UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 10, 2007

Serial No. 110–58

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 10, 2007

Serial No. 110–58

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOSEPH GIBSON, Minority Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 10, 2007

Page 

OPENING STATEMENT

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 1

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 2

WITNESSES

The Honorable Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 5

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 6

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

Article published in The New York Times, May 4, 2007, submitted by the 

Honorable Linda T. Sa ́nchez, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 39

Article published in the Houston Chronicle, April 5, 2007, and April 8, 2007, 

submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ..... 59

Letter from Randy Mastro, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, submitted by the 

Honorable Chris Cannon, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Utah, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .......................................... 64

Articles published in various sources, submitted by the Honorable Steve King, 

a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ........................................................................................ 101

Article published in The New York Times, April 16, 2007, submitted by 

the Honorable Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Wisconsin, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ....................... 160

Articles published in various sources, submitted by the Honorable Daniel 

E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................... 174

APPENDIX

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas .................................................................. 191

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Elton Gallegly, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of California ................................................................ 195

Post-Hearing Questions from the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, 

Committee on the Judiciary and Committee Members Robert C. Scott, 

Sheila Jackson Lee, Tammy Baldwin, Luis V. Guiterrez, and Brad Sherman ........................................................................................................................ 196

Page

IV

Post-Hearing Questions from the Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative 

in Congress From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 222

Responses to Post-Hearing Questions from the Honorable Alberto Gonzales, 

Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice .................................................. 244

(1)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Berman, Boucher, Nadler, 

Scott, Watt, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Waters, Delahunt, Wexler, 

Sa ́nchez, Cohen, Johnson, Sherman, Weiner, Schiff, Davis, 

Wasserman Schultz, Ellison, Baldwin, Smith, Sensenbrenner, 

Coble, Gallegly, Goodlatte, Chabot, Lungren, Cannon, Keller, Issa, 

Pence, Forbes, King, Feeney, Franks, Gohmert, and Jordan. 

Staff present: Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel; 

Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel; Elliot Mincberg, Chief 

Oversight Counsel; and Renata Strause, Staff Assistant. 

Mr. CONYERS. Good morning. The Committee will come to order. 

Welcome, everyone. 

Mr. Attorney General, I want to thank you for appearing before 

us today. It is my hope that the Members will focus their questions 

today on the United States attorney investigation and related matters, and that in the near future you will come back so that we 

may exercise our oversight responsibility, considering the many important issues that involve the Department of Justice. 

I know I speak for every Member of this panel when I say that 

we all want the Department of Justice to succeed in its mission as 

the premier law enforcement agency in the nation, and perhaps in 

the world. 

The laws under your jurisdiction, from civil rights, voting rights, 

to crime, to antitrust, to bankruptcy and the environment, are 

among the most important charters of our society and are critical 

to our well-being as a nation and as a democracy. 

At the same time, I am sure we agree, you and I, that any hint 

or indication that the department may not be acting fairly and impartially in enforcing the nation’s laws, or in choosing the nation’s 

law enforcers, has ramifications far beyond the department itself, 

and casts doubt upon every action or inaction your office and your 

employees take. 

So, when we learn that several U.S. attorneys were added to the 

termination list only after they decided to pursue criminal investigations involving Republican officials, or after complaints that 

they were not pursuing investigations against Democrats, we must 

2

insist that we understand exactly how this came into existence and 

how the list itself of those discharged came into existence. 

When we learn that most of the U.S. attorneys forced to resign 

were among the highest rated and most able in the nation, that 

they were told that they were being displaced to create a bigger Republican farm team while others were retained because they were 

‘‘loyal Bushies,’’ it creates the impression that the department has 

placed partisan interests above the public interest. 

When a respected former career attorney at the Civil Rights Division testifies that he has been directed to alter performance evaluations based on political considerations, when I receive an anonymous letter, apparently from Department of Justice employees, 

complaining that candidates for career positions have been subjected to political litmus tests, and when the Attorney General has 

secretly delegated his authority to hire and fire non-civil service 

employees, this calls into question the department’s commitment to 

fair and impartial justice. 

When the White House gives us a take-it-or-leave-it offer for a 

one-time, off-the-record interview, without transcripts, which I 

have referred to as ‘‘meet us at the pub for fish and chips so we 

can talk,’’ which no self-respected investigator would accept, makes 

open-ended claims of executive privilege, and loses or destroys millions of e-mails relevant to our investigation, one asks whether the 

Administration is trying to cover up two simple truths: who created 

the list and why. 

And when we learned this morning, page one, Washington Post, that another U.S. attorney in Missouri was forced out, contrary to 

repeated assurances that the eight U.S. attorneys whose circumstances we have been examining for the past few months were 

the entire list, it makes us wonder when we will get the entire 

truthful report about this matter. 

Now, to those who might say that it is time to move on and end 

our investigation, allow me to remind you of a couple things. The 

matters that have come to light to date are quite serious. 

Sitting prosecutors have faced political pressure to bring or not 

bring cases. Numerous misstatements by senior officials regarding 

the firings have been made to Congress. The reputations of good 

and honest public servants have been besmirched. Former U.S. attorneys have been pressed not to cooperate with our investigation. 

And the Presidential Records Act and Hatch Act may have been 

violated. 

But most important of all, however, the department’s most precious asset, its reputation for integrity and independence, has been 

called into question. Until we get to the bottom of how this list was 

created and why, those doubts will persist. 

I am pleased now to turn to the Ranking Member of the House 

Judiciary Committee, my friend, the gentlemen from Texas, Mr. 

Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome, Mr. Attorney General. 

We expect much of this hearing to focus on the U.S. attorneys 

controversy. We have investigated this situation for 2 months. We 

have nearly 10,000 pages of interview transcripts and documents. 

The public, the media and Committee staff have all scoured them. 

3

We have held three hearings, featuring 18 witnesses. We have 

had four subpoena markups, and have subpoenaed 12 individuals 

and many associated documents. 

We have held 10 interviews, spanning more than 50 hours. We 

will soon hear from Monica Goodling, whose testimony we have 

taken the extraordinary step of immunizing. And, of course, we all 

have access to the testimony generated in the Senate. 

As we have gone forward, the list of accusations has mushroomed. But the evidence of genuine wrongdoing has not. 

Mr. Attorney General, this investigation may find that you and 

your staff did only what you were accused of at the start: the 

unremarkable and perfectly legal act of considering ordinary politics in the appointment and oversight of political appointees. 

It amounts to the criminalization of politics, particularly the partisan criminalizing of the politics of this Administration. 

Mr. Attorney General, you and your staff have stated time and 

again that what you tried to undertake was a good government review of political appointees to identify where new appointees might 

do better. 

You acknowledged that the White House was involved. Of course 

it was. The political appointees were theirs. So were the political 

priorities that the department was asked to focus on, such as gun 

crime and human trafficking. 

By emphasizing that politics affected your motivations, your political opponents have tried to paint your exercise as something out 

of bounds. 

I do not want to belittle this controversy. Some serious questions 

remain unanswered. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. In an L.A. 

Times poll last month, 63 percent of Americans believed that Congress is pursuing this matter to gain partisan advantage. 

Today is our first opportunity to see you since the tragedy of Virginia Tech. Two months ago, we marked the third anniversary of 

the terrorist attack in Spain. Today, a terrorist could cross our porous borders in California, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas carrying 

deadly weapons. 

Six months from now, on the anniversary of September 11th, I 

hope we don’t find ourselves asking why we spent our time today 

asking you more questions about your hiring decisions. 

What we need to do is wrap up the U.S. attorneys controversy. 

With one exception, we have concluded interviews of all the major 

department players in the controversy. We have you here to answer our questions today. All that is necessary with respect to the 

Department of Justice after today is to hear from Monica Goodling, 

and we will do that soon. 

For nearly 2 months the White House has offered to let us interview its employees and review its documents. We need to take that 

offer now. If we had accepted it, our questions might have been answered long ago. 

Mr. Attorney General, we trust that you will answer our questions to the best of your ability, and we look forward to your answers. 

But we should not conduct an endless, piscine expedition. If 

there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues. 

4

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Lamar Smith. 

We will accept all other Members’ opening statements to be included in the record at this point. 

Welcome again, Attorney General Gonzales. 

You have held this position since February 2005, and before that 

was White House counsel. You enlisted in the Air Force right out 

of high school, attending the Air Force Academy, finishing your undergraduate studies at Rice and earning your law degree at Harvard. You spent a decade in private practice at the Houston law 

firm of Vinson & Elkins, and then in 1994 to serve as Governorelect George Bush’s general counsel, then secretary of state and 

later Texas Supreme Court justice, before coming to Washington in 

2001. 

Mr. Attorney General, we generally allow our witnesses 5 minutes to summarize or augment their written statement. And yours 

is included in the record. But because you are here today under unusual circumstances, we would like to give you flexibility to speak 

longer than that, if you care to. 

And so we hope that you could address this morning’s revelation 

at least one other former U.S. attorney belongs on the list that was 

forced out, and why we are hearing about the matter today from 

The Washington Post. 

Again, on behalf of everybody on this Committee, we welcome 

you and invite you to proceed in your own way. 

Mr. SMITH. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Point of order, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. What is happening? Why? 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, with respect to the rules governing 

the decorum of a hearing, I have brought to the attention of the 

Chairman the presence of a banner on the person of an individual 

placed in a position such that that person’s banner would be revealed every time cameras are on the witness. 

This is not a star chamber. This is supposed to be a hearing. And 

I would make my point of order that that is an illegal protest in 

these hearings, and ask that the individual be removed before the 

Attorney General begins his testimony. 

Mr. CONYERS. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. 

And I invite the person who is identified to please excuse herself 

from these proceedings. This is not a political rally. And with the 

right attire, you are perfectly welcome to re-enter this chamber. 

And don’t make any statements please. Thank you. 

Oh, come on now. We have done this too long. We have spent far 

too much time trying to resolve this. 

Thanks a lot. 

And I want everyone to know in the audience, please, no signs, 

no demonstrations, no exercise, for a few hours, of your first 

amendment rights when we are having this important hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. I thank the Chair. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

I apologize, Mr. Attorney General, and we invite you to proceed. 

5

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ALBERTO GONZALES, 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. GONZALES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will take less than 

the 5 minutes, but I am grateful for the offer. 

Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Smith and Members of the 

Committee, I have provided the Committee with a rather lengthy 

written statement detailing some of the department’s work under 

my leadership to protect our nation, our children and our civil 

rights. I am proud of our past accomplishments in these and other 

areas, and I look forward to future achievements. 

I am here, however, to answer your questions to the best of my 

ability and recollection, not to repeat what I have provided in writing. 

Before we begin, I want to make three brief points about the resignations of the eight United States attorneys. These points are basically the same ones that I made before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. My feelings and recollections about this matter 

have not changed since that time. 

First, as I have said repeatedly, each of those United States attorneys are fine lawyers and dedicated public servants. I have publicly apologized to them and to their families for allowing this matter to become an unfortunate and undignified public spectacle, for 

which I accept full responsibility. 

Second, as I have said before, I should have been more precise 

when discussing this matter. I understand why some of my statements generated confusion, and I have subsequently tried to clarify 

my words. 

That said, I believe what matters most is that I have always 

sought the truth in every aspect of my professional and personal 

life. This matter has been no exception. 

I have never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the 

American people. To the contrary, I have been extremely forthcoming with information, and I am here today to continue to do my 

part to ensure that all facts about this matter are brought to light. 

Finally, recognizing my limited involvement in the process—a 

mistake that I freely acknowledge—I have soberly questioned my 

prior decisions. I have reviewed the documents available to the 

Congress. 

But please keep in mind that in deference to the integrity of the 

ongoing investigations, there is some information that I have not 

seen that you have seen. 

I have also asked the Deputy Attorney General if I should reconsider my decisions. 

What I have concluded is that although the process was not as 

rigorous or as structured as it should have been, and while reasonable people might decide things differently, my decision to ask for 

the resignations of these U.S. attorneys was not based on improper 

reasons, and, therefore, the decisions should stand. 

I think we agree on what would be improper. It would be improper to remove a U.S. attorney to interfere with or influence a 

particular prosecution for partisan political gain. I did not do that. 

I would never do that. 

Let me conclude by saying that I have learned important lessons 

from this experience which will guide me in my important responVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
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sibilities. In recent weeks, I have met or spoken with all of our U.S. 

attorneys to hear their concerns. These discussions have been open 

and, quite frankly, very frank. Good ideas were generated and are 

being implemented. 

I look forward to working with these men and women to pursue 

the great goals of our department. 

I also look forward to working—continuing to work with the department’s career professionals, investigators, analysts, prosecutors, lawyers and administrative staff, who perform nearly all of 

the department’s work and deserve the most credit for our accomplishments. 

I want to continue working with this Committee as well. We 

have made great strides in protecting our country from terrorism, 

defending our neighborhoods against the scourge of gangs and 

drugs, shielding our children from predators and preserving the 

public integrity of our public institutions. I do not intend to allow 

recent events to deter us from our mission. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Prepared statement of Attorney General Gonzales follows:]

7

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALBERTO R. GONZALES


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

Let me begin the questions. 

I want to ask how the U.S. attorney termination list came to be, 

who suggested putting most of these U.S. attorneys on the list, and 

why. 

Now, that is the question that overhangs everything we are 

doing here. If we can answer that, I think outside of the reticence 

of the White House to cooperate, we would make incredible gains 

in trying to put this matter to rest, as the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Smith, has suggested we do as soon as possible. 

Tell me about it. 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, I accept full responsibility for the 

notion of doing an evaluation of the performance of United States 

attorneys. 

I think as a matter of good government, we have an obligation 

as heads of the department to ensure that public servants are in 

fact doing their job. 

And therefore, I directed Mr. Sampson—my then deputy chief of 

staff, and most recently my former chief of staff—to coordinate and 

organize a review of the performance of United States attorneys 

around the country. 

I expected that Mr. Sampson would consult with the senior leadership of the department, that he would consult with individuals 

who would know about the performance of the United States attorneys much more than I. 

Mr. CONYERS. But, Mr. Attorney General, you are the one who 

is here at the hearing. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. CONYERS. You are the one that we talk to as the Judiciary 

Committee regularly communicates with the head of the Department of Justice. I approve and congratulate you on all those hearings, and investigation. 

But just tell me how the U.S. attorney termination list came to 

be and who suggested putting most of these U.S. attorneys on the 

list and why. Now, that should take about three sentences, but 

take more. But tell me something. 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that what 

Mr. Sampson engaged in was a process of consulting with the senior leadership in the department about the performance of specific 

individuals, and that toward the end of that process, in the fall of 

2006, what was presented to me was a recommendation that I understood to be the consensus recommendation of the senior leadership of the department. 

Mr. CONYERS. Okay. In other words, you don’t know. And I am 

not putting words in your mouth, but you haven’t answered the 

question. 

I know the procedure, but look, we have got 30-something Members of Congress, much of your staff, you have prepared for this, 

you have been asked something like this question before now——

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to that, as I have 

indicated, I have not gone back and spoken directly with Mr. 

Sampson and others who are involved in this process, in order to 

protect the integrity of this investigation and the investigation of 

34

the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Inspector 

General. 

I am a fact witness, they are fact witnesses and in order to preserve the integrity of those investigations, I have not asked these 

specific questions. What I am here today——

Mr. CONYERS. Okay, so that is why you are not going to answer 

the question, because you want to protect the integrity of the investigation. 

Look, let me ask you a specific example. Mr. Iglesias——

Mr. GONZALES. Iglesias. 

Mr. CONYERS [continuing]. In New Mexico, who was not put on 

the termination list until October or November of 2006, we learned 

in last Friday’s interview with your counsel, Matthew Friedrich, at 

the request of the White House and Monica Goodling, he met with 

two prominent New Mexico lawyers who complained about Mr. 

Iglesias’s handling of a vote fraud case. 

He met them again in November. And they told him they didn’t 

want him—Mr. Iglesias—to be the U.S. attorney. And then they 

said they were working toward that, and they had communicated 

about that directly with Senator Domenici and Karl Rove. 

Aware of that, are you? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am certainly aware of it now. 

And if I may, Mr. Chairman, if you are going to rely upon some 

testimony that others have provided—again, I haven’t spoken to 

others about their testimony—could I see what in fact the testimony has been provided to? Because I haven’t seen it. So——

Mr. CONYERS. Just take this recitation that I have just given 

you, sir. 

We are perfectly willing to let you see anything you want. We are 

cooperating. But cooperate with us. 

Mr. GONZALES. I am trying, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Okay. So is this correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have no reason to believe it is not correct, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Okay. You were aware of that, then. 

Mr. GONZALES. You mean, at the time that I made my decision? 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. 

Mr. GONZALES. At the time I accepted the recommendation—Mr. 

Chairman, I don’t recall whether or not I was aware of that. 

But I will tell you this: I was certainly aware of the fact that the 

senior senator had lost confidence in Mr. Iglesias beginning in the 

fall of 2005, and that we had had several phone conversations 

where he had expressed serious concerns or reservations about the 

performance of the person that he recommended for that position. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. And they had communicated directly with 

Karl Rove and Senator Domenici. You were aware of that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman——

Mr. CONYERS. No. You are not under oath, and you said you always tell the truth. 

Mr. GONZALES. My answers would be the same, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to be sure that I give the Committee the most accurate and 

most complete answer that——

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. So, what are you saying? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, what I know is——

35

Mr. CONYERS. You need more information and you want to see 

the reviews? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course I would like to see exactly what he 

said. But I was aware of the fact——

Mr. CONYERS. All right. 

Mr. GONZALES. At the time I made my decision, I was aware of 

the fact, of course, that Senator Domenici, of course, had called me 

several times. Mr. Rove, in a conversation that he had with me, 

raised concerns about voter fraud prosecutions in three jurisdictions in the country, including New Mexico. My recollection is that 

occurred sometime in the fall of 2006. 

I don’t have any specific recollection that when I made my decision I was aware of the specific conversations that Mr. Friedrich, 

I believe, may have testified to. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Lamar Smith, please? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Attorney General, let me go to what I consider to be the 

heart of the matter and ask you a series of questions. 

The first is this: Did you seek the resignation of any U.S. attorney to retaliate for, interfere with, or gain a partisan advantage in 

any case or investigation, whether about public corruption or any 

other type of offense? 

Mr. GONZALES. I wouldn’t do that, Congressman Smith. I would 

not retaliate for partisan political reasons. That is not something 

that I believe is acceptable, and would not tolerate. 

Mr. SMITH. Did the White House ever ask you to seek the resignation of any U.S. attorney in order to retaliate for, interfere 

with, or gain a partisan advantage in any case or investigation, 

whether about public corruption or any other offense? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not that I recall, Congressman. I don’t believe 

that the White House ever did. 

Mr. SMITH. Have you ever intended to mislead or misinform Congress through any of your statements or testimony about the U.S. 

attorneys matter? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course not. 

Now, I realize I have been inartful in some of my statements to 

the press; overly broad, perhaps, in my zeal to come out and defend 

the department. I have said things that I shouldn’t have without 

first going back and reviewing thousands of pages of documents. 

But in everything that I have done here, the principles that I 

have tried to support are truthfulness and being forthcoming, and 

accountability. And that is why we have provided thousands of 

pages of very internal, deliberative documents, why we have made 

DOJ officials available for interviews and for testimonies: because 

I want to reassure the American public and this Committee that 

nothing improper happened here. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Attorney General, let me go to my last question. 

And feel free to expound on your answer. 

Do you believe the U.S. attorneys controversy has caused any 

unmerited damage to the Department of Justice and its ability to 

effectively pursue its mission of law enforcement? And if so, how? 

36

Mr. GONZALES. Well, clearly, I mean, it has been an unfortunate 

episode. And obviously, it is something that I have to deal with as 

head of the department. 

I always worry about morale. I think every Cabinet official every 

day should wake up thinking about, ‘‘Okay, is the morale of the department where it should be? Am I doing everything I can to be 

the most effective leader of the department?’’

And so, of course, that is something that I worry about. I have 

indicated, I have spoken to all United States attorneys about this 

issue. I have told them, ‘‘Be focused on your job. I don’t expect a 

single investigation, a single prosecution to be sped up or slowed 

down by what is happening here,’’ and we will focus on making 

sure that Congress is provided the information that it needs to reassure itself that nothing improper happened here. 

But at the end of the day, what the American people are focused 

on, I think—they want to know that the Department of Justice is 

doing its part to make sure that our country is safe from terrorism, 

is doing our part to make sure that our neighborhoods are safe 

from violent crime and doing our part to make sure that our kids 

are safe from predators and pedophiles. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

The Chair recognizes the Chairwoman of the Commercial and 

Administrative Law Subcommittee, Linda Sa ́nchez. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the Chairman. 

Good morning, Mr. Gonzales. 

Mr. Gonzales, you have consistently maintained that only eight 

U.S. attorneys were forced out of their positions. Yet today’s Washington Post states that there was a ninth, Todd Graves. 

Are there any more U.S. attorneys that we should know about 

that were forced out? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congresswoman, it is always been my understanding that this focus has been on the eight United States attorneys that were asked to resign last December 7th and June 14th, 

including Bud Cummins. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect, in 

page two of your testimony that you have previously given, you 

stated that there were only eight that were forced out. 

Mr. GONZALES. As part of this process—as part of this review 

process that I asked Mr. Sampson to conduct and which resulted 

in the culmination in December of 2006, these were the individuals 

that this process identified as where changes would be appropriate. 

Now, clearly, throughout my tenure as Attorney General and 

throughout the tenure of my predecessors and other Attorney Generals, U.S. attorneys have left the department for a variety of reasons. So that happens. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Let’s stop there. Are you familiar with the former 

U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Debra Wong Yang? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And are you aware the she resigned her position 

in October of 2006 and took a position with a private law firm? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I am. 

37

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you have information as to whether Ms. Yang’s 

resignation was entirely voluntary? 

Mr. GONZALES. From what I know, Ms. Yang’s resignation was 

entirely voluntary. She did a wonderful job and——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Now, are you aware that when Ms. Yang went to 

this firm, she received what has been reported as a $1.5 million 

bonus for joining the private law firm? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know what she received. But whatever it 

was, it was a bargain for the firm because she is an outstanding 

lawyer. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Are you aware of any reason why she would have 

been given such an extraordinary bonus payment to hire an individual like her? 

Mr. GONZALES. I suspect that given her outstanding qualifications, the fact that she is a woman, an Asian-American, would 

make her particularly attractive to a private firm. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So you think a $1.5 million signing bonus is typical for a situation like that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, that is a decision for that firm to make. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. Are you aware—and this has been reported 

in the press—that when she was hired by the firm, Ms. Yang was 

conducting an active investigation into Republican Congressman 

Jerry Lewis and his financial dealings with a particular lobbying 

firm? Were you aware of that? 

Mr. GONZALES. I may have been aware of that. Sitting here 

today, I can’t say that I was aware of that. But that is very likely. 

We have public corruption investigations and prosecutions that 

are occurring every day all over the country, Congresswoman. So 

it would not be unusual that such——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Well, let me tell you what concerns me. What concerns me are the reports of the same firm that hired Ms. Yang 

away from her post as a U.S. attorney, with a large bonus payment, also, coincidentally, happens to be the firm that represents 

Mr. Lewis in this matter. Does that coincidence trouble you at all? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not at all, because, again, what we have to remember is that for—the American people need to understand 

this—is that these investigations are not run primarily by the 

United States attorneys. They are handled by assistant United 

States attorneys, career prosecutors. And so these——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. She had no role in the investigation of Mr. Lewis? 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. These investigations, these prosecutions continue, as they should. This great institution is built to 

withstand departures of U.S. attorneys and attorneys general. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So you don’t think it is inappropriate for a U.S. 

attorney to accept a lucrative job offer from a law firm representing 

the target of one of their active investigations in a position that she 

held just prior to going to that law firm? You don’t think that that 

is inappropriate? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. You don’t think that there is perhaps at least an 

appearance of a conflict of interest——

Mr. GONZALES. Congresswoman Sa ́nchez, I am presuming, knowing Deb Yang the way that I do and the people in that firm, that 

38

she would be recused from anything related to that matter as a 

member of that firm. 

And, again, what is important for the American people to understand is, despite her departure, that case will continue, as it 

should. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So you are not concerned even with the appearance of conflicts of interest. It doesn’t trouble you at all——

Mr. GONZALES. I am always concerned about the appearance of 

a conflict——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ [continuing]. Especially at a point when the Justice 

Department is under scrutiny, the morale is probably the lowest 

that it has been in decades, and people are questioning the integrity of the DOJ to act in an evenhanded and fair manner. 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course, as head of the department, I am always concerned about the appearance and the perception. Of course 

I am. 

But, again, this is more of a perception for the law firm as opposed to the Department of Justice because, as far as I know, we 

had nothing to do with placing Ms. Yang in that law firm. And as 

far as I know, nothing about that investigation has been impacted 

or affected in any way by virtue of her going to work in that firm. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. What about this: Are you aware that 1 month before Ms. Yang resigned her post White House Counsel Harriet 

Miers had asked Kyle Sampson if Ms. Yang planned to keep her 

post or, as in Mr. Sampson’s words to our investigators, ‘‘whether 

a vacancy could be created there in Los Angeles’’? Were you aware 

of that? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think I may be aware of that, based on my review. I can’t remember now whether or not that is reflected in the 

document. 

Let me just say this, a couple things about that. 

Ms. Yang, when I said she left voluntarily, I think she left involuntarily, in that she had to leave for financial reasons. I think if 

she could have, she would have stayed. But I think she had to 

leave for financial reasons. 

Mr. CONYERS. Former Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin? 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, if I could just beg your indulgence 

for 10 more seconds to ask unanimous consent that an article by 

The New York Times regarding the Yang matter be placed into the 

record. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The article follows:]

39

ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 4, 2007, SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF

CALIFORNIA, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


1-1.eps
40


1-2.eps
41

Mr. LUNGREN. Reserving the right to object. 

Mr. CONYERS. For what purpose would you object to putting that 

in the record? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Because we have identified a fellow Member of 

Congress as a specific target of investigation, it has been put on 

the record, and I think we ought to be very careful about that before we start besmirching Members’ names around. 

Mr. CONYERS. We are not besmirching. This is public information, Mr. Lungren, and I am going to allow it, and recognize the 

former Chairman of the Committee. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I do object, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple 

of questions about public corruption investigations as well. 

In January of 2006, the former legislative director to Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana, Brett Pfeffer, pleaded guilty to 

aiding and abetting the bribery of a public official and conspiracy. 

In May of 2006, Vernon Jackson pled guilty in Federal court to 

bribing Representative Jefferson with more than $400,000 of payments. It has been on the public record that during a execution of 

a search warrant in Representative Jefferson’s house, there was 

$90,000 of cold cash that was found in Representative Jefferson’s 

freezer. 

