The crucial test will come next month, when the A.G. is slated to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats plan to hammer Gonzales for his conflicting accounts of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. “The president isn’t saying ‘You better perform well or else’,” said the White House aide. “But [Gonzales] understands that a huge step in repairing his relationship with Congress is to do well before them.”
This week Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, is due to testify before the Senate panel. Justice e-mails show Sampson ranked prosecutors according to whether they were a “loyal Bushie,” and coordinated the timing of the firings with White House officials—including aides to Karl Rove. Gonzales claimed he was unaware that the White House was so deeply involved. But Dems will press Sampson to explain how his boss could have been kept in the dark. His likely answer: Gonzales was “generally aware” of the firings but was not briefed on every “twist and turn,” said a source familiar with Sampson’s account (who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities). One e-mail released late last week shows Gonzales was briefed by Sampson on the firings on Nov. 27— just 10 days before they occurred.
Sampson is also expected to testify that Gonzales told him about complaints he had gotten from GOP Sen. Pete Domenici about one of the prosecutors, David Iglesias of New Mexico. But Sampson “doesn’t recall” why at the last minute Iglesias was put on the list of prosecutors to be fired. (Iglesias has charged Domenici pressured him to bring indictments in a corruption case implicating local Democrats—a claim Domenici has denied.) A Justice spokesman declined to comment, but confirmed that the firings are the subject of an internal Justice probe. Gonzales is trying to change the subject. This week he will conduct a media blitz about Project Safe Childhood, a program targeting Internet sex predators. Planned months ago, it was recently expanded, Justice officials say, to give Gonzales the chance to meet with local media (and visit with U.S. attorneys). “This is an issue near and dear to his heart,” said a Justice spokesman.
