US attorney general in serious trouble
April 20th, 2007 by ashish
The US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales is in serious trouble after his hearing before a senate committee looking into the issue of firing of the 8 US attorneys. The issue about the firing of the attorneys has been snowballing into a major crisis, one that the Republicans are afraid to back, and the Democratic party is gleefully tearing into.
There is no clear reason given by the Bush Administration for the firing of the attorneys, but one reason seems to be becoming more clear; the attorneys were prosecuting a number of cases of political corruption, and the Justice department would have preferred to get attorneys more in the line of people closer to the Bush Administration and the Republican party. Now, the attorneys are selected by the administration, but there is always an implicit understanding that the attorneys who are selected would be non-partisan and good officials, and if there is a thought that attorneys were fired to make way for more pliable attorneys, there will be a fire-storm (as seems likely to happen).
So Attorney General Gonzales has not been able to make a good case about why the attoneys were fired, about whether they were given a good hearing, and the extent of his involvement in the process. His denial of full knowledge while taking responsibility did not exactly win him friends. In fact, Republicans took the lead in skewering him, with the Democrats gleefully watching.
He is an old friend of President Bush, so he has very strong backing, but it needs to be seen as to how long he will remain. His performance did not make him any new friends, and the pushing by the Republicans would have left him on a very shaky ticket.
