FAX? WHAT FAX?….The story about Alberto Gonzales’s late night hospital run in 2004 to pressure a woozy John Ashcroft into reauthorizing the NSA’s domestic spying program keeps getting weirder. The latest excuse for this little romp is that Gonzales’s dog ate his homework:
After the incident, there were recriminations over what [James] Comey portrayed as an attempt by Bush’s top lawyer and chief of staff to “take advantage” of a very ill man. Comey didn’t tell the Senate panel that the bad feelings were stoked even more the next morning when White House officials explained the hospital visit by saying Gonzales and Card were unaware that Comey was acting A.G.
….Just days earlier, Justice’s chief spokesman had publicly said Comey would serve as “head of the Justice Department” while Ashcroft was ill. Justice officials had also faxed over a document to the White House informing officials of this. When a Gonzales aide claimed the counsel’s office could find no record of it, DOJ officials dug out a receipt showing the fax had been received. “People were disgusted as much as livid,” said the DOJ official. “It was just the dishonesty of it.”
This sounds just like our Alberto, doesn’t it? He’s consistently demonstrated an inability to construct explanations for bad behavior above the level of a junior high school student. “We didn’t get the fax” is par for the course.
