The deputy attorney general that wasn’t.
That, at least, is the impression Paul McNulty gave today.
In March of last year, Alberto Gonzales signed a secret order to give Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson the ability to hire and fire junior political appointees (such as, say, McNulty’s own staffers) with only the attorney general’s say-so, and McNulty was intentionally kept out of the loop. The order effectively gave two young aides with close ties to the White House the ability to make hires without the knowledge of the department’s career leadership.
Today, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) asked McNulty when he first found out about this. When National Journal published a story on it in April, McNulty said.
And what did McNulty think about the fact that he was kept in the dark? It “definitely was a concern” to him when he discovered that, he said, somewhat blithely.
Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) also wanted to know about McNulty’s non-involvement.
McNulty had nothing to do with the firing process until October of last year (about 18 months after Sampson began) — so “you were left out of that process?”
“I’m not saying it was intentional or not, I just know I was,” McNulty said.
Delahunt pressed on, asking about Alberto Gonzales’ earlier remarks, shortly after McNulty announced that he was stepping down, that Gonzales had relied on McNulty’s judgment in making the firings. If McNulty was out of the loop, how could Gonzales say that?
Well, McNulty had an easy answer for that, pointing out that on another occasion, Gonzales had said that one of his regrets was that McNulty had not been more directly involved in the process.
It’s a dynamite alibi — and an increasingly popular one, too — the guy in charge who didn’t know what was going on around him.
