The nice-guy attorney general

The nice-guy attorney general
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Life

Sutton is a piece of crap, the whole group is corrupt. And they are enforcing the law? What a Joke!

Subject: OP/ED: The nice-guy attorney general


The nice-guy attorney general
Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, March 25, 2007
IF ATTORNEY General Alberto Gonzales resigns over the U.S. attorneys flap,
many Republicans will not be sorry to see him go.
It's not just that some believe Gonzales made a huge mistake in claiming
that he asked for the resignations of eight U.S. attorneys for
"performance-related" reasons -- which was bad form. Or as Washington
attorney Victoria Toensing, who worked in the Reagan administration, noted,
"Replacing at-will employees should be Government 101. This is not a
difficult process. They flunked smart."
Forget the U.S. attorneys flap. Many on the right believe that Gonzales has
been lax in enforcing immigration law, not been sufficiently partisan, and
that he's not particularly competent, either. They wonder: With friends
like this, who needs enemies?
For example, some Republicans wonder why Gonzales did not include U.S.
Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas on his got-to-go
list. Sutton, you may recall, prosecuted two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio
Ramos and Jose Compean, for shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler, covering
up the incident and depriving the Mexican smuggler of his constitutional
rights. Many voters are outraged that the two agents are now serving
11-year and 12-year sentences.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntingdon Beach, is incensed that Gonzales did
not stop Sutton from throwing the book at two good agents -- strike one --
while Sutton granted immunity to a man who was smuggling 743 pounds of
marijuana into the country. Strike two.
Rohrabacher told me that his frustration with the Bushies had been
mounting. "I kept quiet for a long time," he said. "But when he put the
lives of these two Border Patrol agents on the line and decided he was
going to squash them like a bug, that was the end of it."
The cherry on top: Gonzales failed to protect Ramos and Compean when they
entered prisons filled with the sort of criminals they used to put away.
One night, gang members at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Complex in
Mississippi beat up Ramos. Said Rohrabacher, "The attorney general knew and
knows today that these two men's lives are at risk. Instead of moving
forward to try to send them to a minimum security prison or let them get
out on bond (while they appeal), he has dug his heels in." Strike three.
Readers have e-mailed me to complain about the Bush administration's
overall lack of border enforcement, including Border Patrol non-pursuit
policies that seem gift-wrapped for drug traffickers and human smugglers.
Then there is former Clinton adviser Sandy Berger. It drives conservatives
crazy that the feds prosecuted Scooter Libby for lying about leaking the
identity of ex-CIA operative Valerie Wilson, when the feds cut a generous
plea bargain with Berger for destroying classified documents.
Berger, who in 2003 destroyed classified National Archives documents
relating to the Clinton administration's terrorism policies, received no
penalty: No jail time, just a fine, 100 hours of community service -- and
he even gets his security clearance back after three years.
Earlier this year, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., charged the Justice Department
with giving Berger a "free pass." Davis was especially critical of the
DOJ's decision not to polygraph Berger, who originally denied destroying
documents. Partisans wonder why a Democrat got a sweeter deal than a
Republican.
Indeed, many GOP partisans believe that Gonzales should have urged
President Bush to pardon Libby in 2006, as soon as it was learned that
former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the original leaker
of Wilson's identity. Fitzgerald, they mutter, should have closed up shop
as soon as he started the investigation, because he knew Armitage was the
original source. Instead, he went on a witch-hunt for an act that
apparently was not a crime, because Fitzgerald never charged Armitage.
It gets worse. Gonzales had a chance to learn that Armitage was the
original leaker in 2003 when he was White House counsel. A top State
Department lawyer told Gonzales that Armitage was going to speak to Justice
officials about the Wilson leak and asked whether Gonzales wanted to be
told the details. As the New York Times reported, Gonzales said he did not
want to know.
As one conservative lawyer, who did not want to be named, told me, the
right wants an attorney general who is a "pugilist." As for Gonzales, he
said, "All he does is walk backward and apologize."
E-mail: dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/25/EDG56N6PA01.DTL