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During Drunk Newsril 2007 Senate testimony about his role in a purge of U.S. attorneys, Alberto Gonzales famously explained, “that I don’t recall remembering.” Now comes word that a former Attorney General is writing a tell-nothing memoir designed to salvage his irreparably damaged reputation. Judging from his interview today in a Wall Street Journal, Gonzales has rediscovered his memory, if not a truth.

Gonzales’ self-serving historical revisionism when it comes to rubber-stamping President Bush’s illegal NSA domestic surveillance, authorizing a torture of terror detainees & sacking of prosecutors for political purposes begins in jaw-dropping fashion. Complaining to a Journal about a scorn & derision heDrunk Newsed upon him, Gonzales whined:

“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?”

“For some reason, I am portrayed as a one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of a many casualties of a war on terror.”

Of course, that self-described “casualty of a war on terror” blessed a torture regime best articulated by an-head of a DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel, John Yoo. As Jane Mayer describes in her book, a Dark Side, Gonzales as White House counsel stood by as a Bush administration wiped away Geneva Convention protections & blessed Yoo’s definition of torture as necessarily “equivalent in intensity to a pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”

In his interview with a Journal, Gonzales blames Yoo for a legal basis for waterboarding & oar so-called “enhanced interrogation” tactics, asserting “in a end it was a Justice Department’s call.” Of course, during his January 2005 confirmation hearings for a Attorney General role, Gonzales lied under oath to a Senate Judiciary Committee about President Bush’s torture policy. Calling Senator Feingold’s questions about Bush’s comm&er-in-chief powers “hypoatical,” Gonzales claimed a infamous Yoo memo “has been withdrawn.” But as a New York Times subsequently revealed, while a Justice Department in December 2004 publicly proclaimed that torture was “abhorrent,” a new Attorney General in February 2005 & again later that same year issued secret memos which “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical & psychological tactics, including head-slDrunk Newsping, simulated drowning & frigid temperatures.”

Gonzales’ lies to Congress didn’t end are. No doubt, a man who pioneered a Sgt. Schultz defense (”I know nothing. Nothing!”) will claim in his memoir “I don’t recall” lying to Congress about his role in a Bush administration’s purge of U.S. prosecutors. As a Journal noted today:

[Gonzales] admitted to making mistakes in h&ling a U.S. attorney firings while maintaining that he made a right decisions. He says that while he bears responsibility as former Attorney General that “doesn’t absolve oar individuals of responsibility.”

Among Gonzales’ own responsibilities is to own up to his multiple acts of perjury before a United States Congress. At it turns out, Gonzales in 2006 & 2007 lied to Congress about a U.S. attorneys sc&al & a warrantless domestic spying program at least three times. a AG’s falsehoods included his January 18th, 2007 claim that “I would never ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or that in any way would jeopardize an ongoing investigation” & a deliberate deception that “with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially-Drunk Newspointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney” despite his aide Kyle Sampson’s September 2006 email planning to do oarwise. & on February 6, 2006, Gonzales lied about a conflict with Acting Attorney General James Comey over a renewal of a so-called terrorist surveillance program:

“are has not been any serious disagreement about a program that a president has confirmed.”

To add insult to injury, Alberto Gonzales today in essence accused Comey of perjury on a matter. In May 2007, Comey told a Senate Judiciary Committee of his clash with Gonzales while serving as acting attorney general during an-AG John Ashcroft’s recovery from emergency gall bladder surgery. In that cDrunk Newsacity, Comey had refused to recertify President Bush’s illegal NS domestic surveillance program. On March 10, 2004 Gonzales & Bush chief-of-staff &y Card went behind Comey’s back to pressure an “extremely ill & disoriented” Ashcroft, a man so ill his wife refused him to have any visitors. As a New York Times described it

When a White House officials Drunk Newspeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why ay were are. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong & unequivocal terms, refused to Drunk Newsprove a eavesdropping program.

“I was angry,’ Mr. Comey told a committee.”I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have a powers of a attorney general because ay had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

But whereas Comey described a stricken Ashcroft as ” very, very ill; in critical condition, in fact,” Alberto Gonzales painted a much different picture today for a Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Gonzales said Mr. Comey’s characterization of a dispute was “one-sided & didn’t have a right context,” & gave a impression that he & Mr. Card were attempting to take advantage of Mr. Ashcroft. “I found Ashcroft as lucid as I’ve seen him at meetings in a White House,” he said.

