Yet more evidence surfaces against the Gonzales legacy
Rocky Mountain News
Published August 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated August 1, 2008 at 1:03 a.m.
Denver attorney Cliff Stricklin is the latest person whose misfortune it is to be sucked into the cronyism controversy involving the Department of Justice during the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Stricklin, who's now in private practice, led the federal prosecution team that won a conviction of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio on insider-trading charges. But now an internal review of politicized hiring practices at Justice has revealed that Stricklin was interviewed and recommended for his job as first assistant U.S. attorney in the Denver office - a career prosecutor's position - by Gonzales' chief political vetter Monica Goodling.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid bristled at any suggestion of White House involvement in the hiring. Eid says U.S. attorneys hire their own assistants; given Stricklin's background - and his performance - we have every reason to believe he was the right person for the job.
But the fact that Stricklin's name appeared in the inspector general's report - which cited a host of instances where Goodling and several colleagues imposed partisan or ideological tests on candidates for civil service jobs - shows how pervasively political the AG's office became.
Mind you, there are plenty of patronage positions in Justice that routinely flow to those who openly share the current administration's views. Many others, however, are career service jobs. Their duties revolve around law enforcement. It's illegal to introduce even a hint of political favoritism for these jobs, including the career prosecutor's position Stricklin occupied.
We never believed Gonzales should have been nominated or confirmed for the AG's job, and said so in January 2005. His role in drafting the infamous 2002 "torture memos" worried us, as did his defense of indefinite detention without judicial review of "enemy combatants," including legal U.S. residents.
Little did we know that Gonzales would also be an incompetent administrator, at times more interested in protecting the president's back as in impartially enforcing the law.
Recall Gonzales' role in the firing of seven U.S. attorneys. When questioned about the firings, Gonzales falsely stated the lawyers were "underperforming"; it turns out that in a couple of cases GOP lawmakers had asked the White House to remove attorneys involved in active prosecutions of political corruption and voter fraud that put Republicans in a bad light.
Gonzales would have been within his rights to say that U.S. attorneys can be fired for any cause at all; instead he was both evasive and untruthful.
We're not about to suggest that Gonzales treated the Bill of Rights with the same cavalier attitude shown by President Wilson's Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who in 1920 locked up thousands of people he feared were stricken with "the disease of evil thinking."
But it's clear that Gonzales' primary qualification for the job was his loyalty to the president rather than his fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.
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August 1, 2008
1:10 a.m.
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windskull writes:
The ENRON Doctrine...Let`s hope this house of cards envelops every floor as it topples and from it`s wake arises sound remedy that ensures not only it never again repeats BUT full reparations to victims and their survivors as well as TRANSPARENT environmental restoration to completely pristine status is the barest of minimums humanity demands from these deviant thugs!
August 1, 2008
6:31 a.m.
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arby writes:
Good luck windskulll,
It ain't gonna happen
August 1, 2008
7:01 a.m.
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windskull writes:
Arby it could IF the public exercised it`s will demanding MISrepresentatives in CONgress sign on to the world court accord or we will and hand every last one of them over for criminal complacency in the Exxon Invasion!
August 1, 2008
10:01 a.m.
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Faux_Noise writes:
Gonzales' job was Bush's consigliere. He was a rubber stamp for the preznit. To blame the illegal partisan hirings and firings at Justice on him is similar to the "few bad apples" defense at Abu Ghraib. All this corruption came from the top. Can I prove it? Not without the illegally destroyed White House email records which were illegally made using the Republican National Committee servers. How long will true believers defend the actions of this criminal administration?
August 1, 2008
1:29 p.m.
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Marshdale writes:
It has not come out now, but years from now it will be revealed how dangerously close we came to being run by dictators. This administraion so scary I can't believe it. The Homeland Security Bill and the Patriot Act are the most dangerous threat to the Bill of Rights and Constitution this country has ever seen. To you patriotic gun owners as I am myself these pieces of legislation don't speak to gun ownership specifically but the language in them is designed so the government can take them. All that has to happen is for them to label you a "suspected" terrorist. Then, they can do anything they want to you. Take your guns, hold you indefinately without charges, no habius corpus, search and siesure without warrants. The list goes on and on. It's all in the language. Remember its "suspected." That is very vague legal terminology. The megacapitolists don't like the Constitution or the Bill of Rights because they only get in the way of good fascism. Do you think big money wants labor to have any kind of voice? When push comes to shove the only voices we will have is our right to keep arms. This is the kind of legislation they have been looking for, for a century. Take a look at who really runs things. It is not our congress. It is big money.
August 1, 2008
1:30 p.m.
