The Egg That Refused To Hatch

Christy Hardin Smith has a rough transcript of Orrin Hatch's embarrassing performance on Meet The Press this morning.

HATCH: "This has been badly handled by people…not by Judge Gonzales, but by others….These are top flight people, doing a terrific job…."

HATCH: "I have never seen him prevaricate. I have never seen him do anything that was wrong." (Vouching for AG Gonzales' credibility.)

HATCH: Boy, I'll tell you, there ought to at least be some evidence that something was really wrong here and uh, and uh, to imply that there was criminal activity…And in the Monica Goodling case. Let's be honest about it. Her attorney…it was one of the most gutsy letter…letters I have ever seen. He's says that the atmosphere is so poisoned on the Judiciary Committee, with no real justification, that he's not going to put her through it because, uh, you never know how they would miscontrue what she has to say.

RUSSERT: Sen. Hatch, let me ask you a simple question, however, if in fact the Preseident decides that Mr. Gonzales should step down…

HATCH (interrupting): Well, now, that's the President's decision. (Read in an unctuous tone.)

RUSSERT: And the President came to you and asked you to be the next AG, would you do it?

Sen. Hatch demurs and says he'd be awfully hard to confirm, all the while scowling about what meanies the Democrats are for asking questions. And then says that Gonzales is incapable of lying. (And says it with a straight face.)

Kudos to Sen. Pat Leahy for maintaining a straight face throughout this whole appearance. I think I would have found myself falling out of my chair laughing at Hatch's blustering, knickers in a twist performance. Leahy did manage to tweak Hatch for "actively campaigning" for the AG position this week (am still not certain if he was kidding, or if he was really tweaking him for it — but either way, it was hilarious.)

She didn't mention Hatch trying to spin out of the fact that he pleaded with the Bush Administration not to fire the US Attorney for Utah back in 2001. And while Russert was pretty solid today, he didn't approach the fact that the current US Attorney for that state is Brett Tolman, a Hatch protégé who, as a staffer for Arlen Specter, submitted the provision in the Patriot Act (since overturned) that allowed the Justice Department to appoint US Attorneys without Senate confirmation. Kyle Sampson is also a Hatch lackey, that didn't get mentioned either.

You think that Hatch is the only Senator going out of his way to defend Alberto Gonzales and the White House because he knows that the way into Bush's heart is through loyalty and he wants to be the man when the Attorney General finally gets canned?

Prosecutor Purge Update

I'm a little disappointed that my moniker of "Iglesiasgate" didn't take off - put then, the US Attorney scandal ended up moving past just David Iglesias, so it was not in the cards. But nevertheless, I'll soldier on and report developments in the scandal:

• Three of the fired prosecutors - David Iglesias, Carol Lam, and Paul Charlton - were ranked in the top 10 of all US Attorneys in number of convictions. Not surprisingly, these are arguably the three most controversial firings.

• While the Senate approved subpoenas for Karl Rove and other White House officials, Patrick Leahy has just about nailed down Kyle Sampson to voluntarily testify next week. This would be a very big hearing to follow, because Sampson is none too happy with being made the fall guy by the Justice Department. I would imagine he will lash out if given the opportunity. Chuck Schumer gave a preview of this last Sunday on Meet The Press, so it's not a big surprise.

• The D-Trip has run its first ad of 2008, and it's about Iglesiasgate, slamming Rep. Heather Wilson for her role in calling Iglesias and pressuring him to indict local Democrats before Election Day. There's plenty of time, but my sense is that Wilson is toast next year.

• One interesting thing about this scandal is how it has highlighted the continuing politicization of the Justice Department under Bush. These things were all happening in an obvious fashion anyway, but seeing that the DoJ would fire prosecutors who wouldn't play ball has put this in stark relief. And it's allowed journalists to view the DoJ's activities through this frame. There's the mysterious downgrading of the landmark class action lawsuit against tobacco companies, where the cash award sought suddenly went from $130 billion to $10 billion. And there's federal prosecutors seeking to reduce Jack Abramoff's prison sentence because of his cooperation with ongoing corruption cases, allegedly. The Abramoff story is the perfect example, because normally that wouldn't raise an eyebrow at all. If someone's being that cooperative, you tend to give leniency. But if and when nothing comes from his "assistance," then you know that the DoJ was giving a political favor instead of tracking down further corruption. And frankly, they don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

• Great writing about PurgeGate: Josh Marshall:

Okay, enough. The president fired US Attorneys to stymie investigations of Republicans and punish US Attorneys who didn't harass Democrats with bogus voter fraud prosecutions. In the former instance, the evidence remains circumstantial. But in the latter the evidence is clear, overwhelming and undeniable.

Indeed, it is so undeniable the president hismelf does not deny it [...]

Back up a bit from the sparks flying over executive privilege and congressional testimony and you realize that these are textbook cases of the party in power interfering or obstructing the administration of justice for narrowly partisan purposes. It's a direct attack on the rule of law.

This much is already clear in the record. And we're now having a big public debate about the politics for each side if the president tries to obstruct the investigation and keep the truth from coming out. The contours and scope of executive privilege is one issue, and certainly an important one. But in this case it is being used as no more than a shield to keep the full extent of the president's perversion of the rule of law from becoming known.

• More great writing: Sidney Blumenthal in Salon.

The man Bush has nicknamed "Fredo," the weak and betraying brother of the Corleone family, is, unlike Fredo, a blind loyalist, and will not be dispatched with a shot to the back of the head in a rowboat on the lake while reciting his Ave Maria. (Is Bush aware that Colin Powell refers to him as "Sonny," after the hothead oldest son?) But saving "Fredo" doesn't explain why Bush is willing to risk a constitutional crisis. Why is Bush going to the mattresses against the Congress? What doesn't he want known?

In the U.S. attorneys scandal, Gonzales was an active though second-level perpetrator. While he gave orders, he also took orders. Just as his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, has resigned as a fall guy, so Gonzales would be yet another fall guy if he were to resign. He was assigned responsibility for the purge of U.S. attorneys but did not conceive it. The plot to transform the U.S. attorneys and ipso facto the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition had its origin in Karl Rove's fertile mind.

How little self-respect do you have to have to allow yourself to be nicknamed "Fredo"?

• Tony Snow continued his reign of embarrassment as White House press secretary by claiming, on numerous occasions today, that Congress "doesn't have oversight ability over the White House," which came as news to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This is the kind of argument that's so much bullshit that you almost start clapping at the audacity of it all.

• And finally: this may be the craziest aspect of this entire story. Brett Tolman, then a staffer for Sen. Arlen Specter, was apparently responsible for slipping the provision into the PATRIOT Act that allowed the Justice Department to appoint replacement US Attorneys without Senate confirmation. Funny story... turns out that he's now the US Attorney for Utah.