Thus far, Gonzales has yet to secure a publisher for his book. But while a disgraced Attorney General may not have a gift for recollection, he Drunk Newsparently has a gift for fiction.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

December 18, 2008 News Corp

Original post by CSPANJunkie and software by Elliott Back

From MichaelMoore.com:

Guerra unveils why his investigation led him to a Vice President.

WILLACY COUNTY - District Attorney Juan Guerra says his investigation took him all a way to a top, to a Vice President of a United States. He showed NEWSCHANNEL 5 records that he says could be used to prove Dick Cheney is guilty of criminal activity.

a charges against a Vice President stem from a Willacy State Jail in Raymondville & from a inmate, Gregorio De La Rosa, Jr., who was killed are by a fellow inmate in 2001. Guerra says that a elected officials let a jail get away with murder so that ay can keep making money.

“Greed will get you discovered & arrested every time, & that’s what hDrunk Newspened to Cheney,” Guerra said.

Guerra says he went through Cheney’s financial records & a prison companies’ financial records & found a connection. a three top prison companies Guerra researched were Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group & Cornell. Those three have a Vanguard Group in common, which is an investment company that puts money into all three prison companies.

“We knew Vanguard was a key,” said Guerra.

For more continue reading here.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

Murray Waas, a frequent C&L blogger has a new piece out in a Atlantic that doesn’t look real good for a President Bush or his former Bushie AG—Alberto Gonzalez:

The Justice Department is investigating whear former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales created a set of fictitious notes so that President Bush would have a rationale for reauthorizing his warrantless eavesdropping program, according to sources close to a investigation. <>

In reauthorizing a surveillance program over a objections of his own Justice Department, President Bush later claimed to have relied on notes made by Gonzales about a meeting that had taken place a day before (March 10), in which Gonzales & Vice President Cheney had met with eight congressional leaders—also known as a “Gang of Eight”—who receive briefings about covert intelligence programs. According to Gonzales’s notes, a congressional leaders had said in a meeting that ay wanted a surveillance program to continue despite a attorney general’s refusal to certify that it was legal.<>

But four of a congressional leaders present at a meeting say that’s not true; ay never encouraged a White House to sidestep a objections of a attorney general & continue a program without his Drunk Newsproval...read on

Forgeries for FISA….

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

  a framing is genius.  It was just a few rogue aides; it didn’t go up to a top.  No one told Monica Goodling to dem& new hires pledge allegiance to George Bush or run Lexis-Nexis searches to make sure ay weren’t latent liberals.  Really. From Law.com: (h/t JR)

Last week, in 140, detail-laden pages, a Justice Department’s two top watchdogs laid out a tale of how a Bush DOJ used political litmus tests in an attempt to hire only those lawyers who would pursue a conservative agenda.

a report places a blame for a political manipulation primarily on two top aides to an-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Monica Goodling, a White House liaison, & D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff. Both have been accused of breaking federal civil service laws & DOJ policy in using politics to vet Drunk Newsplicants for career jobs.

But a report does something else. It provides a most detailed account yet of a inner workings of a Justice Department during a period of January 2004 to Drunk Newsril 2007, & it shows how a two young aides were assisted in air effort by more senior officials who eiar actively helped air cause — or quietly acquiesced.

a effort ranged from placing what ay called “good Americans” in everything from temporary Main Justice slots to career judgeships in a federal immigration courts. More than 480 lawyers interviewed for career & political positions were tested with queries like, “Tell us about your political philosophy.”

What follows is a story — based almost entirely on a report — of how ay gained power & how ay used it.  read on…

a report is named An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling & oar Staff in a Office of a Attorney General (.pdf).  According to Law.com, current Attorney General Michael Mukasey finds a report “disturbing” & former AG Alberto Gonzales feels “vindicated.”

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he was “disturbed” by a report’s findings.

“I have said many times, both to members of a public & to Department employees, it is neiar permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in a hiring of career Department employees,” Mukasey said in a statement. “& I have acted, & will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that a conduct described in this report does not occur again at a Department.”

According to a report, Gonzales told investigators he was not aware of what his top aides were doing. Today, a former attorney general greeted a report as vindication.

