A.G. the AG caught with his pants down, so to speak

Ah, nothing like a little pressure to change the mind of the AG.

AG and the justice department had waged an all-out war against the fired US attorneys and Congress, attempting to destroy their reputation as well as blasting those that questioned the firings as 'playing politics'.

Along comes some Republicans who were very concerned about these firings who more or less states that the AG himself may join them in the unemplyement line. Suddenly, the AG, who has had his pants down mooning the entire justice system and the Constitution, has a change of heart.

Gonzales rushed to the capital to meet with democratic leadership. Apparently he is backtracking.. It seems that he will not oppose legislation removing his power to appoint attorneys w/o congressional oversight. He would also allow his staff to testify w/o being subpoena as part of a deal:

White House backtracks in row over U.S. attorneys

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Slapped even by GOP allies, the Bush
administration is beating an abrupt retreat on eight federal
prosecutors it fired and then publicly pilloried.

Just hours
after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dismissed the hubbub as an
"overblown personnel matter," a Republican senator Thursday mused that
Gonzales might soon suffer the same fate as the canned U.S. attorneys.

A short time later, Gonzales and his security detail shuttled to the
Capitol for a private meeting on Democratic turf, bearing two offerings:

President Bush would not stand in the way of a Democratic-sponsored bill that
would cancel the attorney general's power to appoint federal
prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Gonzales' Justice Department
previously had dismissed the legislation as unreasonable.

There would be no need for subpoenas to compel testimony by five of Gonzales'
aides involved in the firings, as the Democrats had threatened.
Cloistered in the stately hideaway of Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vermont, the attorney general assured those
present that he would permit the aides to tell their stories.

It was a striking reversal for an administration noted for standing its ground even in the face of overwhelming opposition.

Gone were the department's biting assertions that the prosecutors were a
bunch of "disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress."

And the department no longer tried to shrug off the uproar as "an overblown
personnel matter," as Gonzales had written in an opinion piece
published Thursday in USA Today.

Read the entire article:
www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/09/congress.prosecutors.ap/index.html

Was it just pressure from fellow Republicans that brought this about, or is there something else afoot???

I think that the AG is trying to broker a deal where all testimony is in closed session, and that someone under Mr. Gonzales will end up falling on his/her sword.

But the real question is, will these guys get their jobs back? I know, no way that happens after all of the stuff the Justice Department said about them that they would take their jobs back.


I hope Congress makes the hearings open and that they subpoena all of the records of the corrupting cases the US attorneys were working on so they can finish the jobs that these guys were fired for doing.

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