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November 12, 2004
As Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) said during John Ashcroft's nomination hearings "not only must the president trust his attorney general, the nation must also trust him, for, after all, the attorney general is America's lawyer." White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's new pick for Attorney General, is not a lawyer Americans can trust.
- Gonzales has a long record of indifference to human rights and basic legal protections. Gonzales helped to approve the Bush administration's legal authorization of torture which laid the groundwork for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He also called the Geneva Conventions "obsolete" and quaint," a position that a federal judge rejected just last week. The judge concluded that "President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions" in his use of military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
- Gonzales has an inherent conflict of interest as the keeper of White House secrets. Gonzales has accepted campaign donations from both Halliburton and Enron – two companies with close ties to the White House and currently under multiple investigations for criminal activities. Gonzales has also been the chief legal adviser for the White House's handling of the illegal "outing" of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.
- We deserve a chief legal advocate who works for all Americans, not just the Bush administration. Gonzales has been President Bush's legal confidant for over a decade and clearly enjoys the president's confidence. But the Attorney General must serve everyone and be willing to tackle difficult investigations and cases that may arise within the executive branch. Gonzales has not shown the independence necessary to inspire confidence from the broader public.
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Daily Talking Points is a product of the American Progress Action Fund. |
