Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Alberto Gonzales solidified his reputation as an incompetent with a breathtakingly unsuccessful press conference this afternoon, but it remains to be seen if he ends up looking more like a terminal naif, a shifty crook or, most likely, a political tool.

The great folks at Crooks and Liars have the video of Gonzales's brief press conference — and sudden lunge to escape from tough questions.

It didn't take long for the blogs to take advantage of this target-rich environment. Start with this Daily Kos diarist's refresher as to what's going on as A Gloved Alberto Gonzales Plans Search To Find Real Killer — pithly summarized by Josh Marshall at TPM as “Gonzales: I'm going to get to the bottom of what Harriet and I did.” And, one might add, why I sent off my aides to lie to Congress. Oh, and said some things myself in Congressional testimony that now seem past their sell-by date.

If you want the collected snark, a lot of it is at Needlenose.

And your latest update of the furious developments today in this widening scandal at The Carpetbagger Report, The dirge of the purge.

Next up, one hopes: what were the US Attorneys who were not fired willing to do to keep their jobs?

Meanwhile, it's hard to believe Gonzales can last two weeks if this is the best he can do. Ominously for his future, the NYT reports that a White House spokesperson said he's doing a heck of a job,

The White House took the unusual step of having [Presidential Counselor to the President Dan] Bartlett conduct a hurried briefing with reporters in Mérida, Mexico. He said the president had “all the confidence in the world” in Mr. Gonzales

Then again, the Veep is less popular than torture and he's not going anywhere, is he?

If there's a blog out there that I most tend to agree with, it's probably The Carpetbagger Report.

But not always. In a discussion of the prospect of Sen. Schumer forcing Karl Rove to testify about the Gonzales Eight, today's entry says,

Call it a hunch, but if Rove is called to testify, and he hires counsel to help him through his testimony, his lawyer will strongly urge Rove to tell the truth. If he’s unclear about that, Rove can always call his buddy Scooter about the consequences.

My hunch is that his lawyer tells him to take the Fifth.

In the course of an excellent roundup of the latest in the Gonzales 8 scandal, Talking Points Memo has this useful bit of perspective:

As has happened so many times in the last six years, the maximal version of this story — which seemed logical six weeks ago but which I couldn't get myself to believe — turns out to be true. Indeed, it's worse. We now know that Gonzales, McNulty and Moschella each lied to Congress. We know that the purge was a plan that began at the White House — and it was overseen by two of President Bush's closest lieutenants in Washington — Miers and Gonzales. Sampson is the second resignation. There will certainly be more.

And remember this key point: The 'document dump' is meant to get bad news out of the way fast. But it's always a hedge. It never includes the really bad stuff. And if you're not in deep crisis mode, ya' never do it on a Monday.

And this is sort of odd. The first head has rolled:

The aide in charge of the dismissals — [Gonzales's] chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson — resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

So did the guy actually lie to his colleagues? Stay silent in meetings, sending them off to lie to Congress (with what he may have thought was deniability)? Or is he just the fall guy?

Not that it really matters. Offering up a mid-ranking sacrifice at this stage is little more than throwing a baby off the sleigh to briefly placate the pursing wolves. The key point remains that any of these scenarios is completely incompatible with the idea of a Justice Department with a minimal sense of ethics. And we know who to blame for that.