Chuck Schumer: “I rise because I heard Attorney General Gonzales speak about the growing, disheartening, and alarming scandal with the…”

“I rise because I heard Attorney General Gonzales speak about the growing, disheartening, and alarming scandal with the U.S. attorneys. I wish to say, first, that this is a serious issue. In every district in America, the U.S. attorney represents the enforcer of the Federal law without fear or favor. U.S. attorneys over decades have built up a reputation of being not part of politics but, rather, enforcing the law, as they say, without fear or favor. Over every Justice Department office in every corner of the land is the eagle perched on a branch, with her claw holding a bunch of arrows. When you see that symbol, it denotes strength, but it denotes fairness and impartiality. That fairness, that impartiality has received a serious blow--maybe not a mortal blow because of the resilience of our country, but a serious blow--over what has happened in the Justice Department over the last several months. What we have had in the past is misstatement after misstatement about what has happened. The story has kept changing, we can't get the truth, and that is why we had no choice but to undertake our own investigation. Let me say that time and time again we have heard falsehoods. We were told that all seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for performance reasons. It now turns out this was false, as their glowing performance evaluations attest.”