Nevertheless, I felt that I had to do something dramatic. Full cooperation would show the American public that the Department of Justice was not simply a political arm of the president. If we invoked executive privilege, the Democrats would claim we were hiding something, and the story would continue to escalate and distract from President Bush’s efforts in other areas. This was now a distraction for me, and I had so many other important issues that deserved my attention, everything from fighting terrorism and public corruption to the protection of America’s children from predators.4
The contrast between my willingness to be forthcoming with Congress and what the Obama administration DOJ did a few years later regarding the “Fast and Furious” operation—in which firearms flowed illegally into the hands of the Mexican drug cartel—could not be more stark. When Congress attempted to investigate the Fast and Furious scandal, the Obama administration refused to turn over documents, citing “executive privilege.”
Instead of invoking executive privilege, fighting contempt citations, and forcing delay through litigation, I chose to do none of those. Rather, I wanted to demonstrate that we had done nothing wrong.
Later that afternoon, I headed to the Hill to meet with Chairman Leahy, and Senators Specter, Schumer, and others to discuss what information I was willing to provide to the Judiciary Committee. The senators were bringing one staff person, and I was permitted to do the same, but I chose to go alone. As White House counsel, I had often met with senators in their offices unaccompanied by staff, and I quickly discovered that the one-to-one meetings were usually more effective and more productive. I was also conscious of appearances, that it was better to approach with humility rather than an entourage.
Walking in, I suddenly recalled the biblical account of Daniel in the lions’ den. I hoped for a relatively brief, cordial meeting in which I could agree to be cooperative. I assumed the senators would be pleased at what I planned to offer them. Upon my arrival, I quickly realized that I had misjudged the senators’ goodwill. Senator Specter was late, so the meeting began with Leahy, Schumer, and their staff members, who sat with pens and paper, ready to record every word. Clearly, this was not going to be the comfortable, cordial conversation I had hoped.
Getting straight to the point, I told Chairman Leahy that we had nothing to hide and I would voluntarily testify in an open hearing, but as a cabinet official, I would not sit for a private interview with his staff. I would, however, permit DOJ personnel that had been involved in the US attorneys’ decisions to appear at a Judiciary Committee hearing or meetings with the senators’ staffs and answer any relevant questions. I also offered to provide the committee with all DOJ documents related to the removals. My only request was that junior staffers, who had no authority in this matter, not be required to testify.
I was not required to be so generous to the Judiciary Committee, and could potentially tie them up in knots for months by slow-walking our search for documents, vigorously contesting the relevancy of documents and fending off requests for access to my staff. I could also urge the president to exert executive privilege. Barely acknowledging my offer of cooperation, Leahy demanded that all junior staffers be available for questioning before a hearing, too, although he conceded that as the attorney general of the United States, I would not be required to spend my time in private interviews.
When Senator Specter arrived, the senators pushed for specifics as to why each of the seven US attorneys had been asked to leave. Keep in mind that as presidential appointees, the US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed for any reason whatsoever, even political reasons, provided the removal was not intended to obstruct justice.
I declined to provide much information, not because I intended to obstruct their investigation; I simply was unsure of all the reasons my senior team had for recommending the dismissals. I had decided not to talk to my team about these reasons for fear the Senate might later accuse me of trying to influence potential witnesses. I had not anticipated having to answer specific questions now about the removals. I had understood this meeting to be one in which we would discuss access to information and witnesses. This was a tactical mistake on my part. I had come in good faith to meet with them, and they wanted to turn the occasion into a mini-hearing.
I gave them brief, deliberately careful answers, without getting into any specifics. The senators were unsatisfied.
Senator Specter, the lone Republican in the room besides me, was no help at all. Indeed, right in front of the other committee members and their staffers, Senator Specter criticized me about the USA Today article. The comment about this being little more than an overblown personnel matter angered him, he said. “You are wrong. This is much more than just a personnel matter,” he said.
I looked back at him in anger. Yes, those words were unfortunate and never should have been included but, Whose talking points are you reading? I wondered. Rather than encouraging and supporting me—the attorney general appointed by his Republican president—Senator Specter sounded more like the Democrats.
I left the meeting feeling ambushed, mad that I had been treated so disrespectfully, and angrier at myself for foolishly trusting the people involved. Their attitudes had been consistent with their past overtly partisan actions, but I had hoped that we could work together to calm the situation and avoid wasting any more time, money, or energy on the perfectly legal and proper dismissal of the US attorneys. Apparently that was not the intention of the people I met with in that room.
Afterward, the Senate staffers informed my staff that I had “performed poorly” at the meeting because I had been unable to defend the removals of the US attorneys. My inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to explain the dismissals raised suspicions even higher.
