PlameGate: Why a Special Prosecutor Should Have Been Appointed Two Year Ago

ThinkProgress reviewed the Frank Rich oped that noted Alberto Gonzales received notice of the special prosecutor’s inquiry during the evening of September 29, 2003 notification but waited 12 hours before telling the staff to preserve all documents. Gonzalez had trouble with Bob Scheiffer’s questions on Face the Nation:

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you the obvious question, Mr. Attorney General. Did you tell anybody at the White House, get ready for this, here it comes?
GONZALES: I, I told one person, ah, in, in the White House of, of the notification, and, and
SCHIEFFER: Who?
GONZALES: and immediately – ah, I told the chief of staff. And immediately the next morning, I told the President and, shortly thereafter, there was a notification sent out to all the members of the White House staff.

While Gonzales claims the Justice Department gave him permission for this delay, Thinkprogress also points out that Karl Rove’s friend John Aschroft headed the Justice Department at that time and did not recuse himself from PlameGate until at the end of the year.

So why didn’t President Bush make sure that a special prosecutor was appointed on July 15, 2003?