Gonzales 'no confidence' vote set for June in Senate
After President Bush backed his beleaguered Attorney General again on Thursday, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee announced that they would be scheduling a "no-confidence" vote on Alberto Gonzales in mid-June.
"It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people," the measure sponsored by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) reads.
At a Thursday press conference, Schumer said, "I think we hoped that it would never come to this. We would have liked the attorney general to have stepped down on his own. But the rule of law has been trampled. Confidence in the Department of Justice has been shattered, and leadership is virtually nonexistent. It's one of the most important agencies our government has. The rule of law is what our democracy is all about. And when people lose their ultimate faith in those, something has to change, and it is our obligation to do everything we can to bring that change about."
While Schumer admitted that "we haven't done a whip count," he said he didn't "know of a single Democrat who is not voting for it." And noting that six Republican senators have called on Gonzales to resign, Schumer said there was a "good chance" the "no-confidence" measure might get sixty votes.
The following May 24 video is from The Associated Press. RAW STORY provided additional coverage of the Thursday press conference, including the text of the Senators' resolution, as well.
Full transcript of press conference announcing the measure:
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SEN. SCHUMER: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm proud to be joined by my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee: Senator Feinstein and Senator Whitehouse. And we're here today to announce that we have talked to Senator Reid and that there will be a vote of no confidence in the attorney general that will take place after the conclusion of the debate on the immigration bill.
I think we hoped that it would never come to this. We would have liked the attorney general to have stepped down on his own. But the rule of law has been trampled. Confidence in the Department of Justice has been shattered, and leadership is virtually nonexistent. It's one of the most important agencies our government has. The rule of law is what our democracy is all about. And when people lose their ultimate faith in those, something has to change, and it is our obligation to do everything we can to bring that change about.
Yesterday Monica Goodling's testimony before the House only intensified the need for a new attorney general. Former FEMA Director Mike Brown used to be the symbol of the administration's lack of competence and credibility, but now, unfortunately, there's a new one. I know the president thinks Attorney General Gonzales is doing "a heck of a job," but nobody else seems to agree.
Let me recap very briefly what we learned yesterday. First we learned, by Miss Goodling's own admission, that the Justice Department under Attorney General Gonzales's watch inappropriately weighed political considerations in hiring career attorneys. That is unethical. It's possibly illegal. And now we have proof positive that Attorney General Gonzales's Justice Department was improperly politicized.
Second, we learned from Miss Goodling, who reaffirmed Mr. Sampson's testimony, that the attorney general made inaccurate public statements about the U.S. attorney purge.
And third and most troubling, we learned from Miss Goodling that Attorney General Gonzales may have misled the Congress when he testified that he didn't talk to witnesses about the issue. I believe he was asked that in the Judiciary hearings by Senator Grassley. Miss Goodling testified that the attorney general ran through his events -- sorry. Miss Goodling testified that the attorney general ran through his version of events in mid-March and asked her for her reaction to it. That made her, quote, "uncomfortable" -- those are her own words -- in a conversation that appears to have been inappropriate with regard to an ongoing investigation.
Day by day, more lawmakers are coming forward and calling for the attorney general's resignation. Republican senators have already expressed little or no confidence in the attorney general's leadership. And we cannot allow a few people to be the fall guys when we know by all accounts that the attorney general was directly involved in the process himself.
We fully intend to bring this to a vote. We believe it will pass. And for the good of the Justice Department and the rule of law in America, we believe sincerely, firmly, strongly, unwaveringly that this is the right thing to do.
Some have suggested this is about politics. That is not fair. That is not right. That is not answering the issues.
I was at the airport the other day. Two young people came over to me. They said, "We are new U.S. attorneys in an office in this country." They said, "Thank you for doing what you're doing. Our whole office is behind you."
If new recruits serving their country are greatly worried about the future of the Justice Department which they've agreed to serve, then we all should be.
(Audio break) -- that first, here's what our resolution will say. It has no preamble. We don't want to get into the whys and whereases and we just want it to be straightforward. It says, quote: "Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, it is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people."
It's unfortunate that it has come to this. And I will say this: I hope, as our colleague and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee has suggested -- Senator Specter, that is -- that the attorney general will realize that stepping down is the right thing to do and will do so before we have to cast our vote. But make no mistake about it; we are moving forward. When a situation becomes so serious that there is a crisis in leadership of this magnitude, a Congress not only has the right to weigh in, we have a responsibility to take action, and we will.
Senator Feinstein.
SEN. FEINSTEIN: Thank you very much, Chuck.
