Bigger than the US Attorneys Purge Scandal?

Think you've heard every possible sordid development regarding the actions of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and the Bush White House.  Think again, because this one may top everything that has been revealed to date.  Murray Wass of the National Journal is reporting that last year, Attorney General Gonzalez advised President Bush to shutdown an internal Justice Department investigation into the warrentless wiretapping program.  Most ethically and legally troubling was the fact that Gonzalez had been told that his actions as White House Counsel and Attorney General would be at the center of the investigation.  The President's response:

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales's role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general.

Both the White House and Gonzales declined comment on two issues -- whether Gonzales informed Bush that his own conduct was about to be scrutinized, and whether he urged the president to close down the investigation, which had been requested by Democratic members of Congress.  

This investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility was not looking at the legality of the warrentless wiretapping program, just "allegations of misconduct involving department attorneys that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice."  In other words, the investigation was honing in on potential misbehavior and ethical and legal violations by Gonzalez.  He knew this and still went to the President to ask him to end the investigation, which he did using what amounted to extraordinary means. 

Now there is one very important question Gonzalez and the President have to answer.  Did Gonzalez tell the President that he was a target of the investigation?  If he did not, he would be guilty of a serious, if not illegal deception.  And if he did, then the President knowingly interfered in a Justice Department investigation to shield his Attorney General.  Either way, somewhere Tricky Dick Nixon must be blushing.