Gonzales's memo ...seems to authorize discussion about pending DOJ cases to hundreds of White House officials, ... perhaps high-profile cases scuttled

Gonzales Memo: White House Granted Extraordinary Access to DOJ Files | By Jason Leopold | t r u t h o u t | Report | Thursday 26 July 2007

A new wrinkle over the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) emerged on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when a freshman Democratic lawmaker revealed the contents of a May 2006 memo. The memo, signed by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, granted Vice President Dick Cheney extraordinary authority to review active federal civil and criminal investigations at the DOJ.

At the time the memo was signed by Gonzales, Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was preparing his defense on obstruction of justice and perjury charges involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's name. Also, the special prosecutor who secured an indictment in the case on behalf of the government was reportedly trying to determine whether Cheney and numerous other White House officials also unmasked Plame's identity to reporters and lied about it to a grand jury and FBI investigators. Cheney had been interviewed about his role in the leak in 2004.
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The issue is of particular concern to lawmakers and the legal community because the DOJ historically operates independently of the administration and without political interference of any kind. A similar memo was signed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, but limited discussions between the DOJ and the White House to the office of the counsel of the president.

Gonzales's memo, on the other hand, seems to authorize discussion about pending DOJ cases to virtually hundreds of White House officials, and it seems to lend credibility to the assertion that perhaps some high-profile public corruption cases involving Republican lawmakers were scuttled due to interference by the Bush administration.

Elizabeth de la Vega, a former assistant US attorney and author of the book "US v. Bush," said Gonzales's memo is troubling because it supports claims the DOJ's first priority was to adhere to White House policies, as opposed to upholding the law.

"Alberto Gonzales's May 6 memo is nothing less than a subterfuge to open the doors of the Department of Justice to a seemingly endless number of people in both the president's and the vice president's offices, while purporting to shut those same doors," said de la Vega ...