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What's next for Gonzales? How about a perjury investigation?

On Tuesday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that a March 2004 White House briefing for Members of Congress did not concern the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Tuesday afternoon and all day yesterday saw a rash of briefing attendees from the Senate and House step forward to contradict this assertion; they say the meeting did focus on the NSA program, and a damning May 2006 letter to Congress from John Negroponte, then the Director of National Intelligence, backs this up.

Gonzales is standing by his testimony, says a spokesman.  And this has made Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) angry enough to give Gonzales until late next week to correct the record. If he doesn't, Leahy will ask the Justice Department Inspector General to launch a perjury probe.

But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is so angry that he would rather see the perjury investigation start right away. This video of Sen. Schumer's exchange with CNN this morning comes from TalkingPointsMemo.

UPDATE: Schumer, along with Judiciary Committee colleagues Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), have written a letter to the Solicitor General asking him to appoint a special prosecutor to immediately investigate whether or not Gonzales perjured himself.

UPDATE: Think Progress has video of the Senators' press conference about their letter to the Solicitor General.


Tags: Alberto Gonzales, US Attorneys, Ethics in Government, Pat Leahy, Charles Schumer, perjury, Government Accountability (all tags)


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