Matt Ortega

In a television appearance on NBC’s Today Show, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the actions of the Department of Justice, including his own, in the prosecutor purge.

“I think you can look at the record of the department in terms of what we’ve done … going after child predators, public corruption cases,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “I think our record is outstanding.”

Gonzales acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were made in the handling of the U.S. attorney firings and said he wanted to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.

“I think we’ve done a good job in managing the department. .. Things are going to happen,” he said. “We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened. … We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here.” [emphasis added]

Gonzales’ assertion that the Justice Department wants to “ensure” Congress has the “complete and accurate picture” of what happened is nothing short of laughable. Administration officials tried to distort what they did after they the mass firings on December 7.

There was a concerted effort on the part of the administration to force out U.S. attorneys that were uncooperative with the White House’s partisan political agenda. Since the story of the firings broke, the administration has continually used falsities and outright lies to defend their actions.