Hospitals & Asylums
Partial Nominee Hearings Schedule
HA-6-1-05
Jan 6:
·Al Gonzales: Barred from the
office of the Attorney General
Jan.
18:
· Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
Jan. 19:
· Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
· Michael O. Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary
· Samuel W. Bodman, Energy Secretary
1. Alonzo
Gonzales brushed off talk that he might be a Bush nominee for the Supreme Court
if a vacancy occurs. ''Let me make it clear, I am not a candidate for the
Supreme Court’'. JESSE J.
HOLLAND, AP wrote Gonzales
Grilled Over U.S. Torture Policy: Bush's Justice Nominee Faces Questions From
Senate. WASHINGTON (Jan. 6) --
General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, under scorching criticism from senators,
condemned torture as an interrogation tactic Thursday and promised to prosecute
abusers of terror suspects. He also disclosed the White House was looking at
trying to change the Geneva Convention that protects prisoner rights. Pressed
by both Democratic and Republican senators at his confirmation hearing,
Gonzales defended his advice as President Bush's White House counsel that
al-Qaida and other terror suspects were not entitled to the treaty's
protections. But he said there was more to the issue than that. ‘Torture and abuse
will not be tolerated by this administration,'' Gonzales told Judiciary
Committee senators. ''I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively
pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions.'' Gonzales promised that
as attorney general he would abide by the 1949 Geneva treaty but also said the
White House was looking at the possibility of seeking revisions. ''Now I'm not
suggesting that the principles, the basic treatment of human beings, should be
revisited,'' Gonzales said. ''But there has been some very preliminary
discussion: Is this something that we ought to look at?'' The discussions haven't gone far, Gonzales
said. ''It's not been a systematic project or effort to look at this
question,'' he said. ''But some people I deal with, the lawyers, indicate maybe
this is something we should look at.''
2. Democrats at Gonzales'
hearing repeatedly criticized Bush administration policies on aggressive
interrogation of terrorism suspects, and Republicans sometimes joined in,
too. Despite the criticism, Gonzales is
expected to win confirmation when Congress returns after Bush's inauguration.
He would be the nation's first Hispanic attorney general but is not qualified
to be our nation’s police chief as the result of his convictions for treason,
homicide, slavery and torture as White House Counsel and Justice of the Texas
Supreme Court. Democrats
said it was Gonzales' January 2002 memo as White House counsel that led to the
stripping, mocking and threatening of suspects with dogs. He had argued in his
memo that the war on terrorism ''renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations
on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its
provisions.'' Gonzales, as President
Bush's White House counsel, was at the center of decisions about ''the legality
of detention and interrogation methods that have been seen as tantamount to
torture,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass
concluded.: The ''legal positions that you have supported have been used by the
administration, the military and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva
Convention violations by military and civilian personnel.''
a.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. said, ''Judge Gonzales comes to this
nomination with a very distinguished career; really a Horatio Alger story.
Hispanic background, of seven siblings, the first to go to college, attended
the Air Force Academy for two years and then received degrees from Rice and
Harvard Law School."
b.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.asked, asked, "Will you continue the John
Ashcroft 'my way or the highway' approach, which often led to embarrassment?''
c. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. said, "The searing photographs
from Abu Ghraib have made it harder to create and maintain the alliances we
need to prevail against the vicious terrorists who threaten us. And those
abuses serve as recruiting posters for the terrorists.''
3. Alberto
Gonzales responded,” "If confirmed as attorney general, I will no longer
represent only the White House; I will represent the United States of America
and its people. I understand the differences between the two roles." Gonzales, wearing
an American flag pin in his lapel, sat alone at the witness table, family
members seated behind him in the crowded hearing room. Senators addressed him
respectfully as ''Judge'' - Gonzales is a former Texas Supreme Court justice -
but pressed him repeatedly on administration policies. He refused to back away
from his legal opinion to Bush that terrorists don't deserve Geneva Convention
treatment if captured by Americans overseas.
''My judgment was ... that it would not apply to al-Qaida - they weren't
a signatory to the convention,'' he said.
He denied that any of the memos he wrote or reviewed in the White House
had anything to do with the overseas abuses.
a. 'Would you not concede that your decision and the decision of
the president to call into question the definition of torture, the need to
comply with the Geneva Convention at least opened up a permissive environment
of conduct?'' asked Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's no. 2
Democrat.
b. Saying he was sickened and outraged by photos of Abu Ghraib
abuses, Gonzales described the U.S. troops in them as ''people who were morally
bankrupt having fun.'' Other abuses of foreign detainees probably were caused because
''there wasn't adequate training, there wasn't adequate supervision.'' ''I respectfully disagree that there was
some kind of permissive environment,'' he said.
c. Gonzales' response to some questions Thursday seemed to
contradict his description of the Geneva Convention in his January 2002 memo.
''I consider the Geneva Convention neither obsolete or quaint,'' he said at the
hearing, promising to ensure U.S. compliance ''with all of its legal
obligations in fighting the war on terror.''
d. Gonzales declined to give a legal opinion on the prisoner
abuse, suggesting he didn't want to prejudice a possible criminal case as the
attorney general nominee. That led to a 10-minute lecture from Sen. Joseph
Biden, D-Del., on Democrats' long-standing complaints about Bush nominees not
directly answering their questions.
‘'We're looking for candor, old buddy,'' Biden said. ''I love you, but
you're not very candid so far.''
Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined in on some of the
criticism, saying the administration ''dramatically undermined the war effort''
by ''getting cute with the law.'' ''I think you weaken yourself as a nation
when you try to play cute and become more like your enemy instead of like who
you want to be,'' he said.
4. Gonzales objected to Graham's characterizations, noting the
beheadings of Americans by terrorists. ''We are nothing like our enemies,
Senator,'' Gonzales said. ‘'But we're not like who we want to be and who we
have been, and that's the point I'm trying to make.'' Sen. Graham retorted.
''When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the
spirit of the law, you're losing the moral high ground. ... I do believe that
we've lost our way.''
a. Gonzales also said he supported the use of the Patriot Act, the
government's anti-terrorism law put in effect after the New York City and
Washington attacks. ''I believe that in part because of the Patriot Act there
has not been a domestic attack on United States soil since 9/11''.
b. Sidestepping questions on whether it was legal for Senate
Democrats to filibuster Bush's judicial nominations last year. Senate
Republicans have threatened to change the chamber's rules to ban the maneuver
if it happens this year. Promised that
his friendship with Bush would not affect him as attorney general. ''I will no
longer represent only the White House,'' he said. ''I will represent the United
States of America and its people. I understand the difference between the two
roles.''
c. He promised to defend in court the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act
in which Congress said states don't have to recognize gay marriages.
d. Brushing off talk that he might be a Bush nominee for the
Supreme Court if a vacancy occurs Gonzales said,
''Let me make it clear, I am not a candidate for the Supreme
Court’'.
Full Text is in Microsoft Word HA-6-1-05,
it is listed as
Evidence C of HA-15-12-05 that is in turn linked in the
first section of Chapter 2 Attorney General Education (AGE) in the acronym DAG. The
appropriate way to read the document(s) is beginning with Chapter 2 and then
clicking DAG in order to make decisions regarding the appointment of a new
Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice(s).
Applicants should also read Chapter 6 Correction Conviction and Chapter
8 Drug Administration Yield (DAY).