Inside the Scandal at Justice

(2 of 3)

Meanwhile, it increasingly appears that Gonzales' underlings were taking political affiliation into account even when considering applicants for entry-level career positions that are supposed to be filled strictly on merit. As recently as March, Jeffrey Taylor, the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, sources say, wanted to know why it was taking so long to hire a lawyer he had recruited. The answer he got from Goodling was that the candidate had been deemed unacceptable because the applicant appeared to be a Democrat. Goodling's lawyer refused to comment, citing Goodling's right to remain silent.

With every new revelation, the calls by lawmakers of both parties for Gonzales' resignation have grown louder. But Bush has been unwilling to cut him loose, a testament to the intense personal bond that he and Gonzales have felt for each other since the newly elected Texas Governor plucked the Harvard-educated son of migrant farm workers from a prestigious Houston law firm to become his counsel. Every one of the increasingly powerful jobs Gonzales has held since then — Texas secretary of state, state supreme court justice and White House counsel — has been bestowed on him by Bush. When he has been asked how running a 110,000-person department was different from his job as White House counsel, Gonzales has replied, balefully, "Well, I miss the President. I don't get to see him as often as I did when I was in the White House."

It is not unusual or necessarily undesirable for a President to put a loyalist in the nation's top law-enforcement job. John Kennedy, at his father's insistence, gave the post to his brother. When Robert Kennedy resisted, the newly elected President told him that he needed someone he could talk to in a Cabinet in which everyone else was a stranger. Gonzales has argued that his friendship with Bush makes him more effective as an Attorney General. "When a friend tells someone, 'No, you can't do that,' you're much more likely to listen to that and to accept it," Gonzales told the National Journal last year. "I've got that kind of relationship with the President." Another advantage of putting an ally in the post is knowing that he or she will pursue the priorities upon which the President was elected, just as a Pentagon chief or Secretary of State is expected to do. "You want the Attorney General to be politically accountable," says Orin Kerr, a legal scholar who teaches at the George Washington University Law School. "Imagine if a President is elected to pursue terrorism cases, and the A.G. decides, 'I don't like terrorism cases. I want to pursue bank fraud cases.'"

But critics say, under Bush, the connection between the White House and Justice became so close that it had to be formalized. When Gonzales testified last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, produced documents and charts showing that under Bill Clinton, a policy was carried out that allowed only four people at the White House — the President, Vice President, White House counsel and deputy counsel — to discuss pending criminal cases with anyone at Justice and only with the top three officials of the department. Under Bush, that policy was loosened so that 417 White House staffers had that authority and could contact more than 30 people at Justice.

Justice Department officials say that changes were made after 9/11 to improve coordination of investigations in cases regarding national security and that contacts occur only on those cases. But there were no such issues at stake when the U.S. Attorney for Seattle, John McKay, was making the case to be nominated for a federal judgeship last August. McKay claims the first question he got from Miers was "why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me." The answer, McKay believed, was that during a very tight Governor's race in 2004, he had decided there was no merit to voter-fraud accusations that Republicans had lodged against the Democrats.

McKay also believes his refusal to prosecute those claims is why he wound up on the list of U.S. attorneys who were fired. "We expected to be supported by people in Washington, D.C., when we make tough decisions like that," McKay told Tim Russert in March on Meet the Press. McKay had every reason to be surprised by his dismissal. Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, the tough-minded Bush appointee who supervised McKay at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005, has described him as a strong performer. "I was inspired by him," Comey told a House Judiciary subcommittee. He had similar praise for most of the others who were fired. "One of the best," he said of Paul Charlton of Arizona. "Straight as the Nevada highway and a fired-up guy ... He was loved in that community," of Daniel Bogden in Las Vegas. "Very straight, very able," Comey said of Iglesias in New Mexico.