Washington – Two senior Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they kept Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apprised of FBI violations of civil liberties and privacy safeguards in recent years.
The two officials spoke after The Washington Post disclosed Tuesday that the FBI sent reports to Gonzales of legal and procedural violations shortly before he told senators in April 2005 that “there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse” after 2001.
“I have discussed and informed attorneys general, including this one, about mistakes the FBI has made or problems or violations or compliance incidents, however you want to refer to them,” said James Baker, a career official who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein added: “I’ve discussed a number of times oversight concerns and, underlying those oversight concerns, the potential for violations. And I’m sure we’ve discussed violations that have occurred in the past.”
But Wainstein defended the 2005 statement by Gonzales that he was unaware of civil liberties abuses related to the government’s counterterrorism effort. He said Gonzales was saying only that there had been no intentional acts of misconduct rather than the sort of mistakes the FBI was self-disclosing: “That is why I cited the definition of ‘abuse,’ which in Webster’s … implies some sort of intentional conduct. And I think that is sort of the common understanding of the word ‘abuse.”‘
Civil liberties groups and key Democratic lawmakers dismissed that explanation.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that Gonzales said in a written statement last week that he first became aware of problems with the FBI’s use of a tool known as a “national security letter” earlier this year. Copies of the FBI reports sent to Gonzales in 2005 and 2006 described several problems with the letters, which allow agents to secretly collect Americans’ phone, computer and bank records without a court order or grand jury subpoena.
“This inconsistency is a disturbing addition to a growing list of misleading answers by the attorney general to questions from the Judiciary Committee, and it is unacceptable,” Leahy said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil liberties, called for Gonzales’ resignation and the appointment of a special prosecutor. “Attorney General Gonzales has shown an apparent reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress,” Nadler said.
The White House stood behind Gonzales. President Bush “has said repeatedly that he has great faith in the attorney general, and that has not changed,” spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
