The White House Gets a Running Start

To pick just one point from a post that, in retrospect, was just too darn packed with them, I'm curious about this 12-hour delay Alberto Gonzales asked for in alerting the White House staff to preserve any documents they might have concerning the Valerie Plame case. Gonzales says he asked the Justice Department if it was OK, and they didn't have a problem. But if a lawyer is told that his client is under investigation, why would the lawyer want to delay letting that client know--or at least letting the client know officially? On Face the Nation Sunday, (transcript in pdf) Gonzales explained that he did mention the impending investigation to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card but then didn't get around to mentioning it to anyone else until the next morning. Even Joe Biden, who also appeared in the program, could identify the obvious questions:

[T]he real question now is who did the chief of staff speak to? Did the chief of staff pick up the phone and call Karl Rove? Did the chief of staff pick up the phone and call anybody else? Ordinarily, you would think that he would immediately send out an e-mail to every member of the staff and say--you know, you don't have to call them. Every of those staff members carries around a BlackBerry and--send an e-mail saying 'Boom.'

At this point, we can only wonder what Card might've done with the information. But we should also keep in mind that it's not exactly like they needed another 12 hours to get rid of incriminating evidence. According to a letter (also pdf) from the CIA to Rep. John Conyers that Josh Marshall had almost a year and a half ago at Talking Points Memo, the Department of Justice, then under the leadership of John Ashcroft, didn't open an investigation into the matter until more than two months after initially being alerted by the CIA. That's plenty of time for all involved parties to be informed that an inquiry might be coming down the pike. It was clear to the White House, as Gonzales implied on Face the Nation when asked why, as White House counsel, he didn't conduct his own investigation:

I think that this is the kind of issue that I felt that we should wait and see whether or not there would be some kind of criminal investigation. And, of course, there was, and once the criminal investigation began, I've always felt that it would be counterproductive and would be in the way and might, in fact, hinder the criminal investigation. And that's why the decision was made and it wasn't just solely my decision.

Unfortunately, Bob Schieffer didn't ask who else contributed to that decision.

Well, this post has gone longer than I'd expected, too, but while we're on the subject, I'll also mention a nostalgic post by Eric Boehlert recalling a similar delay by Attorney General Ed Meese at the beginning of the Iran-Contra investigation. You may recall that this is what gave Oliver North and Fawn Hall the opportunity to do so much shredding.