ABC EXCLUSIVE: Gonzales Contradicts His Own Testimony

[babylonsister]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=3046651

EXCLUSIVE: Gonzales Contradicts His Own Testimony
Recently Released E-Mails Show Attorney General's Involvement in Attorney Firing Talks
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE de VOGUE

April 16, 2007 — - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.

That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave.

Gonzales was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, but his testimony was postponed until Thursday because of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University.

When Gonzales appears before the committee, a central focus will be the extent of his involvement in the firings.

Gonzales has insisted he left those decisions to his staff, but ABC News has learned he was so concerned about U.S. attorney Carol Lam's lackluster record on immigration enforcement in San Diego that he supported firing her months before she was dismissed, according to a newly released e-mail from his former chief of staff.

The e-mail, which came from Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson, appeared to contradict the prepared written testimony Gonzales submitted to Congress over the weekend in advance of his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. In his prepared testimony, Gonzales said that during the months that his senior staff was evaluating U.S. attorneys, including Lam, "I did not make the decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign."

But the recently released e-mail from Sampson, dated June 1, 2006, indicated that Gonzales was actively involved in discussions about Lam and had decided to fire her if she did not improve. In the e-mail to other top Justice Department officials, Sampson outlined several steps that Gonzales suggested, culminating in Lam's replacement if she failed to bolster immigration enforcement.

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[musiclawyer]

1. OK ABC news. Tell us something we didn't already know

The corporate news drives me crazy

[xchrom]

2. they COULD post a hard corps investigative journalist on this case --

but that would interfere would corporat profits -- and shareholder expectations.

[progressoid]

8. Hey, it's an EXCLUSIVE.

Exclusive, if you discount a few million of us that have known about this for a long time.

Dipshit news.

[annabanana]

3. (buncha backdated hooey). . . . n/t

[sutz12]

4. So what's worse...?

NOT doing his job....delegating important decisions he is supposed to make to subordinates.

Or doing his job poorly, or illegally.

Inquiring minds want to know.
:evilgrin:

[saltpoint]

5. Does anyone know if Gonzales has hired legal counsel for these

hearings, or for all matters generally?

Or is this a case of the attorney who has a fool for a client?

He has a couple more days to sweat bullets and make a few calls, pray the Rosary, and light candles, and then Patrick Leahy and Churck Schumer et al are going to lay into him.

It's time Mr. Gonzales packed up and left.

[Cha]

6. Yeah, I knew it was gonna

be USAttorney Carol Lam~ YOu should consider yourself an exceptional USAttorney for having al gonzales wanting you gone.

[The Count]

7. It's good though that they eventually catch up with us...the "exclusive" thingy

is a bit presumptuous, but hey, don't get discouraged, ABC! You'll get the scoop next time!