[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Some Questions for Alberto Gonzalez

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>ALBERTO GONZALEZ
>Some General Questions
>
>by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin
><http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480>
>
>On Wednesday, President Bush nominated his long-time
>friend and current White House counsel Alberto Gonzales
>to be attorney general. Gonzales "has been a Bush
>confidant for nearly a decade." But it's not enough for
>President Bush to have confidence in Gonzales. As Sen.
>Herb Kohl (D-WI) said during Ashcroft's nomination
>hearings, "not only must the president trust his
>attorney general, the nation must also trust him, for,
>after all, the attorney general is America's lawyer."
>The nation can't trust Gonzales if they don't know where
>he stands on important issues. To find out his
>positions, the Senate Judiciary Committee must ask him
>some tough questions. Here are our suggestions:
>
>DO YOU THINK THERE ARE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH TORTURE IS
>LEGAL?: Gonzales was involved in drafting and approved
>an August 2002 memo to the president which included the
>opinion that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to
>the President's detention and interrogation of enemy
>combatants." The memo also said that an interrogation
>tactic only constituted torture if it resulted in
>"death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body
>functions." In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal,
>it would be irresponsible to have an attorney general
>who believes torture is legal.
>
>WOULD YOU INSIST ON STRICT COMPLIANCE WITH THE GENEVA
>CONVENTIONS?: In a 1/25/02 memo to the president,
>Gonzales wrote, "the war against terrorism is a new kind
>of war" and "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's
>strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and
>renders quaint some of its provisions." The Constitution
>says that when the United States signs an international
>treaty it is "the supreme law of the land." The attorney
>general, our nation's chief law enforcement officer,
>should understand that.
>
>WOULD YOU RECUSE YOURSELF FROM THE VALERIE PLAME
>INVESTIGATION?: The Justice Department is currently
>investigating which senior administration official - in
>violation of federal law - told columnist Robert Novak
>that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative. Gonzales
>has appeared before the federal grand jury investigating
>the case. As White House counsel, Gonzales also advised
>White House staffers and the president about how to
>handle the inquiry. As someone who advised potential
>defendants (and someone who could potentially be called
>as a witness at trial) it would be highly inappropriate
>for Gonzales to oversee the investigation.
>
>WOULD YOU RECUSE YOURSELF FROM ALL ENRON-RELATED
>MATTERS?: For more than a decade, Alberto Gonzales was
>an attorney for Vinson & Elkins, the firm that
>represented Enron. When Gonzales ran for reelection to
>the Texas Supreme Court, he "received $6,500 in campaign
>contributions from the company." The Justice Department
>is currently prosecuting top Enron executives -
>including former CEO Ken Lay. John Ashcroft recused
>himself from the Enron investigation "because of
>contributions he received from the company's executives
>during his campaign for the Senate." Nevertheless,
>Gonzales - who had a far more extensive relationship
>with Enron than Ashcroft - continued to be involved in
>Enron-related investigations as White House counsel.
>
>WOULD YOU RECUSE YOURSELF FROM ALL HALLIBURTON-RELATED
>MATTERS?: The Justice Department has launched three
>investigations of Halliburton: for allegedly
>overcharging the military $61 million for fuel, for
>allegedly bribing Nigerian officials to win a contract,
>and for allegedly doing business with Iran through an
>off-shore subsidiary. Halliburton was a major client of
>Vinson & Elkins while Gonzales was a partner at the
>firm. In 1999, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court,
>Gonzales accepted a $3,000 contribution from Halliburton
>just before the court was to hear an appeal of a case
>where "a Halliburton employee had won a $2.6 million
>trial verdict" against the company. Gonzales did not
>recuse himself.
>
>WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE GOV. BUSH ALL THE FACTS ABOUT DEATH
>PENALTY CASES?: As chief legal counsel for then Gov.
>Bush in Texas, Gonzales was responsible for writing a
>memo on the facts of each death penalty case - Bush
>decided whether a defendant should live or die based on
>the memos. An analysis of these memos by the Atlantic
>Monthly concluded that "Gonzales repeatedly failed to
>apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at
>hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest,
>mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence."
>In the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded 33-
>year-old, Gonzales's memo "failed to mention that
>Washington's mental limitations, and the fact that he
>and his ten siblings were regularly beaten with whips,
>water hoses, extension cords, wire hangers, and fan
>belts, were never made known to the jury."
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand