Leahy Attacks Bush, Roberts

At Politico.com, Roger Simon writes:

Stating that "history will not be kind to the arrogance and indifference to law shown by this White House," U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sharply rebuked President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Chief Justice John Roberts in an interview Wednesday.

In an interview with The Politico conducted in his Senate office, Leahy said:

-- Chief Justice Roberts has made the court an "arm of the Republican Party."

-- Gonzales "has undermined law enforcement in America" and if he continues to stand behind his testimony to the Judiciary Committee, Leahy will ask the inspector general of the Justice Department to launch a formal investigation of the attorney general.

-- President Bush has stated, "in effect, that he is a law unto himself and the president can overrule the law, the courts and congressional actions."

-- Bush does not "listen to any views other than his own" and that those views are shaped by a vice president who has "an inordinate amount of control over him."

Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke in quiet, measured tones but nonetheless expressed outrage over what he sees as an attack on the system of checks and balances that he says keeps America a democracy.

Regarding Gonzales, Leahy said: "I don't trust him. He gives me the impression that he is someone to whom telling the truth does not come naturally."

Leahy went on: "Those of us who have been prosecutors are particularly concerned with him because his activities undermine law enforcement. If law enforcement is not impartial, the whole system breaks down. And the attorney general makes law enforcement appear political."

Leahy has given Gonzales to the end of this week to amend those statements he has made under oath to the Judiciary Committee that are in conflict with the testimony of others, a standard procedure the committee allows for all witnesses.

If Gonzales refuses, however, the outcome will not be standard procedure.

"If he stands behind the answers he gave, I find him not believable and will ask the inspector general to investigate," Leahy said.

The inspector general of the Justice Department is Glenn A. Fine, who was confirmed in the last days of the Clinton administration. He is a Rhodes scholar and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985.

While four Democrats on the Judiciary Committee want a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales for perjury, Leahy is opting for a slightly less explosive path.

"I am more interested in getting truthful answers than playing 'gotcha' or in a perjury conviction," Leahy told The Politico.

On Wednesday evening, Leahy received a letter from Gonzales saying that he "may have created confusion with his testimony."

But Leahy termed Gonzales' response a "legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony" and said the Friday deadline for Gonzales to "correct and supplement" his testimony would still stand.

Leahy, who is a "Watergate baby," a member of Congress elected after the scandals of the Nixon administration, has been in the Senate since 1975 and has worked with -- "not under," he states emphatically -- six presidents: Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and the current president.

He said he thinks the current president does not measure up to the rest.

"The president, with others, has stated in effect that he is a law unto himself and the president can overrule the law, the courts and congressional actions," Leahy said. "We have seen this with regards to torture, signing statements and the president determining who will be prosecuted. And we have seen actions in the White House to make sure prosecutions are brought against Democrats and not Republicans."

Leahy continued: "This is unbelievable. You expect the White House to play by the rules and they have thrown out the rule book. History will not be kind to the arrogance and indifference to law shown by this White House."

Leahy also said that though he voted to confirm Chief Justice Roberts, Leahy now regrets that Roberts was ever nominated.

"I think in his actions and the actions in which he has joined, he has made the court an arm of the Republican Party," Leahy said.

Leahy said he voted for Roberts because he knew Roberts was going to be confirmed anyway and did not want a party-line vote that would encourage Roberts to believe that he was "an appointment of the Republican Party."

But that is what has happened anyway, Leahy said.

"I love to hear Republicans give lip service to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and then ignore them when it serves their purposes," he said. "They (the Republicans) say they don't want an activist Supreme Court, but this is the most activist Supreme Court we have ever seen, running roughshod over the Constitution, like Plessy v. Ferguson did."

In that landmark case in 1896, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation in America under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This was repudiated in 1954 by the court in another landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.

In a 5-4 decision a few weeks ago, the Roberts court ruled that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools, even when the purpose is to desegregate those schools.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts wrote in his decision.

Leahy said: "I am not sure the president realizes what he has done with the court. He was told by Dick Cheney and others, 'This is what you are going to do.'"

Asked to compare Bush with the other presidents he has served with, Leahy stated: "He does not measure up to any of the others.

I have never seen any introspection in him, with the possible exception of the comprehensive immigration bill, and election-year politics pushed him away from that. Our vice president has an inordinate amount of control over him."

Leahy says that when he talks to constituents, he finds "there is a real disquietude toward this administration from both Republicans and Democrats on everything from the environment to the war. They feel that nobody is listening, that the president is not listening to anybody except a small group at the White House, and that he is detached from the country."

Leahy blames many of the current ills on Congress, however.

"It was because they (the White House) had a rubber-stamp Congress for six years, a Congress in their corner," Leahy said. "The Senate allowed the White House to replace one majority leader with another! Bill Frist is a very nice guy, but he didn't have any idea how to lead the Senate. I can't imagine the Senate allowing the White House to dictate who the majority leader is going to be."

In late 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was replaced by Frist, a senator from Tennessee, after Lott made remarks that seemed to support America's segregated past.

"Too many members of the House and Senate think their greatest achievement is to win office," Leahy said. "Our greatest achievement is to do something good when we get here."

Leahy's office is unlike many other offices on Capitol Hill in that it contains no autographed pictures of Leahy standing with famous people.

Instead, it contains pictures that Leahy, a published photographer, has taken. The centerpiece -- placed, Leahy says, so he can stare into it every day from his desk -- is a haunting one of a man he met in a refugee camp in El Salvador in 1982.

"Sometimes Washington changes people," Leahy said. "We get a sense of our own importance. But I strongly believe the Senate should be and has been the conscience of the nation."