And all of that was a year ago. My constituents are asking me 

when something is going to happen, whether an indictment is going 

to be returned or whether the Justice Department is going to make 

an announcement that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute 

Representative Jefferson. 

When can the public expect some news one way or the other on 

this issue? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, you know I cannot talk about that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, everybody is talking about it except 

you. 

And, you know, this is kind of embarrassing, because this Committee—and it was on my watch when all of this happened—is 

asked questions about what kind of oversight are we doing over the 

Department of Justice. 

And the two guilty pleas were last year. The raid on Mr. Jefferson’s house was, I believe, earlier than that. And then there was 

the raid on his office that posed a whole host of legal problems that 

are currently on appeal and will be argued next week before the 

United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

I am just interested in finding out when this matter is going to 

be brought to conclusion, because we authorize and appropriate a 

heck of a lot of money to run your department and people are wondering what the dickens is going on. 

Mr. GONZALES. I have every confidence that the prosecutors in 

this case, as the prosecutors in all these cases, they follow the evidence. And at the appropriate time, they will take the appropriate 

action, Congressman. 

That is all that I can say with respect to this particular case. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Would you believe that the legal issues 

that were raised both by Mr. Jefferson and by the counsel to the 

clerk of the House of Representatives on the raid on Jefferson’s ofVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
42

fice in this very building has ended up slowing a decision on 

whether or not to indict Mr. Jefferson? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, I am not going to comment on 

that. I don’t think it would be appropriate. At the appropriate time, 

I hope that I can have more to say about this matter. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, I would hope that the appropriate 

time would be pretty soon. Because the people’s confidence in your 

department has been further eroded, separate and apart from the 

U.S. attorney controversy, because of the delay in dealing with this 

matter. 

There is a man who has already been convicted of bribing the 

representative. My learning about the crime of bribery in law 

school says that in order to obtain a conviction there has to be a 

briber and the bribee. 

The briber has been convicted. The alleged bribee has not even 

been indicted. And I think that there is a disconnect involved in 

this in the eyes of the public. 

And we all suffer as a result of that, as Members of Congress, 

that something is going on that hasn’t been resolved. 

I have made my point. I hope that you will tell your prosecutors 

to wrap this thing up and to let the public know as soon as they 

possibly can. And I hope that that is really soon. 

And I yield the——

Mr. LUNGREN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. And I yield the balance of my time to the 

gentleman from Utah, Mr. Cannon. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have been having a bit of a discussion over here. And I would 

just like to ask—and probably yield back to the gentleman so that 

he can yield to Mr. Lungren. 

But I don’t recall that Mr. Lewis has been identified as a target 

in an investigation. And I would like to ask the gentlelady if she 

is aware that he has been identified as a target. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentlewoman from California, 

Ms. Sa ́nchez. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I believe if you look at The New York Times article 

that was posted, that it states, ‘‘Ms. Yang was investigating Jerry 

Lewis, who was Chairman of the powerful House Appropriations 

Committee.’’

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I further yield to the gentleman from Utah, 

Mr. Cannon. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Sensenbrenner. But I would appreciate it if you would yield to the gentleman from California——

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentleman from California, 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. As anybody knows, there is a huge difference between an investigation and a target. 

When I was attorney general of the State of California, we had 

investigations of literally hundreds of public officials. When someone brings an accusation, you have to look at it. That is a very different thing than being a target. 

We take extreme caution to make sure you do not besmirch the 

reputations of people, because that is unfair. And that is the point 

I was trying to make. 

43

We in this Congress 20 years ago besmirched the reputation——

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Reclaiming my time before it is expired, I 

would just point out that in the Jefferson case, there have been 

people who have been convicted of misconduct involving Mr. Jefferson. With The New York Times article, there has not been an identification that Representative Lewis is even a target. 

Mr. CONYERS. Just a moment. I will let Attorney General 

Gonzales respond. 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, so that there is no misunderstanding, the department has not confirmed, is not confirming that 

Mr. Lewis is a target. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, could I beg your indulgence for 30 

seconds? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent I 

be given an additional 30 seconds to yield to her. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate you yielding. 

Just to set the record straight, the question that I put to the Attorney General was Ms. Yang was conducting an active investigation. I didn’t say ‘‘target.’’ I said ‘‘conducting an investigation.’’ My 

words seem to get twisted in this Committee and more import 

given to basic questions and sinister——

Mr. CANNON. Point of personal privilege, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ [continuing]. Attributed to them. 

And, with that, I will yield back to the gentleman from Wisconsin. 

Mr. CANNON. Point of personal privilege, Mr. Chairman. I stated 

correctly the word used by the gentlelady from California. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the Subcommittee Chairman 

on the Constitution, Jerry Nadler. 

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order and ask 

that the gentlelady’s words be taken down. 

Mr. CONYERS. Come on, now. Let the——

Mr. CANNON. I am happy with an apology, but the gentlelady 

used the word ‘‘target,’’ and that is exceedingly inappropriate under 

the circumstances. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Cannon, the record is being taken. This will 

all come out now. I have no intention of delaying the appearance 

of the Attorney General of the United States while we take down 

the words of someone. 

Mr. CANNON. The Chairman knows it is exceedingly hard to be 

gracious in this Committee, and apologizing would be appropriate, 

but otherwise I insist that the gentlelady’s words be taken down 

as a point of order. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. If the gentleman will yield, I don’t recall—and I 

have the questions in front of me—using the word ‘‘target.’’ Had I 

used it, I certainly apologize for using that word. My understanding is my questions dealt with——

Mr. CONYERS. Will the gentlelady agree to withdraw any reference to ‘‘target’’ from the record if it is there? 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I would. I would, Mr. Chairman. If it will expedite 

this hearing, I will. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

44

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I withdraw my point of 

order. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Nadler? 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Attorney General, when did Monica Goodling start in her 

role as special counsel to you and the White House liaison? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, I am not sure the exact date, but 

I would be happy——

Mr. NADLER. Roughly? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not sure. I would have to get back to you. 

Mr. NADLER. Can you give me the year? 

Mr. GONZALES. You know, I don’t whether or not it was in the 

fall of 2005—sometime in 2005. 

Mr. NADLER. Roughly, you know, okay. 

Now, to your knowledge, was Ms. Goodling involved in the hiring 

decisions of career assistant U.S. attorneys at any point? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am certainly aware, now, of allegations that—

well, she used to be the deputy, of course, in the Executive Office 

of the United States Attorneys. And so there she would have some 

role with respect to the hiring of career assistant United States——

Mr. NADLER. As special counsel and White House liaison, when 

she had that position, was she involved? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think she did have some role in that position. 

Mr. NADLER. Isn’t that process reserved for U.S. attorneys, and 

in some cases for the Executive Office of the United States Attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. Is what——

Mr. NADLER. The selection process for assistant USAs. 

Mr. GONZALES. Typically, that is something that is conducted 

within the office of the specific United States attorneys’ offices. 

There would be, however, if you are talking about a situation 

where you had an interim United States attorney, there are——

Mr. NADLER. Well, we weren’t talking about interim attorneys. 

We were talking about generally. 

Now, allegations have been might that Ms. Goodling considered 

the political affiliations of career AUSA applicants. Would you 

agree that, if that is true, that practice would violate not only Department of Justice policy but also Federal law? 

Mr. GONZALES. In fact, those are very, very serious allegations. 

And if that happened, it shouldn’t have happened. 

Mr. NADLER. Now, Mr. Attorney General, when this Committee 

asked Ms. Goodling to testify in front of us, she claimed her fifth 

amendment right, which says you can’t be forced to—what is the 

word—incriminate yourself with respect to a crime. 

Can you tell this Committee, from your stewardship of the department, what crimes there were that it might have been reasonable for her to think that her testimony might incriminate her or 

anybody else in? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I can’t do that, Congressman. 

Obviously, it has always been my expectation and hope that Justice Department employees or former Justice Department employees would come forward and cooperate in connection with this investigation. I offered up everyone. 

45

Mr. NADLER. But you are not aware of any—when someone who 

is the Deputy Attorney General, or special counsel to the Attorney 

General, says that her testimony about the U.S. attorneys matter 

might implicate her in a crime, you are not aware of any crimes 

that she might have been referring to? 

Mr. GONZALES. I offered her up——

Mr. NADLER. Or speaking of, I should say. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. To come testify. 

Mr. NADLER. What? 

Mr. GONZALES. As an initial matter of course, I offered up people 

on my staff——

Mr. NADLER. You are not aware of that. 

Now, you have testified that you ask yourself every day whether 

you can be effective as the head of the Department of Justice. Did 

you consider that, by many accounts, the morale at the Department 

of Justice and throughout the U.S. attorney community is at its 

lowest level since just after Watergate? 

Mr. GONZALES. Did I consider that—I don’t know what is the 

source of that statement. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, let me give you a different statement, then. 

The recent ABC-Washington Post poll reports that 67 percent of the 

American people believe that the firings of U.S. attorneys were for 

political reasons, not for performance-based reasons. And, indeed, 

former Deputy Attorney General Comey said that the people who 

were fired had the highest performance, that they weren’t for performance-based reasons. 

If the American people don’t believe you about this matter, how 

can they have confidence in other things you claim or that public 

corruption cases brought by your department are not similarly 

based on political considerations? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think the American people are most concerned 

about the things that I alluded to earlier, Congressman. And that 

is, is our country safe from terrorism? Are we making our neighborhoods safe? Are we protecting our kids? 

I will work as hard as I can, working with this Committee and 

working with DOJ employees, to reassure the American people that 

this department is focused on doing its job. 

Mr. NADLER. But you have a situation where most people believe 

that you didn’t tell the truth about the U.S. attorneys. And if that 

is the case—they may be concerned about terrorism and ought to 

be, obviously, but it is a separate issue. 

If most people believe that the United States Attorney General 

has not told the truth about why these U.S. attorneys were fired, 

how can they have confidence in your job? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t believe that is an accurate statement. And 

what I am trying to do in appearances like this is to set the record 

straight. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, 67 percent of the American people, according 

to the ABC-Washington Post poll, believe that the firings of the 

U.S. attorneys were for political reasons and not for performancebased reasons, which is exactly the opposite of what you have testified to. 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know when that poll was taken. 

46

But, again, we have been very, very forthcoming, Congressman, 

in terms of our testimony——

Mr. NADLER. Well, all right. That is a matter of opinion. 

But let me ask you this: If it is true, as you have testified, that 

you had very little personal involvement in the decision to fire the 

eight U.S. attorneys, you delegated that, you weren’t really familiar 

with the reasons and the specifics—and that is what you said—and 

did not know the reasons some of them were on the list, how can 

we believe that you were involved in a hands-on manner in running the department in numerous other important issues? 

Mr. GONZALES. Look at the record of the department. Look at the 

record of the department. 

Mr. NADLER. No, that doesn’t answer the question. If you have 

stated to this Committee and to other Committees that in the matter of firing eight U.S. attorneys which you signed off on, you 

signed off on it without really knowing why or what their performance was, how can we believe that you really know what is going 

on in the department? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think I was justified as head of the department 

to rely upon the people whose judgment that I valued, people who 

would know a lot more about the performance of United States attorneys. I think as head of the department I was justified in doing 

so. 

Now, in hindsight, I have already said, I would have used a process that was more vigorous. There is no question about that. But, 

again, Congressman, I would say, look at the record of the department in a wide variety of areas and——

Mr. NADLER. Well, let’s look at the record of the department in 

a different area: national security letters. Why is the government 

issuing NSLs to conduct fishing expeditions or, as the I.G. put it, 

to access NSL information about parties two or three steps removed from their subjects without determining if these contacts are 

real suspicious connections? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, the I.G. also said that national 

security letters are indispensable—indispensable. 

Mr. NADLER. That is not the question. Excuse me. National security letters properly used may be indispensable. But they were 

abused. That was the I.G——

Mr. GONZALES. There is no question about that. 

Mr. NADLER. So why is the department issuing NSLs to conduct—I will just repeat the question—to conduct fishing expeditions, as the I.G. put it——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. NADLER. May I have 1 additional minute? 

Mr. CONYERS. Finish the question. 

Mr. NADLER. Thanks. 

To access NSL information about parties two or three times removed from their subjects without determining if these contacts are 

real suspicious connections? 

Let me add to that, why is there no policy or practice of destroying information collected thusly, wrongly collected on innocent 

Americans? 

Mr. GONZALES. There is a long answer I need to give with respect 

to NSLs. I am not sure whether or not now is the time to do it. 

47

But the I.G. identified some very serious issues with respect to 

the FBI’s use of national security letters. No question they are an 

indispensable tool, but they have got to be used in a responsible 

manner, and we failed to do that. We did. We failed to do that. 

And the American people need to understand that we are taking 

steps to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. The standard is 

whether or not is it relevant to a national security investigation. 

Mr. NADLER. Are you taking steps to destroy information on people who are not involved in terrorism? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. If it is not relevant to a national security investigation, yes, we are taking steps. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, the testimony was that those records were not 

being destroyed. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North 

Carolina, Howard Coble. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, good to have you on the Hill. I am going to pursue 

a different line of questioning. If time permits, I am going to come 

back to the U.S. attorney situation. 

General, I am particularly interesting in the activities of the 

Computer Crime and Intellectual Properties Section, known as 

CCIP, at the Department of Justice. 

Intellectual property theft is an enormous theft, as you and we 

all know. Are you confident, General, that the Justice Department 

has the necessary tools to investigate and prosecute high-level intellectual property cases that could severely interrupt or eliminate 

international criminal networks who are using intellectual property 

piracy to fund their organizations, A? 

And B, I am told that there may be an insufficient number of 

FBI special agents at the department who, to successfully work 

these complicated cases. 

And finally, C, General, how can we more successfully prevent or 

prosecute counterfeiting and intellectual piracy crimes in the 

United States and around the world? 

That is a three-part question I threw at you. 

Mr. GONZALES. Let me start with the last one, in terms of what 

we can do to work against counterfeiting. 

One is prosecution, and utilizing the tools that Congress has 

given us to go after counterfeiters. 

This is not an issue that we can deal with solely through the 

United States. We have to have the cooperation of our friends and 

allies around the world. And so, when I travel around the world, 

intellectual-property theft is always an issue that I raise. Because 

we can’t successfully deal with it here in this country. 

The second way to deal with counterfeiting is education, to educate the public about the dangers of counterfeiting. For example, 

if you are talking about counterfeiting of drugs, that could be dangerous to the consumer. If you are talking about counterfeiting of 

an airplane part, that could be dangerous to people who fly on airplanes. And so education is a very important part of that. 

Whether or not we have sufficient agents working on these complicated cases, I suspect if I were to ask the director he would say 

we always need more resources. You always need more agents, because these are very, very complicated cases. 

48

The whole area of, you know, computer technology, the Internet, 

it is wonderful for consumers. It is wonderful for the American people. But the changes in technology are such that in the hands of 

criminals, in the hands of terrorists, it presents unique challenges 

to those of us in the law enforcement community. 

Criminals and terrorists will pay to advance technology. They see 

what we do. And so when we do something to defend against this 

kind of theft, defend against these kind of criminal activities, then 

they will go out and they will pay top dollar for the top innovators. 

And they get changes in technology, new encryption. And it makes 

it much more difficult for us to track them. 

So this is a continuing struggle. It is a war on many fronts, 

whether you are talking about Internet pharmacies that are springing up that are illegitimate, whether or not you are talking about 

Internet crimes involving our children. This is a real war that is 

being waged over the Internet, being waged through technology. 

And I do sometimes worry that we don’t have the best minds on 

this, we don’t have adequate resources. And I think that is something that I would love to talk to Congress about because I worry 

about this very much. 

Mr. COBLE. Well, I, too, worry about it, General, and I am concerned. I hope that the American public is aware of the threat that 

is potentially posed by this problem. But in any event, I thank you 

for that. 

Now let’s come back to the U.S. attorney situation. Since the 

U.S. attorney situation arose, General, have you implemented any 

new processes or procedures governing or dictating the dismissal of 

U.S. attorneys to ensure that a similar situation will not occur in 

the future in either this or future Administrations? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have certainly thought about what I would have 

done differently in terms of a more vigorous and a little bit more 

formal process. 

But I want to emphasize something for the Committee, and this 

is very important. I think to a person, in terms of the U.S. attorneys that I have spoken with, they don’t want a formal review 

process. They don’t like it. They don’t want it. 

They do want to be told if there are issues with their performance, have somebody let them know ahead of time and give them 

an opportunity to correct it. 

The other reason I would resist a formal process is because we 

all serve at the pleasure of the President. And if, in fact, we had 

a formal process and that formal process says Al Gonzales is doing 

well, or that this U.S. attorney is doing well, politically it may 

make it more difficult for the President to exercise his constitutional authority. 

So we don’t want a formal process per se, but I think something 

a little bit more structured, something a little bit more vigorous 

would have made sense. 

And clearly I think one thing that we are going to do is at least 

once a year every United States attorney is going to sit down with 

either myself or the Deputy Attorney General and we are going to 

have a very candid conversation about issues and problems in their 

districts. If I have heard of complaints from someone that is a 

Member of Congress, it gives me an opportunity or the DAG, the 

49

Deputy Attorney General, an opportunity to tell the U.S. attorney 

what we are hearing. 

So I think that is something that needs to be in place. That has 

never been in place before. 

The level of communication between main Justice and our United 

States attorneys, what I have discovered, is not very good. We can 

do better, and I think we are going to make it better. 

Mr. COBLE. And I want to follow up, General, with the counterfeiting and piracy problem subsequently. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I see my red light is illuminated. So I will 

sit down and shut up. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, you can submit the question to him to be answered later. 

Mr. COBLE. I thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Subcommittee Chairman on Crime, Bobby 

Scott of Virginia? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Gonzales, for being with us today. I wanted 

to pose a question and get a response in writing later from you. 

Representative Wolf, Representative Maloney and I wrote you a 

letter a few months ago, recommending and requesting that you 

make better use of the tough measures in the Protect Act and the 

Adam Walsh Act to go after domestic traffickers in this country, 

rather than using measures only involving force, fraud and coercion. The bills we passed make it much easier to go after the notorious and brutal system of domestic prostitution. And we are going 

to ask you why you are not making better use of that information. 

Last week, we also had a vote on potential discrimination in the 

Head Start program. You have not been able to discriminate in employment based on religion during the entirety of the 40 years of 

the Head Start program. An attempt was made to allow some to 

discriminate. 

Can we count on your opposition to any effort to water down the 

discrimination prohibitions in the Head Start program? 

Mr. GONZALES. Obviously, Congressman, that would be something that would be of concern to me. Whether or not I would oppose legislation, I have to look at it first. And the Administration 

speaks with one voice, but it is something I would look at very seriously. 

Mr. SCOTT. Can you conceive of your support for a provision that 

would tell a prospective Head Start teacher that, ‘‘You can’t get a 

job here because of your religion’’? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, Congressman, I would like to look at that. 

But, again, that would be something that I would be concerned 

about. 

Mr. SCOTT. One of the problems we have had in the Crime Subcommittee is the situation where people do not want to cooperate 

with the police. There is a culture of no snitching and not coming 

forth to participate as witnesses. Part of the problem is we have 

to have confidence that the criminal justice system is impartial. 

Now, one of the questions that was asked, I think the gentleman 

from Texas asked, did the White House ask you to seek removal 

of a U.S. attorney for retaliation? Now, let me change that a little 

50

bit. Did the White House ask you to seek the removal of any U.S. 

attorney? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, I have a recollection of Mr. Rove 

raising concerns about prosecutions of voter fraud cases in three 

districts. Of course, I have now been made aware of the fact that 

there was a conversation with the President that basically mentioned the same thing. This was in October of 2006. 

There is a process within the White House Judicial Selection 

Committee process, where decisions are made with respect to the 

appointment of judges. That also involves the appointment of U.S. 

attorneys. It is conceivable that in those meetings, there was some 

discussion about someone leaving. But I don’t have any specific 

recollection——

Mr. SCOTT. The question of people leaving—we had the CRS do 

an investigation. And they only found 10 cases of U.S. attorneys 

leaving, other than the usual practice of a new set coming in, only 

10 in the last 25 years. And they found that each and every one 

of those is involved in a scandal or removed for cause. 

Can you give us the name of anyone in the last 25 years that 

you know of that CRS couldn’t find that was fired or asked to leave 

involuntarily, other than a scandal? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not familiar with the CRS report. I don’t 

know how they conducted their review. 

I will tell you that there are many instances where someone engages in certain kinds of conduct that are improper. There is a 

quiet conversation that occurs, and then that person decides, ‘‘I am 

going to leave voluntarily.’’ And so, I don’t know whether or not the 

CRS is capable of identifying those kinds of——

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. They couldn’t find one that didn’t leave other 

than for cause. 

Now, in your testimony you indicated that it would be an improper reason for the removal of a U.S. attorney, and an improper 

reason would be the replacement of one or more U.S. attorneys in 

order to impede or speed along particular criminal investigations 

for illegitimate reasons. 

You call that improper. Wouldn’t that be illegal? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, that would be interference——

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. Depending on the circumstances. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now, in light of the fact that some people have been 

designated as loyal Bushies, we know that some of the U.S. attorneys got telephone calls from political figures and were fired. Are 

you aware of any that got political phone calls, with attempts to 

apply political pressure, that were not fired? 

Mr. GONZALES. I would have to go back and look at that, Congressman. 

Mr. SCOTT. The editorial that was put in the record indicates 

that Mrs. Yang had been designated—been called by you as one of 

the most respected U.S. attorneys in the country. The editorial says 

that Harriet Miers focused on only two U.S. attorneys for removal, 

her and one other. 

Can you explain how Mrs. Yang’s name got on that list of attorneys to be removed? 

51

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t recall that her name was on the list of attorneys to be removed. But let me just say——

Mr. SCOTT. Well, was she not targeted by Harriet Miers? 

Mr. GONZALES. I recall knowing about Ms. Yang’s concern about 

remaining in the position because of the financial situation. She 

would have to—it was my understanding——

Mr. SCOTT. Was she not on a target list of Harriet Miers? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t recall her being on a target list for Harriet 

Miers. I think that Ms. Miers may have known about Ms. Yang’s 

concern about continuing to remain on the job for financial reasons. 

And therefore, that being a very important office, it would be understandable——

Mr. SCOTT. You dispute the editorial in The New York Times, 

May 4, 2007? 

Mr. GONZALES. I haven’t read the editorial, Congressman. What 

I am trying to tell you is that Ms. Miers may have known——

Mr. SCOTT. If you could respond in writing so that you can——

Mr. CONYERS. Time is expired. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, could I ask just that he respond in 

writing to the allegations made in the editorial? Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman from California, Elton Gallegly? 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, General Gonzales. 

As Members of this Committee and as Members of Congress, we 

all have varied priorities, as I am sure you are well aware. But I 

would hope that no priority for any Member of this Committee or 

this Congress is greater than working to make this nation as safe 

as possible, as it relates to another terrorist attack. 

Mr. Gonzales, The Washington Post reported just this morning 

that at least two members of an alleged terrorist cell in New Jersey 

were illegal aliens and had been stopped by the police repeatedly 

for traffic violations. 

This is eerily similar to the case of Mohammed Atta, who was 

here illegally and was pulled over by the Florida State Police for 

a traffic violation. A mere month later, he flew an airplane into the 

World Trade Center. 

What steps is the Department of Justice taking to ensure that 

illegal aliens who are stopped for traffic violations or other crimes 

are identified and deported? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, those stops generally would occur 

by State and local officials. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Right. 

Mr. GONZALES. And the question is whether or not that information is shared with the department and shared with the Department of Homeland Security. And I know there has been a concerted 

effort by the Department of Homeland Security to try and encourage State and locals to be of more assistance in dealing with illegal 

aliens here in this country. 

And, obviously, some jurisdictions are prohibited by law from 

doing so. Some jurisdictions do not want to do so because they don’t 

have the resources, because they believe it will hurt their relationships in the community. But some jurisdictions are stepping up 

and providing additional assistance. 

52

And where in fact we can prosecute people, we do so. But I will 

be candid with you, Congressman: I mean, it is a question of resources in many cases because you are talking about thousands 

and hundreds of thousands of people. And unless you are talking 

about someone who is engaged in a very serious crime, sometimes 

the resources are such that we have to look at prosecuting other 

crimes first. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Well, I appreciate the answer, and I know that 

is an ongoing problem working with other jurisdictions. But, as you 

well know, history has a very, very strong history of repeating 

itself. That is the reason I asked that question. 

On an issue that is more directly related to your office, this past 

Saturday—and I am not normally one that quotes The Washington 

Post, but it was a source of a page-one story that interested me 

greatly. It was regarding the issue of illegal immigrants who have 

ignored and evaded deportation orders. 

These people, who are known as alien absconders, are not just 

people who came to the country illegally, but in many cases are 

those that have committed serious crimes in this country. 

The article points out that, as of April of this year, there is a 

backlog of over 636,000 illegal alien absconders. This number has 

more than doubled since the year 2001. 

What is the Department of Justice doing to identify, apprehend, 

and deport alien absconders and those that have flaunted the deportation orders by the United States courts? And are you satisfied 

with that as a priority? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think that we are doing everything we can do. 

But, quite frankly, again, because there are issues relating to resources—there are also issues relating to space, bed space in our 

prisons. And bed space that can be contracted out from State and 

local jurisdictions. 

And so I am confident that we are doing everything that we can 

do. But, again, it is a question of seeing if we can find additional 

space to actually hold these people. 

And, again, I think this would be one reason why I think the 

President is supportive of comprehensive immigration reform that 

is workable. Because we have to have a system, whatever we do 

by Congress. And the President has laid out principles that he supports. 

But whatever it is, it has got to be one that is workable, where 

we don’t have a situation that someone who has been determined 

to be unlawfully in this country nonetheless is released because we 

have no place to put them. And then they hide in our neighborhoods. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. In the last 18 months of your term, what specific 

steps are you planing to take to improve the process of prosecuting 

those who violate immigration laws, particularly drug smugglers 

and human trafficking? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think one of the things we are going to do is 

have a conversation with United States attorneys, get an assessment about what additional resources may be available to throw at 

these particular cases, have a conversation perhaps with Harley 

Lappin, the director of prisons, to see is there anything else that 

we can do for additional bed space. What can we do in terms of 

53

contracting out? Have more conversations with the Department of 

Homeland Security. So these are things that we could look at. 

But I think to really address this problem, it will probably require additional resources, and I think seriously requires a change 

in our immigration laws. We need to have a system that is comprehensive and one that is really workable. 

Mr. CONYERS. Time is expired. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. I see that the time has expired. 

I would just like to respond to the statement that, with all due 

respect, Attorney General, I think that the laws aren’t the primary 

problem. I think the will to enforce the laws as it relates to immigration plays a very big role. 

And, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, because of the time 

situation, I would ask unanimous consent that we may be able to 

ask additional questions in writing and have them responded to 

and made a part of the record of the hearing. 

Mr. CONYERS. Absolutely. That has been understood, and we will 

continue that procedure. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee, Zoe 

Lofgren? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I do have some questions on the U.S. attorney situation. But before I ask that, I would just like the Attorney General not to answer today but to spend some time attending to the dreadful situation of the FBI name check. 

As of May 4th of this month, USCIS had sent and had pending 

300,000-plus names to the FBI; 155,000 of those name checks have 

been pending for more than 6 months. And we know, historically, 

that far less than 1 percent ever have any problem. 

But this is a real problem for two points of view. 

One, economically, if you have got somebody that needs to be 

cleared, this messes it up. And, as a matter of fact, I just got a call 

from a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, this huge venture that 

could end up hiring hundreds of Americans, is just stalled because 

of a 3-year delay. They just can’t get any answer at all out of the 

engineer and the inventor that they know about. 

The other side is, for that less than 1 percent, we are not finding 

them, and that could be a threat. 

So I don’t want you to answer now, but I do hope that you will 

get back to this Committee, because it is an outrageous situation. 

Now I would like to inquire about the situation of U.S. Attorney 

Todd Graves. Here we have been pursuing—I am on the Subcommittee of jurisdiction—we thought there was eight U.S. attorney situations. And now, according to press reports, there is a 

ninth U.S. attorney situation. 

And I would like to know, the news media is reporting that Mr. 

Graves had been targeted for removal on Mr. Samson’s list as early 

as January of 2006. And one reason suggested in the press is that 

in November of 2005 the U.S. attorney, Mr. Graves, refused to sign 

onto a lawsuit that was proposed by main Justice accusing the 

State of Missouri of improper conduct regarding its voter rolls. 

Would you have recommended Mr. Graves for removal based on 

that exercise of his prosecutorial judgment? 

54

Mr. GONZALES. I have no basis to believe that, in fact, that particular case has anything to do with Mr. Graves’ departure. I have 

spoken with the head of the Civil Rights Division this morning 

about this; obviously just became aware of Mr. Graves’ statements 

in today paper. I spoke with Wan Kim, head of the Civil Rights Division. He signed the complaint. He stands behind that particular 

case. He is not aware of any concerns that existed in that office. 

Now, we haven’t spoken to everyone in that office, but we are not 

aware of any concerns that existed in that office with respect to 

this particular case. The assistant U.S. attorney signed on the complaint as well. Mr. Graves’ name is on the complaint. 

The case involved whether or not the voter lists were accurate 

in Missouri, and the Democratic secretary of state issued a statement saying——

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Attorney General, are you aware that just last 

month this litigation was dismissed for lack of evidence? Doesn’t 

that suggest that the judgment not to file might have been the 

right one? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, we are evaluating whether to appeal. 

But it is my understanding that the judge decided that the department should not have sued the secretary of state but should have 

sued the local jurisdictions. So that is the primary basis for the dismissal, as I understand it. 

And, again, the Democratic secretary of state issued a statement 

saying basically, ‘‘You got us. Our roles are incomplete and inaccurate.’’ And I think it is legitimate for the American people to expect that voting lists be reasonably accurate. That is what Congress required in its laws. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I understand—and this is really based on press reports so I don’t have any firsthand knowledge—that Mr. Schlozman 

had vote fraud experience but little prosecutorial experience, and 

that when Mr. Graves was left, that Mr. Schlozman was almost immediately appointed by you as his replacement. 

I mean, just looking it at, doesn’t it look like there was some 

plan in place to replace this Mr. Graves with Mr. Schlozman related to this prosecution? And isn’t it true that the department’s 

own criteria for bringing lawsuits would tend to indicate that lawsuits would not be brought just before an election? 

Mr. GONZALES. The substance and timing of the—well, let me 

just say again that I spoke with the head of the Civil Rights Division this morning and he stands behind this litigation. He believes 

it was an appropriate use of the department’s resources. And we 

will determine whether or not to——

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, I don’t want to be rude, Mr. Gonzales, but 

the bells are ringing and I just have 1 more second to read very 

briefly the quotes in the Boston Globe that says, ‘‘ ‘Schlozman was 

reshaping the Civil Rights Division,’ said Joe Rich, who was chief 

of the Voting Rights Section until 2005. In an interview he said, 

‘Schlozman didn’t know anything about voting law. All he knew 

was he wanted to make sure that Republicans were going to win.’ ’’

And that was from the career guy who got pushed out from the 

department. I would like your comments on that in writing later. 

I know my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. 

55

Mr. CONYERS. Former attorney general of California, Daniel Lungren? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Attorney General, when I was attorney general of California, 

I only had 1,000 lawyers and 5,000 employees. How many do you 

have? 

Mr. GONZALES. Approximately 110,000. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And how many lawyers? 

Mr. GONZALES. Oh, about, I think, 10,000 to 15,000. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And how many U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. We have 93 U.S. attorneys. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Do you actually delegate? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Do you delegate authority at times? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I mean, that seems to be a surprise here, that you 

would delegate. I mean, I delegated occasionally when I was attorney general. And sometimes I found out that those to whom I delegated responsibilities didn’t perform the way I thought they would, 

and tried to make some changes thereafter. 

But really, we sometimes confuse here, it seems to me, the question of competence versus the question of criminality. And that is 

the concern that, of all Committees of the House, this ought to be 

of the highest priority. 

Let me ask you this: In terms of U.S. attorneys, do you expect 

that they should reflect the emphases of the President of the 

United States? 

And what I mean by that is, we have presidential elections every 

4 years. A President comes in and says, ‘‘I want to make crimefighting the number-one priority; I want to give assistance to the 

states with their drug-fighting; I want to assist the states in going 

after gangs.’’

Do you expect that your U.S. attorneys ought to at least pay 

some attention to the priorities of a President of the United States, 

that is, his Administration’s policies? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. In fact, we have a conversation with him 

when they come on board and we make it clear that the President 

is accountable to the American people for the policies and priorities 

which he campaigned on. And those can only be carried out by the 

Attorney General——

Mr. LUNGREN. But isn’t that political? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I think, with respect to policies and priorities, one could say it is political, but that would be okay. That 

would be okay to do——

Mr. LUNGREN. I think so, but some people find that shocking. 

It has been said—and I know we are not supposed to counter editorials of The New York Times and other articles, but I am aware 

of at least one case, in a U.S. attorney in California, in a prior Administration, that left office. You won’t find a record that that person left office because of lack of performance, but I happen to believe that is the case. We are acting around this place like U.S. attorneys are the product of the Immaculate Conception, and once 

they have been created that cannot be undone. 

56

Now, let me ask you this about voter fraud: Do you believe that 

we ought to investigate voter fraud that might take place as the 

result of people who are dead still being on the rolls? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, it is the law. We have an obligation to investigate and prosecute voter fraud. 

Where this notion that somehow voter fraud is a dirty word, I 

don’t understand it. Because you are talking about people stealing 

votes, canceling out legitimate votes. 

And so we have an obligation—as a minority, to me it is extremely important to make sure that votes count. And I think we 

have an obligation at the department to pursue voter fraud. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I have been a little confused by some of the statements that have come out of the Justice Department and from you, 

quite frankly, Mr. Attorney General, about the propriety of reviewing the performance of U.S. attorneys who might be performing 

well as attorneys but not be bringing forward the emphases or the 

priorities of the Administration. 

Do you think that is an appropriate thing to bring up in terms 

of a review, as opposed to whether or not they are good attorneys 

and they prosecute cases well; that is, the array of their resources 

with respect to the priorities of the Administration? 

Mr. GONZALES. I do. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And would that, could that be the grounds for 

making a determination as to whether a U.S. attorney stays? 

Mr. GONZALES. It could be. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Under the statute, does a U.S. attorney have a 

prescribed term? 

Mr. GONZALES. The statute says 4 years. But, of course, the statute also says that they may be removed by the President. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So it is a maximum of 4 years unless reappointed. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. What is customary—I wouldn’t say customary—

what often happens is that U.S. attorneys simply hold over unless 

there is a decision made by the President to make some kind of 

change. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So I am trying to——

Mr. GONZALES. What I would say is that this is a privilege. I 

have the privilege of serving as the Attorney General. If the President comes to me today and says, ‘‘I no longer have pleasure in you 

continuing to serve,’’ that is the way it works. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Did the President of the United States or anybody 

from the White House tell you to investigate or remove any U.S. 

attorney because they were launching a particular investigation 

against a Democrat or Republican for partisan reasons, or to back 

off of any such prosecution? 

Mr. GONZALES. They never said it to me. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Did you ever say that to anybody? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Anybody in your department say that that you 

know of? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

57

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Attorney General, we are going to recess for 

the votes, of course. And we will resume immediately after the 

votes have taken place on the floor of the House. 

Thank you very much. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. CONYERS. The Committee will come to order. 

We thank you for your cooperation, Attorney General. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Houston, TX, Sheila 

Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. 

Good afternoon, Mr. General. 

And let me thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member. This 

is a vital hearing and question-and-answer process for protecting 

the integrity of the Constitution and the integrity of your office, 

which I assume you have come today to be as open as you could 

be in order to ensure that that happens. 

Before I start the questioning on the matter at hand, let me 

share with you consternation and frustration that we have dealing 

with a question of the viability, the constitutionality of the prison 

system in the State of Texas. 

It goes really to the overall question that this chart that I will 

hold up suggests, is that under your tenure, starting from 2005, 

every civil rights case has gone down. It means police abuse, racial 

violence, hate crimes, human trafficking under your clock and 

under your watch, it has been a steady decline of prosecutions by 

the Attorney General. That poses a crisis for America. 

Let me just quickly ask for your assistance. You may not be able 

to answer this, but this is a crisis. 

I hold up an article that indicates that in Houston, TX, we will 

double the number of deaths in the Harris County jail—11 right 

now, 117 over 10 years—and a sheriff who is completely absent 

from the sensitivity of the constitutional rights of the inmates. 

Let me just quickly say to you that here is an example. Calvin 

Mack, a homeless and hardened drug addict, continued to bleed, 

continued to die. If you will, the person in the jail said, ‘‘What do 

you want me to do, get a Band-Aid?’’ a deputy quipped when he 

was asked to come to the cell block. Four hours passed before the 

officer called for medical help. By then Mack was all but dead. 

In the Texas Youth Commission, it says that a Texas Youth 

Commission officer was arrested for having sex with a female 

youth. 

And so my question to you is, it is clear that we have a crisis 

in the prosecution of constitutional rights of the underserved, if you 

will. We know if you are in jail, you have committed some sort of 

an offense, but you deserve the question of the Constitution. 

My question to you, one, I would like to have a meeting with all 

of your staff asking for an inspector generals’ investigation of the 

Harris County Jail and the Texas Youth Commission. You have letters that I sent; you sent back saying, ‘‘We think you have concerns. Send us more information.’’

I am happy to be an investigator for the DOJ. It is not my job 

right now. I am happy to participate with giving you family members and others whose loved ones have died, but I believe this warrants an official Justice Department investigation to make good on 

58

these low, low numbers of prosecuting civil rights, constitutional 

rights of any number of individuals. 

Can I yield to you just for the answer? I have letters from your 

department. You can review them. Can we work together to ensure 

the safety and security of youth inmates in the TYC, and those in 

the Harris County Jail? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would look forward to a more extensive answer and a meeting, and I will be happy to present family members 

and others. 

And I, likewise, in your capacity, invite you to Houston, TX, so 

that we can have a larger assessment of this situation. People are 

dying and this is prevalent across America, and I would welcome 

the opportunity to discuss, at another round, the whole question of 

police abuse and other issues. 

Let me just move forward more as we look at the issues at hand, 

and with all due respect, let me say to you—and I would like you 

to think about how telling they are——

Mr. CONYERS. You have got 48 seconds left. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Hitting back the Congress, and 

this whole thing of the Deputy Attorney General reacted quite a bit 

to the idea of anyone voluntarily testifying. And he seemed to 

threaten Bud Cummins, and said, ‘‘You will regret coming forward 

and testifying.’’

Mr. Attorney General, with all these political comments, how are 

you going to fix this troubling and devastating litany of duplicity 

in your department? What steps have you taken to address these 

problems? 

I would appreciate, Mr. Attorney General, your answer. 

The light is still on. 

Mr. GONZALES. Obviously, there have been some very serious allegations made, Congresswoman. And one of the things that we are 

going to do with respect to these serious allegations is that we have 

made referrals to the Office of Professional Responsibility and to 

the Office of Inspector General. 

These entities exist in order to respond to allegations, to do investigations to reassure the American public that in fact we take 

these kinds of allegations very, very seriously. 

But I want to put everything in perspective for you. I think that 

there have been allegations made with respect to the conduct of 

three political appointees in the entirety of the Department of Justice. There are hundreds of political appointees, there are tens of 

thousands of career employees at the Department of Justice. 

So I don’t want the American people to believe that in fact 

politicalization is running rampant in the department, because that 

is just not true. 

Obviously, I take these allegations very seriously. I don’t want to 

minimize them. But to the extent that allegations are made that 

there is improper conduct, they are referred where they should be 

referred. We are doing an investigation to ensure that in fact, if 

anything improper happened here, we are going to get to the bottom of it. And there will be accountability. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. 

59

Mr. Chairman, I would like to put into the record the two articles 

that I referred to, which are the Houston Chronicle, dated April 5, 

2007, and the Chronicle dated April 25, 2007. 

And I would just simply say——

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The articles follow:]

ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, APRIL 5, 2007, AND APRIL 8, 2007, 

SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


2A.eps
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2B-1.eps
61


2B-2.eps
62


2B-3.eps
63

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Is the Attorney General offers a 

wonderful mea culpa, but I would just say the perception is there. 

I thank the——

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the Ranking Subcommittee 

Member of Commercial and Administrative Law, Chris Cannon. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to submit for the record also a letter from Randy 

Mastro at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection. 

[The letter follows:]

64

LETTER FROM RANDY MASTRO, GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER, SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE CHRIS CANNON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF

UTAH, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


3.eps
65

Mr. CANNON. This is a letter that rebuts Mr. Cohen’s editorial 

and points out that they did not offer Ms. Yang $1.5 million. And 

in addition to that, she recused herself while she was at the department, and she is not participating in those issues where she 

has gone. And they praise her as a great attorney. 

General Gonzales, thanks for being here. I think you are very 

gracious to address these accusations as serious and not react to 

the suggestion that there may be duplicity, out of 110,000 employees. But I think you have been very direct here this morning. 

You are familiar with Mr. Margolis at the Department of Justice, 

are you not? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. CANNON. And my understanding is he is the senior career 

employee at the department. Is that right? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think he may not be the senior, but he is certainly one of the most senior. 

Mr. CANNON. Probably one of the most outspoken. And he was 

actually interviewed, and I would like to read some of the comments that he made. 

He was asked, ‘‘And then you testified that you said something 

to the effect of, ‘but this does open the door to a more responsible’—

and you used that word, that is, ‘a more responsible’—to a focused 

process to identify weak performers and make some changes.’ And 

you thought that was a good idea.’’ And Mr. Margolis responded, 

‘‘I thought it was a great idea, long overdue.’’

Now, I believe it was Mr. Scott who was talking about the CRS 

report on firings at the Department of Justice, which is retrospective, of course. And here you have got a senior person at the Department of Justice pointing out that he thought what you were 

doing here was a great idea. 

A little more here: ‘‘To move onto another thing, you mentioned 

during your testimony earlier in the day, I believe, that you had 

indicated that you thought it was good of the department to embark on an exercise like this; that is, reviewing U.S. attorneys.’’ 

Mr. Margolis: ‘‘Absolutely. And I should add, one of my 

sadnesses’’—his word—‘‘I have a lot of sadness about this, but it 

was a great idea. Our execution wasn’t particularly good, but we 

didn’t have much experience with it.’’

So this is a new idea, a new process here. 

‘‘But one of my great sadnesses is I fear that, down the road, people will shy away from doing this again because of the burning 

here.’’

In other words, he is condemning the politicization of this process. 

‘‘And so, when a U.S. attorney called me a couple of weeks ago 

to run an idea past me, he said, ‘I want to take some action, but 

I want to run it past you and take your temperature, because I 

don’t want to get fired.’ I said to him, ‘Buddy, you could urinate 

on the President’s leg now, and it wouldn’t work,’ ’’ suggesting that 

the department has, in fact, been affected. 

And, again, Mr. Margolis is one of the very senior career guys 

who happens—I think you would agree he loves the department——

Mr. GONZALES. No question about that. 

66

Mr. CANNON [continuing]. Cares about the institution——

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. CANNON [continuing]. Cares about the integrity of the institution——

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. CANNON [continuing]. And was called on to testify because 

they thought he would do what he suggested could be done without 

fear of being fired, I suppose. 

‘‘Were you involved in any way,’’ he was asked, ‘‘about the decision to put Ms. Lam on the list?’’ He says, ‘‘So it didn’t surprise 

me in that sense because when Mercer was PDAG, he used to tell 

me about problems he was having with here, vis-a-vis immigration 

and immigration and guns, I believe.’’

Then he goes on and he says, ‘‘Based upon my interaction with 

her and what other people, including Ms. Mercer, said, both then 

and now, and reading my—and I love Carol like a sister; an outstanding investigative lawyer, an outstanding trial lawyer, tough 

as nails, honest as the day is long, but had her own ideas about 

what the priorities of the department would be and was probably 

insubordinate on those things.’’

Nobody is claiming Mr. Margolis is political or politicizing this 

process. He is saying this is a process that was good, and he wants 

it to happen or continue. 

Later he says, ‘‘She called me primarily to tell me that. I think 

she said, ‘‘I think I just got fired by Mike Battle.’’’ But later he 

says, ‘‘And then she speculated to me that is was over immigration 

and guns.’’ She then told what the problem was. 

By the way, I think he said it was a very pleasant conversation. 

So this is not about competency. Nobody is saying Ms. Lam 

wasn’t competent. But she wasn’t doing, and she understood she 

wasn’t doing, what the President wanted. Do you think that is correct, Mr. Gonzales? 

Mr. GONZALES. First of all, let me just say that Carol and these 

other United States attorneys, I mean, they are fine individuals, 

very, very, very fine lawyers——

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. I don’t want to cut you off, but I do just 

want to put one more in. This is Mr. Margolis again: ‘‘I was asked 

about David Iglesias. Given everything I know today, he would 

have been number one on my list to go.’’ ‘‘That is because he didn’t 

call and report the phone calls?’’ ‘‘That is right.’’ And he goes on 

to talk about that. 

So we did have some problems with some of these guys, in the 

sense that they weren’t exactly paradigms of competence, were 

they? 

Mr. GONZALES. It was my idea that these individuals had been 

identified by the senior leadership in the department as having 

issues or concerns and that a chance would be legitimate and——

Mr. CANNON. While I still have the yellow light, I agree with you, 

but you have a huge department to run. I think Mr. Lungren 

talked about the number, 110,000 people. You have said at one 

point in time that you delegated responsibility, and you have been 

criticized for that. 

67

And on the other hand, somebody pointed out you had five meetings with Mr. Sampson over a period of time—over, by the way, 24 

months. That is one meeting every 5 months. 

Do you think that was the appropriate level of oversight, given 

what you knew then as opposed to what you know now, looking 

back? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, in hindsight, no. I think I would 

have done the process differently. I would have had a more structured process, a more vigorous process. Again, not a formal process, 

but something more structured, where I had more direct communication with Mr. Sampson, let him know exactly what I expected. 

I would let him know what things that I think should properly 

be considered in evaluating the performance of U.S. attorneys, who 

I want him to consult with, who I wanted the recommendation to 

come from. I would have ensured that there would have been at 

least one face-to-face meeting with each of the United States attorneys, not just these eight but all 93, and have a discussion about 

their performance. 

So there were some things that I think we could have done differently, should have done better. And going forward, there will be 

some changes to make sure that we operate the department in a 

way that everyone expects. 

Mr. CANNON. But you learned from it, and it is a process you 

hope will continue, I take it. Or at least I hope it will continue. 

Mr. Chairman, I realize my——

Mr. GONZALES. I think we have an obligation, quite frankly, as 

head of a department for the American people to ensure that public 

servants are doing their job. 

Mr. CANNON. So do I. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I recognize my time is up, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. CONYERS. The distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, 

Mel Watt? 

Mr. WATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Attorney General, let me first apologize for not being 

here for your testimony. Unfortunately, I am chairing a Subcommittee in another Committee and had to be there for a hearing 

that we had scheduled before we found out you were going to testify. So accept my apologies, please. 

In the prior hearings, Mr. Attorney General, I have been devoting some time to trying to figure out what happened with the firing 

of John McKay. And on April 19th you told the Senate that you 

had accepted the recommendation to fire Mr. McKay because he 

had shown bad judgment in pushing an information-sharing system and in speaking to the press about department resources. 

Do you remember that testimony? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. I hope, though, that I said the concern was 

not that it was pushing for the information-sharing system, but the 

manner in which he pushed it. 

Mr. WATT. Okay. Well, that really doesn’t have much relevance 

to the next set of things I want to ask you about. Whatever he was 

pushing or not pushing occurred in the summer of 2006. 

The letter on the information system you discussed in the Senate 

was dated August 30, 2006, it turns out. And Mr. McKay’s comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
68

ments to the press were reflected in an e-mail on September 22, 

2006. 

And, unfortunately, we now have evidence, documentation in 

fact, that Mr. McKay was already targeted for removal by Mr. 

Sampson in March of 2005, because the documents show that he 

was already on the list. 

So are you aware of any legitimate reason that John McKay 

should have been forced out as a U.S. attorney in March of 2005, 

as opposed to the things you had talked about that occurred in 

2006? 

Mr. GONZALES. I would have to go back and look at that, Congressman. 

Again, what I recall is that when I accepted the recommendations, I was not surprised to see Mr. McKay included, because I 

was aware of concerns in the way that he pushed this informationsharing project. 

And I applaud his efforts. He was doing his job. 

Mr. WATT. Okay, Mr. Attorney General, I understand what you 

are saying. You have got to go back and look. 

But there has been some suggestion, unfortunately—our investigators asked Kyle Sampson, and he said that he remembered department officials being upset that Mr. McKay had pushed for action regarding the department’s investigation of the murder of 

Thomas Wales. And there was some concern that he was being 

overly aggressive in pursuing the people who had murdered Thomas Wales. 

And so a lot of people are viewing this as being admirable, not 

something that somebody should be fired for. Would you agree with 

that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Certainly, it wasn’t in my mind a reason why I 

accepted the recommendation. And I was not aware of these specific concerns within the department until very, very recently. 

So if that was a reason why he was included as part of the recommended group, that is something you would have to ask others 

involved in this process because I have not had the opportunity to 

do that. 

Mr. WATT. And if that was among the reasons, would you agree 

with Mr. McKay, who has characterized this as—I am going to 

quote exactly what he says: ‘‘The idea that I was pushing too hard 

to investigate the assassination of a Federal prosecutor is mindnumbing.’’

If it is true, it is just immoral. And if it is false, then the idea 

that the Department of Justice would use the death of Tom Wales 

to cover up what they did is just unconscionable. 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not——

Mr. WATT. Would you agree that it would be immoral and unconscionable for you all to be firing somebody because they were investigating the death of one of their own staff people? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is a crime, and we have an obligation to, of 

course, investigate it and prosecute those responsible for it. I am 

not aware that the department, however, is using that as a reason 

or excuse——

69

Mr. WATT. Well, you obviously haven’t listened to the testimony 

of some of the people in the department then, because that was an 

excuse that was advanced initially. 

And that is the problem here, Mr. Attorney General. There are 

so many different excuses advanced at different times, whenever it 

is convenient, that you have this appearance that there is something else there. 

And in this case, Mr. McKay also failed to aggressively, or as aggressively, prosecute as some people thought he ought to prosecute, 

and pursue some voting fraud cases that were taking place after 

an election took place. And it might have had some impact on a 

Democrat versus a Republican being elected. 

So if that concern that the public is concerned about, Mr. Attorney General, if that is at the bottom of this, that would be an improper motivation for a termination and would be illegal. Wouldn’t 

you agree? 

Mr. GONZALES. I agree that if, in fact, there was pressure put on 

Mr. McKay to investigate a case which didn’t warrant an investigation—but obviously, there may be circumstances where an investigation may have been warranted. And so we would have to look 

at the circumstances of a particular case. 

I don’t recall that when I accepted the recommendation, Congressman, that that was a reason for it, is his efforts with respect 

to voter fraud. 

But clearly, going back and looking at the documents and the 

correspondences, there was a great deal of concern about his efforts 

with respect to voter fraud. Because I received a number of letters 

from groups and outside parties——

Mr. WATT. So you didn’t fire him for that reason, but somebody 

might have put him on the list for that reason? That is really what 

you are saying, Mr. Attorney General. 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, Congressman, I am assuming that this 

Committee has spoken with everyone who provided input. And, of 

course, the person who was compiling the information, Mr. Sampson, would know better than I. Because I am a fact witness. I 

haven’t talked to these other fact witnesses about what happened 

here. 

Mr. WATT. I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Bob Goodlatte, the distinguished gentleman 

from Virginia? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

General Gonzales, welcome. I know you may not particularly feel 

like this is a welcoming occasion, but I do want to remind everybody here that this is an oversight hearing that is periodically held 

by this Committee on the United States Department of Justice. 

General Gonzales, you have the responsibility for thousands of 

employees in your department. You have responsibility for the enforcement of thousands of Federal laws related to criminal activity 

that occur in this country. 

And I would like to take the opportunity—while I know many 

here have focused on the issue of the termination of seven or eight, 

or whatever the number is, of those employees who were terminated because it was your opinion and those who report to you that 

they were not properly enforcing those laws and taking necessary 

70

steps to do that, nonetheless there are many, many dedicated employees of the department who are attempting to do that. 

So I would like to attempt to ask you about some of those other 

areas that are very important to my constituents. 

We have, in this country, millions of jobs related to the creativity 

of our country. They are protected by our intellectual property 

laws. And we face the loss of many of those jobs, both here at home 

and overseas, due to people stealing other people’s creative ideas. 

And I wonder if you could update us on your efforts to enforce 

our nation’s intellectual property laws against theft of people’s 

ideas due to violation of patent and copyright and trademark laws 

that are protected in the United States Constitution. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, we have got special units within the FBI 

and within main Justice, involving prosecutors who focus on intellectual property issues. 

We have an intellectual property task force that was set up 

under General Ashcroft. I have continued that. They came out with 

a series of recommendations. All of those recommendations have 

now been promulgated and set up. 

We have embarked on an education campaign, reaching out to 

students, informing them of the importance of intellectual property, 

that it is something that, as Americans, we should work to strive 

to protect. 

