Leahy, Specter Ask Attorney
General To Clarify Testimony
On U.S. Attorney Dismissals
Leaders of Judiciary Committee Seek Supplemental Information
AG Failed To Recall During Oversight Hearing
WASHINGTON
(Wednesday, April 25) -- Below is the text of a bipartisan
letter Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking
Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent on Wednesday to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales seeking more information relating to his knowledge and
involvement in the project to dismiss and replace several federal
prosecutors around the country. The senators have asked Gonzales to
clarify his testimony from the Committee’s hearing held last week.
A
PDF is also available.
April 25, 2007
The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington,
DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Gonzales:
As part of the Committee’s investigation
into the replacement of U.S. Attorneys, we are writing to ask you to
promptly supplement your testimony of April 19 with answers to those
questions for which you responded that you could not recall or did not
know. We ask that you submit this supplemental information within a
week.
You spent weeks preparing for the April
19th hearing. Yet during your testimony, in response to
questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle, you often responded
that you could not recall. By some counts you failed to answer more
than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, but the most
conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60
times. As a result, the Committee’s efforts to learn the truth of why
and how these dismissals took place, and the role you and other
Department and White House officials had in them, has been hampered.
The questions asked by Senators should
not have been a surprise. You were alerted in letters to you well in
advance of last Thursday’s hearing. By letter sent April 4, you were
asked to include in your written testimony a “full and complete account
of the development of the plan to replace Untied States Attorneys, and
all the specifics of your role in connection with that matter.” That
account was not included in your written testimony nor in your answers
to questions at the hearing. You were also alerted in advance of the
hearing, by a letter sent on April 13, that you would be asked about
information derived from the staff interviews of your senior aides. You
were, nevertheless, unprepared to answer those questions.
We believe the Committee and our
investigation would benefit from you searching and refreshing your
recollection and your supplementing your testimony by next Friday to
provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday.
Sincerely,
PATRICK
LEAHY ARLEN SPECTER
Chairman
Ranking Member
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