Impeach Al Gonzales

On the eve of a no-confidence vote, there's a new site calling for Abu G's impeachment.



There's also news that Democrats will seek legal action for Gonzales' "Midnight Ride" to John Ashcroft's hospital bed to get him to sign off on the illegal wiretapping.

Indeed, congressional sources tell U.S. News that Democrats will ask the Texas Bar Association to determine whether Gonzales violated his code of professional responsibility or broke laws by bringing up the NSA program in the hospital in front of Ashcroft's wife, who lacks security clearances. "I am not going to speculate on discussions that may or may not have taken place," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd responded, "much less attempt to render a legal judgment on any such discussions."

Last Friday Douglas Kmiec, the chief spinner on legal issues for the White House, printed a completely dishonest editorial that tried to absolve Gonzales in the "Midnight Ride" fiasco, and Marty Lederman takes him apart. A portion:

Kmiec then attacks Senator Specter for suggesting that the hospital incident has an air of the Saturday Night Massacre about it -- "the comparison to Watergate is wholly inapt," writes Kmiec, because "Watergate involved a real crime."

Well, this case involves a "real crime," too -- systematic violations of a very important federal statute designed to protect Americans from wiretapping by their government, 18 U.S.C. 1809. But that's not really the central point for these purposes, because Specter's obvious reference was simply to the remarkable parallel in that the President and his closest aides had so egregiously departed from institutional legal norms that the entire top echelon of the Justice Department was prepared to resign in a manner that would signal to the public that something was greviously awry within the Administration. Attorney General Richardson and DAG Ruckelshaus did not resign in October 1973 because they concluded there had been a "burglary for purposes of political dirty tricks," in Kmiec's words. The burglary was an old story. They resigned because the President insisted that they fire prosecutor Archibald Cox when Cox subpoened Nixon's tapes. In other words, Nixon was trying to subvert the established procedures of the Justice Department. As were Bush and Gonzales.

That said, it's somewhat easy to see why the President won't fire Gonzales. First of all, he doesn't like being told what to do. Second, losing Gonzales would mean a replacement and a confirmation battle, and like I said, he doesn't like being told what to do. Third, who the hell would want to be this President's Attorney General after what we know? Nobody even wants to be the deputy!

Few in Washington have envied Paul McNulty over the past three months. But with the deputy attorney general’s resignation last week amid the scandal over the firings of at least eight U.S. attorneys, there’s one person whose position might be even less desirable: McNulty’s yet-to-be-named successor.

“I’d rather trade places with Jose Padilla,” jokes Viet Dinh, a former senior Justice official under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

So, given that Bush is extremely unlikely to fire Gonzales or even let him resign, I think the Congress has to do the heavy lifting here. Gonzales has committed multiple impeachable offenses. I think it's warranted for the good of the country. And at least we wouldn't have to hear "but then Cheney will become Attorney General!" from the more "sensible" elements of the Democratic Party.

UPDATE: See, Bush ain't cuttin' bait. He actually thinks it makes him look strong to be defiant. Even when it's being defiant of reality.