While I wrestled with issues related to guns and violence on our borders with Mexico, and worked with the Iraqis on a new constitution, Kyle Sampson was testifying on March 29. He clarified that keeping Tim Griffin in place indefinitely as US attorney in Arkansas without Senate confirmation was not my plan. That helped, although some of Kyle’s other statements played into the hands of the Democratic senators who seemed intent on ascribing political motivations to us.
Referring to my March 13 press statement, Kyle told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions about US attorney removals is accurate.” He also stated that White House counsel Harriet Miers and I had made the final decisions about whom to fire. Technically Kyle was correct; in my statements on March 13 I said I’d had no such discussions. I had, however, clarified my statement on March 14 in media interviews, confirming that I had engaged in some discussions. But there was no final decision until Kyle presented the final recommendations to me and then presented them to the White House.
My hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee was set for Tuesday, April 17, so during the week of April 2, I made additional calls to some members of Congress seeking their advice. Most were helpful and supportive. Senator Mitch McConnell asked, “Where is the scandal here? There’s not a scintilla of evidence to support a scandal.”
“I’ve been through this kind of thing before,” Senator Trent Lott said. He reminded me that we were approaching Easter, the season of forgiveness and resurrection. “It is a time of redemption,” he said. That was a tremendously hopeful message to me. Senator Lott also expressed displeasure that the individuals who had been removed had allowed themselves to become political pawns. “The US attorneys ought to have their fannies spanked!”
Senator Joe Lieberman provided a subtle warning to me. “Everything in this town is partisan,” he told me. He implied that I could expect intense opposition from Democrats. Senator Orrin Hatch was angry on my behalf. He was a true warrior for me, and he encouraged me to stay strong. Congressman Chris Cannon was adamant that I did not need to kowtow. “Apologize for what?” he asked. “This whole thing is upside down. The president and the AG make these decisions, not the attorneys.”
CNN commentator Ruben Navarrette Jr. saw through the smoke, noting “Gonzales’ critics aren’t after the truth. They’re after him.”1
The advice from members of Congress ran along consistent lines: Be tough. Be open. Be forthright. Be humble. Remind the committee that President Clinton fired all ninety-three US attorneys, not seven or eight. Admit the dismissals could have been handled better but nothing about the removals crossed any lines of impropriety. Acknowledge that you should have been more involved, despite your trust in your staff ’s expertise in this area.
Indeed, nearly two years later, when the inspector general issued a report on this incident, the strongest admonition was that Paul McNulty and I should have provided Kyle Sampson more oversight. In retrospect, I agree; I did not meet the standard I expected of myself. Yet at the time, I trusted these men to do their jobs, and based on their past experience with personnel issues and their knowledge of the department and of our US attorneys, I just didn’t feel it necessary to micromanage them.
As perhaps the most important hearing of my professional career loomed ahead of me, in early April I traveled to Pennsylvania to attend the funeral service of FBI special agent Barry Lee Bush, who had been killed in the line of duty. I arrived back home in time to attend our son Gabriel’s soccer practice. The range of emotions I experienced that day was remarkable.
On Sunday, April 15, just days before my scheduled hearing, Senator Schumer issued a press release that was essentially a hit piece, stating that my upcoming testimony “will be make or break for him. Alberto Gonzales is a central figure in this investigation. The burden of proof is now on Alberto Gonzales.”2
Schumer focused on the misstatements I made on March 13, and chose to ignore the clarifications I presented the following morning. Schumer repeatedly accused me of lying. “He said the US attorneys were dismissed for performance reasons,” Schumer said. “We now know they received outstanding performance evaluations.”
Schumer was referring to the EARS evaluations, which were more about the work of the entire office personnel than the US attorney. It is quite possible for a US attorney’s office to have a good EARS evaluation, even if the US attorney is not performing adequately.
“He also told us that he would never make a US attorney change for a political reason. It is clear now that he did.”
No, I did not. While the Democrats claimed that complaints by Republican senator Pete Domenici had led to the dismissal of David Iglesias, these hypocrites would have been furious had I ignored their complaints about the performance of a US attorney in their states. Furthermore, they chose to ignore Senator Feinstein’s complaints about the performance of US attorneys in the San Diego and San Francisco offices. No one was dismissed to obstruct justice by impeding an investigation or prosecution, as was later confirmed by the DOJ inspector general.
“Now the attorney general has said that he was not involved in discussions about the firings, but his former chief of staff [has] said that was an inaccurate statement.”
Again, Schumer was referring to when I had misspoken in the press conference saying that I had no discussions about the firings. I did indeed have a handful of discussions with Kyle over a period of time, and I had clarified that point in my interviews the next day. Moreover, I was the one who had assigned Kyle the responsibility of reviewing the US attorneys, so of course I had some limited discussions about the matter. But the Democratic caucus clearly wanted to give the impression that we were in collusion with the White House and were discussing reasons for dumping the US attorneys that included the obstruction of justice. That was blatantly false.
