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Blogs Eric Reads
Cheney and Gonzales Indicted
And in Texas, of all places:
McALLEN, Texas — A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers.
The indictment criticizes Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees by working through the prison companies.
Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.
By the way, that’s the Houston Chronicle, not The Onion.
Update: The Houston Chronicle link is dead, but CNN has picked up the story.
DOJ Hiring Practices Broke the Law
Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.
Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said.
Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said. One former Justice Department official told investigators she had complained that Goodling was asking interviewees for their views on abortion, according to the report.
You can read the full 146-page report here (PDF). For those who don’t have the time, the House Judiciary Committee picks out the good parts:
The report, released today by the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found:
- Senior Bush Administration Department of Justice officials, including Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, Jan Williams, and others violated federal law and committed misconduct in basing hiring decisions for career prosecutor positions, details to senior Department offices and immigration judgeships on the applicant’s political affiliations and views. (125-27)
- The report highlighted political cronyism that was “particularly damaging” in a vital counterterrorism post when a qualified expert was rejected because his wife had the wrong political affiliation. Instead a candidate was chosen that “lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues” and who other DoJ officials believed “was not qualified for the position.” (136)
- Immigration judgeships were needlessly held vacant for long periods while Department leaders sought to identify politically suitable candidates, leading to a severe backlog of immigration matters. (128)
- Monica Goodling also made false statements to the Department’s own lawyers who were defending a lawsuit regarding Immigration Judge hiring. (138)
- A current Department official, John Nowacki, prepared and circulated a press release responding to public concern about these issues that he knew was false at the time; the report recommends that Mr. Nowacki be disciplined (127-28)
- Monica Goodling refused to approve several DOJ appointments for an AUSA who Ms. Goodling believed was gay. (132-33)
Of course, no disciplinary, criminal, or other action will come about as a result of this report since the individuals involved have all resigned and/or are suffering from temporary amnesia. Still, it’s good to know that those of us in the reality-based community were right all along.
Update: And while we’re on the subject, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, twenty days ago:
Steve Schmidt, the new man in day-to-day charge of the McCain presidential campaign, stoutly defended his lobbying and PR firm’s hiring of Tim Griffin, a former prosecutor who figured in the U.S. attorneys firing scandal.
…
Schmidt was untroubled by the firings, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it was “mostly a combination of nonsense and politics and provides us no concern at all.”
Alberto Gonzales Can’t Get a Job
Poor, poor Alberto Gonzales. Looks like our illustrious ex-AG is having trouble finding work.
Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
Of course, they also don’t typically resign in disgrace amid accusations of perjury, they aren’t typically under investigation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, and their friends don’t typically set up a legal defense fund for them before they’ve been formally charged with anything. But hey, what do I know? I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons why nobody wants to hire Abu G.
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Oh nevermind, I guess it is that whole perjury investigation thing. Fortunately, my school and others have been keeping him out of the unemployment line:
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000. Places like Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State University and the University of Florida have paid him about $30,000 plus expenses for appearances, and the business groups pay a bit more, said sources at the schools and elsewhere who are familiar with the arrangements. Pomona College debated inviting him and decided he was not worth the money, the college newspaper reported.
Even though his speech “was not profound,” as our student government president wrote, Gonzales will never have to worry about money. I wish I could say the same for the hard-working Americans who lost their homes to subprime mortgage foreclosures or the increasing number of unemployed Americans who can’t get paid to run their mouths.
Alberto Gonzales, My College, and Where All That Money Is Going
Did you hear? Disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has decided to use his newfound free time to take part in a time-honored tradition among criminals: making a profit. Yes, Gonzo is taking his long career of public service to George W. Bush on the road as part of a new speaking tour! And guess where his first stop will be:
Earlier this week, the [Washington University in St. Louis] Student Union Treasury approved funds to bring beleaguered former attorney general Alberto Gonzales to speak on campus [well, technically he's (conveniently for the administration) speaking at a building off-campus next semester, but that's beside the point].
College Republicans, the primary sponsor of the event, appealed for $10,000 to augment funding of $25,000 from the SU speaker series budget.
…
According to SU President Neil Patel, Washington University will be one of Gonzales’ first speaking appearances since he stepped down as attorney general.
