REBECCA ROBERTS, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Rebecca Roberts. Neal Conan's on assignment.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continues to face tough questions this afternoon from the Senate Judiciary Committee over his role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors.
In his opening statement this morning, Gonzales defended the dismissals but acknowledged that the process should've been handled differently. Over the court of today's hearing, there have been several tense moments and harsh criticism from senators, including several Republicans. Gonzales is not only defending his particular actions in this case but also making a broader case for keeping his job. ...
ROBERTS: And we are talking about the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And joining us now is Sam Buell. He worked as a federal prosecutor in New York, Washington and Houston. He also prosecuted the famous Enron case when he was a federal prosecutor under both Janet Reno and John Ashcroft. He's now an associate professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, and he joins us from a studio on campus. Thanks for coming in today.
Mr. SAM BUELL (Former Federal Prosecutor): Thanks for having me, Rebecca.
ROBERTS: So as a former federal prosecutor, what do you make of these firings? Is it business as usual or is it something that rises to the level of scandal?
Mr. BUELL: Well, I don't know what you mean by a scandal. It's certainly disheartening. I would say, having watched the hearings this morning, that there was good news and bad news from the standpoint of career professionals. The bad news is we seem to have an attorney general who's just deeply out of touch with the institution that he is responsible for. I found the level of detachment from the particulars of these cases and delegation to, for the most part, very junior, inexperienced, non-career staffers in a matter of this seriousness, many U.S. attorneys offices in major districts, I found all of that to be quite shocking and a major departure from the management style of his predecessors.
The good news, though, I think, is that this hearing is a genuine, a public discussion about the role of the federal prosecutor, and there is pushback from Congress and others about this attorney general's conception of what the department ought to be doing. And I think that discussion, I hope, will go some way towards rehabilitating the long-earned reputation of the Department of Justice as a professional non-partisan organization. And that will, I hope, that repair work has begun with this hearing today.
ROBERTS: So what do you think this is mainly about in terms of the Judiciary Committee sort of outrage over Gonzales? Is it that the firings came sort of en masse instead of being spread out? Is it that Gonzales has sort of equivocated about his role? Is it this hint that he was thwarting prosecutors who were investigating Republican corruption? Is it sort of all of the above?
Mr. BUELL: Well, I think it's somewhat all of the above, but I think that, you know, whether or not something comes out here about a genuine impropriety or illegality, I think what's really motivating the senators is a feeling that this attorney general just doesn't share the basic common bipartisan conception that senators and career people in the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys through the years have had about how this organization is supposed to run.
At some level, this attorney general just doesn't seem to get it. He seems to have surrounded himself with a cadre of staffers who aren't familiar with those institutional norms, haven't bought in to them. And so they waltz through this process of turning over eight important U.S. attorneys in one-fell swoop with apparently an utter tin ear to how this would be perceived by people who care about and are familiar with the norms of this institution. And it's I think frustrating to the senators, many of who have been involved in the appointments process involving U.S. attorneys for years, if not decades, that we have an attorney general who just doesn't seem to get the rules of the game here.
ROBERTS: When you were a federal prosecutor, did you ever feel pressure to change the focus of your cases or to time your indictments, anything like that?
Mr. BUELL: No. And that's one of the things that made the Justice Department a great place to work and a great place in contrast to I think a lot of district attorney's offices, where the political realities are that the local DA stands for election on a fairly frequent basis and it's very, very difficult for DA's offices, in some jurisdictions anyway, to stay insulated from electoral politics.
And that's not the norm in the Justice Department. And you know, even in handling the Enron case, which after all involves some very closely connected individuals to the presidential administration, it was a hands-off policy. A number of top people, including Ashcroft, were recused. And we were allowed to go about our jobs in a professional manner. So this is very extraordinary....
| • | What Will Senate Hearings Mean for Gonzales?
NPR - Talk Of The Nation, Thursday, April 19, 2007 Byline: Rebecca Roberts, host |
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