The AP has come up with yet another indication that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales either was not honest in his Congressional testimony or has a major memory problem — two things that would have made previous Presidents of either party give their AG the boot:
Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The documents underscore questions about Gonzales’ credibility as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.
A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.
It’s almost now like the old Stan Laurel line: “That’s our story and we’re stuck with it.”
At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.
Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.
One of the residues of the Bush administration will be the misuse of executive privilege. All but the most steadfast partisans will now forever raise their eyebrows when officials of ANY administration go before Congress and refuse to answer questions. Also: Gonzales and the Bush administration’s behavior and disdain for what is increasingly seemingly like a toothless Congress with the executive branch running away with its teeth means if there’s a Democrat in power GOPers are going to have to be stalemated the same way.
Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program’s legality.
“The dissent related to other intelligence activities,†Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. “The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.â€
“Not the TSP?†responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.â€
“It was not,†Gonzales answered. “It was about other intelligence activities.â€
A four-page memo from the national intelligence director’s office says the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.
There are just too many instances of Gonzales’ testimony not jibing with others to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or, increasingly, to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration on a host of issues. And if you watch the polls in coming weeks, it’s likely the flight of independent voters from the GOP will continue because of a multiple-fronted credibility gap that is now surpassing that of the Nixon administration.
PREDICTION: If the issues the Bush administration is essentially provoking wind up in court, in the end the administration may win since it now has many sympathetic judges in place in many parts of the court system. All of the assumptions by some pundits that the courts will counter the Bush administration could be operating on outdated assumptions.
If that is indeed true, that would mean the ultimate impact of the Bush administration will mean a downsized Congress, an all-powerful executive — but a potential problem for Republicans in Congress if a strong-willed Democrat is in the White House.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.