Editorials

The Department of Justice has a lot of explaining to do. It also has a lot to prove — mainly its credibility.

The wreckage left behind at the DOJ by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is widespread. It reaches deep into the bureaucracy. It has adversely altered a culture that stood for professionalism and its independence from politics.

But because of the Bush White House and Gonzales' tenure, everything from this DOJ must be taken with a dose of skepticism. Its motivations, especially political ones, must be questioned.

And so it is with the DOJ's decision not to offer up any meaningful documents to the House Judiciary Committee dealing with the criminal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

A department spokesman says such a move "would chill the candid internal deliberations that are essential to the discharge of our law enforcement responsibilities."

Adding insult to injury, the DOJ points out that it has handed over loads of documents to the committee involving the Siegelman prosecution. Documents, it should have pointed out, that are readily available in the public domain.

The DOJ's response to the committee's request came even despite the committee's offer to review sensitive documents involved in the prosecution behind closed doors at the DOJ.

The reply: no can do.

That attitude will not fly in the new world of distrust created by the White House and the DOJ. The burden falls to these arrogants to prove that Siegelman's prosecution was not politically motivated, and not the other way around.

Something smells bad here. It smells bad even when one discounts the shenanigans involving the firings of U.S. attorneys across the nation and the hiring of DOJ personnel based on their ideological beliefs.

It smells even worse when one considers that a man may sit in prison today because his political enemies may have arranged his prosecution for political reasons.

It is a sobering thought to consider, the kind of thing often associated with third-world dictatorial regimes and not with a free, democratic nation.

It may not be so, but if there is a shred of a possibility that Siegelman's prosecution came about for political reasons then every effort needs to be made to investigate it. And that effort needs to be led by, not resisted by, the Department of Justice.

The DOJ should turn over all material dealing with Siegelman's prosecution to the House Committee. And it should do so now.