Gonzales Is Target Of New Justice Department Investigation

Just when you thought you had read everything that would make you raise an eyebrow about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — the attorney general with perhaps the smallest amount of enthusiastic Congressional and public support in American history — there’s a new twist that will continue to add to the growing image of the Bush administration as one where ethical standards are ….relative:

The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to improperly influence the testimony of a departing senior aide, two of its senior officials said yesterday, adding a new dimension to the troubles already besetting the nation’s chief law enforcement official.

The Justice Department officials, in a letter released yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, said their inquiry into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys includes an examination of a meeting Gonzales held in mid-March with his then-aide Monica M. Goodling, who testified last month that the attorney general’s comments during the session made her feel “a little uncomfortable.”

The topic of discussion at the meeting was what had happened in the months leading up to firings of the U.S. attorneys, and Gonzales recounted his recollection of events before asking for her reaction, according to Goodling’s congressional testimony in May. She said Gonzales’s comments discomfited her because both Congress and the Justice Department had already launched investigations of the dismissals.

Goodling’s account attracted attention partly because Gonzales had told Congress that he could not remember numerous details about the prosecutors’ dismissals because he had purposely avoided discussing the issue with other potential “fact witnesses.”

If you add all the news stories and allegations about Gonzales together, it’s clear he is someone who not only has a cloud over his head, but a cloudburst. But President George Bush sees it as prestine sunshine:

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse repeated yesterday a previous statement by Gonzales that the attorney general never sought to influence Goodling’s testimony. A White House spokesman also reiterated yesterday that President Bush “fully supports the attorney general,” who this week was the target of an unsuccessful no-confidence vote organized by Senate Democrats.

The announcement that Gonzales’s conduct would be examined came from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel of the Office of Professional Responsibility. “This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter,” Fine and Jarrett said in a letter to Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It’s quite possible that in the end Gonzales will walk away unscathed amid this allegation as well. But it adds yet another layer of questions that will decrease the administration’s credibility among all but its most lockstep supporters.

This has implications for the clamor on the part of conservatives for Bush to pardon “Scooter” Libby. There is an ineffable growing sense among many non-Republican Americans that this is an administration where laws are enforced one way for some (those who don’t belong to a certain party) and another way for others (those who belong to another or no party). Those who’ve been good soldiers in the cause (working for the Bush administration’s political interests and using all the tools at their disposal) get special protections under the law…or beyond it…