GOP still waiting for Gonzales to take a hike

Newsweek

April 30, 2007 issue - The pressure on Alberto Gonzales to resign intensified last week following his daylong grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The embattled attorney general was repeatedly unable to recall virtually anything about last year’s firings of eight U.S. attorneys. GOP senators—hoping for a strong performance—were visibly pained when Gonzales couldn’t remember a crucial Nov. 27, 2006, meeting (noted on his calendar), when he was briefed by his chief of staff about the firing plan. “Senator, I have searched my memory. I have no recollection of the meeting,” Gonzales told GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions. The A.G. was even unable to recall a meeting where President Bush passed along complaints about the three U.S. attorneys—a talk that Bush himself has publicly recalled. (Gonzales said he now “understands” he had such a conversation.)

With that performance, Gonzales lost the Hill. When he spoke with the attorney general on Friday, Sessions urged Gonzales to “take the weekend” to determine whether he can still “be an effective leader,” he said later in a statement. Rep. Adam Putnam, chairman of the House Republican Conference, called on Gonzales to step down—echoing a position that a group of top House GOPers privately delivered to Bush earlier in the month. “He’s done something I didn’t think possible. He’s lost the confidence of almost all the Republicans in Congress,” said one top GOP strategist who is close to the White House, anonymous when talking about sensitive personnel matters. A big GOP concern: Gonzales’s continued presence will make it hard to move measures important to the party’s base, like immigration reform, through the judiciary committees, said the strategist.

But Gonzales himself was hanging tough. “We believe the burden is now on the Democrats to prove that something improper occurred here—and they haven’t done that,” said a top Justice official (who asked not to be ID’d talking about nonpublic matters). Publicly, the White House was standing by its A.G. One White House adviser (who asked not to be ID’ed talking about sensitive issues) said the support reflected Bush’s own view that a Gonzales resignation would embolden the Dems to go after other targets—like Karl Rove. “This is about Bush saying, ‘Screw you’,” said the adviser, conceding that a Gonzales resignation might still be inevitable. The trick, said the adviser, would be to find a graceful exit strategy for Bush’s old friend.

The Democrats show no sign of backing down, demanding documents and threatening subpoenas for internal e-mails from the White House and the Republican National Committee (aides working for Rove frequently used RNC BlackBerrys). That’s not the only threat. The Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that investigates whistle-blower complaints, recently sent document requests to the White House and the Justice Department relating to the firing of one of the prosecutors, David Iglesias of New Mexico, according to an official familiar with the probe, requesting anonymity to discuss an ongoing case. (The office also is seeking e-mails relating to a complaint that the General Services Administration was used to promote GOP political candidates, a potential violation of the Hatch Act.) The requests ensure that whatever happens to Gonzales, the investigations will continue.

- Michael Isokoff

Hatch Act Investigation

Possible ‘Illegal’ White House Activity Probed

By DEB RIECHMANN

AP

WASHINGTON (April 25) - A little-known federal investigative unit has launched a probe into allegations of illegal political activity within the executive branch, including a White House office led by President Bush ’s close adviser, Karl Rove .

The new investigation, which began several weeks ago, grew out of two other investigations still under way at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel: the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias from New Mexico and a presentation by Rove aide J. Scott Jennings to political appointees at the General Services Administration on how to help Republican  candidates in 2008.

“We’re in the preliminary stages of opening this expanded investigation,” Loren Smith, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency, said Tuesday. “The recent suggestion of illegal political activities across the executive branch was the basis we used to decide that it was important to look into possible violations of the Hatch Act.”

The office, led by Scott J. Bloch, enforces the Hatch Act, a 70-year-old law that bars federal employees from engaging in political activities using government resources or on government time.

Whether politics played an inappropriate part in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, including Iglesias, was at the heart of the controversy that has threatened Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ job. Whether executive branch employees violated federal laws that restrict them from using their posts for political activity also is at the center of the controversy about the January meeting at GSA.

“Six participants have confirmed that, at the end of the presentation, GSA Administrator Lurita Doan asked all present to consider how they could use GSA to ‘help our candidates’ in 2008,’” 25 Democrats wrote in a letter of complaint on Monday to White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

Among questions the senators asked Bolten:

-”Why did Mr. Jennings and his staff communicate the presentation materials which bear the White House seal, via a private e-mail account affiliated with the Republican National Committee?”

-”Does the White House consider the preparation and delivery of such a presentation to be an appropriate use of taxpayer funds?”

The Los Angeles Times, which first reported the wider inquiry, said Doan doesn’t recall making such comments.

The White House said it had not yet been contacted by the Office of Special Counsel on the matter.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday that it was entirely appropriate for the president’s staff to provide informational briefings to appointees throughout the federal government about the political landscape in which they implement the president’s policies. The White House said there have been other briefings at other agencies.

“People take great care to make sure that they don’t violate the Hatch Act,” Perino said, “and the Hatch Act doesn’t prohibit the giving of informational briefings to governmental employees.”

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.