Senate Democrats seek special prosecutor probe on Gonzales perjury
 Four Senate Democrats called on the Justice Department's Solicitor General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether or not Attorney General Alberto Gonzales committed perjury in Congressional testimony on the Bush administration's domestic spying program.
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) harshly criticized the Attorney General in the Thursday Capitol Hill press conference.
"His inability to answer simple and straight forward questions was just stunning," Schumer said. "His instinct is not to tell the truth, but to dissemble and deceive."
Schumer laid out the case that the Attorney General had perjured himself, pointing to differences between a number of statements made by Gonzales regarding a series of March 2004 meetings over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. He pointed especially to Gonzales' insistence that a meeting with top Congressional leaders did not concern the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which the Bush administration has publicly acknowledged.
"It's in black and white," he argued. "At the helm of this Department of Justice is a man who has potentially misled the American public again and again."
Earlier in the morning, Schumer spoke on CNN arguing for the special prosecutor investigation.
Schumer said that a special prosecutor was needed and called on Solicitor General Paul Clement to appoint someone outside the Justice Department to investigate to Gonzales.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) echoed his remarks.
"I have never seen an Attorney General so contemptuous," she said.
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) also said he was sending a 'classified letter' with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to the Solicitor General laying out his concerns about the Attorney General's statements.
Feingold also suggested that the Attorney General had covered up abuses of the PATRIOT Act committed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the course of counter-terrorism investigations.
"The Attorney General said he didn't know of any abuses when in fact he knew about those abuses," Feingold argued.
The senators made it clear that there were a number of questions about this controversy that could not be answered because of the sensitive intelligence matters at the heart of this controversy.
"I think we should not answer that question," Senator Feinstein said about details in the briefing given by the White House to the top Congressional leaders in 2004 on the intelligence activities.
A copy of the letter sent by the Senators to Clement can be downloaded at this link.
Senator Specter criticizes Schumer's motives
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) had asked Gonzales questions about the need for a special prosecutor on Tuesday. But he criticized his Democratic counterparts for threatening a special investigation in a subsequent press conference Thursday afternoon.
He singled out Senator Schumer, calling him 'precipitous' and suggesting that the New York Democrat, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was thinking about his party's political fortunes and seeking headlines.
"Where there are matters that tend to the committee, customarily Senator [Patrick] Leahy and I have conferred about them," he added. "The fact that [Leahy] has not signed [the letter] is highly significant."
Schumer also held out the possibility that confusion may be driving the controversy over Gonzales' testimony, with the Attorney General having grounds for speaking of 'intelligence activities' other than the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
"I think Judiciary needs to look at it because we've got to get to the facts," the Judiciary Committee's Ranking Republican added.
During the earlier press conference, Senator Schumer hedged on whether Senator Specter would join the four Democrats in calling for a Special Prosecutor.
"Senator Specter, you can read his testimony yesterday [sic], and we'll just have to see," the New York Democrat said, pointing out that Schumer was not in Washington at the very moment.
Like Schumer, the White House laid into Schumer and his colleagues on their latest move.
"Every day congressional Democrats prove that they're more interested in headlines than doing the business Americans want them to do," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told the Associated Press.
The following video is from CNN's Newsroom, broadcast on July 26.
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