We have reached out to the various trade groups, movies and 

music industry, businesses, to talk about the importance of this. 

I have spoken with State legislators about the importance of 

State laws to assist us, because there are limited resources that we 

have to enforce and prosecute piracy, but perhaps States can help 

us. 

But this is an issue that goes beyond our borders. To be effective, 

we have to also have the support of our friends and allies overseas. 

And so we have had dialogues. 

We have encouraged people to be participants in the Cybercrime 

Convention, which will allow for greater sharing of information 

that will help us with prosecutions. 

So I think that we have got a good story to tell. But no question 

about it that there is a lot of money to be made in connection with 

intellectual property theft. And whenever you can make a lot of 

money, people want to engage in that kind of activity. 

And so we really need to stay focused, and I look forward to 

working in Congress to engage in a dialogue about what additional 

laws, what additional tools would be helpful to help us in dealing 

with this issue. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, General Gonzales. 

Another area that is of concern to a great many Americans is the 

fact that we have a serious problem in this country with illegal 

gambling. Last year it is estimated more than $6 billion went out 

of the country to untaxed, unregulated, illegal sites. 

There are many, many ills that have been identified with gambling, particularly illegal gambling because of its lack of any kind 

of regulation: family problems, problems with gambling by minors, 

gambling addictions, organized crime, bankruptcy—the list is long. 

And Internet gambling poses a very problem because it essentially puts a casino in everybody’s home, much less down the street 

71

or in a community where many communities have fought against 

and do not have that type of gambling operations in their community. 

So I want to thank you for your leadership in combating illegal 

gambling operations, and particularly your aggressive prosecution 

of overseas Internet-based gambling operations that violate U.S. 

laws. That has not gone unnoticed, and I would like to applaud 

your efforts. 

As you know, the Congress recently passed illegal Internet gambling legislation to prohibit the acceptance of payment for illegal 

Internet gambling bets, showing our commitment to combating 

these activities. It passed by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote, including Members on both sides of the aisle in this Committee. 

And I want to know if we can count on your to continue these 

aggressive criminal prosecutions against illegal, online gambling 

operations. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, Congressman. I want to thank the Congress 

for this additional tool. 

Obviously we are in the process now—the Treasury Department 

working on regulations. They are consulting with the Department 

of Justice, and hopefully we can make some progress on that real 

soon. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The prosecution of some of these——

Mr. CONYERS. The time of——

Mr. GOODLATTE. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the general. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

The distinguished gentlelady from Los Angeles, California, Maxine Waters? 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Attorney General, I would like to talk with you about gangs 

in this country and the greater Los Angeles area. But I won’t do 

that today, because I think that your credibility is on the line. 

And you have been questioned about the firing of the eight U.S. 

attorneys, and it appears to have been politically motivated, even 

though there has been some denial of that. I would like to ask you 

a few questions. 

First of all, did you review the personnel files of these attorneys 

after the accusation of them being fired for a political reason? And 

did you see anything in their files that showed that they had been 

reprimanded, they had been advised, they had been charged with 

not handling their duties in a responsible way? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congresswoman, I look forward to talking with 

you about gangs. 

With respect to the U.S. attorney issue, what I did was relied 

upon the judgment of those who——

Ms. WATERS. Did you review the files after——

Mr. GONZALES. I did not review the personnel files——

Ms. WATERS. Have you reviewed them at all since all of this has 

taken place? 

Mr. GONZALES. What I have done is I have gone back and spoken 

to the Deputy Attorney General——

Ms. WATERS. Have you reviewed the files? 

72

Mr. GONZALES. I have not reviewed the files. I have gone 

back——

Ms. WATERS. So you don’t know whether or not they had been 

advised, they had been warned, they had been reprimanded about 

their work at all? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think the answer to that—I don’t think that 

they have. In fact, I think——

Ms. WATERS. But you didn’t review the files, so you didn’t look 

in their files whether or not they had been advised, reprimanded, 

suspended or anything about their work? Is that right? 

Mr. GONZALES. I did not review their files. 

Ms. WATERS. You knew you were coming here today. You know 

we have been trying to get unredacted documents from you about 

what happened in your department. Did you bring them with you 

today? 

Mr. GONZALES. No, ma’am. I brought——

Ms. WATERS. Are you resisting giving us the documents that we 

are asking of you that is related to the firing of these attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. No, ma’am. I am not involved in making production decisions. And I am recused from——

Ms. WATERS. Would you advise the department to give us those 

documents? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am recused from that, ma’am. I can’t do that. 

Ms. WATERS. Why are you recused from that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Because I am a fact witness in this investigation. 

And in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety——

Ms. WATERS. Can you tell us whether or not you have an opinion 

that they should be given to us? 

Mr. GONZALES. No, ma’am, I am not going to comment——

Ms. WATERS. All right. Thank you. 

Did you meet with the President about this issue? 

Mr. GONZALES. Which issue is this, ma’am? 

Ms. WATERS. Did you and the President meet to discuss the accusations of the politically motivated firing of these eight U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. Ma’am, I disagree with your characterization as 

politically motivated. 

Ms. WATERS. I am not characterizing. I am asking you, have you 

met with the President of the United States to discuss what has 

been accused of politically motivated firing? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, I would not characterize it as politically 

motivated. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, okay. Have you met with the President of the 

United States to discuss these firings? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have a lot of discussions with the President of 

the United States——

Ms. WATERS. Did you discuss with the President of the United 

States the fact that your department was being requested to supply 

documents? Or did you advise the President? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have not spoken to the President with respect 

to document production. Again, Congresswoman, I am recused from 

those decisions. 

Ms. WATERS. Did the President say anything to you about the 

fact that documents had been requested of the White House and 

73

asked your opinion about whether or not those documents should 

be given to this Committee? 

Mr. GONZALES. No, ma’am, the President has not asked for my 

opinion as to whether or not the White House should turn over documents. And, again, I am recused with respect to production of 

DOJ documents and with respect to——

Ms. WATERS. Okay. So you are recused and you can’t talk about 

whether or not you believe that this Committee should have 

unredacted copies of documents that we have been trying to get 

that are pertinent to these firings. You are recused from that. You 

have no opinion about whether or not the oversight Committee of 

Congress should have those documents. 

You did not look at the files of the people who have been in the 

news for weeks now where you have been accused, your department, of politically motivated firings, you don’t know whether they 

were good employees, they were bad employees, whether or not 

they had been reprimanded, suspended, advised or anything. 

You know nothing, is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is not correct. 

Ms. WATERS. What do you know, Mr. Attorney General? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, generally about this whole matter, Congresswoman? 

Ms. WATERS. What would you like to tell us? You are here today, 

and you know what we are focused on. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Ms. WATERS. This is no secret. 

I know that you have been in a number of hearings. I know that 

you don’t remember a lot. You have not shared with us anything 

about the documents. 

What can you tell us today that will help us to understand why 

eight U.S. attorneys were fired, an unusual pattern that CRS has 

reviewed and told us that there is a pattern here and it doesn’t 

look good? 

Your reputation is on the line, Mr. Attorney General. What do 

you have to say for yourself? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congresswoman, what I have to say is that we 

have provided a lot of information to the Congress about this 

issue——

Ms. WATERS. I asked you specifically about unredacted copies 

that are pertinent to this investigation. 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, Congressman, I am not involved in making decisions about the documents to be provided or not provided 

by the department——

Mr. CONYERS. Let’s allow the Attorney General to finish his response to this question. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

With respect to redacted documents, it is my understanding—

and again, I haven’t been involved. But it is my understanding that 

the Congress has had access to the documents. They have been 

able to see what has been redacted, it is my understanding. 

But, again, those are decisions that are not being made by me 

in order to preserve the integrity of this investigation, because I 

am a fact witness. 

74

Ms. WATERS. No, you are more than a fact witness, Mr. Attorney 

General. The buck stops at the top. 

Mr. GONZALES. And I accept responsibility——

Ms. WATERS. If you accept——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. WATERS. I will yield back the balance of my time. Thank 

you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Steve King of Iowa? 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the Attorney General for being before this Committee and submitting yourself to this process. And I think it needs 

to be a dignified process, and I think we need to respect you and 

the answers that you give. I believe that you are giving openly and 

honest answers here before the Committee. 

I would reflect back on some issues that were raised, particularly 

by the gentlelady from California, with regard to—and I am not 

going to characterize how she characterized it, because I don’t want 

to repeat some of the language that went into this record and have 

it taken down, but the behaviors and the activities of the U.S. attorney’s office in that area. 

Then the issue is raised by the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 

Sensenbrenner, about the investigation of a Member of Congress 

and how that might affect the activities on the part of your office. 

And so I can’t help but reflect upon a 500-page report that was 

delivered to the Department of Justice regarding another Member 

of Congress. And that investigation has been going on since December of 2005. And that issue is still pending any kind of resolution. 

And I believe that the Ethics Committee in this Congress is awaiting the results of the investigation. 

But the question I would ask to you is, if the Chairman of the 

Justice Appropriations Committee happened to have had been 

under that kind of scrutiny, could that affect the kind of prosecution that takes place out of your Justice Department with regard 

to that particular Member of Congress? 

Mr. GONZALES. I would like to say no, quite frankly, I think, because you have to understand that prosecutions, by and large, are 

handled, and the investigations and prosecutions are handled, by 

career officials. They go forward no matter what happens. We want 

them to do that. 

I have told every United States attorney to, ‘‘Tell your people, I 

don’t want anything affected, whatsoever, by anything going on 

Washington. I don’t care who the target is—Republican, Democrat, 

someone on the Hill, someone at the White House. You follow the 

evidence; you do your job. That is what the American people expect, and that is what I expect and demand.’’

Mr. KING. And, Mr. Attorney General, you know, aside from the 

President of the United States, what could be more intimidating to 

the Department of Justice than to be involved in an investigation 

of the Chairman of an Appropriations Committee that had control 

directly of your budget? What could be more intimidating than that 

with regard to an investigation? 

75

Mr. GONZALES. We have to put that aside. Again, if the evidence 

is there, we have an obligation to pursue it. And if it is not there, 

then we stop the investigation. 

But, clearly, this comes with being a prosecutor. Sometimes it is 

going to put you in a very awkward, difficult situation. But the 

American people expect you to do your job, and that is what I expect of the prosecutors in the Department of Justice. 

Mr. KING. Let me say then, Mr. Attorney General, that if that 

kind of circumstance, if the person that is in control of your budget 

has his activities being reviewed by your department—it is very 

well-published across this country and not well-known in this 

Hill—if that does not affect your investigation and your integrity 

has risen about that kind of intimidation, then how in the world 

can any of these other allegations be intimidating the investigation 

of the Justice Department? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, without commenting on a particular 

investigation, we have a job to do that the American people expect 

we are going to do it. 

Mr. KING. And I would submit to this Committee that what I 

have stated here is entirely true: that there is nothing more intimidating than the scenario that I have laid out here, and this scenario happens to be fact. All the rest of these things that unfold 

are minor in comparison to this looming issue that is here. 

And if this Justice Department can be considered to be conducting themselves above reproach with this investigation—and I 

don’t have any reason to believe they are not, and I want to put 

that on the record—then the rest of these allegations are essentially baseless. 

And I would also submit that in my experience into the 11th year 

of the legislation process that I have been involved in, there has 

been nothing that has seen more opposition from a partisan political standpoint than trying to provide integrity into the electoral 

process. 

And those investigations that were going on in the southwestern 

part of this United States which were part of a decision, I believe, 

that was made by your department to dismiss a U.S. attorney 

down in that area, I think were met with political opposition on the 

other side. 

And if we are going to investigate this, then I would be looking 

at some of the FBI officers that were doing the investigations in 

those kind of cases. 

And I would ask if you would care to comment on that, Mr. Attorney General. 

Mr. GONZALES. No, sir. 

Mr. KING. I didn’t think you would. 

I want to conclude then by saying thank you for being here and 

thank you for this testimony. And I hope that we can raise the 

level of this decorum and respect your testimony in an appropriate 

fashion. I appreciate your service to America. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman. 

And we now turn to Mr. William Delahunt, the gentleman from 

Massachusetts, who is now recognized. 

76

Mr. DELAHUNT. General Gonzales, we have heard about delegation and the size of the department. And I think we all understand 

that, and, obviously, the need to delegate powers and authorities. 

But there are some powers and authorities that you cannot delegate. 

And you have been an ardent advocate for the Patriot Act. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. You support it, you have come here, and you 

have testified, correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And you have the power to review information 

regarding organizations and an individual to determine whether 

they are terrorists. And you have the power to detain those individuals. Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. Depending on, of course, always relying upon the 

recommendations, the analysis and views of——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I understand that. But you can delegate that decision-making process to the Deputy Attorney General, but you 

can’t delegate it to a U.S. attorney or anyone else. In the end, that 

is your decision to make, correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. And, of course, I am head of the department, and 

in the end I am responsible for——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I understand. 

Well, back in March of 2005 an individual by the name of Luis 

Posada Carriles entered this country illegally. He has had a long 

and rather dramatic history of violence and, in fact, has been convicted of acts of terrorism in other countries. 

The most famous charge, of course—and this is referenced in a 

series of FBI documents that are now in the public domain—is that 

he was implicated in the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner, resulting in the deaths of some 73 civilians. 

I am sure you are familiar with that. 

Mr. GONZALES. I am familiar with the news stories, yes, sir. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, let me ask you this: Have you reviewed 

this particular case? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am aware of this case. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And have you made, at any point in time, an assessment of whether this individual should be designated as a terrorist and detained? 

Mr. GONZALES. What I can say, Congressman, is that, of course, 

I am concerned about what I know. And we have taken steps in 

the courts to try——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I understand you have taken steps in courts, but 

I would appreciate a direct answer. 

Mr. GONZALES. What is the question? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Why have you not taken steps to designate Luis 

Posada Carriles as a terrorist, given the overwhelming information 

that exists in the public domain today? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, what I would like to do is go back 

and look at this case so I can give you an answer. I want to be totally accurate with you with respect to——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I understand. But this is your responsibility——

Mr. GONZALES. And I want to be careful about what I can say 

publicly. And so, again——

77

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I understand you have to careful. But at 

the same time, have you undertaken a review of this case, given 

the law authorizing you——

Mr. GONZALES. I am aware of the circumstances of this case. But 

I am also aware that there are still matters and actions ongoing 

within the department that have not been completed. And I don’t 

want to say anything that would in any way jeopardize that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, what we have now, given the decision that 

was rendered this past week, is we have Mr. Posada Carriles a free 

man in this country. You are familiar with that. 

Mr. GONZALES. I am aware of the judge’s decision. We obviously 

disagree. We are making estimates about what to do. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, let me reclaim my time, and let me read 

a finding of the court that I find particularly disturbing, and I 

would be interested in your response. 

This is the judge, now. ‘‘In addition to engaging in fraud, deceit 

and trickery, this court finds that the government’s tactics in this 

case are so grossly shocking and so outrageous, to violate the universal sense of justice. As a result, this court is left with no choice 

but to dismiss this indictment.’’

Now, in my previous life, I also was a prosecutor. I have never 

in my 22 years as a prosecutor read that kind of language coming 

from a court. 

Mr. GONZALES. May I just say that I respectfully disagree with 

the judge? And because this is a matter that is still pending, I am 

not going to otherwise comment on her comments. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Right. 

Well, let me go back again to the earlier question that I posed, 

that the designation by yourself of Luis Posada Carriles as a terrorist does not require, under the Patriot Act, an act which you 

have supported and this Administration has advocated for, does not 

require any judicial review. 

Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think that is a fair statement, Congressman. 

But, again, with respect to your specific question as to why hasn’t 

this happened, I need more information. I would be happy to hopefully get back——

Mr. DELAHUNT. With all due respect, Mr. Attorney General, as 

my colleague from California said, the buck stops with you on this 

one. 

Mr. GONZALES. I understand. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. This is not susceptible to being delegated anywhere else. And I would hope you would take a hard look now. 

Let me ask you this——

Mr. CONYERS. The time of the gentleman has expired, regretfully. 

Darrell Issa, the gentleman from California, is recognized. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General Gonzales, it goes without saying, and I am sure 

you are well aware of it at this point, that I have been a critic of 

the former U.S. attorney in San Diego, Carol Lam, who was terminated. 

And I was a critic not because she wasn’t a fine prosecutor, as 

a matter of fact, not because she didn’t take on big cases—she did 

that—but because of the exclusion of any reasonable prosecution of 

78

coyotes, people who traffic illegally in human beings, people who 

very well would bring terrorists into our country. 

And, in addition to that, I am very aware that she willfully failed 

to prosecute gun crimes in any number similar to the rest of the 

country or the rest of California. 

Having said that—and I am going to ask you an off-the-cuff question—are you aware of who Antonio Lopez was in that district? 

Mr. GONZALES. Is that his full name, Congressman? 

Mr. ISSA. He has a middle name. I apologize. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I mean, I don’t——

Mr. ISSA. He trafficked 20 times and was arrested and not prosecuted by Carol Lam. On the 21st time, we sent to your predecessor a letter, signed by 19 Members of Congress——

Mr. GONZALES. I am now aware—I recall him, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. And we did so as a form of political pressure to say, 

‘‘We want this type of prosecution. We believe the President stands 

for this. And Attorney General Ashcroft failed to take action. Carol 

Lam failed to take action.’’

So, it is not without some special interest in this that I believe 

that the policies of this President were, in some cases, poorly executed by U.S. attorneys. 

And I am here today not to support your management capabilities or how much you delegated—I think you have already apologized for not having a better management system in place. I think 

you have already apologized for the fact that U.S. attorneys may 

have, in many cases, not been through the normal process of review—‘‘You are not doing this; you have to do better.’’ I think we 

have all read e-mails that indicate that that may not have been 

done very well. 

But I am going to ask you the basis question, which is, if you 

continue to serve for 20 more months at the pleasure of the President, which I believe you will, will you, in fact, not be gun-shy as 

a result of what happens here today? 

And if you have a U.S. attorney who is not implementing the 

stated public policies of this President, will you take any and all 

measures necessary to make sure they are aware and they are supportive of the stated policies of this present Administration? 

Mr. GONZALES. Contrary to being gun-shy, this process is somewhat liberating in terms of going forward. 

No, believe me, I think it is clear to the American people what 

I expect of U.S. attorneys. The President is accountable to the 

American people, and his priorities and policies can only be implemented through people like myself and the United States attorneys. 

What I need to do a better job of is making sure that I communicate with U.S. attorneys where I think that they are falling 

short. And if I have concerns about their performance or any thing 

else about what is going on in their district, we need to do a better 

job communicating those concerns to the United States attorneys. 

Mr. ISSA. General Gonzales, I would ask that you follow up for 

the record with some of the steps you are going to take to provide 

better guidance to 93 U.S. attorneys. And I look forward to seeing 

those. 

79

Let me follow up with, I think, the fair balance for some of the 

things I have heard here today. 

You weren’t here at the beginning of this Administration as the 

Attorney General, but you are aware of the termination of the previous U.S. attorneys at the beginning of this Administration. Do 

you recall the number that were terminated? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, eventually all of the United States attorneys were terminated. 

And what was unusual about that is that normally they are staggered over a period of time. And as I recall, in connection with the 

previous Administration, they were actually more compressed. And 

so, the concern there is it is much more disruptive. It is a greater 

shock to the system when you do it all together at one time. 

But having people removed over a staggered period of time is 

something that has occurred before. 

Mr. ISSA. So under this Administration, 93 U.S. attorneys were 

replaced. Some quit on day one; some were asked to leave shortly 

thereafter; some were kept on for transition purposes. 

And that was done in order to do the best job you could, in spite 

of the fact every one of them was a Democrat political appointee. 

Mr. GONZALES. That is correct. And quite frankly, you know, at 

the beginning of an Administration, we weren’t prepared to immediately nominate 93 new individuals. And so, it would take a period 

of time. I think it is a matter of good management and judgment. 

It would take some time before we were prepared to do that. 

Mr. ISSA. And I applaud this Administration for doing it. 

I might note that under President Clinton, 92 out of 93 were terminated immediately. 

And just in the remaining time, how do you think that the earlier Administration’s immediate termination of 92 out of 93 affected 

morale and capability of doing the job versus the technique that 

this Administration employed? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I don’t want to comment on that, other than 

to say that I think it is a better system to do it on a staggered 

term, quite frankly, again, because it is less of a shock to the system. We were not prepared to immediately, you know, to nominate 

93 individuals. So that was the way we felt was the best way 

to——

Mr. ISSA. And I applaud this Administration for being less partisan at the beginning of its Administration, able to try to put justice ahead of partisan behavior. 

Thank you, Mr. General. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, 

Mr. Rick Boucher. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do not 

have questions this afternoon. But I would be pleased to yield the 

5 minutes allotted to me to you, Mr. Chairman, if you have questions. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman. 

Attorney General Gonzales, let me follow up on a question that 

has occurred here. Since the date of the firings on December 7, 

2006, have you discussed this matter with President Bush? 

80

Mr. GONZALES. What I can say is we have had a few discussions, 

generally, where he has given me words of encouragement. But not 

as to substance. 

Mr. CONYERS. So there has been some discussion, is that fair to 

say? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, there has been some, but, again, primarily, 

Mr. Chairman, where the President has given me words of encouragement. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, you have already indicated that you talked 

to Mr. Karl Rove about the voter fraud matter in New Mexico in 

October of 2006. 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure that I said it was 

in October. I think it was in the fall of 2006. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. Do you have information on whether 

Karl Rove or any other White House staff member helped get Mr. 

Iglesias on the termination list, either through Ms. Goodling, who 

was liaison to the White House, or anyone else that might be White 

House-like-liaison? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have no personal knowledge, Mr. Chairman. I 

don’t recall now, thinking back, whether or not there is anything 

in the documents. I am not sure that I have any personal knowledge outside the documents. 

Mr. CONYERS. If you review that, we will be sending you further 

inquiries about all the matters here. I wish you would take a close 

look at that. 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. 

Now, we have already learned that Karl Rove has been contacted 

by prominent New Mexico Republicans to try to remove Mr. 

Iglesias as the U.S. attorney because of concerns about the voter 

fraud matter. 

Mr. Rove talked to you about the voter fraud matter in New 

Mexico in the fall. Right? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is my recollection. Not just New Mexico, but 

also, as I recall, Philadelphia as well. 

Mr. CONYERS. A couple other places. All right. 

And Mr. Iglesias appears on the termination list in October or 

November——

Mr. GONZALES. I believe it was Election Day, November. 

Mr. CONYERS. It was November. Thank you. 

Well, now, if we start following these bread crumbs, it suggests 

that there could have been some connection between the discussions between yourself and Mr. Rove and Mr. Iglesias hitting the 

door, as an ex-employee. 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, you have more bread crumbs than 

I do, quite frankly, because you have had the opportunity to speak 

directly to other fact witnesses at the Department of Justice. I was 

not surprised to see Mr. Iglesias recommended to me, based upon 

previous conversations that I had had with Senator Domenici. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, you may have yet more bread crumbs than 

I, sir, because you were the one that talked to Karl Rove. That is 

a pretty big bread crumb. 

Mr. GONZALES. I have a lot of conversations with Mr. Rove, Mr. 

Chairman. I have no recollection that Mr. Rove ever recommended 

81

that Mr. Iglesias be terminated. Again, what he was conveying to 

me were concerns that had been raised with him with respect to 

voter fraud prosecutions in these three jurisdictions. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, keep searching your memory on this, because this has taken on quite a bit of significance and importance, 

as you can understand. 

Mr. GONZALES. I will continue searching my memory, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Randy Forbes, please, of Virginia? 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Attorney General, thank you for your patience in being 

here today. It is sometimes interesting to me, because I have seen 

hundreds and thousands of press releases going out, attacking you. 

We have had all kinds of hearings like this. We had a little demonstrations out there. And then Members of this Committee will 

get up and question you about why people might have some questions about your credibility and your ability to lead in the country, 

even after seeing all of that generated against you. 

Second thing is, it was interesting to me earlier on, when Ms. 

Sa ́nchez was asking questions, she made this statement. She says 

her words get turned around by this Committee. And if we would 

turn around the words of a Member of this Committee, heaven only 

knows what we might do with some of our witnesses. 

And then it was interesting because within 5 minutes of her 

statement there was a big inconsistency as to what she said just 

5 minutes before. And sometimes we are asking you to remember 

things that you might have said or conversations that you had 

months before. 

But I was real interested with the line of questioning that my 

good friend from California asked, and I would just like to ask you 

this again. The total number of employees that you have under 

your——

Mr. GONZALES. Within the department about 110,000 people. 

Mr. FORBES. How much? 

Mr. GONZALES. One-hundred-and-ten-thousand. 

Mr. FORBES. And of those, how many attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. Ten-thousand to 15,000. 

Mr. FORBES. Ten-thousand to 15,000. 

And one of the things that we had recently, we had a hearing 

in New Orleans about some of the crime activity that was down 

there. We found out a staggering statistic: that the State attorney 

down there, that there was apparently only 7 percent of the individuals that were arrested ended up going to jail. 

And if we found that statistic and we found that we had had a 

President who was elected to go after crime and anybody on this 

Committee contacted you and said, ‘‘We just think that 7 percent 

of the individuals arrested would not be satisfactory,’’ would that 

be an appropriate thing for us to raise to you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Oh, no question about it. 

Mr. FORBES. And if you had such an attorney like that, would it 

be an appropriate thing for you to tell him if that didn’t change, 

that he may be removed, even if he was a good attorney and a competent attorney? 

82

Mr. GONZALES. Of course. 

Mr. FORBES. And what we did also find out in that same hearing 

that we had down in New Orleans was that the people under 

charge, the U.S. attorney down there was actually having between 

93.5 and 99 percent conviction rates. So they had done a good job. 

But if you hadn’t have taken those steps, we would have you before us and we would be asking you those questions why. So we 

want to compliment you for that job. 

The other thing is, some of us are concerned about what we see 

with gangs across the country, and the rise in gangs. And if you 

sat down and made policy decisions that you wanted to have U.S. 

attorneys go after networks of gangs, as opposed to just waiting 

until individual gang crimes took place, would that be a fair thing 

for any Member of this Committee to raise to you and say, we 

think your U.S. attorneys need to be doing that? 

Mr. GONZALES. I would be very interested in hearing your views 

about gangs. It is a serious issue in our country. And I think we 

ought to be, and we are, focused on it. 

Mr. FORBES. And you are. And if your U.S. attorneys were not, 

would that be appropriate thing for you—even if they were competent attorneys and good attorneys. But if they weren’t going after 

gangs in the direction that you felt appropriate, from an administrative point of view, would that be reason to make a change in 

that U.S. attorney’s office? 

Mr. GONZALES. If the U.S. attorney—now, of course, we would 

endeavor to find out, okay, what are the reasons why? We ought 

to have a conversation with that U.S. attorney. And if the reasons 

aren’t legitimate, of course it would be appropriate. 

