Gonzales Evades Criminal Prosecution for Misleading Congress on NSA spying
The Justice Department has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allegedly misleading Congress about the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.
The decision was first disclosed yesterday on the blog of New York Magazine. The magazine cited public court records and federal law enforcement officials as its sources.
Although Gonzales remains under investigation by the Justice Department for two other matters, it had been allegations that he gave false or purposely misleading testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the warrantless eavesdropping program that placed him by far in the greatest legal jeopardy.
In not bringing criminal charges, however, investigators for the Department’s Inspector General, which conducted the investigation, hardly let Gonzales off the hook completely. They concluded that Gonzales testimony before Congress about the eavesdropping program was “confusing,” “incomplete’ and had the “effect of misleading” both Congress and the public.
A major reason that Gonzales escaped criminal charges, according to people close to the investigation, was that he was willing to do something that he had steadfastly refused to even contemplate before: admit that many of his most controversial decisions, first as White House counsel, and later, as Attorney General, in authorizing, overseeing, and concealing the eavesdropping program were done at the specific director of former President Bush. In other instances, Gonzales and his attorneys argued to the Justice Department that Gonzales’ actions were done in furtherance of Bush administration’s policies, and thus he did not act with personal intent to do wrong.
“He was willing to be lightning rod in the past for the President,” one legal source close to the investigation told New York Magazine, “He has done that during the entire course of his career. But it was pressed upon him that that was not going to work in this instance—and he did what he had to do.”
The internal Justice Department watchdog agency, the department’s Inspector General, which conducted the investigation, has no prosecutorial powers of its own. If during the course of an investigation, however, the Inspector General can seek to have a criminal prosecutor or even special prosecutor take over his investigation to determine if criminal charges are warranted. However, in this case that wasn’t done.