MTP Transcript for April 1, 2007

MR. RUSSERT: Back in 2005, there was a U.S. attorney in Utah by the name of Paul Warner, and this administration wanted to remove him. One of the people that was promoting himself for that job was Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to the attorney general, and Orrin Hatch stepped up and said, “You can’t do that.” And he called the people at the White House and Justice Department a bunch of snuffies for trying to do that. And you stopped them from doing it because you didn’t feel it was appropriate. Now, why was...

SEN. HATCH: No, no, that...

MR. RUSSERT: Now, why was—if it was inappropriate to do it in your home state, why wasn’t it inappropriate to do it in these eight other jurisdictions?

SEN. HATCH: Well, it would have been appropriate. If they had wanted to do it, there wasn’t much I could do about it. But Warner, in this case, they wanted to remove him because he had been appointed by President Clinton. What they didn’t realize is that President Clinton had worked with me to get Paul Warner in, and Paul Warner rose to be one of the greatest U.S. attorneys in the country, was recognized all over the country. And I just didn’t want to see somebody who, who did not have prosecutorial experience do that.

But I got to go back to what Pat was saying. He keeps bringing up the Griffin situation, which is the only, the only time that that Patriot Act provision was used, and, and, and Kyle Sampson said he regretted it. If they—if the administration was really misusing that section, they would have appointed a whole raft of other interim U.S. attorneys. They did not do that. So that’s just a pure run-up of the wrong road, like all of this. Let me tell you, are we going to spend our time where there’s not a shred of evidence that impropriety has gone on here in interfering with an ongoing investigation or an ongoing case, are we going to spend our time on this political exercise? Is this what the Senate’s going to do, with all of the problems that we have, where they can’t show any evidence that there’s been any impropriety here other than a bunch of mistakes that the, the Justice Department readily admits, the White House readily admits, but I think can be easily straightened out in—if we all work together and, and did it.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Hatch, it’s not just Democrats. Arlen Specter, Republican ranking member on the committee...

SEN. HATCH: Oh, I’m upset, too, but that doesn’t...

MR. RUSSERT: But, but let me finish.

SEN. HATCH: Yeah?

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Specter said the Justice Department is “in a state of disrepair, perhaps even dysfunctional.”

SEN. HATCH: I don’t agree with that.

MR. RUSSERT: All right, then let me go on.

SEN. HATCH: I don’t agree.

MR. RUSSERT: The National Review, respected conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley, this was their editorial on Wednesday.

SEN. HATCH: I understand.

MR. RUSSERT: “Time to Go. We have never seen evidence that [Attorney General Gonzales] has a fine legal mind, good judgment, or managerial ability. Nor has his conduct at any stage of this controversy gained our confidence.

“His claim not to have been involved in the firings suggests that he was either deceptive or inexcusably detached from the operations of his own department. ...

“What little credibility Gonzales had is gone. ... He cannot defend the administration and its policies even when they deserve defense. Alberto Gonzales should resign. The Justice Department needs a fresh start.”

SEN. HATCH: Well...

MR. RUSSERT: Whether or not you agree or disagree that Mr. Gonzales has not told the truth in this situation, the National Review is saying he no longer has the ability to lead the Justice Department. Would you be willing to see him step aside now?

SEN. HATCH: Well, they’re, they’re, they’re allowed to have their own opinion. I work with him virtually every day. I’ve done it when I was chairman, I’ve done it since, and I have to say he’s appeared before the committee, he’s been a very bright guy, he’s done a very good job. They’ve done a tremendous job against crime all over this country. This is one of the problems. I think most of the U.S. attorneys have—almost all of them have done an exceptional job.

