Gonzales Memo Widened Cheney’s Office Access to DoJ Case Info

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Yet another dispiriting revelation from Alberto Gonzales’ hearing today.

During Gonzales’ last hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned him about a memo from Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002 that had substantially increased White House officials’ access to information about Justice Department cases. Under Clinton, only four White House officials had been authorized to discuss pending criminal investigations or cases with only three top Department officials. Ashcroft’s 2002 memo had blown the door off that arrangement, raising the number of officials who could discuss such cases from seven to 447 (417 on the White House side). Under Whitehouse’s questioning, Gonzales had professed to have been “concerned about that as White House counsel.”

Apparently not so much.

Whitehouse questioned him today about a May, 2006 memo which Gonzales himself had signed while attorney general. You can see it yourself here.

The memo widened White House access to case information even more and seemed to have been crafted with special attention to enabling the Vice President’s staff, specifically his chief of staff and counsel, to have the unambiguous authority to discuss ongoing cases with Department officials. Given Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington’s extraordinary reach into the Justice Department (and the prosecution of Cheney’s former chief of staff), that’s cause for a raised eyebrow.

Gonzales seemed to have been taken off guard by Whitehouse’s questions:

Whitehouse: “What-on-earth business does the Office of the Vice President have in the internal workings of the Department of Justice with respect to criminal investigations, civil investigations, and ongoing matters?”

Gonzales: “As a general matter, I would say that’s a good question.”

Whitehouse: “Why is it here, then?”

Gonzales: “I’d have to go back and look at this.”

“The memo that has your signature makes it worse,” Whitehouse said. As Whitehouse plowed on, Gonzales admitted of his own memo, “I must say I’m troubled by this.” Gonzales cautioned, however, that he didn’t know whether officials from the vice president’s office had indeed taken advantage of such access.

Whitehouse ended by observing that it was difficult to take seriously Gonzales’ promise to “restore the Department of Justice,” seeing as how he’d apparently worked to help make the Department vulnerable to politicization.

Here is the text:

WHITEHOUSE: Now, I then showed you the letter that Attorney General — the memorandum that Attorney General Ashcroft prepared. And that’s the document that, sort of, kicked open the door from seven to hundreds of people to be involved and have discussions about ongoing criminal/civil investigative matters. And that’s what led to our discussion about all of this.

Now, you’ve had some time to think about this. You’ve indicated desire to clean up the mess at the department. I would like to bring to your attention a May 4th, 2006, memorandum that is a subsequent document to the Ashcroft memorandum. This one is signed by you.

Here’s what concerns me. In the Ashcroft memorandum, which was a subject of concern before, at the very, very end of the Ashcroft memorandum, as you’ll remember, there was that paragraph under asterisks that changes the whole memorandum in front of it.
It says, “Notwithstanding any procedures, limitations set forth above, the attorney general may communicate directly with the president, vice president, counsel to the president, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and various others.” And then it provides who the staff members can consult with: “directly with officials and staff of the Office of President, Office of the Vice President, Office of the Counsel to the president, National Security Council” and so forth.

Now, I took the position that that was pretty much kicking down a very important door that had protected the department from political influence, but I see in your May 4th, 2006, memorandum a number of things that concern me even more.

The first is at the bottom of the first page where there is an asterisked footnote, which says at the bottom, “For convenience, the executive functions of the vice presidency are referred to in this document as the Office of the Vice President or OVP, and the provisions of this memorandum that apply with respect to communications with the EOP” — Executive Office of the President, I assume that is — “will apply in parallel fashion to communications with the Office of the Vice President.”

WHITEHOUSE: Let me ask you first, what on Earth business does the Office of the Vice President have in the internal workings of the Department of Justice with respect to criminal investigations, civil investigations, ongoing matters?

GONZALES: As a general matter, I would say that that’s a good question.

(LAUGHTER)
WHITEHOUSE: Why is it here then?

GONZALES: I’d have to go back and look at this.

WHITEHOUSE: I’d like to know where this came from and how that addition was made.
Then, if you look at the very back, the very last paragraph, once again there’s a final paragraph set off by asterisks that pretty much undercuts everything that was said in the previous enumerated paragraphs.

And here, you can see the difference. It’s almost identical with the previous memorandum, only it adds some things: “Notwithstanding any procedure or limitations set forth above, the attorney general may communicate directly with the president, vice president” — so far, same as the Ashcroft memorandum. Then you add, “their chiefs of staff, counsel to the president,” then you add “or vice president.”
Somebody took the trouble to write in “counsel to the vice president” and provide that individual access to ongoing criminal investigations, ongoing civil investigations and ongoing other investigative matters.

GONZALES: Which — I don’t know whether or not that, in fact, has happened, so I want to — I want to (inaudible)…

WHITEHOUSE: Part of what we do around here is to prevent things from happening.

GONZALES: Exactly, exactly.

WHITEHOUSE: And when you kick down doors, you invite people to do it whether or not it’s been done.

GONZALES: And I agree.

WHITEHOUSE: OK.

GONZALES: And on its face, I must say, sitting here, I’m troubled by this.

WHITEHOUSE: Yes.

GONZALES: I will say…

WHITEHOUSE: And if you can continue — just let me finish, because we’re not done with the paragraph.

GONZALES: All right.

WHITEHOUSE: If you go further on down, what was the staff of the Office of the President has become the staff of the White House Office and the entire Office of Management and Budget has been thrown in.

So you come here today with, I think, to put it mildly, highly diminished credibility, asserting to us that you want to bring — to restore the Department of Justice.
And yet here, where there is something that you could do about it, since our past discussion, nothing has been done, the memo that has your signature makes it worse, and we’ve agreed that this connection between the White House and the Department of Justice is the most dangerous one from a point of view of the potential for the infiltration of political influence into the department.

How, in the light of all those facts, can I give you any credibility for being serious about the promises you’ve made that you intend to clean up the mess you’ve made?

GONZALES: Well, because we have taken — I’ve taken several steps to clean up, to address some of the mistakes that have been made, Senator.

I can say that I have directed my staff to try to understand what happened with respect to the Ashcroft memo, what was the genesis of it. And in fact, we went back and talked to a former member of the Ashcroft leadership team to understand what was the basis of the change? What caused this to happen? And so we have been looking at this issue because I am concerned about it.

And with respect to this memo, quite frankly, I’d have to look at it. And I would be concerned about inappropriate access to ongoing investigations. And it’s something that — if that’s encouraged by this kind of memorandum, I think it’s something that we ought to rethink.

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