Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced that he will resign effective September 17. This marks the end of a standoff with congressional critics over his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department.
Gonzales, the former White House counsel who made clear during his two-and-a-half-year tenure as the nation’s top cop that he served President Bush rather than the Constitution, announced his exit strategy just days before the Congress returns from a summer break during which senators and representatives had gotten an earful about the need to get rid of Gonzales.
“It has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice,” Gonzales said, announcing his resignation, effective Sept. 17, in a terse statement. He took no questions and gave no reason for stepping down.
Gonzales has long been under fire for how he handled FBI investigations and
The Attorney General was ripe for impeachment — or, at the very least, the censure proposed by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin — because of a rapidly broadening recognition that Gonzales had displayed a blatant disregard for the law since his arrival in Washington in 2001 at the side of his longtime friend and political benefactor George Bush.
“Alberto Gonzales was the ‘Enabler General’ for the imperial Bush presidency,” said People For the American Way President emeritus Ralph G. Neas upon learning of the Attorney General’s decision. “He undermined the Constitution, made a mockery of the rule of law, and turned the Justice Department into an arm of the Bush Administration’s political operation.
Gonzales, whose signature line was a declaration that he served “at the pleasure of the president,” made it his business as White House Counsel and Attorney General to do just that.
“The attorney general’s decision to step down is a positive step forward for the Department of Justice,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“Attorney General Gonzales’ ability to lead the Department of Justice had been undermined by his serious errors in judgment and conflicting statements,” she said in a statement. Gonzales reversed the “first loyalty” equation enunciated by Feingold.
Today’s exit announcement by Gonzales comes just days after Rove signaled his plan to go.
Only a continued inquiry into the lawlessness of the soon-to-be-former Attorney General will achieve what is the essential purpose of this Congress: the restoring of the rule of law to a country deeply damaged by petty little men who chose personal loyalties and political expediency over their duty to the Republic.
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