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Gonzales hearing contentious with documents Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aZKEt_nX7im0&refer=ushttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aZKEt_nX7im0&refer=us
Gonzales Hearing `Contentious' Without Documents, Leahy Says
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Continued White House refusal to turn over memos by counsel Alberto Gonzales on treatment of suspected terrorists would create a ``contentious issue'' in Senate confirmation hearings on his nomination by President George W. Bush to be U.S. attorney general, a key Democratic lawmaker said.
In a letter to Gonzales, Senator Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sought eight memos and documents before Gonzales appears in two days at a hearing on his nomination to succeed Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. Democrats previously asked for the material after the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison.
``I am disappointed that contrary to your promises to me to engage in an open exchange and to answer my questions in connection with your confirmation process, you have not answered my letters,'' Leahy wrote. He said the withheld material is ``relevant to your nomination.''
Among the documents are the final version of Gonzales's Jan. 25, 2002, draft memo that said Geneva Convention protections for war prisoners don't apply to Taliban fighters detained in Afghanistan or suspected al-Qaeda operatives seized worldwide. The White House, citing ``longstanding practice,'' refused last month to provide the memo, Leahy said.
Failure to produce the documents ``will be a contentious issue at the hearing,'' Leahy said in an interview. Gonzales's nomination requires confirmation by the Senate, which Republicans control by a 55-45 margin.
Old `Tactic'
Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Gonzales's home state of Texas, said that Leahy is employing the same tactic Democrats used to stymie Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to a federal appeals court. Estrada, who refused to produce legal advice he gave while an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, withdrew his nomination in 2003 after Democrats blocked Senate action on it.
``This is not about providing information,'' said Cornyn, a Judiciary Committee member. ``This is about trying to keep the nominee on the defensive, suggesting, wrongly, that they are withholding critical information, then bloodying the nominee during the process for their unwillingness to do something which legally they cannot do.''
The information Leahy seeks includes the ``most sensitive'' communications between the president and his advisers that ``have to be given some protection,'' Cornyn said.
Military Challenge
Leahy's delivered his warning as 12 retired military officers, including retired Army General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged the Senate panel to demand answers from Gonzales about his role in making policies on suspected terrorists.
``Mr. Gonzales appears to have played a significant role in shaping U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere,'' said the letter by five former military officers. ``These operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.''
Cornyn said Gonzales's critics are politicizing the confirmation process in a ``permanent campaign'' against Bush.
``Some people are unaware that we had an election on Nov. 2 and are continuing the same kind of political attacks that were once lodged against the president against his nominee for attorney general,'' Cornyn told reporters.
Religious Leaders
A group of 225 religious leaders, led by George Hunsinger of Princeton Theological Seminary, called on the Senate to reject Gonzales's nomination.
``Alberto Gonzales was at the heart of deliberations in high places about skirting the Geneva Conventions and international law,'' Hunsinger told reporters on a conference call. ``The question was not how to prevent abuse but how far interrogations could go in getting away with it. It was but a short step from there to Abu Ghraib.''
Cornyn said it's ``ridiculous'' to suggest that Gonzales's advice to Bush is ``somehow creating an atmosphere in which criminal activity has occurred.''
In the Jan. 25, 2002, draft memo, Gonzales warned that members of the U.S. military could be prosecuted for violating the Geneva Convention under the War Crimes Act.
`New Paradigm'
The memo said the ``new paradigm'' of the war on terror ``renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.''
Former military officers said Gonzales should also be questioned about whether he agreed with an Aug. 1, 2000, Justice Department memo that some mental and physical pain inflicted during interrogation might not ``rise to the level of torture.''
Last week, the Justice Department retracted the memo, which defined torture as inflicting pain ``equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.'' The earlier memo was written by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee.
People for the American Way, an advocacy group that opposes most of Bush's judicial nominees, also urged the Senate to reject Gonzales. He ``was a central architect of policies that have undermined America's moral authority and have been rebuked by the Supreme Court,'' Ralph Neas, the group's president, said in a statement.
Last Updated: January 4, 2005 16:28 EST
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