Title: 93 prosecutors receive apology from Gonzales Source:
http://www.mercurynews.com URL Source:http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_5465080 Published:Mar 18, 2007 Author:Deb Riechmann Post Date:2007-03-18 11:01:03 by robin Keywords:None Views:51 Comments:3
93 prosecutors receive apology from Gonzales
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press
Article Launched: 03/18/2007 01:51:42 AM PDT
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has offered a mea culpa to the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys for the way the Justice Department fired eight of their colleagues.
In a conference call Friday, planned as a pep talk to raise morale at the Justice Department after the firings and the FBI's misuse of the Patriot Act, Gonzales apologized for how the dismissals were handled and for suggesting there were problems with the prosecutors' job performances, according to an official familiar with the conversation.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details of the call, said Gonzales did not apologize for firing the eight U.S. attorneys, a decision he and President Bush have defended.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrhasse said Saturday that the call was set up to allow Gonzales to reiterate "how important the U.S. attorneys are to him as his representatives in the communities they serve and as prosecutors charged with protecting their communities from violent criminals, drug dealers and predators."
The call was made the same day that his former top aide, who resigned last week amid the controversy, denied that he purposefully withheld information from Justice Department officials who misled Congress about the firings.
Kyle Sampson, the attorney general's former chief of staff, said in a statement released by his attorney that several senior officials were aware Advertisement the Justice Department and the White House "had been discussing the subject since the election."
E-mail exchanges involving Sampson and others, including officials at the White House, support Sampson's assertion, which contradicts claims by Gonzales that he had been in the dark about the way his former top aide had carried out the dismissals and that there were not political motives behind the firings. The e-mails indicate discussions about the dismissals involved Gonzales while he was still White House counsel in late 2004 or early 2005.
I can imagine my first day in Iraq, and my Hummer gets hit, and I lose both my legs. Later, as I'm sitting in my wheelchair, some politician comes by and says, just like Maxwell Smart, "Oops, sorry about that, chief."
Apologies, they mean nothing.
"We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." -- Marshall McLuhan, after Alexander Pope and William Blake.
Focus on those 5 star hotels in Dubai and the beautiful offshore bank accounts that a few, the chosen, those brave chickenhawks are growing even as we write this.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 KJV
White House political strategist Karl Rove and others will face Senate subpoenas this week if they do not agree to testify in a dispute over fired prosecutors that has put pressure on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to quit, a Senate committee head said on Sunday.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee called for Gonzales to come to Congress to explain the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys and clear up the varying reasons given for their firings. But they stopped short of seeking to compel members of President George W. Bush's staff to testify under oath.