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Senate Dems warn Gonzales: We want real answers |
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By Susan Crabtree
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Posted: 04/12/07 04:55 PM [ET] |
The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday authorized subpoenas for documents from the White House and the Department of Justice (DoJ) relating to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.
Senate Democrats threatened to issue the subpoenas if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is not forthcoming in his Tuesday testimony before the committee.
The authorization covers all documents in the possession, control or custody of the DoJ and the White House related to the panel’s ongoing investigation into the prosecutors’ dismissals. The committee also approved another authorization for subpoenas for testimony from J. Scott Jennings, special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs, and William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general.
The panel is expected to vote on a similar authorization next week for Sara Taylor, deputy assistant to the president and director of political affairs.
“We continue to seek cooperation from the administration as we try to get to the bottom of an apparent abuse of power that has allowed politics to corrupt federal law enforcement,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the judiciary panel, said.
Leahy said the committee is facing several obstacles in its investigation. He argued that nearly 3,500 documents the DoJ has released thus far are selective, incomplete and highly redacted, and he also said the White House has refused to provide relevant documents and access to key staff. A White House announcement last night that officials there and at the Republican National Committee (RNC) have lost e-mails that political operatives were using on RNC accounts in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act constitutes yet another impediment to the probe, according to Leahy.
“I am beginning to wonder whether the White House has any interest in the American people learning the truth about these matters,” Leahy said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was pummeled with questions about the e-mails at her Thursday afternoon briefing with reporters.
Perino first said last week that only “a handful” of White House staffers had used RNC accounts. Thursday she acknowledged that 22 people of 1,700 current staffers had used them, later amending that to 50 staffers who have used them during the course of the Bush administration.
Perino explained the use of the outside e-mails by saying that staffers were “erring too much on the side of caution” because of “gray areas” between White House official business and political business. She said the staffers wanted to avoid criminal violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents the use of government time, space and equipment for political purposes.
Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is leading the probe of the U.S. attorney firings, provided a preview of what Gonzales can expect when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
“We’re not playing gotcha, but at the same time we’re saying, ‘Oh, I don’t recall, I can’t remember’ is not going to be an adequate answer,” Schumer told reporters. In testimony before the April recess, Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, said, “I don’t know” 122 times in response to questions about the firings.
Schumer outlined a number of questions Democrats planned to ask Tuesday, and said he and Leahy had sent Gonzales the questions in a letter. The New York senator threatened to bring Gonzales back to testify again if he doesn’t provide sufficient answers Tuesday.
“So what we’re doing here is giving the attorney general some questions that he is expected to answer fully,” he said. “We expect him, when he gets this list, to go back and check his recollection, look at his records, so he will be able to answer.”
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