Confirming Criminality

It was clear during his confirmation hearing that Gonzales was incapable of giving a straight answer, yet the Senate confirmed him anyway. As with Roberts and Alito, the danger signs were obvious to anyone whose vision wasn't clouded by political calculation. Now the Senate must deal with a monster of its own making. And of course the Senate's conscience-free zone, otherwise known as the GOP caucus - the same bunch that wanted to lynch Bill Clinton for being evasive about a blow job - truckles to Dear Leader in its Pavlovian defense of Gonzales. The Dems had better stiffen their spines and watch their backs if they want to see justice done at Justice.

Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed - washingtonpost.com

When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."

But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."

By then, however, the government had been conducting a secret wiretapping program for more than three years without court oversight, possibly in conflict with federal intelligence laws. Gonzales had personally defended the effort in fierce internal debates. Feingold later called his testimony that day "misleading and deeply troubling."

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