Experessing The Sense Of The Senate That Attorney General Alberto Gonzales No Longer Holds The Confidence Of The Senate And Of The American People--Mo

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)

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, when Alberto Gonzales came before the Senate as the President's nominee for Attorney General, many of us were concerned that he would not be able to distinguish between his past role as White House Counsel and his new role as Attorney General. During his service as counsel to the President, he had assisted the President in promulgating a series of disastrous policies that ran roughshod over the rule of law and damaged the United States in the eyes of the world. He refused to give detainees the protections of the Geneva Conventions, calling them ``quaint.'' He facilitated the establishment of Guantanamo and denied other basic legal protections to detainees. He approved an interpretation of the law that was inconsistent with international agreements. He authorized the use of torture, a step that led to the horrors of Abu Ghraib. At every turn, he promoted an extreme view of the President's authority. Yet, when he came before the committee seeking confirmation, he assured us: ``With the consent of the Senate, I will no longer represent only the White House; I will represent the United States of America and its people. I understand the differences between the two roles.''

That assurance has proven hollow. On issue after issue, Mr. Gonzales has singlemindedly served the President's agenda, without any respect for the broader responsibilities of the Attorney General. He has continued to promote an extreme view of the President's power as Commander in Chief to authorize warrantless eavesdropping in violation of the law, secret detentions, abuse of detainees, and violations of the Geneva Conventions. He believes that the President can issue signing statements that nullify duly enacted statutes whenever they might limit the President's discretion. As Attorney General, he has used the enormous power of his office to promote the agenda of the White House.

The current U.S. attorney scandal has revealed the devastating legacy of Mr. Gonzales's tenure as Attorney General. We now have a Department of Justice that is wide open to partisan influence and has abandoned many of the basic principles that kept the Department independent and assured the American people that its decisions were based on the rule of law.

As a result, the Department of Justice is now embroiled in a scandal involving the firing of U.S. attorneys, under a process controlled by inexperienced, partisan staffers in consultation with the White House. U.S. attorneys were targeted for firing because they failed to serve the White House agenda. Karl Rove and the President passed along to the Attorney General complaints that U.S. attorneys failed to pursue voter fraud. Over the past 5 years, the Department of Justice has actually pushed hard to prosecute voter fraud, but among the hundreds of millions of votes cast in that period, it has managed to convict only 86 people nationwide. The pursuit of virtually nonexistent voter fraud at the ballot box is part of a Republican effort to suppress the legitimate votes of minority, elderly, and disabled voters. Other measures taken in this cynical scheme include photo ID laws and purges of voter rolls.

The conclusion is inescapable that the firings of U.S. attorneys were part of an effort to put partisans in charge of U.S. attorney offices in key States. New Mexico, Washington, Arkansas and Nevada are all closely contested States. Add those States to which the Attorney General sent interim appointees from Washington in the past 2 years--Florida, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota--and the pattern is clear. Attorney General Gonzales, more than any other Attorney General in memory, has tried to turn the Department of Justice into an arm of a political party.

In addition, under his leadership, the Department's hiring procedures have been corrupted by partisan officials who rejected longstanding merit-based hiring procedures and placed political party loyalty ahead of legal merit in hiring career attorneys. His Department of Justice has tried to obliterate the distinction between political appointees and career civil servants.

In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Gonzales has repeatedly made false statements. He told us the warrantless eavesdropping program could not be conducted within the limits of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Then, on the eve of an appearance before the committee, he told us that the program now fits within FISA. He told us that there had not been significant disagreement over that program, but we now know that as many as 30 members of the Justice Department were prepared to resign if an earlier version of the program proceeded unchanged. He stated that he had not seen memoranda or been involved in discussions about the U.S. attorney firings, but it was later revealed that he did both. He told us that only eight U.S. attorneys had been targeted for firing, but it turns out the list was longer. He has said scores of times that he does not recall key meetings and events. With each misstatement and memory lapse, the Attorney General's credibility has faded until there is nothing left.

In the years I have served in this body, I have had the privilege to work with many Attorneys General. The defining quality of the outstanding occupants of that office--both Democrats and Republicans--has been an understanding that the law and the evidence trump loyalty to a political party or a president. Respect for the rule of law lies at the heart of our democracy. If our machinery of justice becomes just another means to preserve and promote the power of the party in office, we have corrupted our democracy. If the American people believe that partisanship is driving law enforcement, our system of justice cannot survive.

We need a strong and credible Attorney General who believes deeply in our system of justice as we undertake the difficult and essential job of restoring the credibility of the Department of Justice. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution of no-confidence as a first step in rebuilding the faith of the American people in the Department of Justice.

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