Gonzales' top deputy closes ranks in prepared statement for Thursday hearing Michael Roston

Published: Wednesday June 20, 2007 Print This Email This The outgoing top deputy to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will close ranks with his embattled boss in testimony to be delivered at the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty, who recently resigned, insisted in his prepared remarks that no wrongdoing occurred in the course of the Justice Department's responses to a Congressional probe into the firing of a group of US Attorneys. But his remarks left unanswered some key questions about his role in the firing of 8 US Attorneys. McNulty acknowledged that he had made remarks to Congress in the past based on an incomplete understanding of events. "We have learned that my knowledge at the time I testified about the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys was in some respects incomplete. I want to be clear today, however, that at all times, I have sought to provide Congress with the truth. And I also want to be clear that I do not believe, and have never believed, that anyone in the Department of Justice set out to mislead me so that I might provide Congress with inaccurate information about this matter," McNulty will say in his introductory statement tomorrow. A copy of his brief prepared remarks, which are set to be delivered at noon before Rep. Linda Sanchez's Subcommittee on Commerical Administrative Law, were sent to RAW STORY . He went on to claim that any controversy was the result of errors, and not an effort to lie to Congress. "To the contrary, I believe that the thousands of documents that have been produced demonstrate only that in the weeks before my testimony, many in the Department struggled with the question of how best to provide Congress with accurate information about the removals of the U.S. Attorneys, consistent with our efforts to protect the reputations of the U.S. Attorneys involved," he claimed. McNulty also insisted that there were no partisan political interests involved in any Justice Department prosecutions throughout the course of the Bush administration. "It is important for this Committee and the public to know that when it comes to enforcing the law, Justice Department employees are blind to partisan politics," he will assert in his prepared remarks. "It plays no role in the Departments actions. The law enforcement professionals, lawyers, and staff at DOJ check their politics at the door and investigate and prosecute cases based strictly on the facts and the law." The Deputy Attorney General's prepared remarks seem unlikely to ward off several specific concerns that will be raised by Democratic Members of Congress in the Thursday hearing. For example, many Congress members are likely to question him on the claims of Monica Goodling, former White House Liaison in the Justice Department. She told Congressional investigators that McNulty was not forthright when he spoke in a closed-door briefing with Congress members in February. "I believe the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as interim US Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the [bipartisan commission that selects Attorneys in California], and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in 'vote caging' in the President's 2004 campaign," she said in her May 23 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. McNulty's prepared remarks also do not address Gonzales's allegation in a May 15 press conference that the Deputy Attorney General made many of the key decisions about which US Attorneys were added to the list of those who were fired. "Mr. McNulty was a former colleague of all of these United States attorneys, and so he would probably know better than anyone else about the performance and the qualifications of these -- of our United States attorney community...My understanding was was that Mr. Sampson's recommendations reflected a consensus view of the senior leadership of the department, in particular the deputy attorney general," the Attorney General said in the appearance. RAW STORY will provide full coverage of Thursday's hearing. In related news, the House Judiciary Committee announced that it was launching a new website, 'Write Congress to Right Justice,' in order to help whistleblowers in the Justice Department securely disclose information they would like to share with Congressional investigators. "We have heard through intermediaries that current and former Justice Department whistleblowers needed a means to securely and confidentially communicate with the Committee," Rep. John Conyers, the Committee's Chairman, said in a statement. "This page is designed to allows those whistleblowers to get the truth about the Department to the American people."



