Will Bush Attorney General Be Tried For Perjury?

Alberto Gonzales’ congressional testimony is contradicted by almost every other major witness.Will Bush Attorney General Be Tried For Perjury?By Cliff Montgomery – July 28th, 2007Will Bush Attorney General Be Tried For Perjury?By Cliff Montgomery – July 28th, 2007A number of Democratic Senators called Wednesday for the creation of a special counsel to decide whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has committed acts of perjury.The senators say that Gonzales may have perjured himself with false congressional testimony on both the infamous federal prosecutor firings and outrage within the administration’s own ranks over its domestic spying program.”We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress,” four Democratic senators stated in a Wednesday letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement, according to a draft quoted by The Associated Press.”It has become apparent that the Attorney General has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements” to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the senators added.”We do not make this request lightly.” wrote Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Charles Schumer of New York and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), approves of the request, according to a spokesman.The letter requesting a special prosecutor was sent to Clement because both Gonzales and departing Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who are subjects of the congressional investigation, have recused themselves. The Justice Department’s third in command, Associate Attorney General William Mercer, is only serving in a temporary capacity; he therefore possesses no authority to appoint special prosecutors.The senators wrote Clement that the testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, as well as Gonzales’ own testimony this week before the Judiciary Committee, conflicts with the testimony Gonzales gave last year regarding the intense internal outrage over George W. Bush’s warrantless spying program.They state that Gonzales also lied when he testified that he had not discussed the U.S. attorney firings with other officials at the Justice Department.Monica Goodling, a former White House liaison for the Justice Department, was granted an immunity from prosecution by the House Judiciary Committee in exchange for her testimony on the firings. Goodling testified that she once had an “uncomfortable” discussion with Gonzales in which he stated to her his recollection of the attorney firings, and then asked for her reaction.”The attorney general should be held to the highest ethical standards,” wrote the senators.When it comes to Gonzales and the spy program, the principal issue boils down to what was the topic of conversation at a March 10th, 2004, congressional briefing.At Tuesday’s Senate panel hearing, Gonzales testified a number of times that the matter discussed at the March 2004 meeting had nothing to do with the domestic spying program, in which the  National Security Agency spied on anyone in the United States it deemed “suspicious” without first obtaining court approval.Gonzales testified to senators that the March 10th, 2004, emergency meeting instead dealt with another intelligence program–one that he refused to describe. Yet he admitted that it was this meeting which drove him to the bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was at that moment recovering from gall bladder surgery.But former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified in May that Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card Jr.–at that time George W. Bush’s White House counsel and chief of staff respectively–visited Ashcroft as he lay in intensive care at George Washington University Hospital on March 10th, 2004 in the hope of doing “an end run” around Comey, who was acting attorney general during Ashcroft’s illness.Their plan, testified Comey, was to obtain re-certification of the domestic spying program, which for unspecified reasons Comey had flatly refused to continue. A presidential directive at the time stated that the legality of the spy program was to be verified by the Justice Department every 45 days.They were unsuccessful–Ashcroft apparently also refused to re-certify the program.The day after the March 2004 incident at Ashcroft’s bedside, George Bush ordered changes to the program which lessened the Justice Department’s concerns. Returning to his job, Ashcroft re-certified the program about three weeks later.The problem with Gonzales’ labored testimony about a meeting which he claimed had nothing to do with the controversial spy program? A letter written by then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, which reveals that the March 10th, 2004 briefing in fact did deal with the administration’s domestic spying program, just as it was about to fail re-certification.Outside of the Beltway this is called perjury, plain and simple.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? 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