You know, I don’t think you can have these high positions without having somebody nitpicking at you all the time and without finding fault. And, yes, this has been badly handled. But it was badly handled by people who, by, I would say, not by Justice—by Judge Gonzales, but by others in, in the Justice Department. Now, people say, “Well, he should have been on top of everything.” There are 130,000 workers in the Justice Department, mostly lawyers. I’ve got to tell you, these are top flight people doing a terrific job, and I’ve—I—I’ve seen, in every administration since—from Carter on, and even before then, but while I’ve been in the Senate, I’ve seen things you could criticize at the Justice Department. All I can say is this, Alberto Gonzales, you know, he’s the first Hispanic-American ever put in this high position. He is an honest man. My experience with him has been extensive. I have never seen him prevaricate, I have never seen him do anything that was wrong. In this particular case, he misstated, there’s no question about it. He was inaccurate, I don’t think there’s any question about it. I think he’ll be the first to tell you that. But you can interpret things various ways, and I would wait until he testifies. He’ll have to answer some of these questions. And let’s give the man a fair—at least some fairness, a fair chance to be able to explain why this happened under his watch and he was not totally prepared to, to handle all the problems that came up. I think...

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: ...if we’re fair, we’ll give the man a chance. But boy, I’ll tell you, I think there ought to at least be some evidence that something was really wrong here, and, and to imply that there was criminal activity. And in the Monica Goodling case, let’s be honest about it...

MR. RUSSERT: OK.

SEN. HATCH: ...her attorney—it was one of the most gutsy letter I—letters I’ve ever seen.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: He said the atmosphere is so poisoned on the Judiciary Committee, with no real justification, that he’s not going to put her through it because you never know how they would misconstrue what she had to say.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Hatch, let me ask you a simple question, however. If, in fact, the president decides that Mr. Gonzales should step down, what...

SEN. HATCH: Oh, well, that’s the president’s decision.

MR. RUSSERT: Right. And the president came to you and asked you to be the next attorney general, would you do that?

SEN. HATCH: Well, he’s not going to come to me. But the fact is that...

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, but if he—if he did, saying you’re easily confirmable by the Senate as a member of that club, a Republican governor in Utah could replace your successor. “Orrin Hatch, we need you to do this.” Would you do it?

SEN. HATCH: Well, I’ve irritated the chairman of the committee just this morning. It’d be really tough for me to get confirmed, I’m sure. But the fact is, of course, anybody would serve this country. I would serve this country any way I could. But, but they’re not going to pick me. But the point is, you know, it’s up to the president.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: And I personally believe that this man ought to be given an opportunity to continue because he’s done a good job otherwise. Yes, this is a flap that looks bad, but I don’t see any criminal activity at all. I do see how you can misconstrue what he said.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: And frankly, in order to make that stick, he would have had to have willfully and intentionally lied. This man isn’t capable of doing that. He’s a good man, and yes, it’s been a flap that has been embarrassing to him, to the administration, and to Republicans in general.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: But if you look at what’s been done by the U.S. attorneys around this country...

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

SEN. HATCH: ...and by the Justice Department, it’s been a pretty doggone good job over the last six years.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Leahy, do you believe that Alberto Gonzales will resign?

SEN. LEAHY: I don’t know. You know, it’s going to be up to—this is up to the president. If the president feels that Mr. Gonzales sets the highest standard that he wants to show for his administration, then he stays on. If the president feels that this is what he wants as the state of law enforcement is, he’ll stay on. Now, now Senator Hatch says he’s always found him to be truthful. Unfortunately, he was not truthful before the United States Senate, and that is why he’s coming back. Previous administrations have looked for ways to cooperate with the Congress. This administration goes out of its way to find ways not to cooperate, and I think that’s why the stonewalling has come up. When, when you have a key member who takes the Fifth Amendment—Fifth Amendment, not even claiming they did something criminal in the past, but because they might lie when they are there. Now, I’ve prosecuted a lot of—a lot of criminals, I know that they have the right to the Fifth Amendment. I’ll protect that, and obviously if she says, “I’ll take the Fifth.” But I’ve never heard somebody say, “I’ll take the Fifth today for something I might do tomorrow.”

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