Senators Ask for Special Counsel to Investigate Attorney General for Perjury

Four U.S. Democratic Senators requested that the Justice Department appoint a special counsel to investigate the possibility that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales perjured himself in testimony to Congress about the Administration's warrantless spying program and its firing of U.S. attorneys for political purposes.

Senators Dianne Feinstein (California), Russell Feingold (Wisconsin), Charles Schumer (New York) and Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) signed the letter (.pdf) sent to the Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is acting Attorney General in matters where the AG has recused himself.

The Senators asked Clement to immediately appoint a special counsel from outside the Justice Department to determine if the Attorney General has misled or lied to Congress in regards to the NSA wirretapping program, the Intensive Care showdown and the firing of U.S. attorneys.

The letter cited three statements the Senators considered to be half-truths or misleading statements, including this one:

Attorney General Gonzales testified that the purpose of the March 10, 2004 meeting was "for the White House to advise the Congress that Mr. Comey had advised us that he could not approve the continuation of vitally important intelligence activities," which the Attorney General later testified was "not" the NSA wiretapping program. This is contradicted by an unclassified letter from John Negroponte, then Director of National Intelligence, to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on May 17, 2006 describing the same "Gang of Eight" briefing as being "on the Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The Senators emphasized that they considered the Attorney General's attempt to keep Congress from knowing about the internal dissent over the domestic spying program a breach of his duty and possibly the law.

As the nation's top lawyer and head of the Department of Justice, the
Attorney General should be held t the highest ethical standards.

THREAT LEVEL has known for months that Gonzales was willing to play linguistic games to keep Congress in the dark. Here's a relevant snippet from a May post:

It is clear that Gonzales is willing to dissemble and mislead Congress with meandering definitions and legalisms. When talking about disagreements in Congress in February 2006, Gonzales said the disagreements weren't about the program he came to testify about.

There has not been any serious disagreement -- and I think this is accurate -- there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations which I cannot get into.

By "the program the president has confirmed" he's referring to the program as reconfigured after the Intensive Care Showdown.

Just minutes later in the SAME hearing, he was asked when the program started. Gonzales then said, "The authorization regarding the terrorist surveillance program occurred subsequent to the authorization to use military force and prior to the Patriot Act." That's October 2001.

When it's convenient he'll talk about the warrantless surveillance program from its origin. When he's hiding something -- such as the existence of extreme dissension inside the Justice Department, he refers to the program only AFTER it was changed to quell an internal riot.

Gonzales isn't retracting that statement.

What's not now known is whether Solicitor General Clement thinks intentionally misleading statements by the nation's top law enforcement official is cause enough to appoint a special counsel, or whether that special counsel will find that to be a crime.