The comments further angered me. This was a political witch-hunt, and the people perpetrating it knew that. Later, a Democrat staffer described their efforts as a pride of lions culling out the weakest member of a herd on which they hoped to prey. Similarly, members of the Democratic caucus would target one cabinet official and target that person for destruction. In this situation, they targeted me. Now understanding the nature of the adversary, my staff and I called various members of Congress that night, hoping to calm the waters, line up allies, and inform them of the potential bad press to come.
During the course of those calls, I learned about what might portend a much worse problem: Paul McNulty had testified to Congress that the White House involvement in the removal of the US attorneys had been “minimal,” in fact, nonexistent prior to October 2006. That was not accurate.
I had assigned Kyle Sampson to head up the review of the US attorneys shortly after I became attorney general in 2005, and part of his responsibilities included keeping the White House informed. Paul, apparently, was unaware of Kyle’s reports. Nor was Paul aware that the White House had initially suggested that we remove all ninety-three US attorneys at the beginning of President Bush’s second term.
The White House had been involved in discussions about the US attorneys, and there was nothing improper or unusual about that. Indeed, if the White House had not been involved, that might be more of a concern, and given Paul’s experience, I was a little surprised he had not known that. The US attorneys across the country were, after all, presidential appointees. Nevertheless, the key point was that Paul’s statement before Congress was inaccurate.
This misstatement gave Democrats a reason to expand their investigation to determine whether we had lied. Now the investigation would be less about the substance of the US attorney removals and more about a possible cover-up. This greatly complicated matters for me, forcing me to defend my credibility and integrity. It became a far more difficult environment for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to have to prove that he was credible and truthful.
When I spoke to Paul by phone, he was angry that Kyle had not informed him prior to his testimony about the White House involvement. McNulty had been a House staffer, and he had n
umerous friends on the Hill. The goodwill that he had accrued over many years in Washington could easily disappear if people thought he had purposely misled Congress—or worse still, given false testimony.
Under ordinary circumstances, Paul’s faulty testimony would simply be attributed to poor preparation, but in the hypercharged atmosphere in Washington following the Democrats retaking control of the Senate in 2006, it was like adding more fuel to the already burning fire.
I spoke with Tasia Scolinos in our communications department, and she told me that most reporters had already filed their stories for the day, but they would be hot on the trail. Mere suspicion that the deputy attorney general had given misleading testimony to Congress would create a media frenzy. I asked Tasia to call Kyle for his response to Paul’s testimony.
To his credit, Kyle was up front about it. “I simply missed it,” he told Tasia. “I should have better prepared Paul for his testimony.”
When Tasia called me at home late that night and told me Kyle’s explanation, I shook my head and sighed. This latest slip stirred a sense of foreboding within me. I had no reason to disbelieve Kyle, but to let McNulty go before Congress unprepared was inexcusable. It felt like death by a thousand cuts. Little, relatively minor mistakes or misstatements were accumulating to create a seemingly false narrative. There was nothing improper about the dismissals, but for the first time, I realized that it might not matter. We were failing at a spectacular level in getting the true story to the public.
Before making another round of congressional calls the following morning, I met with Kyle in my office. He readily admitted that he had failed to inform Paul that the White House had been informed about his reviews of the US attorneys since 2005.
I had known Kyle since I first came to Washington at the beginning of President Bush’s first term. He had worked for me in the White House and the Justice Department. I knew him as a man of integrity, a solid family man, a person of strong faith in God, basically a good man. I trusted Kyle. I didn’t believe that he had intended to deceive anyone or ignore his responsibilities. Most likely, McNulty’s prep session focused more on the reasons for the removals than the removal process itself.
Our meeting was brief, but serious. It ended with Kyle offering to resign. I felt sadness for Kyle and for our entire department. In our many travels together, Kyle and I sometimes sat alone in the forward cabin of the FBI aircraft, discussing what we hoped we might do after leaving public service in the Bush administration. I had never imagined this scenario.
I did not accept Kyle’s resignation, but I did not refuse it either. “I want to think about this over the weekend,” I told him. I knew that the media and the Democrats would regard Kyle’s resignation as ammunition. They would claim that Kyle Sampson was the scapegoat, that I had offered up his resignation to deflect attention from something or someone else—namely, the president or me. Certainly, that was not true, but in Washington it is the perception of truth that trumps all.
As Kyle stepped toward my office door, I stopped him. “Kyle, that USA Today op-ed piece hurt me.”
He nodded. There was little more we could say.
CHAPTER 35
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
With each passing hour, there seemed to be another story questioning the dismissals and the reasons behind them. I was discouraged by the accusations that we had improperly removed the US attorneys. I had willingly offered to cooperate fully with the congressional investigation. I had recused myself from any decisions regarding the production of DOJ documents, and now Steve Bradbury, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and a team of lawyers shared that responsibility. What bothered me even more than the media frenzy over the dismissals were the allegations the Department of Justice was a mess, operating without leadership. In fact, the department was functioning at its usual high level. We continued to pursue terrorists and their supporters, bringing them to justice. Using reforms included in the Adam Walsh Act, we intensified efforts to protect children against sex offenders. Through Project Safe Childhood, we combatted child exploitation over the Internet. Working with state and local officials, we continued our fight against drugs and gangs.
