With the rapid pace of events, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the pressure starts to build for Alberto Gonzales’s resignation. But 
this isn’t about Alberto Gonzales. This isn’t a guy with his own political strategy, his own list of political chits to arrange or grand strategies to advance. He’s George W. Bush’s consigliere. He gets done what the president wants done. It is a relationship almost Newtonian in its directness.
This was the main question senators had when Gonzales was nominated to be Attorney General — whether he understood the difference between being the White House Counsel, the president’s legal advocate and advisor, and the Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
Clearly, it’s not a distinction he recognizes. But this also tells us that this isn’t something Gonzales thought up or did on his own. As two “senior Justice [Department] officials” told Michael Isikoff, the list of eight US Attorneys to be fired was developed “with input from the White House.”
That’s the story.
And two other issues should concern us. There is a long list of cases stretching back six years now in which Justice Department officials have been reassigned or got new appointments at odd moments, when cases against Republican officials have dragged on endlessly and then disappeared entirely, when other Republican officials just seemed oddly untouchable. Later we’ll get into details but the state of New Hampshire is one really good place to start.
Some or many of those cases will turn out to be innocent coincidences. But they are now all under a cloud of suspicion.
Point two. And this one is meant especially for the federal law cognoscenti among our readers: What laws do we suppose may have been violated here? Short-circuiting an investigation is, at least arguably, obstruction. A few other similar statutes might come into play. But what if youâre accelerating an investigation? Are there some general miscarriage of justice statutes?
My question is, how much is a lot of this wrongdoing extra-legal?
Hypothetically, if the AG says to the US Atty in Boise: I want a Democrat indicted by November. What law does that violate? Clearly it would be an impeachable offense. It’s almost the definition of what impeachment is truly intended for: wrongdoing that transcends ordinary statute law.
But what would the statute laws be? Are there any?
And, yes, let’s not forget the big picture: San Diego.