Five months ago I first went to the Senate floor to raise the specter that a certain number of United States attorneys had been fired without cause. At that time we had only an inkling that something was amiss. Why were they fired? We didn't know. Was the Bush administration trying to replace them without going through the Senate confirmation process? We didn't know. Were there more? Was it political? Was it related to corruption investigations? How much did the attorney general know?
Well, we've uncovered much over these past five months, and what we've learned is deeply troubling. Whether it was the testimony of Monica Goodling before the House yesterday, a young, 33-year-old woman with no law enforcement experience, interviewing and making political judgments about career hires for the Justice Department. Whether it was Ms. Goodling relating a story about how the attorney general described his recollections of what had occurred in a way that made her feel uncomfortable and that was inappropriate. Whether it was firing without cause a minimum of nine U.S. attorneys, not for performance deficiencies, as was originally stated, but for improper reasons. Whether it was the firing of U.S. attorneys for failing to pursue voter fraud cases immediately prior to an election -- contrary to department policies.
This morning for the first time I read the Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses, the Sixth Edition, the rules of the Justice Department, and I want to read one sentence to you.
"Most" -- and this is underlined on page 61 -- "Most, if not all. investigations of an alleged election crime must await the end of the election to which the allegation relates." That's a direct quote.
Or whether it was James Comey pointing out the poor judgment and questionable actions of Alberto Gonzales participating in an attempt to pressure the very sick attorney general, who was in intensive care, to reverse a judgment that had been made that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was illegal -- it has now become clear that the Department of Justice has been subject to political manipulation, and that the attorney general does not have the fortitude to lead the nation's top law enforcement agency. This must not be allowed to continue.
The attorney general does not know who selected U.S. attorneys to be fired or why, nor has he taken responsibility for the decisions that went into the compilation of the list; rather he limits his regrets to not handling the process well. We've learned that there was a pervasive politicization of the hiring practices of the Department of Justice. We've learned that the attorney general did not have a firm grasp of what his aides were doing. But it's more than that. The Senate has been stonewalled, the Senate has been misled, and the Senate hasn't gotten straight answers.
The simple truth is, Attorney General Gonzales has lost the confidence of many of us in the United States Senate. He is clearly not a strong leader in control of this large and critical department.
SEN. SCHUMER: Senator --
SEN. FEINSTEIN: Oh, I -- may I just --
SEN. SCHUMER: Please. Please.
SEN. FEINSTEIN: I have one more thing I'd like to say. I'd like to ask everyone to consider the following editorials. And they've cropped up in newspapers all across the country.
San Jose Mercury News, May 23rd. "Alberto Gonzales's credibility hits bottom."
Salt Lake Tribune, May 21st. "Just go: AG Gonzales too discredited to continue."
Albuquerque Tribune, May 22nd. "Time for Gonzales to resign or be fired."
Pittsburgh -- Petersburg Times, May 20th. "Attorney general's exit is long overdue."
Sacramento Bee, May 18th. "Gonzales tactics are another disgrace."
Like Chuck Schumer, I wish it could be otherwise. I wish that the American people could have faith in our attorney general. I wish we didn't need to be here today. But we do, and we're offering this very simple and straightforward resolution. It should be passed.
SEN. SCHUMER: Senator Whitehouse.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: First let me salute Senator Schumer and Senator Feinstein for their conduct of this investigation. As a new senator, it's been an extraordinary lesson to me to see the bold, determined, astute and wise leadership of Senator Schumer and to see Senator Feinstein, who is so well-prepared at every juncture and so passionate. It has been a great lesson for me in how to go about being a United States senator, and I'm really proud that they asked me to join them.
There are traditions at the Department of Justice that this administration has set out to degrade or destroy:
The tradition of homegrown U.S. attorneys from the local district, who have to go back to the district when they're done and are therefore responsive and accountable.
The tradition of a strict fire wall on discussions about cases between the White House and the Department of Justice.
The tradition of a prestigious honors program run by career officials outside of partisan considerations.
A tradition of nonpartisan hiring of career staff.
And an important tradition of leaving capable U.S. attorneys in place to do their jobs without influence or interference.
And of course also a tradition of truth.
When I spoke to Attorney General Gonzales about this some time ago, I said, "You know, you can't have a Department of Justice unless you first have a department of truth." They have told us that these firings were performance-related; that was not true. They have told us that the attorney general was not involved in and didn't discuss the firings plan; that was not true. They told us the White House was not involved; that was not true. They told us that the EARS evaluations aren't pertinent; that was not true. They told us that they didn't try to dodge the Senate confirmation process; that was not true. They have told us that the attorney general didn't discuss the substance of this with other witnesses during the investigation; that was not true. And when the news first came out about the threatening calls to the U.S. attorneys who were going to discuss this matter, they denied that those calls had taken place, and as we found out, that was not true, either.
