R.I. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney who defeated Republican Lincoln Chafee in November, was among those on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales yesterday, and he brought a chart. Here's how senior editor Dahlia Lithwick at Slate described it (Al, the President's Man):

...One of the finest moments comes when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., busts out a big, big chart. Which happens after almost everyone has gone home. The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice. You can just see zillions of small boxes nattering back and forth. It seems that just about everyone in the White House, including the guys in the mailroom, had a vote on ongoing criminal matters.

Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., calls this "the most astounding thing" he's seen in 32 years.

Here's the chart:

Over at Findlaw, Watergate-era White House counsel John Dean fills in the background (Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's "Reconfirmation Hearings": Why, In the End, They Will Change Nothing):

...Senator Whitehouse said he had found correspondence in the files of the Senate Judiciary Committee from the days when Orrin Hatch was chairman relating to an investigation of the relationship between the Clinton White House and the Justice Department (under Attorney General Janet Reno). Hatch was concerned about the independence of the Department of Justice, so he wanted to know who in the White House could speak with whom in the Justice Department. The correspondence showed that four people in the White House (the President, Vice President, chief of staff, and White House counsel) could speak with three people in the Justice Department (the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney and the Associate Attorney General) - period.

Senator Whitehouse discovered - and created a chart to make the point - that in the Bush White House, a shocking 417 people could speak with 30 different people in the Justice Department. It was a jaw-dropper.

Will 447 subpoenas for emails come out of this?

You can read the entire exchange on the last third of the last of 15 pages of the hearing transcript at the Washington Post. (As junior member of the Committee, Whitehouse speaks last; his questioning, which came near the end of the five-hour hearing, begins here.)

Plus: At YouTube, a two-and-a-half-minute snippet of video from the hearing of an exchange in which Sen. Whitehouse challenges Gonzales's narrow definition of impropriety.

Earlier: Judiciary Panel's Courtroom Presence: Early Verdict on Whitehouse Favorable, April 13 Washington Post.