E-mail a friendDaniel Metcalfe
airdate August 27, 2007
Daniel Metcalfe's 35-year career with the Justice Department began during the Nixon administration. In January, prior to the controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys, he retired as director of the Office of Information and Privacy, an office he co-founded in '81. Metcalfe worked as a fulltime intern at DOJ while attending law school at George Washington University and later worked as a trial attorney in the Civil Division. He went on record with his concerns about the tenure of Alberto Gonzales.
Daniel Metcalfe
Tavis: Daniel Metcalfe joined the Justice Department back in 1971 and served in a number of key positions before stepping down earlier this year. In 1984, he became the youngest attorney in the department's history named to the Senior Executive Service. He is now the executive director of the Center on Government Secrecy at the Washington College of Law at American University, and he joins us tonight from Washington. Mr. Metcalfe, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Daniel Metcalfe: Good evening, pleased to be here.
Tavis: Glad to have you. Let me start by asking the obvious: what do you make of the announcement? Too little, too late?
Metcalfe: Well, it's certainly too late, without any question. This is something that should have occurred long ago. There are number of us who have been calling for the attorney general to step down since not long after the events that developed starting in January of this year, certainly since the time of his horrendous testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April of this year, and then repeated most recently in July
It's caused tremendous damage to the department, both its morale and its standing in the law enforcement community, I'd say.
Tavis: It's impossible for you or any of the rest of us, for that matter, to get inside the AG's head, but just for a moment, try to help me understand why it is that you'd be so recalcitrant? Why hold on for as long as he did and the way that he did to ultimately step down anyway? I got the sense that Mr. Gonzalez was digging his heels in to stay there until the end. So if you're going to take this hard-line attitude, why take the hard-line attitude and step down anyway?
Metcalfe: Well, I certainly have to agree with your first proposition, which is it's difficult to get in the head of anyone quite like that to begin with. It's hard to imagine that any of us would behave that way to begin with, whether holding a position as important as attorney general, or even a lesser position in government or elsewhere.
But if you proceed from the premise that Mr. Gonzalez took that position and continued to steadfastly stay there for so long, I also have to agree with you that it's hard to imagine exactly why now, after digging in his heels, he suddenly resigned. Although having said that, I do think that that's very good for the Department of Justice because now it can begin, sooner rather than later, its process of healing, so to speak, and restoring its credibility and its standing in the eyes of the nation.
Tavis: Is the damage irreparable?
Metcalfe: It's very difficult to say irreparable. We do have a precedent, and that's the Watergate era. I happened to have the good fortune of being there as a young law clerk in 1973 and '74 at the time of what we called the Saturday Night Massacre, when former attorney general Elliot Richardson was fired, and then we had an interim attorney general, former Senator William Saxby.
I will say that it was only through the stewardship of former attorney general Ed Levi, who came in in January of '75 and was there for almost two years, that the department's reputation was restored. The department is a resilient organization; it's certainly populated by thousands and thousands of dedicated professionals who carry on their work with vigor, regardless of the circumstances.
So I won't be so pessimistic as to say that the damage is irreparable, but we certainly do need repair, much like what occurred post-Watergate, as quickly as possible. And that's where, of course, the next attorney general will play a very key role.
Tavis: All right, so we can't get inside of Mr. Gonzalez's head; let's get inside your head, which I'm certain we can do, and ask why it is earlier this year you decided to step down.
Metcalfe: Well, I've expressed it to a number of people in a very simple way, which is I had difficulty looking my wife and my kids in the eye and telling them that I was going to continue to work for George Bush and Alberto Gonzalez, even beyond the point at which I reach retirement age and technically didn't have to. I turned 55 at the end of last year, and with the good fortune of timing left just before the latest problems that hit the department.
But I could see the difficulties that were coming on just in the last two years of my tenure, since Gonzalez arrived in February of 2005. And when I told my wife and my kids that Gonzalez was part of the reason, not just President Bush, they could understand the Bush part but they couldn't really understand the Gonzalez part. Well, now they can understand that full well.
Tavis: I want to play a clip here now - I should start by saying this Friday night on this program, we're going to play this conversation in its entirety. If you did not get a chance to see what I think was a very powerful conversation with David Iglesias, one of these fired U.S. attorneys that have now cost Mr. Gonzalez - at least the way they were fired has cost Mr. Gonzalez his job, forcing him to step down. David Iglesias, the full conversation this Friday night.
But this is a quick piece now of what he had to say to me a couple of weeks ago in a conversation on this program.
(Begin film clip.)
David Iglesias: His job as attorney general is to represent the people of the United States; not to be the White House counsel anymore. I don't think he ever made that connection. White House counsel, he's the president's lawyer. As attorney general, he's the people's lawyer. He's still being the president's lawyer. That's not what attorney generals do.
Tavis: I'm not sure what kind of answer I'm going to get, but I'm going to ask anyway: should he step down?
David Iglesias: You know what? I've been asked that multiple times. Let me just say this: he knows what the right thing to do is. He needs to do it. He needs to do what's in the best interests of the career people that serve for 20 and 30 years that are at the Justice Department. He needs to cowboy up and do the right thing.
(End film clip.)
Tavis: Again, David Iglesias. The full conversation will re-air this Friday night around the country on this program. Mr. Metcalfe, I played that because Mr. Iglesias was responding to a series of questions I was asking him, and I think part of that series of conversations had to do with what the lessons are to be learned from this Gonzalez incident.
