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 News from Around the Americas | May 2007 
Senate Readies No-Confidence Vote in Bid to Oust Key Bush Aide
 Agence France-Presse
| | U.S. President George W. Bush (L) sits next to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the Annual Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Capitol Hill in Washington May 15, 2007. (Reuters/Jim Young) |
Washington - The US Senate was set to take the almost unprecedented move of a no-confidence vote on US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, ramping up pressure on President George W. Bush to sack his unpopular longtime aide.
The vote - to be taken possibly as early as this week - would be only symbolic, but several Republicans were likely to support the measure, including one key lawmaker who spoke Sunday of "the likelihood of a very substantial vote of no-confidence" against Gonzales.
"You already have six Republicans calling for his resignation," said Republican Senator Arlen Specter on CBS television Sunday, adding that the desire to avoid a political spectacle may convince the attorney general to resign.
"I have a sense ... that before the vote is taken, that attorney general Gonzales may step down," he said.
"Votes of no confidence are very rare," said Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that that last no-confidence vote came more than a century ago.
"I think that if and when he sees that coming, that he would prefer to avoid that kind of an historical black mark," he said.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, a key Gonzales opponent, rejected criticism that the no-confidence vote amounted to a political stunt, and said it reflected the will of the US public, as well as that of many lawmakers from both parties.
"The only person who thinks the attorney general should remain the attorney general is the president," he told Fox News television Sunday.
And US Senator Dianne Feinstein, criticized Gonzales' "weak" overall performance as the top US law enforcement officer.
"His concept of attorney general ... is that he wears two hats: one to serve the president; the other to serve the people," the California Democrat said.
"I don't think the attorney general can wear two hats."
Gonzales's troubles began in February because of his firings last year of eight federal prosecutors, allegedly for partisan political reasons, and revelations that as many as 30 had been considered for dismissal.
The sackings, while legal, had the appearance of a political purge, which e-mail messages hinted had been orchestrated by the White House.
Gonzales has admitted no wrong-doing and enjoys unwavering support from Bush.
As it appeared Gonzales might weather that controversy, a former number-two man at the Justice Department testified before the Senate last week that Gonzales in March 2004 tried to compel hospitalized then-attorney general John Ashcroft to authorize a covert program to eavesdrop on Americans without a judicial warrant.
The operation, disclosed in 2005, appears to have been the first anti-terrorist measure aimed directly at US citizens, and is therefore the among the most controversial put in place during the George W. Bush administration.
The revelation has reignited the firestorm about Gonzales's zealous loyalty to the president, even in his capacity as attorney general, a difficult job in that it requires independent legal judgment.
In his prior job as White House council, Gonzales found legal justifications for some of Bush's most controversial policies, when it came to prisoner interrogations and surveillance.
"Long before he moved from the White House to the Justice Department, Gonzales was a serial enabler of legal shortcuts in the war on terror," The Los Angeles Times newspaper said Friday in an editorial.
Comey testified that Ashcroft refused to sign the authorization and that that he, Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller threatened to resign unless substantive changes were made in the program - changes which were later put in place by the Bush administration.
Asked last week about the episode, Bush declined to confirm or deny it, and the White House has strongly reaffirmed its support for Gonzales. |
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