Schumer’s press release confirmed that I was not voluntarily appearing at a hearing to provide helpful information so we could lay aside the issue once and for all; I was walking into a snake pit. This is going to be a tough hearing, I thought. I had suspected that the hearing was more for political theater—as many congressional hearings are—rather than a genuine quest to uncover the truth. I knew then the hearing had already devolved into a partisan witch-hunt.
Later that same day, on Sunday, April 15, I was in my office preparing for the hearing and studying binders of information about potential questions I might be asked when I received a telephone call from a former high-ranking DOJ official whose judgment I trusted. He told me that a senior Republican member of the Judiciary Committee had contacted him and warned that the Democrats on the committee were setting a perjury trap for me. “They’re going to come after you,” he said. He advised me to hire a lawyer and take counsel with me to the hearing. “I have the names of a couple of good defense lawyers I’d recommend,” he offered.
I was stunned. I had no reason to doubt my friend. I knew he was concerned for me. Nevertheless, I was the attorney general; I was the chief law enforcement officer in the country. What message would it send if I were to take a lawyer with me during my testimony? Moreover, I had encouraged people at the Department of Justice to cooperate with the congressional investigation. How could I expect others to cooperate with the investigations if I refused to answer questions on the advice of counsel? I wasn’t going to “lawyer up” just because of the antagonistic attitudes of some senators on the Judicial Committee.
“Thanks, but I can’t do that,” I said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The call, while well intentioned, bothered me. I had planned to fully cooperate with the congressional investigation and sincerely wanted to answer any questions and explain what I knew about the dismissal of the US attorneys. The danger, of course, was that I did not know what I did not know. Prior to the hearing, I reviewed some documentation, but I dared not talk to other witnesses and risk charges of tampering with the congressional investigation or the
internal OPR/OIG investigation.3 I also did not know what information may be hidden in memos or the documents and e-mails turned over by the DOJ, nor did I have a good recollection of the meeting in which I had accepted the unanimous recommendations of the department’s senior leadership. My perceptions of the events might differ from those of Kyle, or Paul McNulty, or even those of Mike Battle, the director of the executive office for US attorneys, to whom fell the task of informing the removed attorneys that their service was no longer required.
Schumer and Leahy and their colleagues were on a destructive mission. They had, indeed, culled me from the herd. If I could be tricked into answering the same questions in different ways, or in a manner inconsistent with sworn public testimony or private interviews with others involved, they would say my misstatements were intentional and that I had committed perjury.
I understood the need for being careful with every word of my testimony. To do otherwise would not merely imperil my standing as attorney general, but that kind of legal jeopardy could devastate my family. Becky and our sons had made tremendous sacrifices so I could serve our nation, and I was not about to risk their futures by foolishly falling into an intentionally set perjury trap.
I prayed about this. With the stakes so high, I decided that if I had the slightest doubt about an answer, if I did not have accurate recollection about any facts the interrogators might ask, I would qualify my answers or state that I did not recall or that I did not know the specific details. I understood that I would sound defensive and would be castigated for parsing words, or appear that I was attempting to hide something. I could no longer give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, or assume that their questions were intended to learn the truth. They already knew the truth. This was not about truth; it was about raw politics.
The hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, April 17, but on Monday, a tragic shooting occurred at Virginia Tech University, with a lone gunman killing thirty-two students and teachers and wounding seventeen others on the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus. Chairman Leahy called immediately after the first reports and asked to reschedule on Thursday, April 19. I said, “Of course.”
As my security detail drove up Connecticut Avenue on Thursday, we passed the protestors outside the Hart Senate Office Building, where the hearing was to take place. There were always protestors, it seemed, anywhere it was announced that I was to speak, thanks to the mistaken belief that I had advocated the torture of detainees and was responsible for the president’s electronic surveillance program, and every other controversial Bush policy. Walking into the building, I felt as though I were walking into a judgment hall. I thought, I really don’t want to do this. Why, God? I prayed. Why this?
I assumed the hearing was going to be difficult; that was to be expected, but the fact that I would not be able to definitively answer the committee’s questions because of a poor memory and because of my concerns that an answer contrary to what had already been provided to the committee would affect every response I made. But I had to do this. It was not merely about me. I stood for the department and 105,000 employees. This was about them, too, and the entire Bush administration.
My wife, Becky, came to the hearing along with Elizabeth Law, a friend from Becky’s Bible study group. Becky was even more apprehensive about the hearing than I was. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Elizabeth and Becky prayed for me before they entered the hearing room that morning.
