Gonzales' Troubles Mount: The U.S. Attorney General Will Be in Miami Today While the U.S. Senate Act

Jun 11, 04:35 AM

Current Headlines: By Carol Rosenberg, The Miami Herald

Jun. 11--WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate is poised to vote today on a no-confidence measure directed at embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but he'll be absent from the nation's capital.

Instead, he will be in Miami this morning to talk about terrorism.

Gonzales, the man President Bush calls "Fredo," drops in on downtown Miami to address a conference on weapons of mass destruction.

He's the keynote speaker at a Miami law enforcement conference meant to enhance international collaboration on combating nuclear terrorism and tracking radioactive material.

The conference will also feature a mock demonstration, later in the week, at the Orange Bowl -- as well as a technology expo for security firms to showcase products and services.

NONBINDING VOTE

Gonzales' visit coincides with a nonbinding vote being brought by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to gauge the 100-member body's confidence in the top law enforcer.

At issue: a scandal over the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Gonzales told Congress that the firings were neither politically motivated nor coordinated by the White House, before Congress uncovered Justice Department documents raising questions about the role of politics in the decisions.

Also at issue is the recent disclosure of a late-night March 10, 2004, visit by Gonzales, then White House general counsel, to the hospital bedside of his ailing predecessor, Attorney General John Ashcroft, to get his signature on a secret document to extend the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program. Ashcroft balked.

"If all senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous," Schumer said, announcing this morning's scheduled vote. "However, the president will certainly exert pressure to support the attorney general, his longtime friend. We will soon see where people's loyalties lie."

Gonzales has said that he, like the fired U.S. attorneys, serves "at the pleasure of the president." And that, so long as the scandal doesn't trouble his fellow Texan Republican, he expects to serve out his term.

On Sunday, the White House press secretary said that however the vote turns out, it would not undermine President Bush's resolve to keep Gonzales at the Justice Department. "Not a bit," Tony Snow said on Fox News Sunday, calling it "purely a symbolic vote."

"It is perfectly obvious that the president has the right to hire and fire people who serve at his pleasure," Snow added.

This week's Miami conference -- devoted to law enforcement collaboration in defeating international terrorism -- is just blocks away from the federal court where the man once dubbed by federal prosecutors as "the dirty bomber," Jose Padilla, is on trial.

But Padilla, held for years by presidential order as a so-called enemy combatant, is being tried as a minor al-Qaeda player, not the would-be biological bagman in a plot portrayed by Gonzales' predecessor, Ashcroft, in a press conference broadcast by satellite from Moscow five years ago, on June 10, 2002.

'DIRTY BOMB' PLOT

Padilla was first accused in 2002 of plotting with al Qaeda to carry out a radiological "dirty bomb" attack on U.S. soil and to blow up apartment buildings in U.S. cities. However, he was never charged with those crimes and is now being tried for conspiring to assist Islamic extremists overseas.

Later in the week, as part of the Miami conference, local law enforcement and the FBI will conduct a mock demonstration of how they would respond if radiological dispersal devices were found at the Orange Bowl.

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