Senator Hagel Calls For Alberto Gonzales To Resign

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R):"The American people deserve an attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of our country, whose honesty and capability are beyond question. Attorney General Gonzales can no longer meet this standard. He has failed this country. He has lost the moral authority to lead."

"Alberto Gonzales should resign now.

    So Senator Hagel becomes another one of the Republican establishment to call for Alberto Gonzales to resign after it was revealed during testimony yesterday by James Comey, former deputy to John Ashcroft, that Gonzales had pressured Ashcroft to approve of the legality of George Bush's warrantless wiretapping idea. Ashcroft, who was very ill at the time with pancreatitis, pretty much told Alberto ' no'.

   Bush being Bush, went ahead with the program without the approval of the Justice Department which caused Comey, Ashcroft, and Robert Mueller ( FBI Director ) to contemplate resigning. Bush did change the program to be inline with Justice concerns.     Source

  The problems with the Department of Justice ( injustice ) keeps getting better day by day, does it not?

Comey's testimony proved compelling enough to inspire a Hagel to demand that Gonzales step down.

At issue was Bush's no-warrant wiretapping program, which Comey described as so questionable that Ashcroft refused for a time to reauthorize it as required in March, 2004.

Senior government officials had expressed concerns about whether the National Security Agency, which administered the program, had the proper oversight in place. Other concerns included whether any president possessed the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program as it operated at the time.

Days before the program's required recertification in March, 2004, Ashcroft suddenly fell ill enough with pancreatitis that he transferred the powers of the attorney general to Comey. Acting Attorney General Comey, too, refused to certify the program's legality.

On March 10, Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and Bush's former chief of staff, Andy Card, took the matter to Ashcroft as he lay in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital. Tipped to their impending visit, Comey raced there with the sirens of his security detail blaring, he told the committee Tuesday.

Comey arrived at Ashcroft's bedside moments before the president's aides walked in, Gonzales holding the presidential order of recertification.

Ashcroft rebuffed them, pointing out that Comey held the powers of the attorney general at that moment. Gonzales and Card left the room without acknowledging Comey.

Card later demanded that Comey come to the White House. Comey said he demanded a witness accompany him after the conduct he'd seen at Ashcroft's bed side.

Card "replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well,'" Comey recalled.

 

Tags: Alberto Gonzales Andy Card John Ashcroft Chuck Hagel Department of Justice