Rep. Davis pushes for no confidence vote on attorney general

AP
Saturday May 19, 2007

Rep. Artur Davis, a Democrat from Birmingham, said Friday he is pushing for a "no confidence" vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Davis and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., both former federal prosecutors, said they would introduce the symbolic resolution urging Gonzales' resignation on Monday. Two Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, said earlier this week they would offer a similar resolution stating that Gonzales was too weakened to remain on the job.

"(Gonzales) has failed to adequately and properly manage the Department of Justice and faithfully execute the duties of his office," Davis and Schiff wrote in a letter circulated to colleagues on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the White House called the Senate measure a "political stunt."

President Bush's support for his longtime ally and friend will not waver, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

The department is embroiled in probes of the firings of prosecutors and accusations that it has become too politicized. A growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined in the call for Gonzales to resign, while others have expressed only lukwarm support.

Gonzales support eroded further this week with the revelation that as White House counsel in 2004, he went to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and pressured him to certify the legality of Bush's controversial eavesdropping program while Ashcroft lay in intensive care.

Ashcroft had reservations about the program's legality and refused, according to Senate testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey.