It’s shaping up as perhaps the most crucial piece of testimony from Alberto Gonzales today in his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In explaining why he and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made a dramatic visit to the hospital bedside of a seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gonzales points to a key meeting earlier that same day, March 10, 2004.
At that meeting, according to Gonzales, the bipartisan group of congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight, which oversees the most sensitive aspects of the intelligence community, demanded that a top secret surveillance program (widely believed to be the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program) be continued despite the refusal of the Department of Justice to sign off on the legality of the program.
It was upon that basis, Gonzales says, that he and Card went to Ashcroft to present him with this important new information.
But tonight Democratic leaders who were at that meeting dispute Gonzales’ version of events. Spencer Ackerman is reporting that Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi, at the time the Democratic minority leaders in the Senate and House respectively, dispute Gonzales’ account. The Washington Post is likewise reporting that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, strongly takes issue with Gonzales’ version of events.
Why would an embattled attorney general whose credibility is in tatters spin a version of events that others are in a position to debunk? That’s not clear at this point. But if it comes down to which version of events to believe, who is going to believe Alberto Gonzales?
When TPMmuckraker reporter Laura McGann came on staff a couple months ago I think she probably 
thought I was consigning her to the backwaters of muckdom when I told her to make Alaska one of her beats. By now she must be thanking me.
You already know the crusty Sen. Stevens (R-AK) is being investigated in the VECO bribery scandal. And two weeks ago Laura broke the story of Sen. Murkowski’s (R-AK) sweetheart, half-priced land deal with Alaska businessman and Salmon fishing czar Bob Penney.
Now Alaska’s a small state, in population terms at least, so that only leaves one more member of Congress: Rep. Don Young (R-AK).
And now we get news tonight that Young too is also under investigation in the VECO probe.
Quite a delegation!
In his testimony today, Alberto Gonzales blamed the Ashcroft hospital visit on Congress — particularly, the so-called Gang of Eight, the top congressional leadership and the leadership of the intelligence committees. As Spencer Ackerman noted late in the day, three members of the group — Democrats Daschle, Rockefeller and Pelosi — said Gonzales’ version of events isn’t true. In an interview with NPR, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said the same thing — though she was a little ambiguous, suggesting that her ability to discuss the conversations in question were limited because they were classified.
So all four Democrats say Gonzales’ story is bunk.
What about the Republicans? If memory serves, the top four at the time would have been Hastert, Frist, Roberts and Goss. Whoever the players were, what do they say? Will they vouch for Gonzales’ story? True or not, the Dems are of the opposite party — so some might say they have an interest in contradicting the AG. So what do the Republican members say?
A good bit of today I was busy working on some other TPM business. So I didn’t get to watch a lot of the Gonzales testimony as it was happening. But I’m watching it now as we put together a highlight reel for tomorrow’s episode of TPMtv. And a lot of this stuff is really unbelieveable to watch. It’s a genuinely sad day when you have the chief law enforcement officer of country remaining in office after he’s been publicly and repeatedly shown to be a liar.
That’s not just my allegation. Even in their more delicate senator-speak the Democratic Chairman and the Republican Ranking Member of the Committee in so many words repeatedly called him a liar to his face. Indeed, late in the hearing Chairman Leahy suggested committee staff will review the Attorney General’s testimony to see if his deceptions merit charges of perjury being brought against him.
We’ve got a slew of video clips of key exchanges in today’s coverage at Muckraker. But this one stands out for me, even though in some ways it’s not the most egregious case.
In this exchange Sen. Schumer (D) asks Gonzales who sent him and Andy Card to John Ashcroft’s bedside. And Gonzales just refuses to answer. He keeps repeating that they went “on behalf” of the president. But he won’t say if the president sent them. He just won’t answer.
Schumer notes the key point: Gonzales isn’t even asserting any kind of privilege. He doesn’t say he can’t remember. He just won’t answer.
Take a look …
It really requires stepping back in this case to take stock of this exchange. Testifying before Congress is like being called to testify in court. You have to answer every question. Every question. You can fudge and say you don’t remember something and see how far you get. Or you can invoke various privileges. And it’s up to the courts to decide if the invocations are valid. But it’s simply not permitted to refuse to answer a question. It is quite literally contempt of Congress.
I try not to be too quick to cast aspersions when it comes to misidentifying a politician’s political party. On occasion I put an (R) after a Dem’s name or vice versa. And I don’t think there’s anything to it beyond an overworked set of hands or whatever part of my brain takes control when I’m jotting down those sorts of details on autopilot. But Fox News does seem to have this unmistakable pattern of calling any Republican who either gets caught boffing someone besides their spouse or attacks the president a Democrat.
Of course, to think about just what a joke Fox is you need do no more than remember how their star reporter Carl Cameron wrote a ‘parody’ (the one with a very fey John Kerry gabbing about his manicures) about then presidential candidate John Kerry about a month before the ’04 election and somehow this ‘parody’ ending up running as a news story on Fox website. And of course the whole thing was brushed off as just good fun.
With the party ID issue, my only question is whether the folks working at Fox do it intentionally or whether they’re so trapped in their biases, so used to fitting every story into the Fox News cookie cutter, that it just comes naturally, like a verbal tic, without even thinking. Like the bamboozling runs so deep that it’s not even conscious.
Via a reader in Wisconsin (of course):
Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September. . . .
The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included “wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances,” including block cheese, the bulletin said. . . .
“There is no credible, specific threat here,” TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. “Don’t panic. We do these things all the time.”
NBC has more.
I suppose grated cheese, American cheese, and Cheez Whiz are safe. Just watch out for the “block cheese.”
So, did Alberto Gonzales perjure himself yesterday? Take a look at our rundown of the discrepancies, inconsistencies, disputes and mysteries emerging from yesterday’s epic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Conservative activists plead with Bush to start talking about leaving Iraq. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.
If you didn’t get a chance to watch Alberto Gonzales’ trainwreck testimony yesterday up in the senate we’ve got a highlight reel here of all the ugliest moments. It’s really worth a look because it is very telling about where we’re at right now that this joker can be caught in a series of lies and basically called a liar to his face by the top Democrat and Republican on the committee and still hold on to his job because the president needs Gonzales to keep him and his staff out of the slammer.
Take a look …