textbooks? Private tutoring from some secret society of high school English teachers gone bad? Maybe a chip in his brain with some perverse adaptation of the Eliza artificial intelligence program tweaked to sidestep and obfuscate regardless of the input?

Emily Bazelon: The convoluted constructions are wonderful, aren't they? And you've pointed to my favorite one. I also liked, in response to Sen. Arlen Specter's questions about Gonzales' preparation for an earlier press conference: "I said I prepare. I didn't say I was prepared."

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Washington: I would expect more discussion about the supposed "lost" e-mails of Karl Rove, and whether Mr. Gonzales felt this was in any way his concern, at least because of the deliberate violation of official-document retention laws by Mr. Rove. To nearly all questions, Mr. Gonzales appears to answer "I don't know, but it wasn't that." Where can the American public go for law enforcement if its chief enforcement officer is unwilling to serve their interests, nor apply the law to himself or his friends?

Emily Bazelon: I'm surprised the senators aren't pressing this one, too. We had it on the list of questions we put up on Slate today. I suppose in some ways it's a question more for White House Counsel Fred Fielding, but it does point to Gonzales' odd dual role: He is helping to make calls about what documents to release even as he is trying to save his own job.

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Herndon, Va.: How many times has the Attorney General answered "I don't recall today"? My own count is 74.

Emily Bazelon: Ha! He's probably said it a dozen more times since you wrote in.

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Palo Alto, Calif.: Thanks for this topic at this time. I have been puzzled by the developments in this Department of Justice case and the Attorney General. I keep thinking, were I the AG, my two highest priorities would be selecting/evaluating U.S. Attorneys and choosing highly qualified individuals for top positions at the DOJ. Alberto Gonzales seemed totally disinterested and disengaged. What does he do when he is not prepping for hearings?

Emily Bazelon: Marty Lederman, a law prof at Georgetown, wrote a great post earlier this week on the blog Balkinization in which he pointed out that Gonzales may be telling the truth about how not clued in he was--and that in itself is disturbing. Lederman's point is that Gonzales was disengaged because the directives about these firings were coming from the White House, Sampson was the point man for DoJ, and as attorney general he would sign off on whatever they came up with. It's a pretty plausible theory.

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Petaluma, Calif.: Gonzales says he wouldn't and didn't fire U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, or at least not to interfere with their prosecution of cases. Yet he agrees that he personally did fire them, and he seems to be saying he isn't sure why there were fired exactly. Did anyone confront him on this?

Emily Bazelon: The Republican senators gave Gonzales a chance to state his rationales for the relatively "easy" cases--the firings in which there's a paper trail backing up his claims that there are problems. To explain some of the harder firings--John McKay in the state of Washington, Carol Lam in California--Gonzales is going after those prosecutors, criticizing them far more directly than Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, did in his testimony a few weeks ago. That's interesting. And as I've mentioned, I don't think he's done more than offer the vaguest assertions about why David Iglesias was dismissed.

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