House Committee Readies for Gonzales RedoFor those of you eager to relive Alberto Gonzales’ hearing from two weeks ago, you’re in luck. Gonzales is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next Thursday, May 10.
Along with the expected questions about the U.S. attorney firings (does he remember anything more now?), it will be a chance for members of Congress to ask Gonzales why he approved an order last year that gave 30-something aides Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, both of whom were very close to the White House, the power to hire and fire junior political appointees (135 positions total) in the department. As Murray Waas reported yesterday, “The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level.”
There are a host of unanswered questions about the order, besides the obvious “why?”
1) Did the order cover interim U.S. attorney appointments? U.S. attorney nominations require Senate confirmation, but a change in the law had made it possible for the adminstration to appoint interim U.S. attorneys indefinitely. No one seems to know the answer to this question.
2) Why were details of the order kept from the deputy attorney general and other members of the department leadership?
3) Why did Gonzales try to cut himself out of the loop? The Justice Department has defended the order by saying that the attorney general was still required to sign off on Goodling and Sampson’s decisions. But as Waas reported, the original order had no such requirement — and it was only added after concerns were raised that giving Sampson and Goodling that sort of power was unconstitutional.
But, of course, we all know now that just because lawmakers might come armed with good questions doesn’t mean that Gonzales will have any answers.