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jackwoehr writes:
Nice editorial. I remember when Sen. Ken Salazar indicated he was "disappointed" in Gonzales whom he had shepherded through the confirmation process. It's hard to understand how a U.S. senator can be "disappointed" when it turns out that a lawyer who advocates the commission of war crimes prior to his nomination turns out to be a dishonest attorney general!
August 1, 2008
1:38 p.m.
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Marshdale writes:
One other thing. It has been introduced into legislation but I'm not sure if it has passed. I believe it is part of the FISA bill. Correct me if I am wrong. If you decide things in this country are getting to wierd and you want to leave, the government has the right to sieze your cash and capitol assets. Just how scary is that? The problem is that most people don't pay attention to this stuff. So they don't know about it.
August 1, 2008
6:49 p.m.
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BetterEducated writes:
RIGHT ON!!!!
August 1, 2008
7:29 p.m.
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Castle writes:
Am I wrong or do the US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President? Does he not have the perogative to fire and hire whom ever he wants, for what ever reason? Did not Clinton FIRE every US Attorney to weed out the two who were investagating him of Billery? Why was there no cry from the liberal left over that? Just wondering.
August 1, 2008
7:32 p.m.
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AngelontheSidelines writes:
Nowadays, a moderate, or bipartisan is a Democrat that caves in to the Republican agenda, no matter how weak the Republican minority is.
Ken the Cave(in)man Salazar is just Colorado's shining example of the new politician.
August 1, 2008
7:45 p.m.
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Brain writes:
Salazar, vote him out!
August 1, 2008
8:44 p.m.
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Sweetpickle writes:
Eid seems to be the perfect Republican apparatchik, follow the party line and bluster if anyone notices. I bet he was right at the top of Gonzales' "Keep these guys" list.
August 1, 2008
9:48 p.m.
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BO writes:
Castle-
You have a point to a degree. What has bothered me is the hiring practices done by the dept. It seems that there were questions put forth to job candidates concerning their political affiliations. Lots of hires were graduates of Regent University, a Christian oriented law school founded by Pat Robertson in 1978, ranked as a fourth-tier law school by US News and World Report (lowest tier). Hard to believe that so many people from this school were so much more qualified than graduates from Harvard, Yale, Duke, etc. Very few Regent grads worked in the US govt. before this president.
August 1, 2008
9:50 p.m.
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BO writes:
Sasquatch-
You do realize that you and Sean Hannity are the only two people that still buy what the Swiftys are selling, don't you? Weren't they soundly debunked in 2004?
August 2, 2008
4:06 p.m.
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Conservativeslayer writes:
Castle, yes the president has the right to fire the US attorneys. Bill Clinton did that at the beginning of his administration (like every other president at the beginning of their administrations), not during the middle of it like Bush. Also it wasn't done for political reasons, like what Bush did. He fired 9 US attorney's because they weren't going along with the partisan prosecutions. Rove was all up in this, it's why he refuses to testify to Congress.
Marshdale, went do you mean how close to a dictatorship we came? Bush is a dictator, he's declared himself above the law. Laws don't apply to him, that is the definition of a dictator. He can do anything he wants, even if US law says he can't. He's ordered the torture of detainees, the illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, lied us in to a war. All of these things are violations of US law, sure hasn't stopped him has it? Bush is a dictator, no doubt about that.
August 2, 2008
4:48 p.m.
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Castle writes:
Conservativeslayer and Bo, It's still not clear to you. They serve at the PLEASURE of the president. It's POLITICAL appointment. Just like many of the ambasador jobs that presidents hand out. WHY does he not have to privlidge to hire and or fire anyone or all of them for what ever his reason? Their track record in court, not the school they graduated from, will determine if they keep their job. This whole "investagation" is nothing more then political expediency by the liberals.
August 2, 2008
8:52 p.m.
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BO writes:
Castle-
Actually, its not clear to you. I understand that Bush appoints them. However, its wrong, regardless of party or president, to hire and fire someone based on political affiliation. Secondly, last time I knew, America was about being "best man/ woman" for the job. You can't honestly sit there with a straight face and think that there is nothing shady about hiring so many people into the justice dept. from a bottom feeder law school- one that happens to strictly preach conservative ideals? It shouldn't matter who someone votes for when being interviewed for a job. That's not what America is about- and if it is, then we're ALL in deep s&%#.
August 2, 2008
10:07 p.m.
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Conservativeslayer writes:
Castle you are obviously ignorant of the facts in the firing of the US attorneys. Turn off the liars you listen to everyday (Rush, Billo, Hannity, Faux Noise channel etc). They fired prosecutors that had some of the best prosecution records. They lied about the prosecutors records because what they did was illegal. Why do you think Karl Rove refuses to testify about his involvement in this? BECAUSE THEY BROKE THE LAW.