As I did before every congressional hearing I attended, I greeted each senator cordially before we all took our seats. The senators sat at the bench and I sat at a table at the front of the room, surrounded by spectators, media, and protestors. The chairman encouraged people to crowd closer so more could come inside. The atmosphere was charged, as though people were anticipating a great sporting event. I knew the tenor of the meeting would change quickly once the questioning began.
Indeed, I provided few answers during the hearing and repeatedly answered, “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” to scores of questions. That was frustrating for me and exasperating for the senators, but it was what I had to do to protect myself.
The hearing began around 9:30 a.m. and continued for more than five hours. I sought to present a careful defense of the firings, apologizing for the way they were handled, but defending them as the right decision. “While the process that led to the resignations was flawed, I firmly believe that nothing improper occurred,” I said. “It would be improper to remove a US attorney to interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain. I did not do that. I would never do that.”
In his opening statement, Senator Specter opined, “I believe you have come a good distance from the day you said that this is an overblown personnel matter in the USA Today article.” It irritated me that he just could not let that go. Specter went on to say, “So this is as important a hearing as I can recall, short of the confirmation of Supreme Court justices, more important than your confirmation hearing. In a sense, it is a reconfirmation hearing.” With leadership like that, I wondered whether the other Republicans on the committee would come to my defense.
Much of the discussion focused on the meeting held at the Justice Department on November 27, 2006, in which the recommendations for the dismissals—recommendations that I believe reflected the consensus of the Justice Department’s senior leadership—were discussed. I had a full schedule of meetings and events that week including a trip to Mexico, so this meeting was simply one of many. Further, replacing seven of ninety-three US attorneys who had served their full terms at the pleasure of the president was not improper. When Kyle presented the recommendations, believing that he and our staff had been working on it for some time, I trusted they had conducted a thorough review and I relied on their conclusions. In truth, I could not recall the full details forming the basis for each of their recommendations.
That put me at a disadvantage as I attempted to answer the senators’ questions, because I had not talked to other witnesses about each dismissal. I knew, however, that the US attorneys could be dismissed for any reason or no reason other than obstruction of justice, so the fact that we were making changes was not improper. Nevertheless, the senators grew increasingly irritated when I repeatedly answered, “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” to their questions about what was discussed at that November meeting.
I was not being coy, just careful. I could not remember the specifics of that meeting. Rather than pretend, I honestly admitted that I did not recall the details of the discussions, but acknowledged that I had accepted the recommendations that we inform the White House the seven US attorneys should be removed. The decision to recommend their removal was mine. That sent the inquisitors into a collective frenzy, with several making derogatory, insulting public statements about me and my leadership. Ironically, had I lied, I might have easily negotiated the inquiries.
In a subsequent conversation I had with Senator Jeff Sessions, himself a former Alabama attorney general and a former US attorney, Senator Sessions drawled, “It sure would be good if you could recall that meeting.”
I, too, wished that I could recall that meeting, if for no other reason than that it would hopefully soothe the anger of some of the US attorneys removed subsequent to that meeting. What happened there affected their lives as well, and I’m sure they wanted to think it was important enough that I would remember it.
In addition to the November meeting, many of the questions centered on my role in the process. I testified that my role was limited. Yes, there were periodic questions or conversations about individual US attorneys. But I assumed there were numerous ongoing, substantive sessions among my senior team evaluating all of our US attorneys. Certainly, there were meetings and discussions that did not involve me. I had directed an evaluation and I expected that was being done, so I testified that over the course of two years, my involvement in the process was limited. I stand by that statement.
The Democrats on the Judicial Committe were brut
al, but Republican ranking member Arlen Specter was no help. He pontificated, “We have to evaluate whether you are really being forthright in saying that you, quote, should have been more precise, close quote, when the reality is that your characterization of your participation is just significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts.”4
Republican Lindsey Graham said, “Mr. Attorney General, most of this is a stretch. I think it’s clear to me that some of these people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or at the White House and, you know, we made up reasons to fire them. Some of it sounds good. Some of it doesn’t. And that’s the lesson to be learned here . . . at the end of the day, you said something that struck me: ‘That sometimes it just came down to these were not the right people at the right time.’ If I applied that standard to you, what would you say?”
I responded, “Senator, what I would say is, is that I believe that I continue to be effective as the attorney general of the United States. We’ve done some great things.”5 But that was not the message the senators wanted to hear.
Senator Tom Coburn said, “But to me, there has to be consequences to accepting responsibility. And I would just say, Mr. Attorney General, it’s my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. And it was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there were misstatements. That’s a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered.” Coburn then caustically suggested, “And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.”6 Senator Coburn’s staff had warned mine in advance that he would ask for my resignation, but that didn’t soften the blow.
I basically responded that I intended to stick around, address the problems, work with the Senate, and continue the fine progress of the Department of Justice.
True Faith and Allegiance Page 48