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A little bit more of the White House press briefing with Tony Fratto yesterday morning.
You know that the question about AG Alberto Gonzales pressure to resign is always to going to come up, and it did.
Q Senators Schumer and Feinstein are going to introduce a no confidence resolution for Attorney General Gonzales next week, the Senate is going to vote on this. You have a sixth Republican, Norm Coleman, come out and say the Attorney General should resign. Doesn't this all add up to the weight that's dragging him down? And how can he be effective with all --
MR. FRATTO: I think it adds up to the bottomless bag of tricks that Democrats in the Senate would like to pull out on a weekly basis, regarding the Attorney General. The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President. He's focused on the mission of the Department of Justice, which is to keep Americans safe, protect us from domestic terrorism threats, child predators. We know that this has been a difficult period, dealing with the discussion and questions having to do with the U.S. attorneys. But the Attorney General is sticking to his job. We feel he's been a very strong Attorney General, and we continue to support him.
" bottomless bag of tricks "? The Democrats in the Senate may have a bottomless bag but there are no tricks in it, only mounting evidence that this AG is immoral and corrupt. One of the Bush " yes men " as they are calling him these days. Mr. Fratto says that Gonzo has the full support of president Bush and why would he not have that support? After all, he and Bush did try to take over the Department of Justice and either dig up dirt or attempt to manufacture some dirt to get the elections tilted into their favor. Voter fraud? Only on the Republican side of the fence.
Q Let me just follow up on that. Yesterday, Kelly asked the President straight up about the report of when Gonzales was counsel and sending Andy Card down to the hospital. The President refused to answer, saying it was a national security issue. No part of her question had anything to do with national security issues.
MR. FRATTO: No, there are two points there. One is the discussion of classified programs; and the second is deliberative discussions among and between advisors to the President -- and neither of which is an open window for us to look into and talk about.
Now, I think the President -- I think that's the point that the President was making. It puts us in a difficult communications position, because we understand there are questions out there and it's difficult for us from the podium. But that's not something that we can get into, and we're not going to get into.
Q He can unilaterally declassify, so --
MR. FRATTO: He could, but I think he'd prefer to put the safety and security of Americans ahead of that interest.
( Republican language for we aren't saying anything that will get us indicted and imprisoned )
Q How does it jeopardize the safety and security of Americans, to say whether --
MR. FRATTO: Any time we talk about --
Q -- to say whether he ordered those guys to go to the hotel room?
MR. FRATTO: The hospital room --
Q I'm sorry, hospital room.
MR. FRATTO: -- according to the reports.
Q -- former acting Attorney General.
MR. FRATTO: Any time we talk about classified programs you're opening the door, and we need to be very careful in how we talk about it.
Let me make another point that the President made yesterday. All of our programs have been appropriately briefed to Congress. They have all had appropriate oversight. So I think that is the forum for discussing our classified programs, and I think that is where we're going to leave it.
Q Are you saying that the Congress knew the President ordered the wiretapping without any warrant, and they said okay?
MR. FRATTO: I'm saying that appropriate briefings of Congress were made
If the Congress was briefed on this and they still let Bush get away with this, then they should be held accountable for the act. that would pretty much wipe out the Conservatives for many decades to come.
On Gonzales and Cards visit to Rumsfeld while he was in the hospital, Fratto had this to say.
Q Does the White House deny that this incident occurred, where --
MR. FRATTO: We're not --
Q -- in relation to some unnamed, unspecified program, these two White House aides sought out the Attorney General -- who was ill and had passed his powers over to his acting -- sought him out instead of going to the Attorney General. Do you guys deny that took place?
MR. FRATTO: Let me say very clearly: I am not addressing any particular report, okay. But I will say that ultimate authority rests with the President of the United States.
The ultimate authority rests with the President of the United States. Does anything else really need to be said about where all of the illegal shit begins?
Tags: George Bush Alberto Gonzales Donald Rumsfeld wiretap Congress
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