Gonzales risks perjury investigation, Leahy says

Gonzales risks perjury investigation, Leahy says
By Hope Yen
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press
July 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales must quickly clarify seeming contradictions in his testimony about warrantless surveillance or risk a possible perjury investigation, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.

"This is going to have a devastating effect on law enforcement throughout the country if it's not cleared up," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

"If he doesn't correct it, then I think that there are so many errors in there that the pressure will lead very, very heavily to whether it's a special prosecutor, a special counsel, efforts within the Congress."

Leahy also said he was ready to work with the Bush administration to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.

President Bush used his weekly radio address Saturday to urge Congress to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 so the law can better keep pace with the latest technology used by terrorists.

Last week, four Democrats on Leahy's committee asked Solicitor General Paul Clement for a special probe of Gonzales. The request came after FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared to contradict Gonzales' statements to Congress about internal administration dissent over the president's secretive wiretapping program.

Gonzales told that committee the program was not at issue when then-White House counsel Gonzales made a dramatic visit to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004. Mueller, before the House Judiciary Committee, said it was.

On Sunday, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on Leahy's committee, said it would be premature to begin a perjury investigation until the committee could find out the facts.

Leahy and Specter appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation."