Boy, AG AG sure didn’t start off well in answering questions from Leahy and Specter. He clearly annoyed Leahy. Then he made Specter just plain angry by ducking questions and getting cute. Specter took a shot at him for the extent of his preparations for today’s hearing. Gonzales responded by saying “I prepare for all my hearings.” Boy, Specter didn’t appreciate that. He got visibly–even for him–agitated and demanded to know “Do you prepare for your press conferences?” He wouldn’t let go of that one for at least a couple questions, making Gonzales look silly for insisting on his habit of preparation just minutes after he himself had conceded mistakes in his press conference a few weeks ago. Specter finished up by telling AG that he was going to have to “win this debate”, together with a disappointed look and the statement that he, Specter, wanted AG to win. AG looked chastened and said simply “I apologize, Senator.”
Kennedy is now asking AG how he can be so sure that the firings of the USAs were justified when he claims to have known so little about the process leading up to it.
Should be an interesting day.
(You can watch the Senate Judiciary hearing here.)
Update: If I heard him correctly, Gonzales just decribed agonizing (possibly my word, but I think it’s an accurate paraphrasing) over whether to dismiss Daniel Bogden (fired USA for Las Vegas). How can you be tormented by whether to fire someone and also not be much involved in the process of whether to fire him?
Posted by Jonah Gelbach on April 19, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Comments
Orin Kerr: ” I don’t know if the U.S. Attorney purge story will actually play out into something truly scandalous. There’s some smoke, but it’s hard to tell if there’s any fire.”
Really? I would bet if Congress expanded their investigation, a flaming infernor would be found.
Amazing – this is the second time I got blipped off posting the content of this comment. Query – am I being censored by homeland Security and the U.S. Dept. of Justice a/k/a/ Alberto Gonzalez?
Ya see, it goes like this, and I would definitely urge the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to immediately investigate this as additional potential grounds to impeach and to investigate whether Bush &Co. have improperly influenced the Federal Judiciary.
My disabled husband and I (Americans With Disabilities Act civil rights activists), came under severe punishment from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Federal District Court Judge James D. Whittemore, and United States Court of Appeal, Eleventh Circuit Judge Ed Carnes, during the reign of Paul Perez, the United States Attorney who suspiciously resigned just as the Alberto Gonzalez horse pucky was hitting the fan, immediately after we did the following:
1. Complained to President Bush’s 2000 &2004 Presidential election lawyer, Barry Richards, Esquire, of Greenberg Traurig (Jack Abramoff’s and Justice Scalia’s son’s law firm) that I and potentially thousands of other disabled assistive technology users were deliberately disenfranchised from voting in the Florida elections who might have voted Democratic rather than Republican by the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s and then-governor Jeb Bush’s administration’s refusal to make Florida’s voting process comply with Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act’
2. Obtained an email from Theron Hutto, who admitted recklessly tying an expensive Yacht to kill my husband and I, and who admitted and confessed to having committed willful material perjury before Federal District Court Judge James D. Whittemore and Magistrate Elizabeth A. Jenkins, who is still walking free without any fear of prosecution of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, in which email Mr. Hutto admitted working for Jack Abramoff’s SunCruz Casinos;
3. Complained that U.S. Attorney, Paul Perez obtained and used a falsified written medical report by a paid hired gun doctor of the U.S. Attorney’s Office , Dr. Vladimir Alexander, that falsified my husband’s severe epilepsy and frontal lobe brain damage as ‘not a disability’ based on Dr. Alexander being an Orthopaedist (bone doctor unqualified to evaluate psychiatric injuries) and based on Dr. Alexander basing his medical conclusion on a video deposition of me that never occurred because I filed a motion to quash the deposition subpoena of the United states Attorney for not providing me required disability accommodations; and this falsified written report was used against my husband by Paul Perez and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to put down an Americans With Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 challenge to the nondischargeability of federal student loans in bankruptcy at the core of the now known student loan scandal arising in the bush administration;
4. Complained that the Social Security Administration deliberately lost my SSDI and SSI Social Security appeals for 8-9 MONTH after SSA signed for receiving them, which appeals challenging not only my right to disability benefits but that I and potentially thousands of disabled people entitled to such benefits were wrongly being shut out of their entitlement by the Bush &Co. Social Security Administration refusing to provide disability accommodations in the application and appeals process required by Secs. 504 &508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; thereafter, Bush &Co.’s Social Security Administration attorneys apparently lied to Senator Mel Martinez, a fellow Republican, that I never filed a timely appeal knowing that I did and that Social Security Administration had signed for receiving my appeals;
5. Complained that a person listed in the Tampa area State Court as a confidential informant, Bradley Boyce Bowen, had starved my equine disability service animal, even providing pictures of other horses this drug informant had starved and/or died, was being protected by Paul Perez, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Tampa are Sheriffs Department, for which Federal Judge James D. Whittemore was raised as a reason to deny me a remedy – without also informing the Court that Federal Judge James D. Whittemore has been punishing my husband and I after he pointed at me at the outset of a hearing and excitedly uttered “Are you blind?,” and I filed a complaint with the National Court Reporter’s Assn for judge Whittemore’s Court Reporter, Linda Starr altering the improper disability slur out of the hearing transcript she certified.
So, if you want REAL answers to your question whether there is more than smoke, Congress should expand its investigation into what heppend to my husband and I aimed at the Nixonian Watergate-NSASpygate-U.S. Attorneygate-Iraqgate coverup now unraveling that would put John Dean and Nixon Attorney General Mitchell to shame.
Americans are angry and want impeachment NOW. And justifiably so!
Maybe Congress should investigate with respect to what happened to my husband and I, whether the perjurer Theron Hutto admitted Abramoff SunCruz employment might be a thread that leads to whether or not 9-11 was a Bush &Co. inside job – another fraud on the American people to trigger a power hungry Presidential Nazi-Stalinist dictatorship coup on our Democracy.
Congress can begin by investigating the resignation of Tampa U.S. Attorney Paul Perez and what has been done to the Petranos.
Posted by: Mary Katherine Day-Petrano | Apr 20, 2007 4:09:09 PM
I liked it when Sessions said essentially, hey this is kind of important stuff, how can you not remember any of it, and one of AG’s excuses was (again paraphrasing), we had a lot going on, like national meth awareness day, etc….
Posted by: a | Apr 19, 2007 3:06:50 PM
Salon has a piece describing his testimony captioned, “he was right to make the decisions that he said he didn’t make.”
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Apr 19, 2007 2:19:39 PM