Now, I take issue with pretty much everything that Alberto Gonzales did during his tenure as Attorney General–and I interned in his Justice Department–but just because I disagree with him doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his Constitutional rights. And yes, yes, you could make a very compelling argument that Gonzales may have waived those rights after having spent much of his career pissing on or providing justification for others to piss on the Constitution, but you undermine your credibility if you do the same thing to him (trampling on his rights) that you’re criticizing him for doing to us (trampling on, well, all of our rights).
So Alberto Gonzales gets his right to free speech, and so should the people who will be there protesting him. And it’s no secret that there will be protesters.
Because Gonzales is such a controversial speaker, there will be additional security to ensure that any demonstrators do not interfere with the speech; almost $5,000 of the total money allocated for the program will go towards security and other expenses unrelated to Gonzales’ honorarium.
“There’s a tendency to be demonstrators when there’s such a big name,” said Patel. “That’s fine, but I wouldn’t want his speech to get disrupted.”
According to Patel, while it is still unclear what additional security measures would be implemented, there may be an additional police presence.
“There’s a tendency to be demonstrators when there’s such a big name…” That understatement-of-the-century shouldn’t surprise anyone, but there’s something about all this that isn’t quite adding up. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s something that is adding up. $35k from Student Union , $5k for security… that means, for the mathematically challenged among us:
The majority of the $35,000 budget for the event will go towards Gonzales’ $30,000 honorarium.
Holy shit! Thirty grand for one 50-minute speech! And we don’t even know what he’s going to talk about. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think he even knows what he’s going to talk about. There isn’t very much he can say about being in charge of the Department of Justice without incriminating himself, and, even if there were, he probably couldn’t recall what happened anyway.
WashU is, according to StudLife, one of many stops on Alberto Gonzales’ “I Can’t Recall” Express. If we figure that he makes three speeches a month, at $30,000 a pop, that means he’s making $90,000 in very easy income every month and bringing in a cool 7-figure salary every year. Pretty safe to say that the man isn’t exactly living from paycheck to paycheck. Of course, this begs the question: why exactly does he need a legal defense fund?
Supporters of former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales have created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, which are mounting in the face of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness.
The establishment of a legal defense fund for the nation’s former chief law enforcement officer underscores the potential peril confronting Gonzales, who is one of a handful of attorneys general to face potential criminal charges for actions taken in office.
David G. Leitch, a Gonzales friend and general counsel at the Ford Motor Co., wrote in an e-mail solicitation to potential contributors last month that Gonzales is “innocent of any wrongdoing” but does not have the means to pay for his legal defense after a career spent mostly in public service.
“In the hyper-politicized atmosphere that has descended on Washington, an innocent man cannot simply trust that the truth will out,” Leitch wrote. “He must engage highly competent legal counsel to represent him. That costs money, money that Al Gonzales doesn’t have.”
Alberto Gonzales is being investigated, but he hasn’t been indicted yet. Hell, I don’t think there’s anyone left in Washington who is far enough removed from Gonzales’ corruption of the Justice Department to even bring charges, and even if he is convicted he’ll certainly get the deluxe version of the Scooter Libby package. Nevertheless, he’s already raising money by the hundreds and thousands because, ironically, he needs to pay for highly competent lawyers.
David G. Leitch, I am calling your bullshit. Alberto Gonzales does have the means to pay for the highly competent legal counsel that he couldn’t get by representing himself. He’s getting the means to pay in the form of a $30,000 gift from the student body of Washington University. He’s getting the means to pay to the tune of $30,000 every time he gets up in front of a big enough crowd and talks–and I’m sure he’ll find that task much easier while he isn’t under oath. Don’t you dare try and tell us that Alberto Gonzales is just a poor, innocent man who’s been maligned by the liberal press and can’t make it on his own. If you really give a damn about justice for all, take that legal defense fund and donate it to help the people who really can’t afford legal counsel. But if you keep raising money for this sham of a charity, if you keep raising money to defend the man who had to resign in shame from the nation’s top law enforcement job because he lied when he said he upheld the law… well, sir, you’re no better than Alberto Gonzales.