Let's Review the DOJ PR Disaster

Now that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has testified again before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it gives PF a chance to review the horrendous mistakes DOJ made in handling this U.S. Attorney scandal from a PR perspective.

Let's first review the major mistakes they made:

1) Never lie to Congress - It is perceivable that DAG Jim Comey, AG Gonzales, and other DOJ officials may have lied when they testified to the Senate.  This is never a good idea and makes "handling" the PR side of it a nightmare.  The Senate hates being lied to, and once that happens even Republicans get angry.

2) Never lie during a press conference - The March 13 Press Conference held by the AG will be shown in PR and crisis communications courses in college for years to come.  AG Gonzales gave conflicting answers, seemed furtive and uncomfortable, and was clearly not confident or in control.  He was either not adequately prepared or froze under the Klieg lights.  The most damaging part of that press conference was when he said he "was not involved in any discussions" regarding the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys.  Using the word "discussions" covers pretty much any kind of communication, and for a trained lawyer like Gonzales, it was a bad word to use.  The former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that was not true.

3) When the emails comes out, so will the truth - Once you have to start handing over emails, there is blood in the water.  When DOJ said the White House had nothing to do with the scandal, that was provably false once the emails were retrieved.

What could DOJ have done to have fixed this or made it less of a scandal?

1) AG Gonzales should have apologized in writing and in public to all eight U.S. attorneys and removed any doubt about their performance.

2) AG Gonzales should have taken full responsibility immediately, not blamed Sampson and others.  If the AG does not know what's going on with eight USA's under DOJ (some of the most important USA's too, overseeing San Diego, Seattle, and Phoenix), then he's not in control of his department and that's a huge problem.

3) AG Gonzales should have testified sooner.  Waiting three weeks, regardless of the recess, gave the scandal time to grow and fester, as more emails came out.

When the story keeps changing and the boss doesn't seem in charge, opponents can make any type of accusation seem plausible.  If DOJ had said we fired these eight US Attorneys because we believed new people would do the job better, this could have been avoided.  But instead, you had the information drip out slowly and now his status is tenuous, as evidenced by the lack of support he found from Republicans yesterday during the hearing.