It seems that with the Plame-Wilson affair discredited, Senate Dems are turning to persecute Al Gonzales by calling for a special counsel to ladvance perjury charges against him. It appears to be a tortured argument at best as it hinges most strongly on a mere difference of recollections between Gonzales, a former acting AG who’s proved to be too cozy with Chuck Schumer in Dick Comey and a memo which doesn’t discredit Gonzales at all.

Mac Ranger writes this:

In spite of this unbelievable coup by Senate Democrats conspiring with rogue DOJ officials to unseat AG Alberto Gonzales, the President will hold fast and is right to do so. Gonzales isn’t going anywhere.

In nearly six months of hearings based on nothing except the hate of Democrats for President Bush, they have uncovered nothing at all in the so-called US Attorney scandal. Not one shred of evidence showing anything other than politics as usual, political appointees work at the pleasure of the President – period.

After his testimony, Senator Leahy is now hinting perjury charges again AG Gonzales based on what he and his cronies see as conflicting testimony. Others, such as the legal eagles at Powerline are responding to this fallacious charge this morning so there is no need for me to respond, other to agree that there was no conflict in the testimony and Leahy and his gang know it.

And now the lawyers at Powerline say this of the memo and conclude:

This document was created after controversy developed over the international terrorist surveillance program. In response, I assume, to a request from Congress, the memo lists all dates on which Congressional leaders were briefed on the TSP. This, the AP says, “contradicts Gonzales’s testimony,” but of course it doesn’t. The memo doesn’t say that the only program discussed at the meeting was the TSP, nor does it say that the TSP was the one on which the Justice Department (Ashcroft and Comey) had suddenly changed its mind, leading to the famous hospital visit. The document, as described by the AP, confirms Gonzales’s testimony that he met with Congressional leaders shortly before visiting the hospital; to the extent that the AP describes it, it does not contradict the Attorney General’s testimony.

This is really something of a mystery. When Comey testified before the Judiciary Committee, he refused to name the surveillance program at issue. In this post, I wrote that it was obviously the terrorist surveillance program. But that assumption may have been wrong.

It wouldn’t be hard to figure out whether the program about which DOJ changed its mind was the international terrorist surveillance program, or something else. There is a paper trail of legal memos, etc., on the subject, and a considerable number of people know the answer to the question, including at least one unimpeachable source, John Ashcroft. Given those facts, it is hard to see why Gonzales, or anyone else, would lie about the identity of the program, as the AP accuses Gonzales of doing. Given Comey’s refusal to name the program and Ashcroft’s public reticence on the subject, the only information we have is Gonzales’s testimony that it was something else. But, as I say, this is a mystery that wouldn’t be hard to solve.

It looks as if Senate Dems led by Leahy and Schumer are going with this perjury game again as they did when they tried to ensnare Karl Rove and Dick Cheney in  the Plame-Wilson fraud. Too bad Arlen Spector is going along as it brings his personal motives into question again. But this is the same playbook Senate Dems used in Plame-Wilson, and Republican members of the committee need to call them on it.

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