Alberto “Mistakes Were Made” Gonzalez is Toast

Who would have thought that US Attorney General Alberto “Mistakes Were Made” Gonzalez would so thoroughly implode over the US Attorney firings? Every other hour, it seems, someone at the Department of Justice says something that contradicts what was said previously. In illustration of this is this clip from ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos.



What really gets me is the paper trail that just exploded on the scene. Not since the Watergate tapes has there been such confirmation of charges that the firing of the seven US Attorneys was political and not based on performance as the AG has maintained. Most of the emails, a PDF of them is here, are from Gonzalez’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson who resigned on Monday. They’re a little hard to read sometimes and there’s been some redacting, but it’s clear that many key White House and DOJ figures were in this up to their ears.

Scroll down to the bottom and you will see George Bush’s direct involvement. It seems that POTUS, was involved in a discussion over the Arizona US Attorney, who apparently didn’t want to prosecute marijuana possession cases that involved amounts under 500 pounds.

You also see the Carol Lam story. California Senator Dianne Feinstein claims she was fired for going after “Duke” Cunningham, and this may also be true. But in the email it looks like they were also upset with her for failing to prosecute as many illegal immigrants as the Bush administration wanted her to.

Alberto Gonzalez is completely marginalized. As the top law enforcement official in the United States, he no longer has any standing, no longer has any credibility. Bush would be a fool not to ask for his resignation. But you know, Bush is such a stubborn guy, he’ll probably let him turn on a spit for awhile longer.