Mr. FORBES. And if you didn’t, we would bring you back for a 

hearing and we would be criticizing you for that. 

One of the other big things that many of us have been concerned 

about is pornography and child pornography, and especially pornography on that Internet. If you had U.S. attorneys that weren’t 

going after that in the manner that you felt appropriate, that some 

of us felt appropriate, and that wasn’t getting prosecuted, would it 

be appropriate for us to raise those issues with you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I would be interested in hearing your views 

about that. 

Mr. FORBES. And if we did, and you felt those U.S. attorneys, 

even if they were competent, were not prosecuting those obscenity 

cases in the manner that you felt they needed to be prosecuted, 

would that be reason for you to be able to remove those U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. It would be. I would give the same answer. You 

know, in hindsight, looking back, I would like to try to find out the 

reasons why. And if there aren’t good reasons, then I think——

Mr. FORBES. Even if they were a competent attorney, if they 

weren’t moving in that direction. 

The other big thing—and you have testified before us, correctly 

so, that our number-one espionage problem in this country was 

with China. And if we had U.S. attorneys that weren’t prosecuting 

that in what we felt was an appropriate manner, would that be appropriate for us to raise that kind of issue with you? 

83

Mr. GONZALES. I would always be interested in hearing about the 

concerns and views of Congress. 

Mr. FORBES. And if they didn’t modify that and they weren’t 

going after those espionage cases, would that be a reason for you 

then to make a change with the U.S. attorney’s office? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. FORBES. Now, the other concern that I have, quite honestly, 

is—you have been very patient in being here with us today. You 

have got a lot of your staff members there. 

How are these investigations impacting your ability and the office’s ability to go after some of these other concerns that we have, 

whether it is child pornography, gangs, China espionage? It is taking a lot of your time. How are you balancing those? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I have to balance it. Because obviously, this 

has raised some issues, some concerns of Congress. I have an obligation to try to reassure Congress that nothing improper happened 

here. 

But on the other hand, I also have an obligation to the American 

people. They expect me to continue to make sure this country is 

safe from terrorism, that our neighborhoods are safe and our kids 

are safe. And so, we have got to somehow make that work. 

I am not going to say that this hasn’t been somewhat of a distraction. But I think the department has remained focused on 

doing the job the American people expect. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Chairman 

of the Intellectual and Property Rights Committee, Howard Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Attorney General, I just thought I would make one brief 

comment and then yield my time to my colleague from California. 

I only know one of the U.S. attorneys that was asked to resign, 

the gentleman from Washington, Mr. McKay. And I got to know 

him because he was an appointee of President Bush’s father to the 

Legal Services Corporation. 

I believe that when I hear what appeared to me to be the 

flimsiest of reasons given to justify the decision to ask him to resign, and put that in the context of the statements of the Deputy 

Attorney General under your predecessor or under you, Mr. Comey, 

regarding his performance in that job, I believe the Justice Department comments about this gentleman’s qualities and his performance do a discredit to you, unless they are rebutted by you. 

Because my firm belief, as confirmed by Deputy Attorney General Comey, is that this was an excellent public servant, one of the 

best you had, performing at a quality that every American should 

be proud of. 

And with those comments, I yield to the gentlelady, Ms. Sa ́nchez. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. Gonzales, I would like to pick up on a new line of questioning here. We have had several people come and be interviewed 

by the Committee and also come to present their testimony in 

hearings. 

And in his written responses to questions from the Subcommittee 

on Commercial and Administrative Law, Daniel Bogden mentioned 

84

that he had a conversation with Deputy Attorney General Paul 

McNulty regarding his termination, in which Mr. McNulty told him 

that the decision had come from ‘‘higher up.’’

To whom would Mr. McNulty, as Deputy Attorney General, have 

been referring? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, the decision was clearly mine, Congresswoman. It was my decision. I am accountable, and I accept responsibility for these decisions. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. And in his written responses to questions 

from the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, 

Mr. Bogden noted that Mr. McNulty told him that he had ‘‘limited 

input’’ in the final decision process to terminate the U.S. attorneys. 

Did you understand that the Deputy Attorney General had only 

‘‘limited input’’? Is that your understanding? 

Mr. GONZALES. It was my understanding or belief that Mr. 

Sampson was consulting with the senior leadership, including and 

in particular, the Deputy Attorney General, because the Deputy Attorney General is the direct report for these U.S. attorneys, including Mr. Bogden. 

But at the end of the day, no matter the level of consultation, 

what I know is that Mr. McNulty, the Deputy Attorney General, 

signed off on these names. And, in fact, on the day of Mr. 

Sampson’s testimony, I went to the Deputy Attorney General, I 

said, ‘‘Do you still stand behind these recommendations?’’ And he 

told me, ‘‘Yes,’’ and that, to me, is the most important thing. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay, well, if the Deputy Attorney General had 

only limited input—and that doesn’t seem to trouble you—who, to 

your knowledge, had more than merely limited input in the final 

decision process? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I mean, was that on your shoulders? Was that 

you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, Congresswoman, you probably have more 

information about that than I. What I——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I am asking for what you know. 

Mr. GONZALES. Okay, what I understood—and I only know 

from—I haven’t spoken with Mr. Sampson, I haven’t spoken with 

others, except the conversation that I just relayed to you with respect to the Deputy Attorney General. 

So I haven’t spoken with others within the department and 

asked them, ‘‘Okay, did you consult on this? How do you feel about 

this, these other witnesses?’’ Because we are all fact witnesses, I 

didn’t want to interfere in this investigation. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay, so you don’t know who had more than merely limited input in the firing decisions? 

Mr. GONZALES. It would be difficult for me to characterize the involvement——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. All right, I will accept that answer. 

In his written responses to a question from the Subcommittee on 

Commercial and Administrative Law, Mr. Bogden mentioned that 

Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer explained to 

him that the Administration had a short, 2-year window of opportunity to place an individual into his U.S. attorney position in 

85

order to enhance that individual’s resume for either future political 

or Federal bench positions. 

Do you believe that the Office of the U.S. Attorney is merely a 

vehicle through which to provide party loyalists with an opportunity to pad their resume and then use that as a launching pad 

for elective office or a judgeship? 

Mr. GONZALES. As head of the department, I would say no, but 

there would be nothing improper in doing so. Again, these are——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you think it is a good practice? I mean——

Mr. GONZALES. As head of the department, I would say——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ [continuing]. Improper but——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. I would care about making sure that 

we have good people in these positions, people that could discharge 

their responsibilities. 

And, again, for the American people to understand, you know, 

the success of the office does not live or die based upon the U.S. 

attorney. It depends on the career individuals that are there. Obviously, the U.S. attorney provides direction, helps with morale. But 

I just want to make sure people understand that if there is a 

change at the top, the work of the department continues. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. But just for clarification, it wouldn’t bother you if 

they used it as a vehicle with which to——

Mr. GONZALES. No, I didn’t say that it wouldn’t bother me. What 

I am saying is——

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Would that trouble you, then? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, it would depend on the person coming in. I would want to make sure we have someone that could do 

a good job as a U.S. attorney. And so, yes, that would——

Mr. CONYERS. Time has expired. Please finish your comment. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I thank the gentleman. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman 

from Indiana, Mike Pence. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Chairman. 

And, General Gonzales, welcome to the Committee. I am very 

grateful for your service to the country. 

Mr. GONZALES. Thank you. 

Mr. PENCE. And I especially want to take this opportunity to congratulate you and the Justice Department on the interdiction of six 

suspects earlier this week, apprehended in connection with a 

planned terrorist attack on Fort Dix. 

You have mentioned several times through your testimony about 

the primary focus of your position being protecting people of the 

United States. And I am grateful for that specific example. 

I also want to thank you for the admissions and the candor and 

the humility that you have reflected today. It seems to me there 

is an overarching principle here, that the President has the authority to be served by whomever he pleases in his Administration and, 

frankly, that he is able—it isn’t often repeated, so I will try and 

repeat it—he is able to dismiss officials for any reason or for no 

reason at all. But he is not at liberty, in fairness to all my colleagues, he is not at liberty to dismiss persons for wrong reasons. 

And it seems to me, your testimony today reiterates the point 

that, while there were administrative errors that you have been 

86

candid about, that at present, I, as a public servant, have not seen 

evidence of wrongdoing. 

And I appreciate you making that distinction again in this public 

forum, repeatedly. 

And I think it gets a little bit lost in the public debate here, the 

distinction between errors and wrongdoing. There may be consensus that errors were made, and a consensus that you share, but 

I have not seen evidence of wrongdoing or wrong motives in connection with these terminations. 

But I appreciate the willingness of the department to cooperate 

so thoroughly in providing documents and facilitating witnesses before the Committee. 

You made a comment in your opening statement that I found 

provocative, on another topic. You said that it was part of the mission of the Justice Department to ‘‘preserve the public integrity of 

our public institutions.’’

And I wanted to call to your attention a legislation that my colleague, Congressman Rick Boucher, and I, with the original cosponsorship of a number of distinguished colleagues, including the 

Chairman of this Committee, that I think supports that same objective, of pursuing and promoting public integrity and public institutions. It is called the Free Flow of Information Act. We have 

talked about it very briefly in the past. A ‘‘federal media shield’’ is 

how it is referred to euphemistically. 

And while I believe it is among the principal objectives of the 

Justice Department to hold public people accountable and public 

institutions, I also believe that our founders intended that a free 

and independent press was actually the chief safeguard to public 

integrity. And, in fact, as a conservative, I believe that the only 

check on government power in real-time is a free and independent 

press. 

And there has been a progeny of cases over the last 15 years and 

in successive Administrations, particularly in independent counsel 

investigations, it seems to me, where there has been a rising tide 

of instances where reporters have faced threat of subpoena in Federal cases and, of course, in some cases reporters have been jailed 

or threatened with jail time to reveal confidential sources. 

The sponsors of this legislation, which I hasten to add also include a senior Member of this Committee, Mr. Howard Coble, we 

really believe that compelling reporters to testify and compelling 

reporters to reveal the identity of their confidential sources intrudes on the news gathering process but, more importantly, hurts 

the public interest. 

I would say the Free Flow of Information Act, General, is not 

about protecting reporters, it is about protecting the public’s right 

to know. 

I just wanted to gain your assurance, without asking you to comment in any significant way at this hearing, that—we have moved 

this legislation through various incarnations over the last 2 years, 

we have added more qualifications for national security, for trade 

secrets, for imminent threat of bodily harm. I would just like to 

have your assurance and that of your capable staff that as this legislation, I think, moves through this Committee in the months 

ahead, that your department, and particularly the Criminal DiviVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
87

sion, would work with us to find some way to put a stitch in this 

tear in the first amendment. 

And I would welcome your comments but, again, would not ask 

for you to comment substantively on legislation that you may or 

may not have yet reviewed. 

Mr. GONZALES. There is no Administration position on the legislation, as I recall. 

We have in the past opposed similar legislation, Congressman. I 

haven’t been convinced of the need for it, quite frankly. The department has only issued, I think, 19 media subpoenas for confidential 

sources since 1991. We have a very strong process in place that has 

been in place for 30 years with respect to how these get approved. 

I ultimately have to approve such a subpoena, and so we have 

been concerned in the past about the definitions, the broad scope, 

and perhaps that is something that could be dealt with through 

changes in the legislation. 

You have my commitment. I would be happy to work with you, 

so I will just leave it at that. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. Thank you. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. You are welcome. 

Mr. Robert Wexler, the gentleman from Florida? 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With your permission, Mr. Attorney General, I would like to follow the Chairman’s questions regarding Mr. Iglesias. 

If I understand it correctly, you testified that Karl Rove talked 

to you about voter fraud in New Mexico in fall 2006. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, New Mexico and two other jurisdictions. 

That is correct. 

Mr. WEXLER. Mr. Iglesias is selected for the termination list in 

early November 2006? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think on Election Day. Well, I don’t remember 

when he was selected. I wasn’t involved in that process. 

Mr. WEXLER. Right, it appears on the list. 

Mr. GONZALES. Looking at the documents, it appears he first appears on the list on Election Day. 

Mr. WEXLER. And it is your testimony you did not select Mr. 

Iglesias to be put on the list, correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. His name was brought forward to me, recommended along with others. 

Mr. WEXLER. Right. You did not select him. Did Mr. Sampson select him? 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Sampson was charged with coordinating this 

effort. 

Mr. WEXLER. He didn’t select him? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have not spoken with Mr. Sampson about this. 

Mr. WEXLER. Right. Did former Deputy Attorney General Mr. 

Comey, did he select them? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course, he wasn’t in the department at that 

time, so——

Mr. WEXLER. So he didn’t select them. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. I don’t think he selected them. 

Mr. WEXLER. That is right. Did Mr. McNulty select them? 

Mr. GONZALES. I haven’t asked that question to Mr. McNulty. 

88

Mr. WEXLER. Mr. McNulty told us he didn’t select them. 

Did Mr. Margolis select them? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, I haven’t spoken with Mr. Margolis. 

Mr. WEXLER. He didn’t select them. 

We have talked a lot about the President’s authority to have who 

he wants where. Did the President select Mr. Iglesias to be put on 

the termination list? 

Mr. GONZALES. No——

Mr. WEXLER. No, the President didn’t select him. 

Did the Vice President select him to put him, Mr. Iglesias, on the 

termination list? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. WEXLER. No. Okay. So the President didn’t, the Vice President didn’t, you, the Attorney General, didn’t. All of the assistant 

and former Deputy Attorney Generals didn’t put Mr. Iglesias on 

the termination list. 

So who did? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, what is important, Congressman, is that 

there was a consensus recommendation made to me. How he got 

on the list was less——

Mr. WEXLER. So a group of people put him on the list? 

Mr. GONZALES. What is less important is that I accepted a recommendation and I made the decision. I accept responsibility for 

the decision. 

Mr. WEXLER. No, no, you made a decision, according to yourself, 

as to accepting the termination list. But you have also said you 

didn’t put him on the list. So somebody else, other than you, other 

than the President, other than the Vice President, other than every 

Deputy Attorney General that has come to this Committee, put 

him on the list. 

But with all due respect, Mr. Attorney General, you won’t tell the 

American people who put Mr. Iglesias on the list to be fired. It is 

a national secret, isn’t it? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, if I knew the answer to that question, I would provide you the answer. I have not spoken with the 

individuals involved——

Mr. WEXLER. So you don’t know who put him on the list, Mr. 

Iglesias. Why was Mr. Iglesias put on the list by this mystery person? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, I wasn’t surprised to see Mr. 

Iglesias’s name recommended to me, based upon conversations that 

I had had with the senior senator from New Mexico. He had lost 

confidence in Mr. Iglesias. 

Let me just say, Mr. Iglesias’s story is a great one, it is the 

American dream, and there are many good things about his performance, and I very much admire him as a person. 

Mr. WEXLER. But you won’t tell the American people who put 

him on a list to terminate his employment. 

Mr. GONZALES. I accept responsibility for——

Mr. WEXLER. You accept responsibility for making the decision 

ultimately to accept the termination list, but you will not come 

forth and tell the American people who put Mr. Iglesias on the list 

to be fired. 

89

Mr. GONZALES. Out of respect for the integrity of this investigation and the investigations occurring at the Department of Justice, 

I have not made that inquiry with respect to other fact witnesses. 

Mr. WEXLER. But you were okay with firing them, but you won’t 

tell us who made the recommendation to fire them. 

Mr. GONZALES. I think I was justified in relying upon the senior 

leadership in the department, as I understand——

Mr. WEXLER. Do you know what Mr. Moschella told this Committee about why Mr. Iglesias was put on the list? He said the rationale was because he was an absentee landlord. Are you familiar 

with that? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am familiar with Mr. Moschella’s public testimony. 

Mr. WEXLER. Right. He delegated authority, apparently, Mr. 

Iglesias. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, let me just say this: I did not make the decision with respect to Mr. Iglesias——

Mr. WEXLER. I know. You haven’t made any decision. You have 

been very clear about that. 

Mr. GONZALES. I accept full responsibility for this. 

Mr. WEXLER. But you won’t tell us who put Mr. Iglesias on that 

list? 

Mr. GONZALES. You would have a better opportunity to access——

Mr. WEXLER. I would. 

Mr. GONZALES. The Committee would, the Congress. 

Mr. WEXLER. Are you the Attorney General? Do you run the Department of Justice? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I do. And it has been frustrating to me to 

not be able to ask these kinds of questions. But I want to respect 

the integrity of this investigation and the investigations going on 

within the department. If we all came up here, and had the 

same——

Mr. WEXLER. When did the investigation in the department 

start? 

Mr. GONZALES. If we all came up here——

Mr. WEXLER. It started after they were fired. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. Six of us, and had the same testimony about events that occurred over 2 years, you would look at 

that with great suspicion. You would wonder——

Mr. WEXLER. Sir——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. Have you guys talked to each other 

about facts? 

Mr. WEXLER. Sir, you know them, and it has nothing to do with 

an investigation that is occurring after these people were fired. Because you know the answer before they were fired, because you 

know who put them on the list but you won’t tell us. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Tom Feeney of Florida is now recognized. 

Mr. FEENEY. Well, it is always fun to follow my passionate Florida colleague. 

Mr. Attorney General, thank you for being here today. And my 

colleague asked some questions that deserve answers, especially 

90

given the confusion. You have admitted botched P.R., botched administrative procedures. 

But are the questions that my friend from south Florida just 

asked, are they the very questions that the Justice Department’s 

Office of Professional Responsibility, along with the department’s 

Office of Inspector General, is asking as we speak? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is certainly my understanding. I mean, we 

have asked them to look into the allegations of any wrongdoing. If 

in fact there were management missteps, you know, what were 

they and what, you know, recommendations about what we can do 

better going forward? 

Mr. FEENEY. And you are not interfering with that investigation 

in any way? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have recused myself from those investigations. 

[Laughter.] 

Again, because I don’t want there to be any kind of appearance 

of impropriety, of improper influence. And so I have recused myself 

from oversight of those investigations. 

Mr. FEENEY. Now, the suggestion is you ought to be micromanaging and involved in all those details. But my guess is you would 

probably get some criticism if you were——

Mr. GONZALES. I would be criticized if, in fact, I was doing such 

a thing, I suspect. 

Mr. FEENEY. Well, one way or the other, it is welcome to public 

life. 

We have spent extraordinary time asking the same questions of 

you and many other witnesses. I think they are important questions, and I think that we will all be expecting answers. 

It is important to ask these questions, but it is not important to 

ask the same questions to the same people ad infinitum. But I will 

do one more and then we will move on to some important things 

that the department is doing. 

Are you aware of any evidence whatever that might tend to demonstrate that people were asked to resign specifically in order to 

interfere with ongoing investigations for partisan purposes? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, we can say ‘‘might tend to demonstrate’’—

those are words that make me uncomfortable. [Laughter.] 

What I can say is, I know that is not the reason why I accepted 

the recommendations. And I am not aware, based upon my review 

of the documents, based upon the testimony that I have seen, the 

public testimony, that people were motivated and coming forward 

with recommendations for improper, for partisan political reasons. 

Mr. FEENEY. There are an awful lot of critical tests that your 

agency is asked to deal with. 

I think, first, among equals, personally, in the environment we 

live in, of counterintelligence and especially and counterterrorism, 

I would like to know roughly what portion of your personnel and 

resources, in today’s environment, is dedicated to making sure we 

don’t have an attack on Fort Dix or anywhere else in this country, 

by investigating through counterintelligence and counterterror operations. 

Roughly, what portion of the——

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know if I can break it down in terms of 

assets or resources. I have made it clear that it is the number-one 

91

priority for the Department of Justice. And it is clearly the number-one priority for the director of the FBI. 

And I want to thank Congress for the resources that have been 

provided to, in particular, the FBI to ensure that this country is 

safer. 

Mr. FEENEY. Well, and historically—by the way, there is a great 

book, if you haven’t read it, that Justice Rehnquist wrote back in 

1989, I believe, before major terror attacks, talking about the balance between civil liberties, which is very important to me, called 

‘‘All the Laws But One,’’ quoting Lincoln in his famous—civil liberties as opposed to the security needs. And that balance tends to 

change based on the perceived and the real threat. 

And following up on that, I have to tell you, Attorney General, 

that I was one that has been a strong advocate of the Patriot Act 

and some of the other resources and powers that you alluded to in 

your last response. 

And so, I was very discouraged when we found that there were 

thousands of mistakes and errors made. I will note that the inspector general’s report determined that there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing by the FBI. But I think we could say that there 

was some very sloppy work done in complying with the NSL authority. 

I would like to know, just very briefly, what the new, recently developed guidelines for the FBI regarding its NSL authority are? 

Can you describe some of the major differences in about a 

minute——

Mr. GONZALES. Well, our work there is not complete. The director 

is thinking seriously about having a compliance and audit unit to 

go back in and ensure that people are doing their jobs. 

We are looking at the whole question of the role of lawyers, quite 

frankly, in connection with this issue, whether or not there should 

continue to be a direct report to the special agents in charge. Or 

maybe it should be the direct report to the general counsel. 

We are looking at a new computer system to have better accountability in terms of the number of NSLs. We need to do a better job 

with respect to our reporting to Congress. I know that the director 

has required additional training, better education about the use of 

NSLs. 

But more fundamentally, the Inspections Division has gone back 

in to try to get a better feel about are there additional problems 

with respect in particular to exigent letters. The I.G. has gone back 

in to do additional looks. And the National Security Division and 

our privacy officer is watching carefully about what is going on. 

I have asked the inspector general of the department to come 

back now, I think in 2 months, and give me a report about how 

the FBI is doing. I take this very seriously——

Mr. FEENEY. We will get a report when that has concluded? 

Mr. GONZALES. We will provide you the information as we learn 

about it. 

Mr. FEENEY. Thank you. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for his inquiry. 

The Chair recognizes Steve Cohen from Tennessee. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

92

Mr. Attorney General, I want to follow up a little bit on Congressman Wexler’s questions. You said you don’t know who put Mr. 

Iglesias on the list; is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is correct. 

Mr. COHEN. But you said you knew the President and the Vice 

President didn’t. How do you know they didn’t? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I just know that they would not do that. 

Mr. COHEN. Do you think Mr. Nulty or Mr. Sampson would have 

done it? Obviously, you think they could have done it. 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course. Look, I didn’t envision the President 

of the United States and the Vice President being involved in this 

process. What I——

Mr. COHEN. But you don’t know for a fact that they weren’t involved in the process through Ms. Miers or through Mr. Rove. You 

don’t know that. 

Mr. GONZALES. That is correct. That is correct. But I had no reason to believe that the White House—in fact, I know the White 

House has said publicly they were not involved in adding or deleting people from the list. That is what the White House has said 

publicly. 

Mr. COHEN. Right. And the White House asked you, as I understand it in your statement, you say here that Deputy Chief Kyle 

Sampson told you that the counsel to the President, Ms. Miers, inquired about replacing all 93 U.S. attorneys, and you both agreed 

that wouldn’t be a good idea, it would be disruptive and unwise. 

So at one point the White House wanted to replace all 93. So 

when they wanted to replace all 93, why do you think they 

wouldn’t want to replace eight? 

Mr. GONZALES. What I have testified also is that I don’t know 

whether or not Ms. Miers thought this was a good idea, whether 

or not this was even Ms. Miers’ idea. She raised this as an idea. 

We quickly said no——

Mr. COHEN. Did you ever talk to Ms. Miers, to Mr. Rove or to 

anyone else, or communicate to Ms. Miers or Mr. Rove or anyone 

else as to why they wanted to remove all 93 U.S. prosecutors? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have no recollection of having that kind of conversation with Ms. Miers or Mr. Rove. 

Mr. COHEN. And do you have any recollection of a letter to or 

from them? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t. But going back and looking at the documents, there was some e-mail traffic I think in late December of 

2004, early January of 2005, about a conversation involving Mr. 

Rove stepping into the counsel’s office about, what are we going to 

do about U.S. attorneys? 

And then there was a subsequent e-mail back from Mr. Sampson. 

It is all in the record and I don’t recall a conversation with Mr. 

Sampson during that period of time. This would have been during 

Christmas week, just 10 days or 2 weeks before my confirmation 

hearing, and so I have no recollection of that. 

But I do remember, as I have gone back and looking at the documents, there was some e-mail traffic about U.S. attorneys just before I became Attorney General. 

93

Mr. COHEN. These eight individuals who were fired, one of them 

was Mr. Cummins. Did you inquire into why Mr. Cummins was 

fired? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, when you asked did I inquire 

when, I mean, Mr. Cummins was asked——

Mr. COHEN. Why? Why? Not when, why? 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Cummins was asked to leave in June, June 

14, not December 7. He was not part of that group. And a change 

was desired by the White House because they had identified a wellqualified individual that they wanted to have as a United States 

attorney. 

Mr. COHEN. Who was the well-qualified individual? His name 

hasn’t surfaced yet. 

Mr. GONZALES. Tim Griffin was the person——

Mr. COHEN. Oh, he was well-qualified? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, he certainly had more—well, I don’t want 

to disparage Mr. Cummins, but, yes, if you look at——

Mr. COHEN. You are not disparaging Mr. Cummins. 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, if you look at his qualifications in terms 

of having prosecution experience, being in the JAG Corps, serving 

in Iraq, yes, I think he was a well-qualified individual. 

In fact, Mr. Cummins——

Mr. COHEN. But why was Mr. Cummins asked to leave? Because 

they wanted to put somebody else in? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. It is my understanding, I think that is a fair 

characterization. I might also add that——

Mr. COHEN. Then let me ask——

Mr. GONZALES. Can I finish my answer, Congressman—that in 

December, there was a newspaper article, I think The Arkansas 

Times, which indicated that Mr. Cummins was quoted as saying, 

you know, ‘‘I have got four kids, I have to pay for their college. 

They will be surprised if I don’t’’——

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. We have been through that. And Mr. 

Cummins said he didn’t intend to resign. 

You at one point said, as did your deputy, that all of these resignations are firings, were performance-related. Now, obviously Mr. 

Cummins was not performance-related. So what you said at that 

point was wrong. 

Mr. GONZALES. And I think I clarified that in my last Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. 

In fact, that was the reason for my anger in an e-mail that was 

on February 7, following the Deputy Attorney General’s testimony, 

is because I had confused in my mind Mr. Cummins being asked 

to leave on June 14 with the others being asked to leave on December 7. And what I was thinking about in my testimony was those 

individuals asked to leave on December 7 related to performance, 

and did not in my mind think about Mr. Cummins, who was asked 

to leave——

Mr. COHEN. Did you inquire as to why each of these eight individuals were asked to leave? 

