Attorney General Gonzales will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week on the Bush administration's domestic spying program. Gonzales played a key role in that program when he was White House legal Counsel. Here's the question: why should the Senators or the American people believe Gonzales now when he has already lied about this program under oath -- before the same committee?:
Mr. Gonzales's credibility is especially suspect among Democrats. Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, is angry over a response from Mr. Gonzales during his confirmation hearing when Mr. Feingold asked, "Does the president, in your opinion, have the authority, acting as commander in chief, to authorize warrantless searches of Americans' homes and wiretaps of their conversations in violation of the criminal and foreign intelligence surveillance statutes of this country?"So, he wasn't honest when he was testifying to become the nation's chief law enforcement officer. At the time, in January of 2005, Gonzales was well aware that the NY Times had the story of the domestic spying operation. Remember that the Times released the story in December of 2005, but they'd had numerous conversations with the Bush White House beginning in 2004 over this blockbuster news. Even knowing that a major news organization could prove him wrong, Gonzales lied.
At the time, the spy program was well under way. Mr. Gonzales denied that the administration was engaged in anything illegal and said, "So what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation."
Mr. Feingold, who voted against Mr. Gonzales's nomination, sent Mr. Gonzales a letter last week, reminding him of the exchange — "misleading testimony," he called it — and telling him to be prepared to explain it on Monday.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Feingold said, "He hid the fact that the program existed."
How can anyone believe what Gonzales says now? It is standard operating procedure for the Bush team to lie. The traditional media and members of Congress still have a hard time accepting that -- which is why Gonzales, Rove and the rest of them keep doing it.
