Bradley Schlozman has emerged as a central figure in the politicization of the Justice Department, particularly for his focus on squashing the voice of minorites prior to major elections.

As an interim U.S. attorney in Missouri, Schlozman brought felony indictments of four workers in the minority advocacy group ACORN just a week before the 2006 election. That move ran counter to a longstanding policy in the Justice Department, and voter fraud charges against ACORN were dismissed. Schlozman also killed an investigation of Native American voter suppression in Minnesota, a practice that was resulting in “electoral discrimination against Indian voters.”

As TPMMuckraker noted, Schlozman played dumb today when asked about the political leanings of ACORN. But later in the hearing, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) caught Schlozman baselessly labeling groups that reach out to minority voters as the “liberal” counterparts to the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. Watch it:

As Schumer pointed out, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, which “fosters sound public policies, laws and programs to safeguard the civil rights of the 45 million Latinos living in the United States,” and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, which “advocates for the legal needs and interests of the APA community,” are nothing like the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think tank) and the Federalist Society (a right-wing legal organization).

Schlozman’s labeling of these advocacy organizations suggests that he never truly consulted with liberal groups and carried out his position in a political manner. As Schumer noted, “I think the record here is speaking for itself.”

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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directly contradicted his 2006 sworn testimony about the NSA domestic surveillance program during a press conference today.

Recall, last month, Deputy Attorney General James Comey revealed in sworn testimony that there had been significant dissent within the Justice Department surrounding the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic spying program. Comey revealed that the deep doubts about the program’s “legality and oversight” almost led to the resignations of Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and others.

Comey’s disturbing account contradicted Alberto Gonzales’ sworn testimony before Congress in 2006. He said at the time:

GONZALES: Senator, here is a response that I feel that I can give with respect to recent speculation or stories about disagreements. There has not been any serious disagreement, including — and I think this is accurate — there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations, which I cannot get into. I will also say –

Last month, Gonzales refused to retract his original testimony, raising “fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute” to which Comey referred. Center for American Progress senior fellow Peter Swire noted that Gonzales’ refusal to revise his testimony either confirmed that Gonzales had “made serious misstatements under oath” or that senior Justice Department officials were, in effect, “confirming that other ‘programs’ exist for domestic spying.”

Today, Gonzales appeared to resolve the question. He confirmed that both he and Comey were referring to the same domestic spying program:

QUESTION: Mr. Attorney General, last month, Jim Comey testified about a visit you and Andy Card made to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed. Can you tell us your side of the story? Why were you there? And did Mr. Comey testify truthfully about it? Did he remember it correctly?

GONZALES: Mr. Comey’s testimony related to a highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago. And, because it’s a highly classified program, I’m not going to comment on his testimony.

Gonzales’ confirmation that he and Comey were in fact referring to the same NSA warrantless wiretapping program raises fresh questions about his credibility. Assuming Gonzales is now telling the truth, his original claim that there was no “serious disagreement” about the program should be viewed as a brazen effort to mislead Congress about the depth and seriousness of the legal controversy surrounding the spying program.

– Ryan Powers

I’m gonna liveblogging this here looming GOP debate. Let me say at the outside that I’m going to be doing this under a “no meta” rule. Statements of the form “candidate x did well” mean that I, as a citizen of the Republic, was, in fact, favorably disposed to what he did; not that I, as a mighty journalist, speculate that typical people were favorably disposed to what did.

I think the business of picking “winners” and “losers” in these things is basically bullshit. Normal people don’t watch these things. The reason they matter is that they impact press coverage (and, these days, blog coverage). Which is fine. But people in the press should just cover the damn thing straightforwardly in a first-order way.

Photo by Flickr user irrational cat used under a Creative Commons license

President Bush’s approval rating in a new Pew poll, “the lowest of his presidency – down from 35 percent two months ago.”

Today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Justice Department official Bradley Schlozman was supposed to testify on his role in the politicization of the Department’s Civil Rights Division and political cases he pursued against liberals while U.S. attorney in Missouri.

But instead of explaining his actions, Schlozman repeatedly claimed ignorance on the many scandals in which he’s been involved. At one point, committee members could no longer take it. Fed up, chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) held up a Justice Dept. manual on election offenses and said:

You know, I tend to think that perhaps you use this more as a doorstop than as something you actually had to follow. … I think you’re trying to break Attorney General Gonzales’ record of saying you “don’t recall” or you “don’t remember.” I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve said that.

ThinkProgress has put together a compilation of Leahy’s statements and Schlozman’s many “I don’t recall” moments. Watch it:

Digg It!

Fox News “apologized” today after airing images of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) during a discussion of indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) (both happen to be African African).

“Yesterday at this time, news of the indictment of Congressman William Jefferson came down. We mistakenly ran the wrong video to accompany this story and we apologize for that error,” a Fox anchor, Martha MacCallum, told viewers at about 1:20 p.m. today. The 10-second apology made no reference to Mr. Conyers and did not explain why or how the erroneous video made it to air.

Conyers responded today in a statement:

Fox News has a history of inappropriate on-air mistakes that are neither fair, nor balanced. This type of disrespect for people of color should no longer be tolerated. I am personally offended by the network’s complete disregard for accuracy in reporting and lackluster on-air apology.

Job openings at the Department of Homeland Security “have increasingly been filled by ‘GOP fundraisers or apparatchiks…sent to pad their resumes or cool their heels,” a new National Journal report finds. According to a “2006 survey of more than 10,000 DHS employees, two-thirds would not agree with the statement that ‘arbitrary action, personal favoritism and coercion for partisan political purposes are not tolerated’ at the department.”