Mr. GONZALES. I do not recall, Congressman, the conversation 

that occurred when the recommendations were brought to me. I am 

sure we had discussions about——

94

Mr. COHEN. Don’t you think that when an individual who is a 

public official, who is out there in the public line, who is an attorney whose reputation is so important to having their license to 

practice law, that they are asked to resign from a position that 

there should be a compelling reason and that you, as their appointed official, should ask and inquire why and realize and come 

to a belief that there is a compelling reason for them to be determined, and not just accept some mysterious group’s recommendation? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think a compelling-reason standard is much too 

high for those of us who are appointed by the President of the 

United States, and we serve at the pleasure of the United States. 

And we all understand that. We all know that, by statute, U.S. attorneys serve for 4 years. Thereafter they are holding over. These 

United States attorneys had served for 4 years. 

But no question about it, as a management function, yes, I think 

we should have done better in terms of communicating with them. 

We don’t owe them the jobs. But I do think that we owe them better. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman from Florida, Ric Keller? 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Attorney General, I have to apologize. I had to step out 

for a few minutes. I was here earlier. But we are also having a 

hearing that I was conducting with the secretary of education, 

Margaret Spellings, at the same time. 

Mr. Attorney General, the Bush administration has about 20 

months left on the clock. Tell me what your top two priorities are 

going to be over the next 20 months that you would like to accomplish. 

Mr. GONZALES. I will give you three. 

Mr. KELLER. Go ahead. 

Mr. GONZALES. I was on the South Lawn on September 11th 

when President Bush arrived. And he and I both knew then that 

after that our world had changed and that the priority of the law 

enforcement community would change. And so, moving forward, my 

top priority will continue to be making sure that America is safe. 

That is the first thing. 

Secondly, I don’t think it is possible for people to realize the 

American dream if they live in fear of gangs, they live in fear of 

drugs, they live in fear of violent crime. And so that is the second 

thing, doing what we can to ensure that violent crime is reduced. 

Finally, I wear this wristband given to me by Mark Lunsford. 

His daughter Jessica was killed by a sex offender. And it is a reminder of my commitment and my obligation to make sure that our 

kids are safe. 

Those are the things that I am going to be focused on. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

You have been through more public scrutiny, and probably some 

pain, in the last month, more than most people have in a lifetime. 

As a prominent Cabinet member, U.S. attorney, or U.S. Attorney 

General, you could leave today and make $1 million a year at a law 

firm pretty easily, but you are staying on and want to stay on. 

95

Is it because of your passion for those three things: violent crime, 

terrorism and getting after child predators? 

Mr. GONZALES. I got into public service because I wanted to do 

something where I could make a difference, a positive difference in 

people’s lives. I fundamentally, deep down, believe that I can continue to do so. 

If I don’t think that I can be effective as Attorney General, I will 

no longer continue to serve as Attorney General. I have got confidence and faith in the people that work in this department. And 

I think we can continue to serve, effectively, the American people. 

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Attorney General, when I am asked at town 

hall meetings about what is going on with this U.S. attorney situation and you, I tell folks back home that it can all be summarized, 

the microcosm of this whole, what the media calls a scandal, in one 

case: And that is the case of Carol Lam. 

Carol Lam was a talented lady, U.S. attorney from San Diego, 

who had successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham. She also is a 

lady who had some concerns with your department. I think she was 

91 out of 93 in firearms. And I learned, from going to San Diego 

and talking to folks that she had failed to prosecute alien smugglers, even those who had been arrested 20 times. 

Now, you let her go, or told her she was going to leave in December of 2006. And immediately we heard the allegation from some 

in the media and some Members of Congress that Carol Lam must 

have been fired because she prosecuted a public corruption case 

against Republican Duke Cunningham. 

Now, I went through and reviewed the documents, talked to people, including Carol Lam. And the timeline is crystal clear. The 

documents regarding her failure to prosecute alien smugglers, including those who had been arrested 20 times, began in Congress 

in February of 2004 with Darrell Issa, which is literally 16 months 

before the local San Diego Union-Tribune broke the very first story 

about the Duke Cunningham scandal, which shows me that it is 

literally impossible that that was an improper motive on your part 

or anyone else. 

So, let me ask you directly: Did you ask Carol Lam or any of the 

other U.S. attorneys to resign because they were prosecuting or investigating public corruption cases against Republicans? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. In fact, I am very, very proud of the work of 

the department in prosecuting public corruption cases. I don’t care 

whether or not we are talking about Republican or Democrat. We 

are doing our job. 

Mr. KELLER. Did anyone at the White House, including but not 

limited to the President, Karl Rove, Harriet Miers or Josh Bolten, 

ever come to you and say, ‘‘We want you to fire Carol Lam,’’ or any 

other U.S. attorney, ‘‘because they are going after a Republican 

congressman’’? 

Mr. GONZALES. They didn’t say it to me, and I am not aware of 

any such direction. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. 

I will yield my remaining time to Mr. Cannon. I think the gentleman would like to make a couple of points here. 

Mr. CANNON. Going back to Mr. Margolis—who, again, is a very 

senior career employee—and his view about the Griffin appointVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
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ment, I should say directly or indirectly. I also, to be fair to Griffin, 

his resume at the time I interviewed him looked better for the job 

than Cummins’ did when I interviewed him. 

Here was a guy who is not political, who is saying that Griffin 

was well-qualified. Remember, Griffin was in Iraq. He was in DOJ. 

He was a judge advocate general. And so we have lots of views on 

these issues that haven’t been out here yet, which indicate that at 

least in the case of Cummins we have some pretty good information about why he was supplanted. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I cede——

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, could I make one comment? 

It bothers me to have to disparage individuals and to be critical 

openly about people who worked for the department. And I just 

want to make a general observation that these are all very, very 

fine people. And they should be proud of their service. We should 

all be proud of the fact that they had the courage to engage in public service. And I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t otherwise 

appreciate the fine work that they did on behalf of the department. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, 

Hank Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Gonzales, you have led a distinguished career as a lawyer, 

law school professor, partner major Houston law firm, general 

counsel to then-Governor George Bush, a justice on Supreme Court 

of Texas, White House counsel to President George Bush. And now 

you have ascended to the responsibility of Attorney General of the 

United States. 

And in that connection, you hired as your top two aides Mr. Paul 

McNulty, the Deputy Attorney General—over 20 years of distinguished experience on the Federal and State levels, much of which 

was spent as a U.S. attorney. And your number-two man was an 

Associate Attorney General, also close to 20 years of distinguished 

experience, much of which has been spent as a U.S. attorney and 

an assistant U.S. attorney. 

Both of them, extensive trial experience and very well-equipped 

to handle the tasks of their office, as you are. 

But instead what you have done is delegated an extraordinary 

amount of power to two young, inexperienced aides, Ms. Monica 

Goodling and Mr. Kyle Sampson, neither one of whom had any 

trial experience, neither one of whom—I think Mr. Sampson may 

have tried one case in his life—and neither one of whom had any 

law enforcement background whatsoever. 

But yet you signed on March 1st of 2006 a secret order delegating the power to those two inexperienced aides to hire and fire 

major career employees of the Justice Department, including the 

Criminal Division, including U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys. And you did not even inform your Deputy Attorney General and your Associate Attorney General that you had delegated 

that power. 

Can you tell us why you did that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. There is a lot there, Congressman. 

The actual decision in terms of reserving to the Attorney General 

certain personnel decisions was actually made through regulation 

97

which became public in February. And as a result of that change 

in the regulations reserving the authority on certain personnel——

Mr. JOHNSON. Those were put through at your insistence, correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You changed the rule so that you could give the 

power to hire and fire to Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling. 

Mr. GONZALES. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I don’t want you to take all my time. I just 

want you to answer those questions. 

Mr. GONZALES. But I want to give you a complete answer, Congressman. 

And so, there was nothing secret about the change in terms of 

reserving to the Office of the Attorney General that kind of authority. Now——

Mr. JOHNSON. You did not let your Deputy Attorney General 

know about it, did you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, they were ultimately told—as I understand 

it, they weren’t told through the executive process, because my understanding——

Mr. JOHNSON. You said not to tell your Associate Attorney General? 

Mr. GONZALES. My understanding is that they were told of the 

change. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You didn’t tell them yourself? 

Mr. GONZALES. I did not have the specific conversation with him. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, let me ask you this question: What exactly 

did Monica Goodling do insofar as her job as White House liaison? 

What employment decisions did she make about career and noncareer personnel in the Department of Justice? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, let me just say that she discharged—her responsibility was to discharge the normal responsibilities for a White House liaison. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Including making decisions about hiring and firing 

career and noncareer personnel for the Department of Justice? Correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, with respect to political appointees——

Mr. JOHNSON. Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. That would certainly be appropriate. 

Now, with respect to career——

Mr. JOHNSON. I mean, is it correct that she——

Mr. GONZALES. Was involved in? 

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. Was involved in making hiring and 

firing decisions pertaining to DOJ career and noncareer personnel? 

Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. Let me just say that she was involved to political 

appointees and with respect to career appointees, there has been 

some fairly serious allegations made with respect to her role in 

that. And has already been made public because of the seriousness 

of those allegations, that matter has been referred for an investigation, so——

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. Did Mr. Sampson——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. I am not going to comment. 

98

Mr. JOHNSON. Did Mr. Sampson have the same power, as well, 

under your memorandum? 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Sampson would have the same—he was included as part of the delegation. You described——

Mr. JOHNSON. And did he, in fact, play a part in making personnel decisions about Department of Justice career and noncareer 

personnel? 

Mr. GONZALES. Certainly with respect to noncareer. I can’t sit 

here today and tell you——

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. And were either one of them part of the 

team that put together the list which included the eight attorneys 

who were let go on December 7, 2006? 

Mr. GONZALES. No question about it. I had charged Mr. Sampson 

with organizing and coordinating the effort to gathering information and present to me recommendations. Ms. Goodling assisted 

Mr. Sampson in the discharge or a wide variety of responsibilities, 

and if you look at——

Mr. JOHNSON. And you don’t know of anyone else who assisted 

them? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, if you look at the e-mail traffic and, from 

what I understand, from public testimony, obviously there were 

people who provided input and information. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Who would that have been? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, I think, again, based upon looking at the 

documents, obviously, issues relating to Ms. Lam were raised with 

me, and I believe that was done by Mr. Bill Mercer. My understanding is that in fact Mr. Comey was in fact consulted about his 

views about U.S. attorneys. 

And so, I mean, if you look at the public testimony and if you 

look at the documentation, there were people that were being consulted. They may not have known that they were providing information which would then form the basis of some kind of list. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Can you name of the people who were involved in 

the compilation of the list? 

Mr. CONYERS. The time has run out. Did you want to finish the 

response, Mr. Attorney General? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Can you name—well, if I might get a response to 

you to that last question—can you name any others who were involved in the decisions to put those eight names on the list? 

Mr. CONYERS. Could you——

Mr. JOHNSON. Are you going to answer me or what? 

Mr. CONYERS. No, he is not answering because your time has expired. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. But I recommend that you put it in written communication to the Attorney General. 

From Arizona, Mr. Trent Franks, the gentleman is recognized at 

this time. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Judge Gonzales, for coming down here. I know 

that life has been kind of challenging for you lately. [Laughter.] 

And I want you to know that I personally appreciate your service 

to the country. You have a profoundly difficult job. 

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And, you know, I was touched by the three priorities that you 

mentioned, with your job, in being able to combat terrorism and 

being able to combat gang violence and to protect our children from 

some of the tragedies that occur out there. And I want you to know 

I believe that those are very noble aspirations. 

It occurs to me that, every day that we have you down at this 

place, that we are detracting from those vital missions in this country. 

And so, if indeed our effort here is to find corruption in the Justice Department, where justice itself is being undermined and 

where some of the potential accusations here are that your department is undermining justice in specific cases by hiring and firing 

U.S. attorneys, then I think that our efforts here are justified. 

But if indeed they are politically motivated or not to that end, 

then we become guilty of the very thing that has been thrown in 

your direction. 

So I want to ask a very direct question. You know, we understand that there is a difference between political motivations and 

motivations to thwart a criminal investigation or to affect a particular case or to undermine justice. 

Now, in this country, we have partisan elections. And when we 

put a President in office, we expect that person to appoint people 

that reflect the philosophy that we voted for. That comes with the 

job. I mean, Mr. Clinton fired all the U.S. attorneys. So we expect 

that. 

And political motivations, even though they are tossed about like 

this, something bad here, those are part of our system and they are 

intrinsic to its survival. 

On the other hand, if someone in your position or in your department should deliberately try to intimidate or fire a U.S. attorney 

in order to affect a particular case or undermine justice or prevent 

justice from occurring in a particular case, that is a crime, and that 

is wrong. 

So I ask you very directly, sir: Have you ever fired anyone or 

caused anyone to be fired or influenced anyone to be fired on the 

basis of trying to affect a particular criminal case or investigation, 

or to thwart justice in any way? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you know of anyone in the Administration or 

your department that has done either of those things? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. FRANKS. See, I think, Mr. Chairman, that is indeed the job 

of this Committee, is to ask those very direct questions. 

And, of course, time and justice has a way of prevailing. And the 

truth of those answers—of which I have to say to you I have seen 

no evidence that either of those things have occurred, before this 

Committee or otherwise—but time will probably bear that out one 

way or the other. 

But I just wanted to make sure that we understood what we are 

all about here. And your job is protecting this country. And while 

we are interviewing you like this, it cannot possibly help but detract from what you are trying to do to protect this country and to 

pursue those three priorities that you mentioned earlier. 

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So I guess one of the things I would like to do, Judge Gonzales, 

is to ask you, what do you think is the public’s greatest 

misperception of the Department of Justice at this time, given all 

the circumstances that have occurred here? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, given some of the statements that have 

been made, the notion that the department has been politicized. 

As I indicated in response to an earlier question, there are only 

a few hundred political appointees. There are tens of thousands of 

career individuals. The department is great because of the career 

individuals. They deserve all the credit for the success of the department. 

And it would be pretty darn difficult, if not impossible, to make 

a decision for political reasons and expect to get away with it. If, 

in fact, a career investigator or prosecutors felt that we were making decisions for political reasons to interfere with a case, you 

would probably hear about it. We would probably read about it in 

the papers, because they take this stuff very seriously, as they 

should. We expect them to. 

And, again, I just want to emphasize to the American public that 

the work of the department continues, irrespective of who the Attorney General is, United States attorney is. It continues because 

of the great career people in the department. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, Judge Gonzales, let me just thank you for 

your service to this country and the cause of human freedom. 

And with that, I would like to defer here the rest of my time to 

Steve King. 

Mr. CONYERS. Twenty-nine seconds remain, Steve. 

Mr. KING. I thank the gentleman from Arizona, the constitutionalist quodetile himself, and the Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I, like all Members of this Committee, are interested in maintaining our credibility. And I have an article here 

from the Wall Street Journal dated April 7, 2007, that and associated articles, and I ask unanimous consent to introduce them into 

the record. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The articles follow:]

101

ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS SOURCES, SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE STEVE

KING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA, AND MEMBER, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


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Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank the Attorney General for his testimony here 

today. 

And I appreciate the tone and the tenor of the gentleman from 

Arizona. And we all are concerned about the safety of the American 

people, and it has been extraordinarily safe since September 11th, 

given what we anticipated. 

And I would yield back to the gentleman from Arizona. 

Mr. FRANKS. And I just thank the gentleman for coming. 

Mr. CONYERS. Members of the Committee, we are trying to finish 

up as close to 2:30 as possible. And so the Chair is going to be very 

strict with the time from this point on. 

And we recognize the gentleman from California, Brad Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

The Administration has put forward various theories under 

which anyone, even American citizens, could be arrested without 

being charged with a crime. One of these is the theory that you 

could be classified as an enemy combatant. 

Are there any American citizens being held today for over a 

month who have been denied habeas corpus or access to an attorney? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t believe so, Congressman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Wouldn’t it be your duty as Attorney General to 

make sure that their rights to habeas corpus were honored? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, but, you know, there are a lot of people in 

this government, and sometimes people do things that they 

shouldn’t be. And I am not suggesting that that is occurring here, 

but you are asking me, you know, a question that I hadn’t really 

thought about. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Is there any agency answerable to the—well, is 

there any part of the Department of Justice——

Mr. GONZALES. We are all answerable to the Constitution and to 

our laws, yes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Now, are there any U.S. citizens being held now 

by foreign governments or foreign organizations that are without 

access to attorneys as a result of rendition where agents of the Administration have taken people into custody and then given them 

up to foreign officials? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t, Congressman, I don’t know if I have the 

answer to that question either. It is something that I would have 

to look at. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Wouldn’t you, as the chief office responsible for 

protecting our civil rights, want to know? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, and I am not suggesting that that——

Mr. SHERMAN. I would hope that——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. Is occurring. I just, quite frankly, I 

haven’t thought about this. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Will you respond for the record to those questions? Thank you. 

Mr. GONZALES. I would be happy—if I can respond to the questions, I will do that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Let me move on to another question. You now 

have focused more on these—yes, go ahead. 

156

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t want the press to run out and say, ‘‘Oh 

my gosh, U.S. citizens are being held by the government secretly, 

other governments.’’ I don’t think that is the case. I just want the 

American people to understand that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I look forward to a definitive answer for the 

record, and let’s move on. 

You have now spent more time looking at these eight U.S. attorneys then you might have expected to. Are there any of them that 

you think it was a mistake to fire and that it would have been in 

the interest of the Administration of justice to have left at their 

posts? 

Mr. GONZALES. You know, I have gone back and thought a lot 

about this. You are right. And, in fact, I spoke with the Deputy Attorney General after Mr. Sampson’s public testimony and asked 

him, ‘‘Okay, do you still stand by the recommendation?’’ And the 

answer was yes. 

I think the one that is probably the closest call for me is Mr. 

Bogden in Nevada, and I talked about this in my Senate testimony. 

It is for that reason that I have reached out to Mr. Bogden and 

have offered my assistance in trying to help him, move him forward with employment. 

But again, the standard is, was anything improper here——

Mr. SHERMAN. I am not asking improper; we all make mistakes. 

Mr. GONZALES. I stand by the decisions. I stand by the decisions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So if you had it to do all over again, these eight 

would be toast. 

Mr. GONZALES. No, because, again, we would have used a different process, and I don’t know whether or not, using this different process, the same recommendations would have come to me. 

I relied upon the recommendations. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, I am asking you whether you made a mistake, not whether you liked your process. Did the conclusion to fire 

these eight——

Mr. GONZALES. I think——

Mr. SHERMAN [continuing]. Was that the right, best thing to do 

for the administration of justice? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think I stand by the decision. In hindsight, I am 

not happy with the process. I know that, to me, the process is important too, and I think using a different process, we may have 

come out with different recommendations to me which would have 

made a difference, perhaps. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, let me move on. You have said that it 

would—you know, U.S. attorneys deal with political sensitive investigations. It would be wrong to fire one in order to thwart an 

ongoing investigation. 

Would it be wrong to fire a U.S. attorney because he failed to announce indictments before an election date? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, with respect to making public an 

indictment, that is something, particularly if you are talking about 

an announcement on or around election, you may get criticized if 

you do it before the election; you may get criticized if you do it 

after the election. What I tell people is try to be sensitive and do 

what is best for the case. 

157

Mr. SHERMAN. Let me move on. Let’s say an investigation had 

been completed and it was politically painful to your party how it 

went, somebody got indicted or convicted. Would it be wrong for 

you to fire a U.S. attorney after the investigation, not for the purpose of thwarting the investigation, which had already been completed, but for the purpose of rebuking that attorney for having 

chosen to investigate those associated with your political party? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not sure I am comfortable with answering 

that question. I will say this——

Mr. SHERMAN. Do you think it might be okay to fire somebody 

because they successfully completed an investigation? 

Mr. GONZALES. Let me just give an example of the way we deal 

with these cases: Representative Bob Ney. We accepted a plea from 

Representative Ney 6 weeks before the election. We didn’t have to 

do that before the election. I am sure there were some Republicans 

around the country who sort of scratched heads when we in fact 

took that plea right before the election. Why did we do that? We 

did it because we aren’t motivated by politics. We do what is best 

for the case. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Steve Chabot of Ohio, Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on 

the Constitution. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Attorney General Gonzales, for being here today. 

I want to apologize for not having been here for the entirety of 

this hearing, because I am the Ranking Member on the Small Business Committee and for the last couple of hours we had a hearing 

on that. So, in any event. 

General Gonzales, last August I want to thank you for coming to 

my district, the city of Cincinnati. And you joined with us there—

myself, chief of police and others—to participate in a roundtable 

discussion with local city and Federal law enforcement officials 

such as the U.S. attorney, Mr. Lockhart, there and FBI Special 

Agent in Charge Tim Murphy. 

And the roundtable focused on the violent crime problems that 

continue to plague communities all over the country including my 

city, Cincinnati. 

During that meeting, several federal-local cooperative approaches 

were discussed to reduce gun violence and illegal drug use in the 

region, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods. In addition, you announced the addition of 23 new Federal prosecutors in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, including one for 

southwest Ohio. Cincinnati is located in southwest Ohio. 

My question to you, General Gonzales, is: What has the Department of Justice been doing, and what are you willing to do to address violent crime and gun violence? And has the addition of a 

Federal prosecutor in southwest Ohio resulted in increased Federal 

prosecutions? And has funding assisted the local FBI, DEA and 

ATF special agents in charge in their investigations of gun violence 

and illegal drug use and violent crime? 

I know that is a lot in one question. 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, I will answer the specifics in terms 

of Cincinnati. I would like to be able to get back to you and give 

you accurate numbers. 

158

But let me just say, I think we have enjoyed a good period in 

terms of decline in crime rates. We are starting to see, however, 

some disturbing upticks in certain communities around the country. 

And it is for that reason that we initiated this 18-city tour recently, where we sent out DOJ officials to communities around the 

country, where some communities have enjoyed success in reducing 

crime; others have not been so successful. Trying to understand the 

reasons why—what is working, what is not working. We are very 

close to be in a position to talk about what we have learned and 

perhaps make some recommendations. 

I am worried about it. Again, as I indicated in response to an 

earlier question, I don’t think people can really realize America’s 

promise if they are worried about their neighborhood—safety, guns, 

drugs, gangs. This is something that I view as one of the things 

I am going to be focused on in these remaining months in the Administration, because I think it is important as the Attorney General to do that. 

Before 9/11, Project Safe Neighborhood was the number-one domestic law enforcement program for the Department of Justice, 

which is to reduce gun crime. And so we are still going to remain 

focused on that. 

I am worried about gangs. It is going to require the help of our 

neighbors down south. I am going to a regional anti-gang summit 

in June with the attorney generals from Mexico and Central American countries, because we can’t just solve that issue solely within 

the United States. 

But I look forward to working with you on this issue. You have 

been a terrific partner and a champion for your district. And I hope 

there are additional things that we can do to help you. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Attorney General. 

And one final area I would like to explore briefly here. As you 

know, the city of Cincinnati suffered through riots back in April of 

2001. And in April of this past year, the Department of Justice 

made the decision to terminate its memorandum of agreement with 

the city of Cincinnati, finding that the city and police department 

have met the more than 80 provisions set forth by the Department 

of Justice. 

The city continues to work with local officials to meet additional 

requirements that are set forth in a separate agreement, which is 

known as the Collaborative Agreement. 

The MOA between the city and the Department of Justice was 

incorporated by reference into the Collaborative Agreement and 

thus has played a significant role in the administration of the Collaborative Agreement. 

Will the Department of Justice acknowledge and support the 

city’s and the police’s good faith efforts if any dispute were to arise 

between now and termination of the Collaborative Agreement? 

Mr. GONZALES. We have always had a good working relationship 

with the police. If there are things that we can do to be helpful, 

of course we will look at that, Congressman. 

In terms of what our official jurisdiction or authority may be in 

this matter, we will have to wait and see. But, again, if there are 

things that the department can do to continue to help the citizens 

159

of Cincinnati be safe and that the citizens enjoy their rights, we 

will be happy to look at that. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Attorney General. 

And I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

The Chair now recognizes in some way the newest Member of the 

Committee, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, General Gonzales. 

I want to ask unanimous consent to submit for the record a New 

York Times article entitled, ‘‘A Woman Wrongly Convicted and a 

U.S. Attorney Who Kept His Job.’’ Before submitting it, there are 

just two paragraphs I would like to read. 

It says, ‘‘The United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, 

which heard Ms. Thompson’s case this month, did not discuss 

whether her prosecution was political, but it did make clear that 

it was wrong. And in an extraordinary move, it ordered her release 

immediately without waiting to write a decision.’’ ‘‘’Your evidence 

is beyond thin,’ Judge Diane Wood told the prosecutor. ‘I am not 

sure what your actual theory in this case is.’ ’’

‘‘Members of Congress should ask whether it was by coincidence 

or design that Steven Biskupic, the United States attorney in Milwaukee, turned a flimsy case into a campaign issue that nearly 

helped Republicans win a pivotal governor’s race.’’

I would ask unanimous consent to submit that for the record. 

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The article follows:]

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ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 16, 2007, SUBMITTED BY THE

HONORABLE TAMMY BALDWIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE

OF WISCONSIN, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


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Mr. GONZALES. Could I respond? 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. 

Ms. BALDWIN. At the time, I——

Mr. CONYERS. Would you mind if he responded to that article? 

Mr. GONZALES. First of all——

Ms. BALDWIN. I have lots of questions about it, so——

Mr. GONZALES. Well, go ahead. As long as we are talking about 

that, that would be—I haven’t read the article. I have no idea of 

knowing whether what is in there is true or not, but——

Ms. BALDWIN. Anyway, I said, at the time of this remarkable 

case in the 7th Circuit that I believed Congress should investigate 

not only the circumstances surrounding the forced resignations of 

eight U.S. attorneys but also whether partisan politics influenced 

or even dictated the investigations conducted by U.S. Attorney’s Offices in order to stay in the Administration’s good graces. 

And I am pleased to have an opportunity to ask you some questions today. 

General Gonzales, since your appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am sure you have taken additional steps to refresh your memory on subject matters that you did not recall during that hearing. 

So, let me ask you again, are you aware that Mr. Biskupic was 

on the first known version of the list compiled by your chief of staff, 

Mr. Sampson, dated March 2, 2005, recommending names of U.S. 

attorneys to be fired? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, my understanding is, Congresswoman, is 

that, actually, the list included all the United States attorneys. 

And the documentation reflected, sort of, Mr. Sampson’s, I presume, then-current view of their performance. 

But with respect to Mr. Biskupic, let me just remind everyone, 

this was a career prosecutor who made the charging decision on 

the Georgia Thompson case in consultation with the then-Democratic State attorney general and the Democratic local prosecutor. 

They all agreed this was the right thing to do——

Ms. BALDWIN. Let me——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. No question that the decision by the 

circuit was quite different, quite surprising. But the notion that 

Mr. Biskupic would in any way—this was a career prosecutor, 

again—charging decisions made in consultation with Democratic officials, I just think is ludicrous. 

