Gingrich harshly criticized Gonzales’ judgment
On Sunday, Gingrich harshly criticized Gonzales’ judgment in allowing the firings to escalate into such a political scandal.
Gingrich noted that a president has every right to fire U.S. attorneys for any reason. Therefore, he said, all Gonzales had to do was to say that Bush wanted new people. Instead, Gingrich said, the attorney general made a series of misstatements from which he was forced later to backtrack.
“This is the most mishandled, artificial, self-created mess that I can remember in the years I’ve been active in public life,” Gingrich said. “The buck has to stop somewhere, and I’m assuming it’s the attorney general and his immediate team.”
In recent weeks, several Republicans have joined Democrats in saying Gonzales should consider resigning, including Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire and Gordon Smith of Oregon and Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of California, Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Lee Terry of Nebraska.
Other Republicans, including administration allies Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, have acknowledged that Gonzales badly mishandled the matter and needed to explain himself quickly.
“I think the confusion and the ham-handed way that these firings was done certainly undermines the confidence of the Justice Department,” Kyl said Sunday. “And part of his effort to come up and testify before the Hill will be to restore some of that confidence.”
Schumer said the controversy is the latest evidence of a leadership failure at the department.
“The gravity of this situation is shown by the fact that several Republicans have called for the attorney general to resign,” he said. “The fact that the attorney general is the president’s friend and was the president’s counsel for years does not alone make him qualified to be attorney general.”
Gingrich and Schumer appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” and Kyl spoke on ABC’s “This Week.”