Talk Turns To Who Will Succeed Gonzales
Washingtion pundits are never known for letting grass grow under their feet. Speculation is bubbling in Washington as to who will succeed Alberto Gonzales, the embattled Attorney General. So far, three names have surfaced.
The serious talk about who will take over for Gonzales focuses on former Solicitor General and veteran Washington fixer Ted Olson; Larry Thompson, a former US attorney for the northern District of Georgia who led the Southeastern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force before serving as Deputy Attorney General under John Ashcroft during President Bush’s first term; and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who as a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals before being named an assistant U.S. Attorney General under Ashcroft.
Ted Olsen, you may remember, was one of George Bush’s attorneys in the infamous Gore v Bush legal case at the U.S. Supreme Court following the 2000 election. Ted was successful in getting the Supreme Court to ignore uncounted ballots in favor of simply ruling that Bush had won the Florida election. George may want to reward loyalty.
Larry Thompson signed the October, 2002, order that rejected concerns about torture and ordered the removal of Canadian Maher Arar from the U.S. custody in a move that would ultimately land Arar in Syria. After the O.K. from Thompson, Arar was secretly flown to Jordan and then driven into Syria, where he was indeed tortured. After an international outcry, Arar’s name was finally cleared in 2006 by a Canadian Commission. If he’s for blood and torture, he seems like a good choice.
Chertoff is, of course, the co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. And, as the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division under Ashcroft, he advised the Central Intelligence Agency on how to avoid liability for torture, er, “coercive interrogation.” Just the sort of fellow you want to run the FBI and decide on who get prosecuted for political crimes.
For more comentary, click here for today’s article in The Nation.