Embattled US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday it is
up to President George W. Bush whether he remains in the
administration and said he wants to stay and explain to Congress
the circumstances surrounding the firings of eight US attorneys.
Amid an escalating political row and calls from some Democrats
for his resignation, Gonzales said: "I work for the American people
and serve at the pleasure of the president," adding that he'd done
a good job.
"I think you can look at the record of the department in terms
of what we've done... going after child predators, public
corruption cases," he said on NBC's Today show. "I think
our record is outstanding."
The dispute over the prosecutors has become the latest clash
between Bush's Republican Party and the newly empowered Democratic
majority in Congress. Democrats, who have long accused Republicans
of running roughshod over opponents, have portrayed the firings as
part of a campaign of intimidation and obstruction by the Bush
administration and Republican lawmakers.
Gonzales acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were
made in the handling of the US attorney firings and said he wanted
to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.
Several Democrats have called for Gonzales' resignation, among
them presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
The firestorm of criticism has erupted in the wake of the
disclosure of e-mails within the administration which showed that
Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, had discussed the possible
firings of US attorneys in early 2005 with then-White House Counsel
Harriet Miers.
Gonzales accepted Sampson's resignation this week; Miers had
left the administration earlier this year.
It was the second time in as many weeks that Gonzales came under
withering criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, he and FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller admitted that the FBI had improperly, and at
times illegally, used the USA Patriot Act to secretly pry out
personal information about Americans in terrorism
investigations.
Gonzales, himself a former White House counsel, has been friends
with Bush for years, going back to when he served as Bush's
secretary of state in Texas. Bush retains full confidence in the
attorney-general, spokesman Dan Bartlett, traveling with Bush in
Mexico, said Wednesday.
(China Daily via agencies March 15, 2007)
