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.
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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.
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