The Gonzales Testimony, A.M. Edition

By Scott Horton

As Alberto Gonzales takes the oath to testify, he has the confidence of knowing that two-thirds of all Americans believe that he is lying. It seems to me that his performance at the morning session will result in those numbers getting still worse for Gonzales. His appearance and demeanor do not convey confidence, but rather a weak person under immense pressure who is defending himself by evasion. From the outset his testimony was cast in terms which can only build suspicion. He put himself outside of the process leading to the decision on December 7, 2006 to fire the eight U.S. attorneys, yet he testified that nothing improper was done. His position therefore rests on a fundamental contradiction: “I wasn't really involved,” but “I'm sure everything was proper.” Senator Feingold does the best job of demonstrating the gap between these two contentions. But worse still is the way he leads into these remarks. It seems as if he has been counseled carefully by a criminal defense lawyer about how to evade the possibility of a perjury charge. By pleading that he was “detached” from the process, he paves the way to “adjust” his testimony when it is revealed to be wrong. The problem is that this severely undermines the credibility of his testimony in chief.

On two key tests, inquiries into the decisions to fire David Iglesias of New Mexico and Carol Lam of San Diego, his answers were particularly weak, shaky and contradicted by the documents. The most aggressive and best interrogation came from Arlen Specter and Diane Feinstein. Chuck Schumer traps him in a series of lies concerning Lam. Gonzales's testimony relating to the actions in San Diego must be worrying his handlers. It looks dishonest from the outset.

Republican Lindsey Graham rips into Gonzales, saying what everyone in the country thinks—that the justifications for dismissal of the U.S. attorneys were fabricated after the fact. Indeed, anyone who's looked at the documents that the Justice Department released would think that. Gonzales “respectfully disagrees with that.”

And we're hearing the Gonzales equivalent of the “you're attacking the troops” defense. In response to Senator Durbin, Gonzales states, “When there are attacks against the department, you're attacking the career professionals.” But this has it backwards. Morale among career prosecutors is now at the lowest level in modern times, and the reason is not attacks on Gonzales, but a recognition among career professionals that the attacks are valid. Indeed, as Senator Schumer has stated, much of the information which was used to reveal the political corruption of the Justice Department has come from the career prosecutors. They are not the target of attacks here. The target are political hacks who have infiltrated the Department of Justice and corrupted the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Gonzales gets a failing grade on the morning session. It's easy to understand why the team sent to help prep him was so frustrated with his performance. He's an unconvincing witness.