The probe, started by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility after a request from a New York Congressman, was shut down in March 2006 when President Bush decided not to grant security clearances to the office's attorneys. It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.
Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales's role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general.
Both the White House and Gonzales declined comment on two issues -- whether Gonzales informed Bush that his own conduct was about to be scrutinized, and whether he urged the president to close down the investigation, which had been requested by Democratic members of Congress.
Current and former Justice Department officials, as well as experts in legal ethics, question the propriety of Gonzales's continuing to advise Bush about the investigation after learning that it might examine his own actions. The attorney general, they say, was remiss if he did not disclose that information to the president. But if Gonzales did inform Bush about the possibility and the president responded by stymieing the probe, that would raise even more-serious questions as to whether Bush acted to protectGonzales, they said.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales helped shut down an internal investigation into the Administration's warrantlesswiretapping program after he learned that probe might look into his actions when he served in the White House, according to an explosive story from National Journal's Murray Waas that calls into question whether President Bush or Gonzales killed the probe for purely political reasons.