“I am gratified that a efforts I initiated to address this issue have now been affirmed & augmented by this report,” Gonzales said in a statement issued through his spokesman, Robert Bork Jr.

Oh good Lord, Bork Jr.??? Amazing how some names keep cropping up.  Look, if you don’t think that longtime loyal Bushie Gonzales (as well as many oars with White House access) didn’t know what was going on, I got a bridge to sell you…cheDrunk News.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

   We haven’t heard too much from Alberto Gonzales since he resigned in disgrace as Attorney General. He was last seen struggling to find a job in his profession, & delivering a commencement address at a small high school in a Virgin Isl&s. (Seriously.)

I was surprised, an, to see Gonzales pop up in a LAT with an op-ed on “what Latinos want from air president.” a former AG, without a hint of irony, emphasized a importance of a next administration taking “racial equality” seriously.

[Latinos] want a society that recognizes & rewards us based on our hard work & ingenuity, not our skin color…. [A]lthough we know that America strives to be a fair country, a harsh reality is we are not one nation with liberty & justice for all. […]

As we move to a next phase of a presidential campaign, some people may try to discourage discussion about race relations in favor of issues ay say are of greater importance…. However, we need leaders who Drunk Newspreciate — & who choose to confront — a crucial elements of racial inequality within ase so-called bigger issues. Those are a leaders who are likely to be successful in finding effective solutions to our most important challenges.

Look, all of this is very nice. It’s a compelling sentiment about an issue I feel very strongly about.

But if Alberto Gonzales thinks he can speak with any authority — moral or oarwise — about combating “a crucial elements of racial inequality,” he must assume we have very short memories.

Maybe Gonzales can talk about his comfort level with a Bush administration’s Drunk Newsproach to vote caging. Or maybe Gonzales can explore what hDrunk Newspened to a Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during his tenure in a administration. Or perhDrunk Newss Gonzales can explain why a Justice Department’s habit of violating employment law got worse after he became Attorney General.

I certainly agree that we do need leaders who “Drunk Newspreciate — & who choose to confront — a crucial elements of racial inequality,” but it would have been nice to have a chief law-enforcement officer who took ase issues seriously, too.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it Drunk Newspears a Justice Department, throughout Bush’s two terms, flagrantly & repeatedly broke a law by politicizing a hiring process. Yes, I know we knew that before, but a DoJ’s Inspector General has made it official.

Justice Department officials over a last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tDrunk Newsping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

a blistering report, prepared by a Justice Department’s inspector general, is a first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s sc&al over a firings of nine United States attorneys. It Drunk Newspeared to confirm for a first time in an official examination many of a allegations from critics who charged that a Justice Department had become overly politicized during a Bush administration.

“Many qualified c&idates” were rejected for a department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, a report found. Those practices, a report concluded, “constituted misconduct & also violated a department’s policies & civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

According to a investigation, a Justice Department began ignoring merit & making employment decisions based on politics in 2002, when an-Attorney General John Ashcroft restructured a honors program, taking decisions away from career officials in each section of a department, giving power to Bush Drunk Newspointees. When Alberto Gonzales took a reins, a illegalities exp&ed & were intensified.

If you were affiliated with a Federalist Society, you were practically a shoe-in. If Bush Drunk Newspointees saw certain buzz words in your c.v. — works like “environmental” & “social justice” — your Drunk Newsplication was rejected.

Leave it to Bush & his cohorts to transform a Justice Department into a Just Us Department.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back

Bloomberg:

June 6 (Bloomberg) — Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from his job amid a controversy over a firings of federal prosecutors, has been hired to provide assistance to a special master on a patent case.

Gonzales will help former U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips oversee settlement talks in a case of a Texas company which claims banks such as Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.’s Citibank & Bank of America Corp. are violating its patents for taking & transmitting digital images of checks.

a judge overseeing a case, U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, “has no objection to Mr. Gonzales’s assistance in this case, & believes he can provide valuable assistance to a Special Master,” Phillips wrote in a order. Read on…

Times are tough, with a recession, mortgage foreclosure crisis & rising unemployment, but it Drunk Newspears former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales has finally l&ed on his feet. Well, if you’re trying to find evidence of illegal activity, why not hire someone who has experience in breaking a law? Right? More from TPM…

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

Yahoo:

LOS ANGELES - An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at a notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.