From my experience in the department, there were also what I would call little smelly telltales of things gone wrong. One is the sickening degree of deference that some of these e-mails have revealed required of the United States attorneys -- having to tell the department that you're a company man -- (chuckles) -- that should never happen; having to inform the deputy attorney general that you promise you will be pleasant and respectful in order to get a meeting with the deputy? That should never happen. And the standards that the attorney general has set as to what is improper -- and they say it over and over again -- it had three elements. One is an attempt to interfere or influence; two, with a particular case; three, for an improper partisan purpose. If that standard rings a bell, it should, because it tracks the elements for criminal obstruction of justice. And when the Department of Justice, through the attorney general, sets the bar that low for their own conduct, something is seriously wrong.
The Department of Justice is a great institution in American life. People who love and respect it from many administrations, Republican and Democrat, have expressed concerns over what has happened. It needs to be put back on its feet again, and it can't be put back on its feet again while Attorney General Gonzales is in charge.
So I'm very pleased to join with my senior colleagues who have led this investigation in asking that this resolution be passed.
Thank you.
SEN. SCHUMER: Ready for your questions.
Q Senator, so when will the vote be held, after Memorial Day recess?
SEN. SCHUMER: Yes. It'll be after -- it'll be right after the immigration bill.
Q (Off mike) --
SEN. SCHUMER: It's probably the second week we're back.
Q Do you have 60 votes to --
SEN. SCHUMER: Well, we haven't done a whip count, but I don't know of a single Democrat who is not voting for it. I haven't done each one, but I've probably talked to all but a handful. There are six Republicans who have called for the resignation. There are about a dozen others who have said quite negative things, so.
Look, you can't announce a vote or count your chickens before they hatch, but I think it's a very good chance we'll get the 60 votes.
I don't know if Dianne or you have a --
SEN. FEINSTEIN: No, I agree with you.
SEN. SCHUMER: Yeah?
Q Given that your investigation appears to have a long way to go, why bring this to the floor now instead of waiting for its conclusion?
SEN. SCHUMER: Because justice is precious, because the Justice Department is clearly not being run, because the head of the Justice Department has not really leveled with Congress or the American people, because of everything both my colleagues said.
We're going to keep -- there are two issues here. One is the investigation, and that will keep going under Senator Leahy's leadership with -- you know, we will be at his side. The second, though, which has already been established, and that is in terms of competence, in terms of credibility. This nation needs a new attorney general, and it can't afford to wait because justice is too important.
Q Senator Coburn has already -- he announced -- to (Gonzales' face ?) he should resign, but he then announced a new -- (off mike). He would offer a(n) amendment of no confidence of Congress -- (off mike). Isn't it highly likely that it turns into some sort of political football, each side starts offering amendments, and that you end up with just a -- (off mike)?
SEN. SCHUMER: If somebody else wants to make this a political football, that's their business; to us, it is not. Those two young U.S. attorneys who came to me, I didn't know if they were Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, I don't know what office they worked in. But this is serious stuff. We have a resolve in our caucus to pursue it, and we will get a vote on this.
Q (Off mike.)
SEN. SCHUMER: We have not yet.
Q (Off mike.)
SEN. SCHUMER: It's because we're, you know, going to let things settle over the next two weeks and see where people come down. We did not put in all these "whereas" clauses because we just want to come to the answer. People may have different ways to get to that answer.
Q Senator, can I ask you about the story that Monica Goodling told yesterday about her meeting in the attorney general's office that made her uncomfortable? Does that rise to the level of witness tampering or any other crime?
SEN. FEINSTEIN: Do you want to respond to that?
SEN. SCHUMER: We'll let former U.S. Attorney Whitehouse answer that one.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I don't know enough about what actually took place to characterize it. But it is surprising how often a whiff of obstruction of justice has reared its head in the course of this investigation. It happened first when I asked the four U.S. attorneys at the hearing what they would have done if a witness of theirs had been approached in the way that the Department of Justice staffer approached Cummins and them about their testimony in Congress. And they said, well, what we would do is, we would open investigations. And I said, well, what kind? And they said, well, into this conduct. And I said, you know, for what law? And they said, well, obstruction of justice.
The standard of impropriety that Kyle Sampson and the attorney general and the Department of Justice, through its public spokesman, have defined is in effect -- tracks almost exactly the standard for criminal obstruction of justice. So if we were to look more into the specifics of that conversation, and we found that it was again in the area of obstruction of justice, it would come as no surprise. There's been the cloud of that hanging over this entire investigation.
