In an interview with Campbell Brown on CNN Tuesday, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to bolster his legacy by pointing out the many accomplishments of his tenure and arguing that "so many people are focused on the little negatives that occurred." But as Brown quickly pointed out, these were far more than "little negatives":
From the transcript:
BROWN: These were not little negatives. And we can go through the list, but let's talk about - let's start by talking about how politicized the Justice Department became. An inspector general found that. There is nothing partisan about that. Your office fired nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons. There has been no disagreement about that. I mean, how could you let that happen?
GONZALES: Campbell, Campbell, Campbell. I disagree with that. You said that nine U.S. attorneys were fired for partisan political reasons. That's not what the report said. Quite the opposite. The report clearly found that there were performance related reasons for the removal of most of these U.S. attorneys and with respect to the remainder, they didn't have enough information to draw definite conclusions. Now I clearly will acknowledge that there were political considerations taken with respect to the hiring decisions made by some of the staff within the Department of Justice. It's something that I condemn and it shouldn't have happened.
Towards the end of the interview Brown noted that Gonzales has yet to find a new job since leaving public office. Gonzales acknowledged that some employers may not be that excited to hire someone as controversial as himself:
With respect to employment, listen. I can understand in a very tough economy, some employers are going to be very hesitant about bringing someone like me on when you have ongoing investigation. That is why I am working as hard as I can with my legal team to try to get these investigations completed as quickly as possible because I am anxious to move on to the next phase of my life. I feel like I still have a lot to contribute to our community and to our country and I want to do so.