Expressing the Sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales No Longer Holds the Confidence of the Senate and of the American People....

Floor Speech

EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES NO LONGER HOLDS THE CONFIDENCE OF THE SENATE AND OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - June 11, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I will vote in favor of cloture on the motion to proceed. After months of troubling and even shocking disclosures about the U.S. Attorney firings and the politicization of the Department of Justice, it is important for the Senate to go on record on the question of whether the Attorney General should continue in his post. This vote may end up being our only vote on this matter, but since the resolution itself is nonbinding, this vote, though procedural in nature, is sufficient to inform the Nation exactly what the Senate's position is. Those who vote against cloture plainly are comfortable with the Attorney General remaining right where he is. Those of us who vote for cloture are not.

In January 2005, I voted against Alberto Gonzales to be the Attorney General because I was not convinced he would put the rule of law, and the interests of the country, above those of the President and the administration. Unfortunately, those concerns have been realized over and over. It is not just the U.S. Attorneys scandal. In recent months, the Department's Inspector General issued a very troubling report on National Security Letters. The Attorney General, of course, had assured us that the Department could be trusted to respect civil liberties in its exercise of the unprecedented powers it was given in the Patriot Act.

Perhaps the Attorney General's biggest failure concerns the warrantless wiretapping program. When he came before the Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, he gave very misleading testimony to a question I asked concerning whether the position the administration had taken with respect to torture might also allow it to authorize warrantless wiretaps. He called my question ``hypothetical.'' Just less than a year later, we found out that the administration had in fact taken precisely that position for years.

His appearance before the Judiciary Committee last year to discuss the legal justification of the wiretapping program was one of the weakest and least convincing I have ever seen. And the recent testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey concerning Mr. Gonzales's bedside visit to former Attorney General John Ashcroft raises serious questions about his veracity at that hearing. It also raises questions about his ethics, and, once again, his respect for the rule of law.

But it is not just his commitment to the rule of law and his willingness to tell the truth to Congress that troubles me about this Attorney General's tenure. At his most recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the U.S. Attorney firings, I questioned him about whether he did some of the most basic things that you would expect a manager to do if he delegated to his staff a major project like deciding which of 93 presidential appointees to top law enforcement positions to fire. He could not recall doing any of them. We know that the Attorney General was involved in this process and made the final decisions on the firing plan, but he can't seem to remember much beyond that, even though it was only a few months ago that this all took place. He has failed in a very significant way. He should resign.

With the snowballing problems at the Justice Department, it could hardly be more plain that the Attorney General has lost the confidence of Congress and the public. As Mr. Comey said in response to my written question: ``This entire affair has harmed the Department and its reputation.'' The Department of Justice should always be above reproach. The AG should step down for the good of the country. Since he will not, the Senate should express its judgment, on behalf of the American people.

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