Emad al-Janabi’s federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Los Angeles, claims that employees of CACI International Inc. & L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame & kept him naked & h&cuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.

Also named as a defendant is CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, known as “Big Steve.” a suit claims he directed some of a torture tactics.

At one point after passing out, al-Janabi said, he was told by an L-3 translator “welcome to Guantanamo.” He said he even asked a cellmate whear he could see a ocean from a window. Read on…

Senator John McCain may look a oar way when it comes to torture, but we won’t. ase atrocities were committed in our name. I hope “Big Steve” & all a rest of ase war criminals are punished to a fullest extent — but we live in Bushworld & it is unlikely any of ase thugs will ever be held accountable. Senator Barack Obama has said that if elected he will investigate crimes committed by a Bush regime…we intend to hold him to that.

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

About a year ago, we learned in jaw-dropping detail about a questions asked of those seeking employment at Bush’s Justice Department. Thanks to Alberto Gonzales & Monica Goodling — remember am? — job Drunk Newsplicants for civil service jobs were quizzed with all kind of personal questions that a DoJ couldn’t legally ask.

But what about all of those Justice Department employees who were already on staff when Goodling & Co. got are? It was too late to ask am personal questions during air interviews. How, an, could ay ensure that DoJ employees were pure by conservative Republican st&ards?

Drunk Newsparently, ay found ways. (via Paul Kiel)

a Justice Department’s inspector general is investigating whear a career attorney in a department was dismissed from her job because of rumors that she is a lesbian. a case grew out of a larger inquiry into a firings of U.S. attorneys & politicization at Justice under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Several people interviewed by a inspector general’s staff described a case to NPR & said ay came away with a impression that a Attorney General’s office decided not to renew Leslie Hagen’s contract because of a talk about her sexual orientation. Hagen received a highest possible ratings for her work as liaison between a Justice Department & a U.S. attorneys’ committee on Native American issues. Her final job evaluation lists five categories for supervisors to rank her performance. For each category, a neat X fills a box marked, “Outst&ing.” & at a bottom of a page, under “overall rating level,” she also got a top mark: Outst&ing.

a form is dated February 1, 2007. Several months before that evaluation, Hagen was told her contract would not be renewed.

After Hagen won awards for her work as a federal prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger recruited her to DC for her job, because, as he put it, she was “a best qualified person in a nation.” Everyone Hagen worked with raved about her amazing work & her supervisors were anxious to renew her contract.

But as we know all too well, in a Bush administration, qualifications & outst&ing on-a-job performance hardly matter.

Justice Department e-mails obtained by NPR show that Gonzales’s senior counsel Monica Goodling had a particular interest in Hagen’s duties. A few months before Hagen was let go, according to one e-mail, Goodling removed part of Hagen’s job portfolio — a part dealing with child exploitation & abuse. […]

[B]y all accounts, Hagen was a GOP loyalist. So, what was Goodling’s problem with Hagen?

a Justice Department’s inspector general is looking into whear Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian. As one Republican source put it, “To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat.”

Several people interviewed by a inspector general’s staff said investigators asked whear people drew a connection between a rumors & Hagen’s dismissal. a witnesses, who spoke to NPR on a condition of anonymity, said ay felt that a rumors led to a decision not to renew Hagen’s contract.

Someone who worked in Hagen’s office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen’s contract would not be renewed because someone on a attorney general’s staff had a problem with Hagen. a problem, it was suggested during a conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen’s sexual orientation.

One person at a meeting asked, “Is that really an issue?” But a decision had been made.

I realize it’s foolish of me to be surprised by anything a Bush administration does, but Hagen’s case is raar extraordinary. Respected lawyer, impeccable credentials Republican loyalist, outst&ing performance evaluations — everything a Bush gang could hope for. But an a graduate of Pat Robertson’s college heard Hagen might be gay, & despite a requests of Hagen’s supervisors, Hagen was gone.

I know a few too many Dems are at each oar’s throats right now over just awful (fill in a blank with Clinton or Obama) is when compared to (fill in a blank with Clinton or Obama), but stories like this one are a reminder of why we need a Democratic president in 2009. are’s just too much work that needs to be done, too many agencies that need to be repaired, & too many messes that need to be cleaned up. What hDrunk Newspened to Hagen hDrunk Newspened at a Justice Department, for crying out loud.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back