Gonzales shut down probe of Gonzales last year

From AlterNet:

In a brand new article Murray Waas writes that Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recommended that the president shut down an investigation into domestic spying last year, knowing full well that a part of that investigation focused on Gonzales himself.

How many smoking guns can you fit in a Volkswagen Beetle?

Last year, in defending the president's decision to shut down the investigation, Gonzales noted that "the president of the United States makes the decision," writing to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons... Every additional security clearance that is granted for the [program] increases the risk that national security might be compromised."

Click here for the rest.

I'm too tired to go digging for it, but I remember posting at the time the investigation was shut down on how scandalous it all was. The whole "national security clearance" impediment was bullshit from the get-go. The White House could have easily granted clearance to investigators, and it really stretched credibility to the limit to suggest that Bush's own DOJ people couldn't be trusted. Now we know exactly why the resorted to such thinly veiled crapola: they were protecting Gonzales.

Man, what with the FBI Patriot Act abuses, the firings of federal prosecutors who refused to end Congressional corruption investigations, and now this, I cannot possibly imagine how Gonzales' career can last through the summer. But, then again, we live in an age of surrealism. I continue to be amazed that Bush himself isn't behind bars.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$