David Iglesias has strong words for Alberto Gonzales
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Wed May 23, 2007 at 01:34:53 PM EST
Wow. David Iglesias, the former US Attorney for New Mexico until forced out of office, takes aim at his former boss, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times. He doesn't hold back, and his words show just what the politicization of the justice system has cost in terms of integrity and honor.
WHAT HAPPENS in a presidential administration when loyalty, to borrow a phrase from "Star Trek," becomes the "prime directive"? What happens when its all-encompassing fog obscures all other values -- such as fealty to the Constitution, the rule of law or simple humanity?...Simple notions like right and wrong are, in their eyes, matters of allegiance, not conscience....
...All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.
He makes the excellent point that loyality "is a virtue with limits." We just have to look to the Watergate scandal, where several staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to prison.
But while the above words hit hard on the costs of the actions that precipitated this scandal, it's Iglesias' words of rebuke for Gonzales himself that I find most impactful (emphasis mine).
I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.
Ouch. Iglesias urges Gonzales to resign before Congress ratifies a vote of no-confidence. He writes that the Justice Department is "in desperate need of leaders who place loyalty to the Constitution on a higher level than politics." And clearly, Alberto Gonzales is not one of those leaders.
Tags: David Iglesias, Alberto Gonzales, US Attorneys, Ethics in Government (all tags)
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