In Washington, D.C. (and an occasional episode of "The West Wing"), Fridays are known as "take out the trash day."
The theory says news doesn't stay "new" for more than a day or two, and if that time-span elapses during the weekend, there won't be as much of an audience watching the nightly news. So, if you release politically bad news on a Friday afternoon, the populace won't pay as much attention to it as otherwise.
Last Friday, the White House dropped a pile of documents related to the ongoing U.S. attorney firing scandal. These just add to the evidence contesting the official story for those firings and bring Attorney General Gonzales one step closer to being out the door.
The trouble started last December when eight U.S. attorneys (out of 93 total) unexpectedly resigned (read: politely were fired) from their positions. These resignations piqued the interest of Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who wrote to Gonzales in January asking for an explanation.
In early February, Paul McNulty, deputy attorney general, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the firings were all "performance related." Several of the former U.S. attorneys contested this, pointing to positive evaluations and approval to use Gonzales as a reference for future job searches.
On March 1, McClatchy Newspapers reported that one of the fired U.S. attorneys, David Iglesias, resisted pressure by two Republican members of Congress from New Mexico to investigate local Democrats for corruption.
It quickly came out that most of the other U.S. attorneys were looked upon unfavorably for political reasons. A week or so later, these suspicions were confirmed by the first release of e-mails from Justice Department servers.
While Gonzales denied involvement, the second wave of e-mails released last Friday afternoon show otherwise, revealing a one-hour meeting in which he personally signed off on the plan.
With all this evidence, we're left with two possibilities: Gonzales and other senior officials are lying, or the attorney general has a poor memory and little involvement in Justice Department affairs. Either charge is enough to warrant dismissal in my book, but Bush and Gonzales appear to think otherwise, with statements of support as recently as Saturday.
In the meantime, Congress is pressing onward, threatening to subpoena several officials if they don't willingly testify under oath. The Bush Administration has refused, only offering private interviews.
Leahy staunchly has rejected the White House's offers, even refusing fellow committee member Sen. Arlen Specter's compromise of transcripts without a formal oath or televised proceedings.
Under any current offer, federal officials legally will be required to tell the truth to senators. However, not allowing any sort of transcript undercuts any legally enforced accountability.
So far, Bush administration officials have changed their story with every document release. The Democrats in Congress are right to hold these officials' feet to the fire.
Excuses for the behavior of Gonzales and others continue to reverberate throughout right-wing radio-hosts and other Bush sympathizers. We're told Clinton did the same thing when he asked all U.S. attorneys to submit resignations.
But every presidential administration asks for the resignations at the start of their first terms.
Leahy has put his subpoena threats on hold for a week while he and allies negotiate with White House officials. During that ceasefire, Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson will testify to Congress at 9 a.m. Thursday.
I'd watch.
Greg Brown is a junior in philosophy. Please send comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.
