Feingold's Up

Russ Feingold, as expected, did an admirable job dressing down Alberto Gonzales this morning.

He started by discussing the Georgia L. Thompson case, and asking if Wisconsin constituents should be concerned about the politicization of the Justice Department as a result. Good on him for stopping Gonzales from peddling the BS about the Georgia Thompson case. The problem is one of perception, that people would see such a quick dismissal by an Appeals Court, and then assume that politics were involved in the case. This scandal has corroded the public trust in the administration of justice.

Feingold's now arguing that, essentially, Gonzales is an absentee landlord in the Justice Department. He had virtually nothing to do with the basis for the decision on these firings, he was singularly uninterested in tracking down any information about the firings, and yet in a USA Today op-ed in March he claimed that "the US Attorneys had lost my confidence." How would he know, factually, that there is no factual basis for thinking that USAs were fired for "improper reasons."

The problem is that Gonzales is arguing two things at the same time. One is that he was uninvolved and uninterested in the basis for firing these USAs. The other is that he knows that nothing improper was done, and he knows that their performance-related issues were to blame for the firing. He's arguing that he was both smart and stupid. Now he's saying that there is documentation about specific issues related to the USAs. Then Feingold delivers the knockout:

"There is no credibility to the notion that it was your considered judgment that those justifications were the reasons for removing those people at the time. There's simply nothing in the record that demonstrates that you had a sufficient effort made to make that determination."

Feingold essentially got Gonzales to admit that he is not needed at the Department of Justice. He had him arguing strenuously that the senior leadership at the Department made all the determinations for the firings, that they implemented it, and all he did was sign the order. These senior staffers have lied under oath. They have contradicted each other in their public statements. But a fish rots from the head down. Because Alberto Gonzales is so uninterested in doing his job, because he's not concerned with looking into any information about who his employees are, he really is not a necessary actor as the Attorney General.

This is no different from George Bush running the country like a CEO - disconnected and unconcerned with what the underlings are doing.

(Just an insert, Abu G is now pleading to Sessions that he's such a busy man that he can't possibly remember meetings about firing attorneys that happen in his office. Wasn't that the Scooter Libby defense?)