And I was specifically trying to get at the fact that you heard Mr. Iglesias respond to, get at this notion of what it means to have a long-time friend of the president, long-time friend, back in Texas, into the White House, works his way up to become White House counsel. Those of us in the American public knew of their relationship - certainly the United States Senate knew of their long-standing friendship and relationship.
And I'm' not suggesting that your friends can't work for you, but what was the U.S. Senate thinking when they gave a guy the job of AG who was that close to the president? It was clear he was the president's boy, and we were expecting him to go from being the president's boy inside the White House to being the attorney for the people. I didn't buy that then, why did the U.S. Senate buy that?
Metcalfe: Well, let me try to break that down into multiple parts, if I can. First let me say that I agree completely with former U.S. Attorney Iglesias. He and I appeared back-to-back on National Public Radio this morning, as a matter of fact, and we shared very similar views. Secondly, I'm going to perhaps surprise you by disagreeing with your premise that it's terribly faulty to have a long-time friend of the president serve as attorney general.
I think the key point with respect to Gonzalez is not their friendship, it's the fact that he moved directly from being White House counsel into the position of attorney general. There's no doubt about the fact that during the tenure of Attorney General Ashcroft - in other words, during the first term of President Bush, there was tremendous pressure and tension between the White House and the Justice Department - more than perhaps was seen on the surface.
Certainly a little bit of that bubbled out with respect to the hospital visit episode that was so chillingly described by former Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. But that tension was resolved entirely in the White House's favor when White House Counsel Gonzalez came over and became the attorney general. Basically what that did is it tied the White House and the Justice Department together at the hip.
And that's something that is basically contrary to the long-standing, traditional independence of the Justice Department. So it's not so much their relationship and how far back it goes, it's the fact that the White House and the Justice Department were conjoined together in that way.
Tavis: I take that, and that's why I prefaced my remark by saying I'm not suggesting that your friends can't work for you. But I'm glad you got to the latter point. So is that the primary lesson to be learned here? That you can't have a White House counsel then become the AG?
Metcalfe: Yes, I think that's a very fair lesson to take from this, that it's almost impossible for someone who has served for multiple years as White House counsel to come over to the Justice Department to be attorney general and maintain the important independence that has to be maintained - a distance between the Justice Department and the White House.
That distance, that narrowed during Watergate, and then it was, for a long, long time, separate. And now it came together again in the most horrendous way during Gonzalez's tenure, and that's what has to be borne in mind for the future.
Tavis: Let me offer this, then, as the exit question. All kind of names - as you sit there in Washington tonight, you know this better than I do. All kinds of names already being floated as to a possible replacement. Never mind who that person is, what kind of person does the president need to put in that position now?
Metcalfe: I think without any doubt, the most important qualification for the new attorney general, someone who could restore the credibility of the department and repair the damage that has been done, is integrity. I think that is the characteristic that was shown to be most lacking in Attorney General Gonzalez. Integrity, stature, independence, someone who could be respected and someone who could be seen as a leader of the department to stand separately and independent from the White House.
There are a number of names being floated around, certainly. The temptation on the part of the president is to appoint someone who would be a more readily or easily confirmed by the Senate, such as a so-called, quote, unquote, member of the club - Senator Hatch or possibly even former Senator John Danforth.
Tavis: Let me ask you, then - I liked; I said exit question. Here's my real exit question, given your -
Metcalfe: That's okay; you're talking to an attorney. I didn't take it at face value.
Tavis: (Laughs) I thank you, sir. Given counsel's latter comment, let me close by asking this, then. Again, never mind who the person is, would the White House be best advised to take someone, to select someone, to nominate someone outside of that inner circle right about now? Because the president has a real tendency for staying with the team, people on the inside, loyalty. Would he be best advised right now to choose someone with that integrity from outside of his inner circle?
Metcalfe: I think the answer to that is a resounding yes, for the following reason. If President Bush cares about his legacy, which is about all that remains as they count down the clock in this administration, he should regard this appointment as arguably the most important Cabinet appointment he will have had during his entire tenure as president.
Tavis: Wow.
Metcalfe: And he should choose someone other than an analogue to Senator Saxby in 1974. He should choose someone who can stand up and restore the department's credibility who will be seen as someone of distinct integrity; not a regular member of the club, so to speak. It would be terrific if he chose someone like, for example, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who would be the first African American attorney general and had served as deputy attorney general of this administration.
He would be very well qualified, highly regarded, I think, respected by the public, and I do believe that he would be someone well-received by the Senate, and promptly confirmed.
Tavis: Wow. And to say nothing of the fact because he's an African American, that would put President Bush again out front as a Republican, quite frankly, more than Democrats, appointing African Americans - never mind their politics, different issue there - but certainly in terms of symbolism, appointing another African American to a key position behind the Secretary of State. We'll see what happens. Yeah.
Metcalfe: Well, one might say that to a certain small degree - and I don't wish to overstate it for you - he would be taking a lemon and making a little bit of lemonade. But let me quickly point out that we had an African American deputy attorney general, Eric Holder, during the entirety, or almost the entirety, of the Clinton administration, and but for the fact that Attorney General Reno stayed until the very end, I think he would have been the first African American attorney general, and may yet still, in some future administration for all either of us knows.
Tavis: Point well taken, and Eric Holder's a good guy. Mr. Metcalfe, nice to have you on the program, all the best to you. Thanks for your insight.
Metcalfe: Pleased to be with you.
Tavis: My pleasure.
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