Attorney General Alberto Gonzelas has a column in today’s WaPo wherein he seeks to quell the confusion and controversy that erupted over the firings of US Attorneys earlier this year and the ham-fisted way that DoJ and the White House has responded to the situation. The piece is here and is called Nothing Improper. Gonzales is set to testify before Congress this week, and, no doubt, this is a (small) attempt to get out in front of the situation PR-wise. (Indeed, one wonders if this isn’t a lame alternative to going on TV, which it has been reported the Gonzales did too poorly in mock sessions to allow to happen).
What is especially striking is that it is now over a month since AG Gonzales admitted that “mistakes were made” this is the first real statement Gonzales has made and it is plain vanilla and makes one wonder why he couldn’t have made the same statements off the cuff weeks and weeks ago.
The closest to new information that the piece has is the following:
While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.
I am committed to explaining my role in this process and will do so Tuesday when I testify before Congress.
Ultimately we already knew that this was the case by sorting through document dumps.
The question that remains is that if this is all so straight-forward, on the up and up and so very, very simple to understand and explain, why have we gone through a month of confusion? I ask not as some clever way to imply a nefarious web of obfuscation, but am honestly nonplussed that if it really is a simple explanation, how could this situation have evolved as it has?
I will admit that I remain quite suspicious that there is a story here that has not been explained, and it could be a very serious one.
However, at a minimum we still have people quitting without real explanation, people asserting fifth amendment rights, the AG holing up and refusing to talk to the press, and reams of e-mail apparently lost to cyberspace (among other things). If this is a total non-story it is one of the oddest that I can recall.
Technorati Tags: Alberto Gonzales, USAs, USA firings, US Attorneys
Sphere: Related Content
April 16th, 2007 at 7:29 am
[...] I think that that is actually a pretty good summation of the piece. [...]