Attorney General Gonzales

Floor Speech

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES -- (Senate - July 25, 2007)

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, yesterday, as you will recall, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Gonzales appeared. I spoke with him about a seemingly simple concept, the impartial administration of justice.

But, as is so often the case with this administration and with this Attorney General, the simple is often confused, and what should be impartial is often tainted with politics.

I asked the Attorney General about the administration's policy regarding communications between staff at the Department of Justice and at the White House, about ongoing investigations and cases. This kind of conversation, of course, should be very limited in scope. Until recently, it was.

Attorney General Janet Reno wrote, in a 1994 letter to White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler:

Initial communications between the White House and the Justice Department regarding any pending Department investigation or criminal or civil case should involve only the White House Counsel or Deputy Counsel (or President or Vice President), and the Attorney General or Deputy or Associate Attorney General.

That is seven people, total. Four in the White House, three in the Department of Justice.

As I pointed out to the Attorney General, this administration has dramatically expanded this policy to allow literally hundreds of people at the White House to discuss sensitive case-specific information with dozens of people at the Department of Justice. Even worse, a further revision to this policy signed by Attorney General Gonzales specifically added the Vice Presidents's Chief of Staff and the Vice President's Counsel, David Addington, to the list of those empowered to have these conversations. Karl Rove, by the way, is also on the list.

Why in the world would it be appropriate to give the Vice President's staff a green light to muck around in sensitive Department of Justice affairs? Based on my experience as a U.S. attorney, I can think of no reason.

So why did the Attorney General himself issue a memo specifically authorizing that? Well, the Attorney General himself seemed to have no idea. When I asked him about it yesterday, he said:

As a general matter, I would say that that's a good question. I'd have to go back and look at this. On it's face, I must say, sitting here, I am troubled by this.

Well, Mr. Gonzales, I am troubled by this too. Troubled but, unfortunately, not surprised.

Not surprised because this administration has, at almost every turn, done everything possible to enhance the power of the President and the Vice President to dismiss Congress's essential constitutional oversight responsibilities, to disrupt the balance of power crafted by our forefathers and to thwart those who would stand up and say: Enough is enough.

But now a chorus of Senators is finally saying: Enough is enough.

When I ran for the Senate, I spoke often about the need for a check on the Bush administration's relentless abuse of power. Now, after having served in this great institution for only 6 1/2 months, I feel more strongly than ever that it is vital for our Democratic majority to serve as an essential bulwark against an imperial executive branch.

Without 60 votes, we cannot get things done over objection from the other side as often as we would like. But with a majority, we can at least stop some of the mischief. We can stop them from politicizing everything from Government-funded scientific research to U.S. attorney's offices, Government functions that have historically operated entirely free of partisan influence.

We can spotlight their efforts to undo our system of checks and balances, their penchant for unneeded secrecy, and often, disregard for the law and our American principles.

We can call them out when they use national security as a shield against legitimate oversight and as a weapon against political adversaries, against attempts to conduct Government in secret and in darkness and sometimes in defiance of the law.

In the process, the administration has done grave damage to the principles and values that have made this country an example for the world. The writ of habeas corpus? Adherence to the Geneva Conventions? The independence of Federal prosecutors? The principle of judicial review? The notion that a citizen in a democracy has a right to know what their Government is doing in his name?

Each of these, in ways great and small, has been eroded by this administration. Then, when you think they cannot possibly push the envelope any further, they do. I am referring to two recent episodes: First, the Vice President's now infamous and incredible assertion that his office is exempt from an Executive order designed to protect classified information because it is not, get this, it is not an entity within the executive branch, and the Attorney General's apparent complicity with this theory.

Executive Order No. 12958, as amended by President Bush, regulates the classification, safeguarding, and declassification of national security information. It also requires the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office to, among other things, conduct onsite inspection of Federal agencies and White House offices to ensure compliance with these important regulations.

Despite cooperating with the National Archives in 2001 and 2002, in 2003, the Vice President abruptly decided he was above complying with an Executive order, even one signed by President Bush.

Repeated attempts by the National Archives to secure the Vice President's cooperation or at least an explanation for noncompliance were met with silence and then, apparently, an effort to abolish the office that had dared try to enforce the law.

In the meantime, in January 2007, the National Archives referred the question to the Department of Justice for clarification, as to whether the Vice President is an executive branch entity required to comply with an Executive order. You might think that in 6 months the Department of Justice would produce a memo stating the Vice President must comply with Executive orders and that he is, in fact, as we all know, in the executive branch.

Well, you would be wrong. The Vice President makes an argument that would flunk an elementary school civics test so he may circumvent safeguards on national security information. The Attorney General goes along with this by refusing even to respond to a letter seeking clarification of the law, which is a core function of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.

What is going on here? Second, in this ignominious list is the President's
personal intervention to deny security clearances to investigators from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or as we call it, OPR, who were looking into the administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program.

This is the first time ever an OPR investigator was denied necessary clearances to conduct their investigation. Of course, the denial of security clearances had the intended effect: The investigation by OPR was shut down.

Now, as we all know, the distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, has been forced to issue subpoenas to the White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Department of Justice, and the National Security Council, in order to obtain information Congress has sought for months related to the administration's legal justification for the warrantless wiretapping program.

If the White House's refusal to honor earlier congressional subpoenas and turn over information on the U.S. attorney firings is any indication of things to come, we can expect more stalling and more stonewalling by this administration as Congress seeks to learn the truth.

Again, what is going on here? What is going on, I believe, is a systematic effort on the part of the Bush administration, to twist, to partisan and political advantage, threats to our national security as justification for conducting Government in secret and in darkness, shadowed from congressional oversight and far from the light of public scrutiny.

If this requires making preposterous arguments, such as the Vice President's, in their view, that is fine. If this requires taking unprecedented action to deny clearance to Government investigators, fine by them. If this requires dispensing with many years of tradition and practice, distorting the plain language of Executive orders and abdicating the Department of Justice's watchdog role, again, fine with them. If this requires attempts to a evade even a congressional subpoena, well, that is apparently fine too.

I will end where I began, with the issue of communications regarding ongoing cases and investigations between the White House and the Department of Justice. As Mr. Gonzales acknowledged yesterday, the greatest danger of infection of the Department of Justice with improper political influence comes from the White House.

Along with Chairman Leahy, I have introduced a bill to set the Reno-Cutler policy for White House contacts as a baseline and to require the Department of Justice and the White House to report to Congress any time they authorize someone else to have these sensitive discussions.

It is my sincere hope this bill will have bipartisan support. But this bill is only one small part of a larger effort to restore checks and balances to our Government. We must and we will continue this effort, challenging the administration to work for the Democratic Congress, to stop playing politics with national security, and to end the secrecy and abuse of power that have become the hallmark of the Bush era.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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