gonzalesbush.jpgDemocratic leaders announced Thursday they will seek a vote of “no confidence” in Alberto Gonzales, hoping that convinces Gonzales or the White House that he should resign. Firedoglake’s looseheadprop will discuss the tactical significance of this later this morning.

On MSNBC’s Hardball, Senator Schumer said he saw no purpose in recalling Gonzales to testify, because Gonzales would, as he had twice already, refuse to answer questions or claim he didn’t recall anything that mattered. Schumer understands the more Gonzales testifies, the more the media and public will conclude Gonzales is the issue, rather than the lawless regime for which he became loyal consigliere.

The significance of James Comey’s riveting testimony has been explained in excellent posts by Glenn Greenwald, Marty Lederman [and see this Update], emptywheel, Digby, Swopa, and others, as well as the editors of the NYT and the Washington Post, who finally acknowledged the White House’s brutish and lawless behavior. But television news shows last night seemed too focused on how unseemly it was for Andy Card and Gonzales to importune an ailing Ashcroft at his hospital bedside and not enough on what the President’s men were trying to accomplish and why.

The President sent his men to Ashcroft’s hospital room to make an illegal end run around the Justice Department and its acting Attorney General. Acting AG Comey and the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — whose interpretations were binding throughout the Executive Branch — had determined and told the White House that the President’s warrantless surveillance program was unlawful. The President and his men knew that continuing the program was unlawful, but instead of obeying the law, they tried to end run the DoJ’s findings.

Having designated Comey as acting AG, the seriously ill Ashcroft had no legal authority to reverse the DoJ’s determination and approve the illegal spying program. The President and his men undoubtedly knew this, but they ignored that legality, too.

Unwilling to obey the law, the President apparently ordered Card and Gonzales to extract an illegal signoff on a program DoJ had declared unlawful. If they failed to compel that signoff, they were prepared to continue their unlawful program without it — as they had already done. Today’s WaPo editorial captures the import of the “Wednesday Night Ambush”:

It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. . . .

The administration, it appears from Mr. Comey’s testimony, was willing to go forward, against legal advice, with a program that the Justice Department had concluded did not “honor the civil liberties of our people.”

Only the threat of politically damaging resignations by Ashcroft, Comey, the head of OLC, and the FBI Director convinced the President to deviate from his lawless course, and Gonzales covered it up.

As though signing off on torture, politicizing the DoJ and misleading Congress on just about everything were not enough, Gonzales’ thuggish role in the “Wednesday Night Ambush” should be enough for Congress and the media to demand his resignation. A vote of no confidence is certainly warranted. If he does not resign — and with appointees as dishonorable as those in this Administration, and Gonzales’ role as firewall for WH complicity, he may not — then Congress should move to impeach Alberto Gonzales.

The matter will not end there, because Gonzales did not act for himself but rather as George Bush’s consigliere. The multiple Justice Department scandals did not originate with Gonzales. All the signs point to the White House and Rove’s political shop or in this matter, the Oval Office. Whether we’re dealing with political interference in criminal prosecutions, or unconstitutional efforts to suppress voting rights while ignoring real rights violations, or the unconscionable endorsement of kidnappings, renditions, torture and imprisonment without trial, we now know the Bush/Cheney WH was radically transforming the Justice Department from the nation’s law enforcement arm to an enabler of a lawless regime bent on protecting and expanding the regime’s political power. Short of armed overthrow of the government, it is hard to imagine a more insidious threat to our Constitution.

As much as any time in its history, the nation desperately needs an independent, honest, and effective Justice Department. An immediate need is to replace the current Attorney General with someone who can clean house and begin to restore public confidence in the administration of justice. A special indepedent counsel should be appointed to investigate all of the abuses of and by DoJ. And Congress and the media need to continue to expose the lawlessness of the Bush/Cheney regime, to purge the Executive Branch of the pervasive lawlessness that was allowed to fester for years. Gonzales’ resignation is important and necessary, but it is hardly sufficient.

Related posts:

  1. Senate, NPR Torture Reports Both Include Alberto Gonzales
  2. Gonzales and Bush Haven’t Spoken
  3. Cheney’s and Gonzales’ CYA Libraries
  4. Brennan Provides Gonzales-Like Obfuscation on Illegal Surveillance Program
  5. Fredo Talks! Gonzales Advocates for an Independent AG