The president calls him Fredo. Fredo? Really? That’s the best our Nicknamer-in-Chief could concoct for the top law enforcement officer in the nation? It has not gone unnoticed among the nation’s talking heads that Fredo was, as one commentator noted, “the least intelligent Corleone.” Talk about soft-peddling. More accurately, Fredo was the developmentally disabled Corleone. Personally, I would sleep much better at night knowing that the president’s first inclination was to dub Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, say, Tom Hagan. At least Tom Hagan was a lawyer. A nickname based on the Corleone consigliere might have sinister overtones, but I’d prefer sinister to stunted.

Maybe the president has his own reasons for the sobriquet that have nothing to do with intellect. Or, perhaps I am simply “misunderestimating” the president.  Perhaps Fredo is precisely what he intended, and for the obvious reasons. After all, Gonzales cleared his calendar for two weeks to focus exclusively on preparing for his April congressional testimony on whether the multiple firings of Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys were politically motivated. And what was the most convincing explanation he could muster? “I don’t recall.” It took two weeks of cramming to fashion that reply? Fredo, indeed.

This entire U.S. Attorney fiasco is quintessential Bush Administration. It involves politicizing something that shouldn’t be politicized, namely the Department of Justice; it involves a presentation of shifting rationales to explain what, we are assured, is just the “liberal” media making a fuss about an “overblown personnel matter”; and it involves Karl Rove, whose pudgy prints are all over the entire affair.

As the Justice Department sinks deeper into the morass of stonewalling and denials, followed by the inevitable finger pointing and recriminations, it is difficult to avoid concluding anything other than that Gonzales—that’s Fredo to his admirers—is either a liar, or stunningly incompetent. Gonzales’ own staff, in a desperate scramble to avoid being the Scooter left holding the bag, have been chipping away at the AG’s credibility by contradicting, well, pretty much his every word.

In January, Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “We would never, ever make a change in the U.S. attorney position for political reasons.” That performance was quickly followed by Deputy AG Paul McNulty’s February testimony in which he agreed that none of the dismissals had been for political reasons. Although he then went on to acknowledge that they had ousted “Bud” Cummins of Arkansas to make room for former Rove protégé Timothy Griffin. Nope, no politics there. After opening that particular can of worms, McNulty went on to state that the dismissed attorneys had been removed for “performance related” reasons. That was something Gonzales had previously avoided stating outright, since it opened the door for the wronged prosecutors to defend themselves based on their generally spotless records. In their self-defense, the former prosecutors reminded everyone of the alternative explanation for their dismissals—that they were fired for political reasons.

Continuing on in Blame Game ’07, in March Gonzales claimed he had not been briefed nor seen any memos relating to the attorney dismissals. This statement was quickly contradicted not only by incriminating e-mails but by Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. After Sampson testified that, in fact, he had regularly briefed the Attorney General about the firings, Gonzales hustled to the nearest TV outlet to acknowledge that maybe he had been given the occasional update. All of this led to that fateful April testimony in which Fredo resorted to his unpersuasive “I don’t recall” explanation. Fifty times. There have been subsequent hearings, and much to the frustration of his congressional inquisitors, subsequent obfuscations.

Not only has the nation been treated to Fredo’s unraveling, but since the start of this sad spectacle, we have been subjected to a number of salacious sidelights. There is the ironic tale of Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison and proud graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University School of Law, refusing to testify before Congress by claiming her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Of course, granting her immunity, Congress got its testimony in the end. Monica admitted that perhaps she had “taken inappropriate political considerations into account” when making hiring decisions, but denied playing a large role in the scandal. She also accused McNulty of not being entirely forthcoming about the role played by the White House in the firings.

And what of the role of the White House? This brings us to the case of the errant e-mails. Those pesky electronic missives have consistently popped up to undermine the White House claim that Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were not involved in the firings. Moreover, further inquiry led to the discovery that White House politicos were improperly conducting administration business using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts. Uncovering a trove of incriminating information, you ask? If only. It seems the RNC lost some five million e-mails, including correspondence between Rove and other administration officials that dealt with the attorney firings. Conveniently, four years worth of e-mails were deleted. And the RNC response? What, we were supposed to keep those? It’s not like there’s a law. Oh, there is a law? The Presidential Records Act of 1978, you say? Our bad.

A danger presented by the above machinations is that it may obscure the primary and most serious issue here: the politicization of the Justice Department. The internecine battles at Justice may tempt some to fall back on the cliché about the cover-up being worse than the crime. Yes, the Justice Department clearly mishandled this affair from the start and the fall-out will likely be serious. Expect charges of perjury and misrepresentations to Congress to follow. But it is important that we not allow ourselves to be distracted from the primary issue.

The real question is whether U.S. Attorneys were fired or otherwise induced to leave office to prevent the prosecution of corruption cases against influential Republicans, as alleged in the firings of Carol Lam in San Diego, Paul Charlton in Arizona, Daniel Bogden in Nevada and Debra Wong Yang in Los Angeles. In fact, five of the seven attorneys involved in the initial dismissals were pursuing corruption investigations of government officials. If a connection is proved, this amounts to obstruction of justice.  Another equally serious allegation is that the attorneys were fired or forced out of office for failing to pursue trumped up charges against Democrats, as alleged in the cases of David Iglesias in New Mexico and Todd Graves in Missouri. If proved, the credibility of the Justice Department would suffer a grievous blow. Finally, there’s that nagging question of the involvement of the White House via puppet master Karl Rove. 

Yes, at some point someone is going to have to take Fredo out for a short ride in a row boat, or, at a minimum, give him his Medal of Freedom and send him packing. But, really, Fredo, is only a minor character. Regardless of his fate, this movie is far from over.

Copyright © 2007 Nancy Lopez