List of Charges (No, I am not a lawyer, but I think I did a pretty good job)
I. He lied to Congress during his confirmation hearing. Perjury.
"During his January 2005 Attorney General Senate confirmation hearings, Gonzales apparently lied to Congress. Senator Russ Feingold, in attempting to determine where Gonzales believed the president's authority ends, asked whether the president could act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant. Gonzales avoided answering the question by claiming that warrantless eavesdropping was a "hypothetical situation" and thus impossible to answer. He went on to add that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. These statements were later proven false, when on February 6, 2006, he testified before Congress to his knowledge of the U.S. domestic spying program while he was White House Counsel.
"Gonzales has avoided further investigation surrounding his testimony, partly because Republican Senator Arlen Specter refused to swear in Gonzales, but also because confirmation hearings testimony was ruled as off limits as a precondition to questioning Gonzales." In other words, Gonzales has avoided further investigation, because Congress has been under GOP control--until now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gonzales II. He suppressed and overturned career DOJ lawyers recommendations about the Voting Rights Act in a way that violated the law. Abuse of official power for political purposes. In the Texas Redistricting Case (the one that cost Tom Delay his career) career DOJ voter rights lawyers objected on the grounds that the plan illegally diluted minority voting to increase the number of GOP seats. Al Gonzales not only vetoed their decision. For two years, he kept their report under wraps, until lawyers for the Democrats uncovered it during their court challenge.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101927.html"Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at American University, said it was "highly unusual" for political appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas case.
"'In this kind of situation, where everybody agrees at least on the staff level . . . that is a very, very strong case," Posner said. "The fact that everybody agreed that there were reductions in minority voting strength, and that they were significant, raises a lot of questions as to why it was" approved, he said."
The SCOTUS confirmed the career lawyers assessment regarding Hispanic voting strength. Four of the five also affirmed their opinion about the dilution of Black voting strength in North Texas (Kennedy sided with the Conservative block on this one), making the title of this Washington Post article a bit misleading. Instead of being "Justices Affirm Map" it should have read "Justices Axe Half of Map, One Vote Short of Tossing the Whole Thing Out on Voting Rights Grounds"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/28/AR2006062800660.htmlWhat makes this case damning is that it was not isolated. The political bosses at the DOJ, did the exact same thing in the Georgia Voter ID case.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602504.html"A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.
"The Justice Department has characterized the "pre-clearance" of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.
"But an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post recommended blocking the program because Georgia failed to show that the measure would not dilute the votes of minority residents, as required under the Voting Rights Act.The memo, endorsed by four of the team's five members, also said the state had provided flawed and incomplete data. The team found significant evidence that the plan would be "retrogressive," meaning that it would reduce blacks' access to the polls.
"A day later, on Aug. 26, the chief of the department's voting rights section, John Tanner, told Georgia officials that the program could go forward. "The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the specified changes," he said in a letter to them."
<snip>
"State Rep. Tyrone L. Brooks Sr., a Democrat and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, said he was not surprised by the Justice Department's position in the case.
'Some of my colleagues told me early on that, because of politics in the Bush administration, no matter what the staff recommendation was, this would be approved by the attorney general,' Brooks said. 'It's disappointing that the staff recommendation was not accepted, because that has been the norm since 1965.'"III. Al Gonzales STILL Has Not Appointed a Special Prosecutor For Abramoff. Conspiracy to cover up criminal activity and abuse of power for political purposes this despite the fact that the Department of Justice has been implicated in intervening in 2002 to get Frederick Black, the US Attorney of Guam, fired, because he was investigating Abramoff. How can a department that acted illegally to save a criminal's butt now conduct the investigation of him? Abramoff also has ties to the administration. No one would expect Congress to investigate him. How can the executive branch? I realize that this is the one matter that even Dems in Congress may not to talk about, but it is important. Here are some links.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/bermanhttp://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/JoshMarshall/092205.html IV. Gonzales Likely Participated in the Plame Coverup As White House Counsel. Conspiracy and cover up. This is why you don't choose your White House counsel to be AG. Not only do they continue to act like your personal defense attorney and hit man, they also have a lot of bad things in their closet that they did for you in the line of duty (defense attorneys are expected to do some shady stuff as long as they don't get caught. This stuff is not cool when done by an AG).
http://bornatthecrestoftheempire.blogspot.com/2006_04_23_bornatthecrestoftheempire_archive.html"Short version, the Justice Department notified Al Gonzales about the investigation. He immediately called Andy Card, and then the two of them, so their story goes, didn't issue any notification to anybody for twelve hours.
"But, there are 250 emails and documents which were "improperly archived" as was disclosed in one of the Libby filings. That awkward phrase has always implied to me an amateurish attempt to destroy them by someone without the technical knowledge of the White House email system."
V. Al Gonzales and the Department of Justice are Attempting to Spearhead an Executive Branch Effort to Intimidate the Congressional Branch. Abuse of power. Days before the election, when it was clear that at least the House would fall under Democratic control, meaning that investigations of the Executive Branch were now possible, the Department of Justice issued this news statement which can easily be construed as a threat, particularly in light of their precedent setting raid on the office of Jefferson Davis last summer.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15937930.htm"WASHINGTON - The new chief of the FBI's Criminal Division, which is swamped with public corruption cases, says the bureau is ramping up its ability to catch crooked politicians and might run an undercover sting on Congress.
"Assistant FBI Director James Burrus called the bureau's public corruption program "a sleeping giant that we've awoken," and predicted the nation will see continued emphasis in that area "for many, many, many years to come."'
The article goes on to threaten that the FBI will use wiretaps, bugs--whatever they want, apparently. This will make it all but impossible for anyone in Congress to prepare a secret investigation with whistle-blowers whose identity and testimony is kept secret from the executive branch. "Undercover" operations could include having FBI agents sent to work in Congress as secretaries, janitors. All of this in the name of fighting crime.
Notice that his efforts to call Torture, Wiretaps, Foreign Renditions, Secret Trials and other Illegal Acts legal are not mentioned among the charges. Nor have I listed his failure to prosecute oil companies for price fixing since you can not fault a DA for not pressing charges. I have tried to list just the stuff that is obviously criminal, the perjury, the abuses of power. I suppose gross incompetence is also a reason for impeachment.
This man is not fit to represent the law of the land. He must go and removing him from office should be a first priority. Given the results of this election, I do not think that the American people will be sorry to see him leave.
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