Ms. BALDWIN. A career prosecutor who was on the list, and then 

was——

Mr. GONZALES. And he didn’t know that. He has publicly said he 

didn’t know he was on the list. 

Ms. BALDWIN. General Gonzales, among my concerns are many 

press reports and also documents produced by your Justice Department that show that Wisconsin Republican operatives were actively 

complaining and feeding documents to the White House about the 

need for more voter fraud investigation of prosecution in Milwaukee in late 2004 and 2005, right before Mr. Biskupic was 

placed on this list. 

Documents produced by your department indicate that Karl Rove 

was looking at a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article on alleged votVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00168 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
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ing irregularities on February 2, 2005, just 1 month before Mr. 

Biskupic was placed on the list. 

Do you know whether Mr. Rove or anyone else who was concerned about voter fraud prosecution played a role in Mr. 

Biskupic’s being placed on the list? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, all the United States attorneys that 

I recall are on this initial list——

Ms. BALDWIN. Well, his name——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. And the White House has indicated 

that they did not play a role in adding or deleting people from the 

list. 

And let me just say, the Georgia Thompson case is not a voter 

fraud case. 

Ms. BALDWIN. I am running out of time, so I——

Mr. GONZALES. It is a public integrity case. 

Ms. BALDWIN. I want to read to you an excerpt from Mr. 

Sampson’s interview with Judiciary Committee staff. This is regarding——

Mr. GONZALES. Can I see it? Can I see? If, in fact, you are reading from his testimony, I would like to see it. 

Ms. BALDWIN. I would be happy to have a copy made. I can read 

it and then—this is on page 57 of the documentation. This is questioning concerning Mr. Biskupic’s name on the list. 

Mr. Sampson replies, ‘‘I have a vague recollection—I am not sure 

when in time it occurred—of a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General about Biskupic. What I remember about that conversation is the Deputy Attorney General suggesting that Mr. 

Biskupic had been recommended by appointment by Chairman 

Sensenbrenner, and that identifying him as somebody who might 

be asked to resign would perhaps not be a wise thing to do politically if it brought the ire of Chairman Sensenbrenner. I do not remember when that was.’’

Then the person asking Mr. Sampson questions said, ‘‘Very good. 

I take it you didn’t have any conversations with Mr. Sensenbrenner 

or any other officials outside of the Department of Justice concerning Mr. Biskupic.’’ Mr. Sampson: ‘‘That is right. I don’t remember having any conversations like that.’’

So my question for you——

Mr. CONYERS. Time has run out. You want to finish your——

Ms. BALDWIN. My question is, would you not view this to be a 

political consideration relating to these personnel decisions? Don’t 

you find it disturbing that speculation about the reaction of a Member of Congress played a role in his bring on the list or taken off 

the list? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, you will have to talk to Mr. Sampson 

about the list. Mr. Biskupic was not recommended to me for 

change, and therefore there was no consideration by me as to 

whether or not a change should occur. 

And, you know, the views of a senator or a Member of Congress 

about the performance of a United States attorney, I don’t think it 

is the wrong thing to take those into account. You are often involved in making recommendations and providing your views with 

respect to appointments of United States attorneys. 

And so I don’t think there is anything surprising about that. 

164

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes from Texas, Judge Louie 

Gohmert. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General, for being here to testify. 

Earlier, a colleague across the aisle, Ms. Lofgren, had mentioned 

that there are over 300,000 names that need to be checked and 

that are pending at the FBI. I am hoping we will have time for a 

hearing on that and the appropriate people in to testify, because 

I certainly agree with her, that is a major problem. 

But that is not the point of the hearing. We also had another colleague that was grilling you, General, about the national security 

letters and the alleged abuses, and I think that needs to be the 

source of another hearing. But I believe the director of the FBI, 

personally, I think, would be a more appropriate witness than you 

are on that. 

So what we are about here today, as I understood it, was more 

about the U.S. attorneys firings, and before I get into that, I just 

think there is something very important. 

Earlier in the hearing, our colleague from California, Ms. 

Sa ́nchez, has used the word ‘‘target’’ about another colleague, and 

then when that was brought up by my friend from California, Mr. 

Lungren, she had indicated he was turning her words and that she 

didn’t use those words, and that was just in a matter of minutes, 

and then later apologized if she had said something inappropriate. 

And I want to encourage my colleagues across the aisle, please, 

I know the tendency has been with the general here when he 

couldn’t recall something that happened days, weeks, months before or maybe he misrecalled something, the indications have been 

to call him a liar basically, either inferring that or just stating it. 

And I want to encourage my colleagues not to treat Ms. Sa ́nchez 

like that. I think she make a honest mistake, even though it was 

just a matter of minutes later that she couldn’t recall what she 

said. Please don’t be so judgmental to our colleague, Ms. Sa ́nchez. 

I think it was an honest mistake, and please don’t judge her the 

way you have judged the Attorney General. 

Mr. CANNON. Is the gentleman suggesting a double standard, if 

he would yield? 

Mr. GOHMERT. No, I am not suggesting a double standard. I am 

asking that Ms. Sa ́nchez not be judged like the general has been 

on recall. 

Now, with regard to The New York Times, that was brought up 

by another colleague across the aisle in an article offered—and I 

would mention that on March 24 of 1993, The New York Times had 

an article and said, ‘‘All 93 United States attorneys knew they 

would be asked to step down, since all are Republican holdovers. 

And 16 have resigned so far. But the process generally takes much 

longer, and had usually been carried out without the involvement 

of the Attorney General. Ms. Reno was under pressure to assert 

her control over appointments at the Justice Department. She was 

Clinton’s third choice for Attorney General, arrived after most of 

the department’s senior positions were already filled by the White 

House.’’ And on further, it says, ‘‘It was unclear whether Ms. Reno 

initiated the request for resignations, or whether it was pressed on 

165

her by the White House. The Attorney General said it was a joint 

decision.’’

Now, there are other indications, other articles about some of 

those investigations that may have been affected. But I would ask 

you, General, if there was no intent there by the Clinton administration to impede any investigation or affect an investigation, and 

all 93 U.S. attorneys were fired within 12 days of Attorney General 

Reno taking office, simply for political reasons, is that a crime? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. GOHMERT. No, it is not a crime? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So they can do that, strictly for political reasons. 

Mr. GONZALES. The U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the 

President of the United States. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, if it turned out that this was a joint decision 

by the Attorney General and the White House in 1993, and others 

within the Justice Department, to have all 93 resigned at the same 

time, is that a crime in and of itself? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Now, we have also heard across the aisle reference to a U.S. attorney named McKay. And I would reference a 

article from The Weekly Standard, March 14, 2007, which indicated that U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state—in 

2004, the governor’s race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes on the third recount. 

As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the voters were deceased. Others were registered 

in storage rental facilities. And still others were convicted felons. 

More than 100 ballots were discovered in a Seattle warehouse. 

None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But 

it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to 

investigate—something he declined to do, apparently on grounds he 

had better things to do. 

Now, if you or the President—particularly the President, since 

you have said they serve at the pleasure of the President—if somebody were fired because they would not investigate what appeared 

to be problematic and potentially a crime, is that a legitimate basis 

for a firing or resignation? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course, it could be, depending on the circumstances. Obviously, if a crime has been committed, potentially 

committed, I mean, there is an obligation upon the Department of 

Justice to investigate and to prosecute. There obviously is prosecutory discretion——

Mr. CONYERS. We have a time problem, Mr. Gohmert. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. And I thank you, sir. 

The Chair recognizes a former assistant U.S. attorney himself, 

Adam Schiff of California. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Gonzales, I wanted to go over some of your testimony in the Senate. You testified in September of 2005, Senator 

Domenici called you to complain that Mr. Iglesias was in over his 

head and lacked the resources to prosecute corruption cases. Is that 

correct? 

166

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know if I said in connection with that particular call that he lacked the resources. I think what I testified to 

was the fact that he was concerned that Mr. Iglesias did not have 

the top talent working on public corruption cases generally. 

And I think in subsequent conversations that occurred in 2006, 

I think there were concerns raised by Senator Domenici about 

whether or not there were sufficient resources available to handle 

other kinds of cases. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Well, you testified in the Senate that he told you in 

these conversations that he lacked the resources to handle corruption cases. Are you saying that is not correct today? 

Mr. GONZALES. What I am saying is that I recall him saying with 

respect to some of the conversations. I don’t recall, sitting here 

today, that he said that with respect to the first case. 

What I recall in the first conversation was Senator Domenici 

questioned whether or not, does Mr. Iglesias have his best people 

working on these kinds of very difficult cases? 

Mr. SCHIFF. On corruption cases? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is my recollection, yes. 

Mr. SCHIFF. So in September 2005, he talked to you about corruption cases. In January of 2006, you spoke with him again. 

Again, he complained about Mr. Iglesias and his handling or lack 

of resources with respect to corruption cases, correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. My recollection, Congressman, is that the subsequent—I have a recollection that in one of the conversations, which 

I believe occurred in 2006, one of the two conversations that I had, 

he mentioned generally voter fraud cases. That is the extent of my 

recollection. 

Mr. SCHIFF. In none of your Senate testimony do you indicate 

that Senator Domenici talked to you about voter fraud, only about 

corruption cases. 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t remember being asked specifically about 

the conversations that I had in 2006, Congressman. Obviously, I 

mean——

Mr. SCHIFF. Well, your testimony was that you had three conversations. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And there were two points that Senator Domenici 

made. First, that he was in over his head——

Mr. GONZALES. I didn’t mean——

Mr. SCHIFF. Second, that he lacked resources to prosecute corruption cases——

Mr. GONZALES. I didn’t mean to imply that those were the only 

points or things said in those conversations. 

Mr. SCHIFF. So now you recall that he also talked about voter 

fraud cases? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. It is not a recollection that I have just sitting here today. But, yes, I have a recollection that the issue of 

voter fraud cases, generally—not specific cases, but generally—was 

raised in one of those two conversations in 2006. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And you also said in the Senate that, as a result of 

your conversations with the senator, you lost confidence in Mr. 

Iglesias. Is that correct? 

167

Mr. GONZALES. Obviously, I was not surprised to see Mr. 

Iglesias’s name recommended to me. The fact that the senior senator——

Mr. SCHIFF. That is not my question. You testified in the Senate 

you lost confidence in him as a result of this. Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not having the confidence of the senior senator 

and the senior leadership in the department was enough for me to 

lose confidence in Mr. Iglesias to recommend——

Mr. SCHIFF. Okay. So you lost confidence in him after these three 

calls? 

In July of 2006, after these three conversations, you go out to 

New Mexico, you meet with Mr. Iglesias. You said not a word about 

losing confidence with him, did you? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t recall mentioning that, no, sir. 

Mr. SCHIFF. In fact, you were there to announce you were providing resources not for corruption cases and not for voter fraud 

cases by for immigration cases, something you have never said Senator Domenici raised with you? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t recall Senator Domenici raising with me 

concerns about immigration cases. 

Mr. SCHIFF. So nothing you did or said in July of 2006, during 

your meeting with Mr. Iglesias, is consistent with what you are 

saying now about your conversations with Senator Domenici? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t recall raising these issues with Mr. 

Iglesias in my visit in 2006. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Now, you were the only one on the phone with Senator Domenici during these three calls. Is that correct? 

Mr. GONZALES. From my end. I don’t know whether or not anyone was on the phone as well from his end. 

Mr. SCHIFF. So, on your end, you are the only one who would 

know what the substance of those conversations was? 

Mr. GONZALES. Again, I was the only one——

Mr. SCHIFF. In March of this year, when Mr. Roehrkasse, your 

press spokesman, said that in none of these conversations, none of 

these three conversations, were corruption cases mentioned. That 

wasn’t true, was it? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, I don’t know whether or not Mr. 

Roehrkasse was talking about specific corruption cases or as a general category. Senator Domenici did not mention specific corruption 

cases. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And you don’t think that is misleading, for him to 

tell the country and for you to have a press conference the week 

after and not correct the record, for him to tell the country there 

was no mention of a corruption case in your conversations? 

Mr. GONZALES. There was no mention of a corruption case. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Oh, there was mention about corruption cases but 

not a corruption——

Mr. GONZALES. I do not think it was misleading, Congressman. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Gonzales, I worked in the department for 6 

years. And I love that department. And it makes me ill to see what 

has happened to it. 

And for you to come here today and say there is nothing improper about firing a good prosecutor to make room for someone to 

168

pad their resume shows me how little respect you have for the professionals in your charge. 

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SCHIFF. And I hope you will reconsider your decision, and I 

hope you will resign, because the department is broken, and I don’t 

think you are the one to fix it. 

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentlemen yield? Who is the prosecutor 

that the gentleman is referring to, Mr. Iglesias or——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman, time. Excuse me. 

Mr. CANNON. I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds for the 

gentlemen to help clarify what he just said. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. 

Mr. CANNON. Were you referring to Mr. Cummins or Mr. 

Iglesias, when you made those really rather harsh statements to 

the Attorney General? 

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, what I am referring to are the three 

conversations the Attorney General had with Senator Domenici, in 

which he purportedly complained that Mr. Iglesias lacked the resources to prosecute corruption cases. He talked about—and then 

have——

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentleman yield——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman is not going to get any more time, 

this gentleman. Finish your statement. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And the Attorney General’s spokesman told the 

country, and the Attorney General failed to correct the record, that 

in none of these conversations was a corruption case or corruption 

cases mentioned. That, to me, is misleading to be charitable. 

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

And the last Member on the minority side to be recognized, as 

usual, is Jim Jordan from Ohio. [Laughter.] 

Mr. JORDAN. That is usual because I am the newest Member of 

the Committee, right? 

Mr. CONYERS. Exactly. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. 

Mr. CONYERS. That is the only reason. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. 

Thank you, Mr. Attorney General, for being with us this afternoon—this morning and this afternoon. I am not going to ask you 

about the U.S. attorney issue. I want to talk about two other things 

I think are timely. 

The first is, we have a constituent who has brought this to our 

attention, and there is also a ‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter dated yesterday from Congressman Etheridge, Congressman King, Senator 

Leahy, Senator Specter regarding the Hometown Hero Survivor 

Benefit Act, a good piece of legislation I am sure you are familiar 

with. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. And your department was a part of helping craft 

that, working with the Congress and helping put that law together 

4 years ago. 

The letter points out—and this is, I guess, my concern as well—

that there have only been two positive—and for those Members of 

the Committee who aren’t familiar with the act, it is for EMTs, 

firefighters, police officers who suffer a heart attack or stroke in 

169

the line of duty when it is stressful duty, not something that is just 

routine, but actually out there serving their communities, serving 

the public, rescuing people. 

‘‘There have been 230 applications received by the department 

and only two positive determinations.’’ I am reading from the letter, the ‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter. 

Can you comment about why so few, when it actually passed several years ago, and, again, strong bipartisan support? I think the 

legislation was crafted narrowly, was well done, and would like 

your comment. 

Mr. GONZALES. But it created a whole new system of eligibility 

under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program, and rather 

complicated. And it took us a period of time to work on regulations. 

We received a lot of comments. We solicited a lot of comments 

about this. We went back and looked at the entirety of the program, quite frankly. 

And so those all became final on September 11, 2006. And so I 

think we are now in a position to move forward, and hopefully we 

can get some decisions made, certainly on a quicker basis. 

But that is the reason for the delay. It just took us longer than 

we anticipated to get these regulations in place. 

Mr. JORDAN. Second issue is—and I am looking today at just a 

different issue altogether, but just wanted to bring it up, is in today’s Washington Times. Want to know what your thoughts are 

and feelings and what the department is doing on the issue of sanctuary for illegal aliens. 

Some cities have certain policies in place. Some churches are 

adopting certain policies. There is a great article, as I pointed out, 

in today’s Washington Times about that issue. 

Can you comment about that? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know specifically in terms of what we are 

doing specifically on this issue. Obviously, we have a job to do, in 

terms of the enforcement of Federal laws. But in terms of specifically what we may do with respect to communities that offer up 

sanctuary, I would like to have the opportunity to get back to you 

on that. 

Mr. JORDAN. I will yield the balance of my time to—I was going 

to yield to Mr. Cannon, but I would yield to——

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. Actually, I——

Mr. JORDAN [continuing]. Mr. Cannon. 

Mr. CANNON [continuing]. Asked the gentlemen to yield. 

And as long as Mr. Schiff is here, I just wanted to clarify: Mr. 

Schiff, if you don’t mind, you talked about firing a U.S. attorney 

so that somebody else could pad his resume. Were you talking 

about Mr. Iglesias or did you mean Mr. Cummins as the U.S. attorney that was fired? 

Mr. SCHIFF. At the very end of my remarks, when I said that I 

thought that it was outrageous for the Attorney General to come 

here today——

Mr. CANNON. But I actually want to be very specific. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And I am asking—I am asking—yes. 

Mr. CANNON. Were you talking about padding the resume of Mr. 

Griffin, which is unrelated to Mr. Iglesias? It is my time, and I 

would actually just like to clarify that for the record. 

170

Mr. SCHIFF. Well, if you will let me answer, I will be happy to 

clarify. 

What I am referring to is the Attorney General’s response to Ms. 

Sa ́nchez. When she asked, ‘‘Don’t you think it is improper to fire 

someone to allow somebody else to pad their resume, to fire a perfectly good prosecutor,’’ and the Attorney General’s response was, 

‘‘There is nothing improper about that.’’

Mr. CANNON. Reclaiming my time, you have two complaints 

about the Attorney General. 

Mr. SCHIFF. And I think there is something incredibly improper 

about that. 

Mr. CANNON. Reclaiming my time, you have two complaints 

against the Attorney General. One is what you accused him of, 

being improper; and the other is the padding the resume, and that 

goes back to Ms. Sa ́nchez. And I was just trying to clarify that. 

I would like to point out for the record—in fact, it has been an 

interesting hearing, Mr. Chairman. We started out talking about 

bread crumbs, and, of course, with the $250,000 that your side is 

spending on attorneys, we would hope that that would be more like 

caviar. 

But in any event, at some point we have to get to the gist of 

what the problem is here. And if the problem is whether or not Mr. 

Iglesias was competent or should be fired, let me just remind the 

panel that Mr. Margolis, who is not a political hack—he is a career 

guy, well-respected—said, ‘‘Given everything I know today, he,’’ referring to Mr. Iglesias, ‘‘would have been number one on my list 

to go.’’ He later said that he was absolutely furious about the way 

Mr. Iglesias handled these kind of things. 

To challenge the Attorney General the way I think he has been 

challenged here just seems to me to be highly inappropriate. If you 

are concerned about the Department of Justice, let’s get this thing 

solved, let’s get the questions answered. We have had dozens of 

interviews——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CANNON [continuing]. A dozen interviews and hearings. Let’s 

get beyond this, unless there is something really——

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now recognizes as far as we can go, we are down to 

only three more witnesses—the gentleman from Alabama, Artur 

Davis; himself a former assistant U.S. attorney. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Gonzales, you have said several times that the U.S. senator, Senator Domenici, lost confidence in the U.S. attorney. 

Mr. GONZALES. That was my impression, yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Is it your practice to sample the opinion of U.S. senators regarding their confidence in U.S. attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. What is really important——

Mr. DAVIS. No, my question is: Is it your practice to sample——

Mr. GONZALES. Can I give you the answer? 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, is it your practice to sample the opinion of U.S. 

senators regarding performance? 

Mr. GONZALES. What is important here is that there was a consensus recommendation by the senior leadership in the Department of Justice who knew the performance of U.S. attorneys——

171

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir. I only have a limited amount of time, General 

Gonzales——

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. And made the recommendation to 

me. 

Mr. DAVIS. General, I have a limited amount of time. Is it your 

practice, yes or no, to sample the opinion of all 100 U.S. senators 

regarding the performance of United States attorneys? 

Mr. GONZALES. Of course not, but, in this particular case, what 

is important——

Mr. DAVIS. Are there any Democratic senators—we only have a 

limited time, General. 

Mr. GONZALES. The senior leadership in the department gave me 

their base recommendations——

Mr. DAVIS. I am not asking about Mr. Iglesias, General Gonzales. 

I am asking in general. 

Mr. GONZALES. I am responding——

Mr. DAVIS. Are there any Democratic senators who have expressed concern about U.S. attorneys, and have there been terminations based on the concern of Democratic senators, yes or no? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not that I can recall. 

Mr. DAVIS. Is there significant justification, Mr. Gonzales, for a 

significant disparity in the number of Democrats prosecuted versus 

the number of Republicans prosecuted, with respect to local elected 

officials? Was there any reason for that disparity? 

Mr. GONZALES. I wouldn’t know if such a disparity existed. It is 

not something that we look at. 

Mr. DAVIS. Would it concern you? 

Mr. GONZALES. It is not something we keep track of. 

Mr. DAVIS. Would it concern you if there were a disparity between the number of elected Democratic officials prosecuted and 

the number of elected Republican officials prosecuted? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again——

Mr. DAVIS. Would it concern you if it existed, yes or no? 

Mr. GONZALES. It depends on the reasons for it. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, I will ask to put it in the record, Mr. Chairman, 

a survey done by the University of Minnesota, which surveys prosecutions of local elected officials between 2001 and 2006 and surveys with respect to the partisan affiliation. Eighty-five percent of 

the local officials prosecuted were Democrats. Twelve percent were 

Republicans——

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DAVIS. No, I will not yield. 

Mr. CANNON. Well, are you——

Mr. DAVIS. General Gonzales, do you dispute that characterization? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know the basis of this report. We don’t 

keep that kind of numbers. And quite frankly, for us to do, that 

would be more alarming. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, General Gonzales, let me ask you the question: 

Would it concern you if you did your own research and you discovered that there was a significant disparity? 

Mr. GONZALES. We are not going to do that kind of research——

Mr. DAVIS. Would it concern you if it were reported——

172

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. Because I think it would be dangerous to do that kind of research. 

Mr. DAVIS. Would it concern you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Listen, it would concern me if we are not making 

cases based on the evidence. 

Mr. DAVIS. General Gonzales, I would represent to you that—and 

you can certainly check the data yourself—50 percent of the local 

elected officials in this country are Democrats, 41 percent are Republicans. Again, I ask you the question: Do you have any reason 

to assert that seven times more Democrats are guilty of Federal 

crimes than Republicans? 

Mr. GONZALES. I have no way or knowing the legitimacy of this 

report you are citing to. I don’t know the basis of these numbers. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me, if I can, go back to the Wisconsin case to possibly test this theory. These were the facts in the Wisconsin case: 

A woman who was a career appointee, who had appointed by a Republican governor, was working for the State tourism department. 

She was indicted because a contract was awarded to a political 

contributor to the Democratic governor. There was no testimony at 

trial that she knew of the contribution. There was no testimony at 

trial that she was asked to award the contract to this particular 

company. And there was testimony at trial that the company was 

the lowest bidder. 

Are you aware that in that particular case involving Georgia 

Thompson the 7th Circuit vacated the conviction from the bench? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I am aware of that. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you know of any other case while you have been 

Attorney General where an appeals court vacated a conviction from 

the bench? 

Mr. GONZALES. Highly unusual. 

Mr. DAVIS. Does that concern you, sir? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again——

Mr. DAVIS. Let me turn to—my time——

Mr. GONZALES. The fact that we have a career prosecutor making 

decisions——

Mr. DAVIS [continuing]. Let me turn to the Alabama case. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. With Democratic officeholders——

Mr. DAVIS. General, we can’t both talk at the same time. I have 

the time, sir. 

The Alabama case, the former governor of Alabama, who was a 

Democrat, was indicted——

Mr. GONZALES. Can I be allowed to answer questions? 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. The Attorney General has the privilege to respond to the question. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me pose the Alabama context, and you can respond to both. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, wait a minute, Mr. Davis. Let’s let him respond to the other question that you asked. 

Briefly, sir. 

Mr. GONZALES. The government prevailed at the lower court. We 

prevailed at the lower court. 

Mr. DAVIS. I take that answer. 

With respect to the governor of Alabama, the initial case against 

the former Democratic governor of Alabama dismissed by the 1st 

173

District judge before the case went to trial on grounds of insufficient facts. 

If I can finish the question, Mr. Chairman. 

The second time, General Gonzales——

Mr. CONYERS. You have——

Mr. DAVIS. Permission to finish the question, sir? 

Mr. CONYERS. Please, very briefly. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thirty-four count indictment, 32 counts dismissed, 

evidence of jury misconduct based on e-mails that were obtained. 

The U.S. attorney’s office who prosecuted the case declined to investigate the jury misconduct and, indeed, sought to exclude the emails from even being heard in an evidentiary hearing. 

This is the question: Would you expect a U.S. attorney’s office 

that had evidence of jury misconduct to investigate the misconduct 

or to try to exclude it from being heard in an evidentiary hearing? 

Which is the better practice, Mr. Gonzales? 

Mr. GONZALES. As a general matter, the former. But I am not 

going to comment on this particular case without looking at the 

facts. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair wishes to recognize Dan Lungren for a 

request. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to include in the record three articles: two of them from the Albuquerque Journal, one from the Albuquerque Lawyer. The first one, 

April 15, 2007, entitled, ‘‘Iglesias Had Buried Critics During Career’’; the second one, ‘‘Domenici Sought Iglesias Ouster,’’ that is 

Sunday, April 15, 2007; and the third, from the Albuquerque Lawyer, March 15, 2007, ‘‘Iglesias Earns His Firing.’’

Mr. CONYERS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The articles follow:]

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ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS SOURCES, SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE DANIEL

E. LUNGREN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 

AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY


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Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. May I commend the Attorney General on his endurance and patience during this very grueling day. 

We have votes. I have two distinguished Members of this Committee that I cannot short-circuit. So I ask you to bear with us 

again. 

But thank you, and the Committee stands in recess. We will resume immediately after the vote. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. CONYERS. We begin by, again, thanking the Attorney General for his continuing steadfastness with us. We know this has 

been more grueling on you than anybody else. It has been a long 

day for us all, and we admire your cooperation, sir. 

The Chair recognizes Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Gonzales, I can speak, I think, both for Mr. Ellison and 

myself. Thank you for your staying to the end for the end-of-thebenchers over here. We almost always are given an opportunity to 

ask questions, and we appreciate the full opportunity to do that. 

Given that I am from a State that decided the closest presidential election in American history, you might imagine that I 

would have some concern and interest over voter fraud and voter 

suppression. 

This is Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, and I want read for you 

the definition in this dictionary of ‘‘fraud’’: ‘‘intentional perversion 

of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value 

or to surrender a legal right.’’

Now, Mr. Lungren from California earlier today talked about the 

priorities of the Administration and the direction that was perhaps 

given to U.S. attorneys to pursue voter fraud as a priority of the 

Administration. 

