Whitehouse: ‘You Can Safely Bet’ The List Of Fired Attorneys Came From The White House

Earlier this week, ThinkProgress sat down with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and asked him whether he believes the plan for purging U.S. attorneys originated from the Bush White House.

Whitehouse explained that tracking down who conceived of the list of fired U.S. attorneys was made much more difficult due to new rules employed by the Bush administration that greatly expanded the number of DoJ and White House employees that could talk to one another about criminal cases. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April, Whitehouse forced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to admit previous firewalls between White House and DoJ staff had been torn down, allowing at least 400 White House officials and over 30 Justice officials to have discussions with one another about criminal cases.

Whitehouse told ThinkProgress why that matters:

WHITEHOUSE: So a Karl Rove to Kyle Sampson call about a case would have been out of bounds under the rules that had been developed for decades. Under the Bush Administration, they knocked down the rules, so there’s so many opportunities for that infiltration it’s hard to know where it came from. And that’s why I think we need to continue to pursue the investigation. By process of elimination if nobody in the Department of Justice knows where the list came from, then it may not have come from within the Department of Justice; it may have come from somewhere else. And given the likelihood here — it probably didn’t come from Congress; it probably didn’t come from the Governor of Iowa or, you know, the Mayor of Detroit. You can pretty well safely bet that the place that it came from was the White House.

Watch it:

The day after Monica Goodling acknowledged that she had an “uncomfortable” conversation with Gonzales in which the Attorney General appeared to try to “shape” her testimony, Sen. Whitehouse said, “It is surprising how often a whiff of obstruction of justice has reared its head in the course of this investigation.”

Whitehouse elaborated on that remark, noting that phone calls placed by DoJ official Michael Elston to the fired attorneys threatening them not to speak out serves as another example of obstruction of justice.

Whitehouse recalled that at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in March, he asked fired attorneys Bud Cummins, Carol Lam, David Iglesias, and John McKay what they would have done in their capacity as federal prosecutors after learning that the officials were trying to discourage witnesses from testifying. All four said they would have commenced an obstruction of justice investigation.

While federal prosecutors appear to agree that there is a basis for obstruction of justice, Whitehouse noted that members of “the Gonzales clique” have tried to “define deviancy down” and argue “that anything less than criminal obstruction of justice is no longer viewed as improper:”

WHITEHOUSE: Whenever you see anybody from the Department of Justice — anybody from the Gonzales clique from the Department of Justice — talk about this, they say three things over and over again. They say that it would be improper to attempt to influence or interfere with a particular case — they always use that phrase — a particular case, for an improper partisan purpose.

Now, that is a very accurate, lay description of the elements of criminal obstruction of justice. So it looks as if they may be trying to basically kind of define deviancy down, if you will, so that anything less than criminal obstruction of justice is no longer viewed as improper. So, that’s absolutely the wrong place for an Attorney General of the United States to be establishing the standard for his office. Absolutely the wrong one. And Jim Comey and other people have recognized that.

Transcript:

TP: You had an interesting quote the day after Monica Goodling testified, “It’s surprising how often a whiff of obstruction of justice has reared it’s head in the course of this investigation.” Could you elaborate on that comment a little bit. What do you see as — throughout this attorney scandal we’ve now had a number of witnesses testify — what are some of the most disturbing things that you’ve heard relating to this obstruction of justice issue.

WHITEHOUSE: Well, the Department of Justice, I don’t think has been truly forthcoming about what went on. A lot of it is hidden in the I don’t remember, I don’t recalls, that seem to be the hallmark of the testimony of Department of Justice officials. But, then there are other things that worry me a lot. The telephone call that the Department of Justice made to the fired U.S. Attorneys that warned them that if they continue to speak to Congress, the Department would be required to go after them and attack their reputations. In one of the hearings, we had four U.S. Attorneys in front of us, and having been one myself, I asked them what was a pretty straightforward question: if one of your witnesses in a grand jury investigation that you were pursuing came in and reported to you that they had been contacted by someone in the same way you had been contacted by the Department of Justice, what would you do? And four for four they said we’d open an investigation, we’d open an investigation into whether obstruction of justice had occurred. And then whenever you see anybody from the Department of Justice — anybody from the Gonzales clique from the Department of Justice — talk about this, they say three things over and over again. They say that it would be improper to attempt to influence or interfere with a particular case — they always use that phrase — a particular case, for an improper partisan purpose. Now, that is a very accurate, lay description of the elements of criminal obstruction of justice. So it looks as if they may be trying to basically kind of define deviancy down, if you will, so that anything less than criminal obstruction of justice is no longer viewed as improper. So, that’s absolutely the wrong place for an Attorney General of the United States to be establishing the standard for his office. Absolutely the wrong one. And Jim Comey and other people have recognized that.

TP: We’ve now heard from numerous senior Justice Department officials on this and all of them claim not to have been involved in naming the attorneys that were chosen to be fired and targeted. Senator Leahy has said that all evidence is that this leads to the White House, and I’m wondering if you share that view and if so, now that you’ve had so many interviews, do you have a better sense of how that worked at the White House or what the nexis of this was — who might have been involved?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, not too long ago we might have had a better idea because the contact between the White House and the Department of Justice were fairly carefully narrowed. On cases it was very specific. Very few people in the White House — the President, the Vice President, the White House Council, the Deputy White House Council — would have discussions with the Department of Justice about cases. And there were only a few people on the Department of Justice side who could take those calls — the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney General. They changed all that. They kicked that wall down. There are now something like 400 people in the White House who talk to the Department of Justice about ongoing cases and about 40 in the Department of Justice who take those calls. So a Karl Rove to Kyle Sampson call about a case would have been out of bounds under the rules that had been developed for decades. Under the Bush Administration, they knocked down the rules, so there’s so many opportunities for that infiltration it’s hard to know where it came from. And that’s why I think we need to continue to pursue the investigation. By process of elimination if nobody in the Department of Justice knows where the list came from, then it may not have come from within the Department of Justice; it may have come from somewhere else. And given the likelihood here — it probably didn’t come from Congress; it probably didn’t come from the Governor or Iowa or, you know, the Mayor of Detroit. You can pretty well safely bet that the place that it came from was the White House. And so that’s what we need to explore, because they’re foreclosing other reasonable options with their testimony.