While I had always been a person of prayer, these events intensified my prayer life. I prayed for understanding, wisdom, and patience. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, God was preparing me. I was about to enter the greatest tribulation of my life.
On Sunday, March 11, Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Biden, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called publicly for my resignation as attorney general. These two longtime members of the nation’s most important committee concerning justice apparently decided to circumvent our country’s long-standing principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” The Justice Department had not even completed supplying Congress the DOJ documents; congressional staffers had not completed their public hearings of DOJ employees; moreover, my own scheduled testimony before the Judicial Committee was still more than a month away. Yet Schumer and Biden had the audacity to declare me guilty and sentenced.
Bad enough that the Democrat members of the Judiciary Committee knew that the dismissal of the US attorneys was totally permissible, it was outrageous that these so-called proponents of the “rule of law” would rush to judgment before even hearing my testimony or seeing all the evidence. In one of the great ironies of my service, members of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee shifted the burden onto me to prove my innocence. With no evidence to support their claims of improper dismissal of the seven US attorneys, they said the burden was on me to prove that nothing improper had happened.
Think about it. These same Democrats and their ilk had been arguing for more than five years that Bush policies had denied terrorists suspected of killing American citizens their fundamental rights in military commissions—including the presumption of innocence. Yet they publicly denied this same consideration to the attorney general of the United States. It was a mockery of their positions on the Judiciary Committee and an insult to me and my office.
Ridiculous or not, the actions by Senators Schumer and Biden fueled further speculation on Monday that I might resign. Amidst the mayhem, I continued to maintain my normal busy schedule of meetings and appearances, including a session with the Judicial Conference Executive Committee and a meeting on immigration at the White House.
My wife, Becky, and I even had time to enjoy a quiet lunch when she came to the Justice Department that day to review television ads with my staff for Project Safe Childhood, one of my signature programs protecting children from predators. Seeing the needs of those kids helped me remember what really mattered about my job.
Monday morning, however, began with an early, somber meeting with Kyle Sampson. Although Kyle had offered to resign, and though I had purposely not accepted his resignation at the time, as I worked through the weekend, I concluded it was best that Kyle step down. So when Kyle informed me on Monday that he was, in fact, resigning as chief of staff, I made no attempt to dissuade him. Still, I was sad for Kyle and his family.
As soon as news of Kyle’s resignation became public, as expected, critics portrayed Kyle as the scapegoat, sacrificed to protect others. The calls for my resignation escalated.
Several of my advisors at the Department of Justice urged me to hold a press conference to address some of the issues being raised by Kyle’s resignation as well as others mentioned in the media. I agreed, and on the afternoon of March 13, 2007, I scheduled a statement in the attorney general’s conference room. Before the media gathered, however, I hosted a conference call with all the remaining US attorneys to express my regrets about how all this had unfolded, to assure them that I would address the situation, and to urge them to stay focused on doing their jobs.
When the members of the media assembled in the conference room, I stated clearly and unequivocally that I had done nothing wrong. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, nobody else at the department had done anything improper regarding the remo
val of the seven US attorneys. I emphasized that to reassure the American citizens that we were cooperating fully with the inquiries by Congress. In reference to the purposefully planted rumors of my resignation, I reminded the media that I was not a quitter and I would continue to serve my country and our president. I then fielded a few questions, mostly about my role in the firings of the US attorneys, the process we followed, as well as Kyle’s resignation. The entire press conference totaled little more than nine minutes.
Nevertheless, I later thought about some of my answers in that brief encounter. I realized that I was not precise with some of my responses regarding the nature and frequency of my discussions with Kyle and others about the US attorney removals. Given the political nature of the congressional investigation, I considered it imperative to correct the record.
Consequently, I decided to accept requests to appear on the morning network news shows. I made my rounds from one media outlet to the next, beginning with Hannah Storm on the CBS Early Show at 6:30 a.m., then at 6:40 a.m. I appeared with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. At 6:50 a.m. I was talking live with Gretchen Carlson on Fox and Friends, then at 7:05 a.m. I discussed the situation with Miles O’Brien on CNN American Morning, and then I was on at 7:30 a.m. with Alex Witt on MSNBC. If you’ve ever wondered how the “talking heads” can appear on so many network shows in such a short amount of time, it is because they are all located in the same Washington building complex.
Following my television romp, I gave an extended interview to Pete Williams, correcting any misimpressions I might have left as a result of my press conference the previous day.
There; it was done. As humbling as it was to admit that I hadn’t done a great job during the initial press conference, I was glad the media had given me the opportunity to put out the correct information.
True Faith and Allegiance Page 46