And I am going to assume for the record that that was a priority 

of the Administration and it was communicated to U.S. attorneys, 

as you have indicated in your testimony today. 

Mr. GONZALES. The way I would characterize, it was important. 

I mean, it was important to the Administration. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Okay, priorities are important, so I 

am assuming that in my line of questioning. So that having been 

said, generally I would expect that the pursuit of voter fraud would 

be along the lines of organized efforts to corrupt the election process. 

And given the dictionary definition that I just read for you, I 

want you to tell me whether you think that pursuing a jewelry 

store owner who got into trouble after a clerk at the motor vehicles’ 

office had given him a registration form to complete that he quickly 

filled out in line and was unaware that it was reserved just for 

United States citizens, a 68-year-old man named Mr. Ali, whether 

you think—and that is from The New York Times article of April 

16—whether you think that that meets the definition of ‘‘fraud’’ as 

Merriam-Webster defines it, and also in terms of widespread voter 

corruption. 

Before you answer, I want to give you two other examples. In 

Alaska, Rogelio Mejorada-Lopez managed a gasoline station. He received a voter registration form the mail. Before he had applied for 

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citizenship, he thought it was permissible to vote. He now might 

be deported to Mexico after 16 years in the United States. Does 

that meet the dictionary definition, or a definition of widespread 

voter fraud? 

There is also an example of someone who was actually deported 

because they made an innocent mistake in filling out a voter registration application. Is that an example of the priorities or the importance that was given in terms of the instructions that you relayed to the United States attorneys in terms of pursuing voter 

fraud? 

Mr. GONZALES. At one point, you described it as an innocent mistake. If, in fact, we are talking about innocent mistakes, mistakes 

happen. If you are talking about intentionally stealing votes, intentionally canceling out——

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. No, I am not. I am talking about the 

examples that I just gave you. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I mean, those examples would not be ones 

that I would view as—and I don’t think U.S. attorneys, quite frankly, would look at those cases as priorities. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Those are all cases that were prosecuted by U.S. attorneys. All of them. 

Mr. GONZALES. There are more egregious examples. And, 

again——

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Not that the department pursued. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. You are taking—well, I don’t know 

all the facts here. And so, out of fairness to the decisions, if, in fact, 

there were decisions made by U.S. attorneys to prosecute these 

kinds of cases, I don’t know whether or not there are additional 

facts that may have made a difference in moving forward with 

these kinds of prosecutions. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. General Gonzales, I have had a really 

hard time today figuring out what it is you do know. I have sat 

through this entire hearing, and most of your answers have been 

you don’t know. 

Now, you know what? I am 40 years old, and I am reaching a 

point where I have spottiness in my memory too. But something as 

significant as the lapses in memory that you seem to have had related to the firing of U.S. attorneys and something as significant 

as not knowing whether or not there has been widespread pursuit 

by your U.S. attorneys to investigate and pursue corruption and 

voter fraud, as opposed to individual cases—these are individual 

cases cited in a New York Times article, the headline of which is 

‘‘In Five-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud.’’

Here is serious——

Mr. GONZALES. Are you basing your questions based on a newspaper article? 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am basing my questions based on 

U.S. attorneys quoted in this newspaper article. In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved 

what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud. The 

headline says ‘‘In Five-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud.’’

So if this was a priority, how was it communicated to the U.S. 

attorneys and why were they not pursuing it in terms of wideVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:30 Jan 30, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00192 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\051007\35245.000 HJUD1 PsN: 35245
187

spread corruption, as opposed to pursuing individual cases that apparently were mistakes? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again——

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. As opposed to——

Mr. CONYERS. Ten seconds remaining. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, of course, I mean, again these are decisions 

made by the United States attorneys in terms of what is appropriate. And, you know, I guess it may be easy to sit here and criticize the prosecutorial decisions made by the United States attorneys——

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But that is why they were fired. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. We have an obligation——

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is why a number of them were 

fired—you did criticize them. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. To enforce the law, including voter 

fraud. 

Mr. CONYERS. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, can I ask unanimous 

consent for 30 more seconds? I mean, we sat here the whole day, 

Mr. Chairman, and a number of other Members had that opportunity. 

Mr. CONYERS. I am totally persuaded. [Laughter.] 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 

General Gonzales, I just want to point out what you said on April 

19th in response to a question by Senator Cardin, which was your 

opinion as you expressed it about voter fraud and it being a priority. You made a reference to your growing up in a poor neighborhood and that the 1 day you were equal to everyone else was on 

Election Day, and so you really appreciated how important the 

right to vote is. 

‘‘Voter fraud, to me,’’ quoting you, ‘‘means you are stealing somebody’s vote. And so I take this very, very seriously. Having said 

that, in enforcing or prosecuting voter fraud, we need to be careful 

that we don’t discourage people or intimidate people from participating on Election Day.’’

You clearly have not struck the right balance. And your statements in Committee and your answers to questions here and the 

evidence that is clear from the U.S. attorneys under your control, 

pursuing innocent mistakes as opposed to widespread corruption 

are evident. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Do you care to respond? 

Mr. GONZALES. No. 

Mr. CONYERS. Our final speaker is an eminent Member of this 

Committee, done great work, from Minnesota, Mr. Keith Ellison. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you for your endurance, Attorney General Gonzales. 

I think it is fair to say that the eight people who were dismissed 

were—you stand by those dismissals because, in your view, there 

were questions about performance. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, you know, I think that the problem about 

saying ‘‘performance’’ is that it means so many different things to 

different people. 

188

Mr. ELLISON. Right. But in terms of your office’s calculus, that 

is what you were thinking when the dismissal decision was made? 

Mr. GONZALES. That was the whole purpose of this process. 

Mr. ELLISON. Right. And so you are concerned about performance 

of U.S. attorneys, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. I think we all should be. 

Mr. ELLISON. Right, and that includes you? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes. 

Mr. ELLISON. And do you know Rachel Palouse? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I do. 

Mr. ELLISON. She worked for you directly, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. She worked, yes, in the department, yes, in main 

Justice. 

Mr. ELLISON. Right. And recently, well, I think, four senior members of her staff resigned because of her performance issues. Is she 

still on staff? Is she still a U.S. attorney after those—is she still 

on staff? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, she is. And I am certainly aware of the problems in that office. 

Mr. ELLISON. This is my question. So the people who took—they 

took voluntary demotions, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. As I understand it, that is correct. 

Mr. ELLISON. And also, with those voluntary demotions, they 

took pay cuts, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. That I am not aware of. 

Mr. ELLISON. And so, it was because of their objections to her 

performance, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. As far as I understand, that is correct. 

Mr. ELLISON. And this was a U.S. attorney who you know personally, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, I do. 

Mr. ELLISON. In fact, you sent Mr. John Kelly down there to investigate the situation, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. Absolutely. We became aware of the problems in 

that office, and we sent a career prosecutor to make an evaluation 

and report back to us. 

Mr. ELLISON. So that is a yes. That is a yes. And when did you 

do that? When did Mr. Kelly go down and talk to members of the 

staff? 

Mr. GONZALES. I would say within the past 2 months. I think either shortly before or after these individuals left their management 

position in the office we sent someone down there, Mr. Kelly, to 

give us an evaluation of what was going on, because we were obviously very concerned about——

Mr. ELLISON. And Mr. Kelly talked with numerous people in the 

office, right? 

Mr. GONZALES. That is what I understand. 

Mr. ELLISON. And he took notes of what people said to him, 

right? 

Mr. GONZALES. I don’t know if he took notes, but he reported 

back what he learned. 

Mr. ELLISON. So just to be clear, he took notes. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. GONZALES. Congressman, I don’t know——

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Mr. ELLISON. Is there a document that would summarize what 

he learned on his visit to Minnesota? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not aware that such a document exists. 

Such a document——

Mr. ELLISON. If such a document exists, would you provide it? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am happy to take that request back, Congressman. 

Mr. ELLISON. Okay. 

Now, I sent you a letter earlier this week, isn’t that right? Are 

you aware that I sent you a letter? 

Mr. GONZALES. I am not aware of the letter, but I get lots of letters and I am sure at the appropriate——

Mr. ELLISON. Okay. 

Mr. GONZALES. I mean, I am sure I will make myself aware 

of——

Mr. ELLISON. If I sent a letter to your office and if I got a response back that it had been received, I can expect a full answer 

to the letter. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. GONZALES. We try to be as forthcoming as we can, in responding back to the Congress. 

Mr. ELLISON. Now, Ms. Paulose, she was appointed after a gentleman named Mr. Thomas Heffelfinger. Is that right? 

Mr. GONZALES. He was the U.S. attorney before Ms. Paulose? 

Mr. ELLISON. And he had a good reputation, isn’t that right? 

Mr. GONZALES. As far as I know, that is correct. 

Mr. ELLISON. And yet he appeared on a list to be fired that was 

in your office, that was pulled together by Mr. Sampson. Isn’t that 

right? 

Mr. GONZALES. My understanding is that his name appeared 

with all the other 93 United States attorneys, but the views of Mr. 

Sampson were reflected——

Mr. ELLISON. So that is one you don’t—you don’t know that one. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, my recollection is that he was identified as 

someone that perhaps there may be issues with. 

Mr. ELLISON. Right. And yet, these issues didn’t come from Minnesota, did they? These were not Minnesota concerns, to your 

knowledge. 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, again, I don’t know the source, why Mr. 

Sampson had that particular view——

Mr. ELLISON. So you don’t know that one——

Mr. GONZALES. That is correct. 

Mr. ELLISON. Okay. So here we have Mr. Heffelfinger, career 

prosecutor, and had prosecuted many cases, 58 years old, done the 

job for years. Ms. Paulose was, what, 34 when she was appointed. 

Is that right? 

Mr. GONZALES. Relatively young. I am not sure her exact age. 

Mr. ELLISON. Did she go through a Senate confirmation process? 

Mr. CONYERS. Thirty seconds remaining. 

Mr. GONZALES. Yes, she did. She was deemed——

Mr. ELLISON. There was a vote? 

Mr. GONZALES. She was deemed—I don’t know if it was a vote, 

but she was confirmed by the United States Senate as qualified to 

be the United States attorney in that district. 

Mr. ELLISON. And did the Senate have a vote? 

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Mr. GONZALES. You mean——

Mr. ELLISON. A Committee vote, voting for her, or was it another 

kind of process? 

Mr. GONZALES. What I know is that she was confirmed by the 

United States Senate. 

Mr. ELLISON. Is she going to remain in her position, given the 

performance problems that have come to your personal attention? 

Mr. GONZALES. Well, if things do not change, obviously that 

would be something we would——

Mr. CONYERS. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. GONZALES [continuing]. We would have to consider. But we 

have expressed to Mr. Paulose our concerns. And so we are going 

to work with her——

Mr. ELLISON. Unanimous consent for one last question? 

Mr. CONYERS. Go ahead. 

Mr. ELLISON. Did any of the eight individuals who we know were 

fired for allegedly performance issues have people quitting and 

going back to line position in response to the difficulties that came 

about as a result of their leadership? 

Mr. GONZALES. Not that I recall. Of course, the difference is, all 

eight of these individuals served their full 4-year term. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much, sir. It has been a long day. 

We thought that our day here was longer than your visit in the 

Senate Judiciary a little while ago, but we appreciate your cooperation and your endurance. 

Without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit any additional written questions for you, which we will forward 

and ask you to return so that they may be made part of the record. 

Without objection, the record will be open for 5 legislative days 

for the submission of these and any other material. 

Mr. Attorney General, the matters we have been discussing 

today are of utmost importance, and I am concerned that we are 

still not getting the cooperation we need to get to the bottom of 

them. I am, frankly, disappointed that you are unable to answer 

the first and most basic question of who put these U.S. attorneys 

on the firing list and why? 

Numerous times today, you have made the statements ‘‘I don’t 

know’’ or you would have to go back and check, or you don’t remember. It is clear to me that we, on this Committee, have a serious duty to press forward with our investigation and for meaningful information from the White House. The bread crumbs that we 

referred to earlier seem to be leading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

In the meantime, added to our other requests, we ask that you 

provide us with all documents, continue to provide us, and in 

unredacted form, relating in any way to the termination of the 

ninth terminated U.S. attorney, Mr. Todd Graves. Would you be 

able to do that? 

Mr. GONZALES. Mr. Chairman, I will obviously take your request 

back. I am not in a position to guarantee that that can be done, 

but I understand your request. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:13 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this very important hearing. In addition to 

holding the seat of my hero, role model, and predecessor, the incomparable Barbara 

Jordan, one of the reasons that I have been so proud to be a member of the Committee on the Judiciary throughout my seven terms in Congress is that this Committee has oversight jurisdiction over the Department of Justice, which I have always regarded as the crown jewel of the Executive Branch. 

In recent years the reputation of that Department, which has done so much to 

advance the cause of justice and equality for all Americans through the years under 

the leadership of such great Attorney Generals as Robert Jackson, Robert F. Kennedy, Nicholas Katzenbach, Herbert Brownell, Harlan Fiske Stone, Francis Biddle, 

Tom C. Clark and his son Ramsey, and Elliot Richardson, has been tarnished. And 

that is putting it charitably. This Committee has no greater challenge and obligation to the nation than to help restore the Department of Justice to its former greatness. But before we can begin to set it right we have to get to the bottom as to how 

it went wrong. 

It is in that spirit that I welcome our witness, the Attorney General of the United 

States and a fellow Texan, the Honorable Alberto Gonzalez. Welcome Mr. Attorney 

General. 

Anyone who has observed this Committee over the years knows that I have a deep 

and abiding passion about the subjects within this Committee’s jurisdiction: separation of powers, due process, equal justice, habeas corpus, juvenile justice, civil liberties, antitrust, and intellectual property. But Mr. Chairman, today I wish to focus 

on the record and performance of the Department of Justice in three areas: (1) the 

unceremonious firing of the 8 United States Attorneys, what some have referred to 

as the ‘‘December 7 Massacre’’; (2) the Department’s dismal record in the area criminal civil rights law enforcement; and (3) its performance in the area of justice and 

protection of juvenile offenders and others held in custody in the municipal jails of 

Texas and the rest of the country. Allow me to describe my substantial concerns and 

the responses I hope to hear from the Attorney General. 

CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT

Mr. Chairman, the Department of Justice is the nation’s largest law enforcement 

agency and it is no exaggeration to state that its Civil Rights Division used to be 

the nation’s largest civil rights legal organization. It wields the authority and the 

resources of the federal government on difficult and complex issues and has helped 

bring about some of the greatest global advances for civil rights. However, the Department’s record under this Administration indicates that it is not living up to its 

tradition of fighting for equal justice under law and championing the rights of the 

powerless and vulnerable. The Civil Rights Division has simply neglected to bring 

challenging cases that could yield significant rulings and advance the cause of civil 

rights in our country. 

The Bush administration has abdicated its responsibility to enforce the nation’s 

most critical laws. For example, since January 20, 2001, the Bush Administration 

has filed 32 only Title VII cases, an average of approximately 5 cases per year. In 

contrast, the prior Administration filed 34 cases in its first two years in office alone, 

and 92 in all, for an average of more 11 cases per year. 

Moreover, a close look at the types of cases reveals an even more disturbing fact, 

which is a failure to bring suits that allege discrimination against African-Americans. Of the 32 Title VII cases brought by the Bush Administration, 9 are pattern 

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or practice cases, 5 of which raise allegations of race discrimination but only one 

case—1 case—involved discrimination against African Americans. In contrast, the 

Clinton Administration filed 13 pattern or practice cases, 8 of which involved racial 

discrimination. 

The record is not much better when it comes to the subject of voting rights enforcement. After six years, the Bush Administration has brought fewer Section 2 

cases, and brought them at a significantly lower rate, than any other administration 

since 1982. 

The Voting Section filed a total of 33 involving vote dilution and/or other types 

of Section 2 claims during the 77 months of the Reagan Administration that followed the 1982 amendment of Section 2. Eight (8) were filed during the 48 months 

of the Bush I Administration and 34 were filed during the 96 months of the Clinton 

Administration. Only 10 have been filed so far during the first six years of the Bush 

II Administration. 

But the record is really bad when it comes to enforcement of the federal criminal 

civil rights law. According to an analysis of Justice Department data by the Seattle 

Post-Intelligencer, civil rights enforcement no longer appears to be a top departmental priority. An analysis of the data reveals that between 2001 and 2005, the 

number of federal investigations targeting abusive police officers declined by 66 percent and investigations of cross-burners and other purveyors of hate declined by 60 

percent. 

It appears that this downward trend accelerated after the 9/11 attacks. There has 

been a slight increase in enforcement related to human trafficking, which is counted 

under civil rights, but not enough to stop the overall slide. 

I am very troubled by this trend. Hate-crimes are too dangerous to ignore, and 

there is social value in effective federal review of police misconduct. I am anxious 

to hear the Attorney General’s responses to these serious problems. 

Additionally, Mr. Chairman, most of the Department’s major voting-related actions of the past five years have been beneficial to the Republican Party, including 

two in Georgia, one in Mississippi and the infamous redistricting plan in Texas, 

which the Supreme Court struck down in part. For years we have heard stories of 

current and former lawyers in the Civil Rights Division alleging that political appointees continually overruled their decisions and exerted undue political influence 

over voting rights cases. Indeed, one-third of the Civil Rights Division lawyers have 

left the department and the remaining lawyers have been barred from making recommendations in major voting rights cases. 

As I indicated earlier, it appears the Justice Department has abandoned its mission in cases involving abusive police practices. The Department’s Special Litigation 

Section is charged with handling cases under Police Pattern or Practice Litigation. 

These ‘‘police abuse’’ prosecution cases numbered about 20 nationwide as of 2006, 

according to a leading scholar on the subject, Professor Sam Walker at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Very few, if any, consent decrees have been entered into 

under the Bush Administration. While the Bush Administration has entered into 

several memorandum-of-agreement settlements, there has been no effort to address 

the on-going problems of the most problematic agencies. Progress has ground to a 

halt and the special litigation section hasn’t initiated any new cases in years. As 

recent cases in New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles make all too clear, police abuse 

is still alive and well in America. 

U.S. ATTORNEY FIRINGS

Mr. Chairman, excluding changes in Administration, it is rare for a United States 

Attorney to not complete his or her four-year term of appointment. According to the 

Congressional Research Service, only 54 United States Attorneys between 1981 and 

2006 did not complete their four-year terms. Of these, 30 obtained other public sector positions or sought elective office, 15 entered or returned to private practice, and 

one died. Of the remaining eight United States Attorneys, two were apparently dismissed by the President, and three apparently resigned after news reports indicated 

they had engaged in questionable personal actions. 

Mr. Chairman, in the past few months disturbing stories appeared in the news 

media reporting that several United States Attorneys had been asked to resign by 

the Justice Department. It has now been confirmed that at least seven United 

States Attorneys were asked to resign on December 7, 2006. An eighth United 

States Attorney was subsequently asked to resign. They include the following:

• H.E. Cummins, III, U.S. Attorney (E.D. Ark.);

• John McKay, U.S. Attorney (W.D. Wash.);

• David Iglesias, U.S. Attorney (D. N.M.);

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• Paul K. Charlton, U.S. Attorney (D. Ariz.);

• Carol Lam, U.S. Attorney (S.D. Calif.);

• Daniel Bogden, U.S. Attorney (D. Nev.);

• Kevin Ryan, (N.D. Calif.); and

• Margaret Chiara, (W.D. Mich.).

On March 6, 2007, the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law 

held a hearing entitled, ‘‘H.R. 580, Restoring Checks and Balances in the Confirmation Process of United States Attorneys.’’ Witnesses at the hearing included six of 

the eight former United States Attorneys and William Moschella, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, among other witnesses. 

Six of the six former United States Attorneys testified at the hearing and each 

testified that he or she was not told in advance why he or she was being asked to 

resign. Upon further inquiry, however, Messrs. Charlton and Bogden were advised 

by the then Acting Assistant Attorney General William Mercer that they were terminated essentially to make way for other Republicans to enhance their credential 

and pad their resumes. In addition, Messrs. Iglesias and McKay testified about inappropriate inquiries they received from Members of Congress concerning pending 

investigation, which they surmised may have led to their forced resignations. 

It is now clear that the manifest intention of the proponents of the provision in 

the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization regarding the appointment of interim U.S. 

Attorneys was to allow interim appointees to serve indefinitely and to circumvent 

Senate confirmation. We know now, for example, that in a September 13, 2006 email to former White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, Attorney General Chief of 

Staff, Kyle Sampson wrote:

‘‘I strongly recommend that, as a matter of Administration policy, we utilize the 

new statutory provisions that authorize the Attorney General to make U.S. Attorney appointments.’’

Mr. Sampson further said that by using the new provision, DOJ could ‘‘give far 

less deference to home-State Senators and thereby get (1) our preferred person appointed and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less political cost to the 

White House.’’

Regarding the interim appointment of Tim Griffin at the request of Karl Rove and 

Harriet Miers, Mr. Sampson wrote to Monica Goodling, Senior Counsel to the White 

House and Liaison to the White House on December 19, 2006 the following:

‘‘I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators to give Tim a chance, 

meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they 

ultimately say, ‘no never’ (and the longer we can forestall that, the better), then 

we can tell them we’ll look for other candidates, and otherwise run out the 

clock. All of this should be done in ‘good faith,’ of course.’’

We now know that after gaining this increased authority to appoint interim U.S. 

Attorneys indefinitely, the Administration has exploited the provision to fire U.S. 

Attorneys for political reasons. A mass purge of this sort is unprecedented in recent 

history. The Department of Justice and the White House coordinated this purge. According to an Administration ‘‘hit list’’ released on Tuesday, U.S. Attorneys were 

targets for the purge based on their rankings. The ranking relied in large part on 

whether the U.S. Attorney ‘‘exhibit[ed] loyalty to the President and Attorney General.’’

Mr. Chairman, until exposed by this unfortunate episode, United States Attorneys 

were expected to, and in fact did exercise, wide discretion in the use of resources 

to further the priorities of their districts. Largely a result of its origins as a distinct 

prosecutorial branch of the federal government, the office of the United States Attorney traditionally operated with an unusual level of independence from the Justice 

Department in a broad range of daily activities. That practice served the nation well 

for more than 200 years. The practice that was in place for less than two years 

served the nation poorly. It needed to end. That is why I was proud to have voted 

for its repeal and the restoration of the status quo ante. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe the Attorney General has a heavy burden in defending 

what appears to be indefensible conduct. But I am willing to listen and keep an 

open mind. 

TEXAS JUVENILE AND OTHER CORRECTIONS FACILITIES

Mr. Chairman, the third and final area I wish to discuss concern the care and 

protection of juvenile offenders in state correctional facilities and the care and safety 

194

of those being held in custody in county and municipal jails in Texas and around 

the country. 

In my home state of Texas, certain administrators and officials, past and maybe 

current, of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) have obviously neglected their duties. According to published reports and investigations, several TYC administrators 

abused their authority by pulling young boys out of their dorm rooms and classrooms and sexually molesting them. The allegations of abuse have been a matter 

of public record since 2000. In 2005, an investigation conducted by the Texas Rangers revealed that employees of the juvenile facility in Pyote, Texas, had repeated 

sexual contact with juvenile inmates. 

Additionally, several members of the TYC board, who are responsible for the oversight of TYC facilities, admit that they were aware of the finding in the report prepared by Texas Rangers but took no corrective action. The current scandal surrounding TYC is scandalous and outrageous; quite frankly it sickens me. The situation within the TYC disregards every notion of justice and will contribute to the rise 

of recidivism rates if it is not arrested immediately. 

Let me turn to another horrifying area of inmate abuse. Between January 2001 

and January 2006, at least 101 persons, an average of about 17 a year, have died 

while in the custody of the Harris County Jail, located in Houston, Texas. In 2006 

alone there were 22 deaths. I find it especially disturbing that of the 101 deaths, 

at least 72 of the inmates were awaiting court hearings and had yet to be convicted 

of the crimes for which they were taken into custody. 

In our system every accused person is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

happiness, and a presumption of innocence. These 72 individuals, however, were deprived of their life without the due process guaranteed by the Constitution. They 

will not ever receive their day in court to be judged by their peers because of the 

irresponsibility, incompetence, indifference, and perhaps the criminal neglect, of the 

jail officials to whose care they were entrusted. 

I believe the situation in the Harris County Jail System requires national attention. When it is alleged that inmates are sleeping on the floor next to toilets and 

denied basic medical care, something must be done. The conditions at these jails 

border on cruel and unusual punishment. Should fault or wrongdoing be found, the 

persons responsible should be held accountable. Seeing that such authorities are 

held accountable is ultimately the responsibility of the United States Department 

of Justice. I am interested to hear the Attorney General’s views on these matters. 

Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing. I yield the remainder 

of my time.

195

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELTON GALLEGLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Thank you for yielding me the time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Gonzales, thank you for coming up here today to testify before this committee. 

You will face a number of questions, some may be fair and go to the purpose of the 

hearing, which is oversight of the Department of Justice. Other questions may be 

less than fair and focus on politics, instead of the operation of the Justice Department. 

I appreciate your efforts to keep our country save from another terrorist attack. 

As the recent arrests in New Jersey demonstrate, national security must be our first 

priority. An important lesson from the recent arrests this week is that improved immigration enforcement is a key element of an effective counter-terrorism policy. 

I do want to commend you for increased enforcement of our immigration laws, but 

as you know, we have a long way to go. Too many illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and human traffickers are still able to illegally cross our borders and flout our 

immigration laws. 

I look forward to hearing your testimony and I will have questions at the appropriate time. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. Gonzales, the Washington Post reported this morning that at least two members of the alleged terrorist cell in New Jersey were illegal aliens and had been 

stopped by police repeatedly for traffic violations. This is eerily similar to the case 

of Mohammed Atta, who was here illegally, was pulled over by the Florida state patrol for a traffic violation—a mere month before flying a plane into the World Trade 

Center. What steps is the Department of Justice taking to ensure that illegal aliens 

who are stopped for traffic violations or other crimes are identified and deported? 

Mr. Gonzales, in the last 18 months of your term, what steps are you planning 

to take to improve the process of prosecuting those who violate our immigration 

laws, particularly drug smugglers and human traffickers.

196

POST-HEARING QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE JOHN CONYERS, JR., CHAIRMAN, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY AND COMMITTEE MEMBERS ROBERT C. SCOTT, SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TAMMY BALDWIN, LUIS V. GUITERREZ, AND BRAD SHERMAN


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POST-HEARING QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE LAMAR SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

THE JUDICIARY


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RESPONSES TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE ALBERTO

GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 1

——————

1The responses to post-hearing questions from the Honorable Alberto Gonzales include a series of attachments. Due to their large volume, the attachments are not 

printed as a part of this hearing record, but copies have been retained in the official 

Committee hearing record.


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Æ


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