News Conference on Gonzales (OPEN THREAD)

By SusanUnPC … UPDATE: Senate Judiciary Committee members — represented at the news conference by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) — have asked Solicitor General Paul Clement to appoint an “independent counsel from outside the Justice Department to determine whether Gonzales ‘may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress’.” (ALL: AP/WaPo.)

[ADDITIONAL UPDATE: Sen. Patrick Leahy is going to announce that he will subpoena Karl Rove. CNN promises more at the top of the hour.]

Here’s Paul Clement’s USDOJ bio. Wikipedia’s bio states that Clement “has argued over 25 cases before the United States Supreme Court” and “also argued many of the key cases in the lower courts involving challenges to the President’s conduct of the war on terrorism,” including “Rumsfeld v. Padilla … Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld…”

CNN will air the Senate Democrats’ new conference live. (It’s over.) Josh Marshall may have more soon. See the related post below, and this: “Schumer on CNN: Gonzo Perjury Investigation Should Start Today.”

Then there’s “FOX Nutwork: Still pretending to be news” which quotes Hume:

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Next on SPECIAL REPORT, Attorney General Gonzales tells his side of that late night hospital meeting. Remember that? And ends up being called untrustworthy and a liar by Senate Democrats.

Those meanies! And Faux’s transcript still identifies Sen. Arlen Specter as a Democrat.

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SEE ALSO:

+ at Crooks & Liars: “Keith Olbermann applauds Cenk’s idea (linked here first) to issue FNC “Opinion Media” passes instead of “News Media” passes.”

+ “House Resolution Rejects Permanent Bases in Iraq“:

The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to bar permanent United States military installations in Iraq as lawmakers readied for yet another clash over a Democratic demand to withdraw combat troops from the conflict.

[...]

House Republicans offered little resistance, saying the plan essentially reflected current law and Bush administration policy. But they criticized Democrats for what they said was meaningless legislation since the administration had not called for permanent bases. [SNORT!]

+ Josh Marshall on “Impeachment?”:

Impeachment?

As regular readers of this site know, I’ve always been against the movement to impeach President Bush. I take this position not because he hasn’t done plenty to merit it. My reasons are practical. Minor reasons are that it’s late in the president’s term and that I think impeachment itself is toxic to our political system — though it can be less toxic than the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, is that Congress at present can’t even get to the relatively low threshold of votes required to force the president’s hand on Iraq. So to use an analogy which for whatever reason springs readily to my mind at this point in my life, coming out for impeachment under present circumstances is like being so frustrated that you can’t crawl that you come out for walking. In various ways it seems to elevate psychic satisfactions above progress on changing a series of policies that are doing daily and almost vast damage to our country. Find me seventeen Republican senators who are going to convict President Bush in a senate trial.

On balance, this is still my position. But in recent days, … READ ALL.