Democrats Likely to Grill Gonzales Over Abu Ghraib Abuses
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON – The road to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’s confirmation as the first Hispanic U.S. attorney general may run through two controversial places: the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Texas’s death row.
Although most senators expect President Bush’s longtime friend and White House lawyer to be confirmed as the 80th U.S. attorney general, Democrats plan to use a hearing on his nomination to press for answers on White House decisions they think led to the Iraqi prisoners scandal.
Mr. Gonzales’s confirmation “may be the only remaining forum in which to examine more fully the steps that were taken to weaken U.S. policy on torture in the period that led to the prison scandals at Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan,” said Senator Leahy of Vermont, senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Death penalty opponents also want Mr. Gonzales questioned on how the Justice Department will apply the federal death penalty given Mr. Gonzales’s time in Texas as adviser to then-Governor Bush.
Mr. Gonzales was part of Mr. Bush’s inner circle of advisers during the executions of mentally retarded killer Terry Washington in 1997 and pickax murderer Karla Faye Tucker, for whom clemency was sought by Pope John Paul II, in 1998. While Texas governor, Mr. Bush oversaw more than 150 executions.
Liberals are reviewing a 2003 Atlantic Monthly magazine article claiming that as Mr. Bush’s legal counsel in Texas, Mr. Gonzales on clemency petitions “repeatedly failed to appraise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.”
The attorney general should be someone who will “not approach this topic with a cavalier attitude,” said David Elliot, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
While not taking an official position on Mr. Gonzales, “the track record is not promising,” Mr. Elliot said.
During his time in Washington, Mr. Gonzales has worked closely with several senators on judicial nominations and other issues and is well-liked by both sides of the aisle on the Judiciary Committee.
Democrats are not expected to try and block Mr. Gonzales’s nomination but are expected to grill him strongly regarding the accountability of the White House during the war on terrorism.