SEN. FEINSTEIN: I wanted to add one thing: Why now? What I see, and those editorial headlines, I think, illustrated it, was a diminishing credibility of the Department of Justice. Now if this were some small, out-of-the-way department, that wouldn't make a difference. This is a huge department. And when you see what's happened with the U.S. attorneys, this is major in scope.
A federal prosecutor is untrammeled in his power, his or her power. They bring the big federal cases of this nation, the big drug cases, the big mafia-type corruption cases, the big fraud cases. They have enormous powers. And once you come to the conclusion that these firings were political in nature or for reasons that are not acceptable reasons, you have to do something about it. You cannot sit by, I believe, and see United States attorneys fired for the wrong reasons, because it deteriorates the entire quality of U.S. attorneys all over this country.
So that's the reason, in my view, we're doing it now. I think all of us have reached the conclusion that these firings were improper.
And we cannot find the smoking gun yet, but they were not done because of performance. And some of us -- and I don't know if you were there, Bill, but you were there, Chuck, I was there -- when Mr. McNulty came and briefed us in camera, he clearly said the reasons were performance, and he went through performance reasons for each individual. These were bogus.
Now, how can one listen to this -- and I think they did this because they didn't think we would ever see these EARS reports, these evaluations. But we did see the evaluations. And Bill can tell you, these evaluations are not done by one or two people, they are done by outside teams that come in and evaluate an office. When all of the performance is excellent -- you heard Mr. Comey, who supervised these attorneys, saying they had excellent performance -- and they're fired without cause? What does this do to U.S. attorneys all across this nation?
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Actually, if you look at Mr. Margolis's testimony, you actually see that on previous occasions, when this Department of Justice had concerns about the performance of United States attorneys, their first response, when it was genuinely performance related, was actually to call in a special EARS evaluation in order to determine what the real facts were.
So the fact that they are trying to walk away from that in this case is just another thing that -- it just doesn't add up.
Q Senator Whitehouse, you were talking about the elements of an obstruction case. In addition to the obstruction case, you now have Monica Goodling accusing Paul McNulty of delivering not-fully candid testimony. Is there a point at which some sort of criminal investigation would be launched, and if not now, what would be that point, from your experience?
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I'm not sure that I can say. From my position here as a new senator, what's important for us to do is to use the powers of Congress to continue to get to the bottom of this so that we can find out truly what happened, so that we can identify the damage that's been done to the department, so we can assure that that damage is repaired and the department is restored to its former standing.
One of the awkwardnesses about this is that with the attorney general still in place, there is -- I believe he's appointed the solicitor general to make those determinations in his stead, so the ordinary channels, anyway, for making that kind of a prosecutive determination are not there. I suspect that the Office of Attorney General -- sorry, the Office of Inspector General report may very well be the sort of key document in the Department of Justice's determination whether to open a formal criminal investigation.
SEN. SCHUMER: This is the --
Q Could Senator Schumer answer that question?
SEN. SCHUMER: Yeah. Just one other thing I --
Q You've called for special counsel before.
SEN. SCHUMER: I have called for special counsels before. It's something I wouldn't take off the table. But we want to finish this investigation first, or let it go further.
Our first obligation, as Sheldon said, is to get the Justice Department running again so that people who work in the department and people who are affected by the department, just about every American, has faith in that department again. There is very little faith in that department right now It's no reflection the tens of thousands of hard-working men and women in the department. It is a reflection on the top, where you've had more than half the top people step down, where the attorney general is not -- has lost his credibility and respect as an attorney general. And so that's our first job.
But there will be a time when we'll have to examine the question of what you do about criminal proceedings when the attorney general may be the wrong person to be in charge of any criminal investigation that might go forward.
Q Was there anything else in yesterday's hearing --
SEN. SCHUMER: This will be the last question.
Q -- any testimony that sparked your interest or makes you more resolute in thinking that there is wrongdoing and it ought to be pursued? There was --
SEN. SCHUMER: Well, look.
Q There was a conversation she had with the attorney --
SEN. SCHUMER: Look. What Monica Goodling testified to, which was using political considerations to determine how new assistant U.S. attorneys are determined, is possibly criminal. It's possibly criminal. And when you ask yourself, well, why did she seek immunity and why did she take the Fifth Amendment -- which is a question people have been asking -- that may well be an explanation.
Thank you.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And don't forget that George Bush's deputy attorney general, John Ashcroft's deputy attorney general, Jim Comey, said that that strikes at the core of the Department of Justice.
SEN. SCHUMER: Thank you everybody.
Q Thank you.
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