Before his closed door meeting with Alberto Gonzales on Thursday, Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all but called for the resignation of the Attorney General over the prosecutor purge scandal. During that meeting, Gonzales completely and unexpectedly backed down on one of the central issues surrounding the scandal -- whether the president should have the power, without consent of the Senate, to appoint indefinite replacements for United States Attorneys that have been summarily fired. Specter subsequently walked back his previous statement.

If that had been all that had happened on Thursday, it would have been fairly likely that Gonzales would have been able to endure this month and perhaps even remain in his position for the duration of George W. Bush's presidency. But that was not, in fact, the only news coming out of the Department of Justice on Thursday. That evening, it emerged that the FBI, which is the department's chief investigative arm, had been illegally overstepping its powers to conduct surveillance on the American people without court supervision, a revelation that sent Democrats calling for hearings and had even a number of Republicans in Congress up in arms. All of the sudden, there were more real questions about whether Gonzales will be able to maintain his position.

Certainly, George W. Bush has proved to be a fairly loyal president, shying away from firing those close to him -- even when they perform remarkably badly or unethically in their positions. For instance George Tenet, President Bush's CIA Director, was awarded the much-coveted Presidential Medal of Freedom despite overseeing some of the greatest intelligence failures in American history. To take one more example that has been in the news of late, despite a pledge to fire anyone involved in the leaking of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, President Bush has kept his close advisor Karl Rove on staff, even as he admitted to releasing information about her. As such, there is real reason to believe that the President will not soon fire Alberto Gonzales. At least not unless his hand is forced.

In the history of the United States, the House of Representatives has only availed itself of the power to impeach federal officials seventeen times, and in only one instance has it impeached a cabinet secretary (Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of War William Belknap). Given the relevations of the last week, as well as further questions about the Attorney General's regard for the Constitution (but two months ago he said in testimony before the Senate, "There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution", a statement the absurdity of which is plain to anyone who has ever read the document or, frankly, taken a sixth grade civics class), I believe that the House Judiciary Committee should begin to hold hearings on and consider the possibility of impeaching Alberto Gonzales. While there might not be sufficient votes in the Senate at this point to convict Gonzales of such charges (and I'd assume the Republicans would be able to scrounge up enough votes to keep Gonzales in his position), such a move would both begin to ensure that there is some accountability for the actions of this administration -- accountability that has been sorely lacking due to President Bush's reticence to fire his incompetent personnel -- and it would put Republicans on the record as defending someone whose actions have undermined the Constitution. And perhaps if the House does move to impeach Gonzales he will follow in the footsteps of Belknap, who resigned before the Senate had voted on whether or not to remove him from office.

Update [2007-3-10 15:8:55 by Jonathan Singer]: According to Paul Kane and Michael Abramowitz writing in The Washington Post, Gonzales is already trying to bolster his support among conservatives in the Senate. On the other hand, he's not doing much to rebut quesitons that he might leave his position soon.