Schumer calls on Gonzales to step down

AP
WASHINGTON - The Senate‘s No. 3 Democr, , ) cited the FBI ‘s illegal snooping into people‘s private lives and the Justice Department‘s firing of federal prosecutors.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gonzales repeatedly has shown more allegiance to President Bush than to citizens‘ legal rights since taking his job in early 2005.

"Attorney General Gonzales is a nice man, but he either doesn‘t accept or doesn‘t understand that he is no longer just the president‘s lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution even when the president should not want it to be so," Schumer said.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a member of the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee, said Gonzales would be "better off" if he resigned.

"I think Gonzales has lost the confidence of the vast majority of the American people," he said. "I think he‘s lost the confidence of the Congress."

"I do think there have been lots of problems," said Specter, who last week suggested that a Gonzales tenure may have run its course. "Before we come to conclusions, I think we need to know more facts."

"The attorney general demonstrated decisive leadership by demanding a new level of accountability to address systematic problems in oversight over some of the FBI‘s national security tools," Roehrkasse said.

On Friday, Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller acknowledged the FBI had broken the law to secretly pry out personal information about people in the U.S. as part of its pursuit of suspected terrorists and spies.

Under criticism by lawmakers, Gonzales also agreed to tighten the law for replacing U.S. attorneys and to let Congress hear from senior department officials with roles in the ousters.

Sen. Lindsey Gr, , ), R-S.C., said it is the Bush administration‘s right to fire U.S. attorneys because they serve at the will of the president. Still, he said, the Justice Department was wrong to attack their reputations.

"I don‘t believe the attorney general will resign, but this whole episode was unnecessarily poorly handled," Graham said.

Over the weekend, Bush pledged an end to the FBI lapses that caused the illegal snooping but expressed confidence in the response by Mueller and Gonzales. Mueller has accepted responsibility, and both have pledged to fix problems.

Bush said that while the inspector general‘s report "justly made issue of FBI shortfalls, (it) also made clear that these letters were important to the security of the United States."

Lawmakers from both parties called the FBI abuses unacceptable. They noted it was Congress that demanded the inspector general review the program even as Justice Department officials were providing assurances the government‘s surveillance programs were being run responsibly.

In coming hearings by the Judiciary Committee, senators plan to consider whether to scale back some of the government‘s law enforcement powers in light of the abuses.

Schumer and Specter were on "Face the Nation" on CBS; Biden and Graham spoke on "Late Edition" on CNN.