Today’s Must ReadThe conservative view of the U.S. attorneys scandal, courtesy of The Washington Times:
House Republicans don’t believe that the Justice Department did anything illegal by firing eight federal prosecutors last year, but they also don’t believe that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is telling the truth about why the attorneys were dismissed.
Several House Republicans are scoffing at Justice Department assertions that a principal reason for several of the dismissals was that the lawyers were not aggressively prosecuting immigration violations.
“It stretches anybody’s credibility to suggest that this administration would have retaliated against U.S. attorneys for not enforcing immigration laws,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, told The Washington Times. “This administration itself is so lax in its attitude towards immigration laws and controlling the border.”
Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, said he didn’t think immigration cases had “a single thing to do with” the firings….
An aide to House Republican leadership agreed that the Justice Department’s explanation for the firings is hard to believe.
“I don’t think Republicans buy that,” said the aide.
So Democrats and Republicans might part in their interpretations of why the administration has been lying about why they fired these U.S. attorneys (Democrats: to cover something up, Republicans: it’s not clear why, but they didn’t do anything wrong), but at least there’s a bipartisan consensus that Gonzales and other Justice Department officials lied to Congress. Who knew that Gonzales could forge such unity?
