White House: Bush Likes Gonzo - Dems Must Kiss His Ass, With Tongue

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/3/30/101913.shtml?s=lh

White House: Bush 'Has Confidence' in Alberto Gonzales
NewsMax.com Wires Friday, March 30, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The White House said Friday it believes embattled Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales can survive the uproar over the firing of eight
federal prosecutors, a day after his one-time chief of staff undercut
Gonzales' account of the firings.

"I can tell you that the president has confidence in him," said Deputy White
House press secretary Dana Perino. "The president believes the attorney
general can overcome the challenges that are before him."

On Thursday, former Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson told a Senate hearing that
rather than merely signing off on the firings, as Gonzales has repeatedly
stated, Gonzales was in the middle of things from the beginning.

"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in
any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate," Sampson told a
Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether the dismissals were politically
motivated.

(AP) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales takes a question during a news
conference in Washington, Friday,... Full Image "I remember discussing with
him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign," Sampson said.

Sampson also told the panel that the White House had a large role in the
firings, with one-time presidential counsel Harriet Miers joining Gonzales
in approving them. And under questioning from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,
Sampson said that looking back, he should not have advocated the firing of
one prosecutor in particular, New Mexico's David Iglesias.

The administration maintains that the firings were appropriate because the
prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the president.

Asked about Gonzales during a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on
Thursday, Bush did not defend his longtime friend, according to one official
who attended the session and demanded anonymity because it was private.

Instead, Bush tepidly repeated his public statement: The attorney general
would have to go up to Capitol Hill and fix his problem, according to this
official.

(AP) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales takes a question during a news
conference in Washington, Friday,... Full Image Publicly, the White House
has said continually that Gonzales retains Bush's confidence, even while it
has also said that Gonzales and his department must address Congress'
concerns and questions.

One of the eight federal prosecutors ousted last year, Bud Cummins told the
University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service Thursday that the
Justice Department suffered from an "over-enamorization" with the White
House.

Cummins, who was U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., acknowledged that he
served at the political pleasure of the president, but said Gonzales was
remiss for not placing a "firewall" between politics and the work of the
Justice Department.

As political theater, Sampson's appearance on Capitol Hill ranked with some
of the most eye-catching hearings of recent years; the witness was faced off
against a host of cameras and senators inclined toward lawyer-like
interrogations in a cavernous Senate hearing room packed with spectators.

Sampson's account of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys over the past year
lent weight to some of the most damaging Democratic criticism about the
matter: that Gonzales was at the heart of the firings despite ever-changing
Justice Department accounts of how they were planned; that some of the
prosecutors were fired for political reasons; and that White House
officials - including presidential counselor Karl Rove - played more than a
limited role in the firings.

Afterward, one of the two Senate Republicans who are key to Gonzales'
professional fate said he found Sampson credible and left the hearing with
more questions about the attorney general and the firings than he had to
begin with.

"He has many questions to answer," said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania,
the panel's ranking Republican. Sampson's conflicting account with Gonzales'
pose "a real question as to whether he's acting in a competent way as
attorney general," Specter said.

Gonzales has said, repeatedly, that he was not closely involved in the
firings and largely depended on Sampson to orchestrate them.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that Gonzales has
clarified his statements.

"His discussions with Mr. Sampson were focused on ensuring that appropriate
people were aware of and involved in the process," Roehrkasse said. "He
directed Mr. Sampson to lead the evaluation process, was kept aware of some
conversations during the process, and that he approved the recommendations
to seek the resignations of select U.S. attorneys."

Sampson resigned March 12. A day later, Gonzales said he "never saw
documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood" in the
firings.

Gonzales is not scheduled to appear publicly on Capitol Hill until April 17
in front of the same Senate committee. More and more Democrats and
Republicans have called for him to step down, but Roehrkasse said the
attorney general has no plans to resign.

The grim-faced Sampson, a longtime and loyal aide to Gonzales, said other
senior Justice Department officials helped to plan the firings, which the
White House first suggested shortly after Bush won a second term in 2004.

Sampson said he was never aware of any case where prosecutors were told to
step down because they refused to help Republicans in local election or
corruption investigations. He also said he saw little difference between
dismissing prosecutors for political reasons versus performance-related
ones.

Sampson said he should have been more careful to prevent Paul McNulty, the
deputy attorney general, and William Moschella, the principal associate
deputy attorney general, from giving incomplete or misleading information to
Congress in describing the dismissals.

He said that White House political staffers working for Rove were involved
closely in the plans to replace prosecutors - as evidenced by thousands of
department e-mails released to Congress.

It was Miers, he said, who initially floated the idea of firing all 93
federal prosecutors and ultimately joined Gonzales in approving those who
were turned out.



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