Comey And The NSA Warrantless Surveillance

Former DoJ Number 2 James Comey testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the dramatic circumstances under which the NSA warrantless surveillance program was not re-authorized in March 2004.  The Times has coverage; Orin Kerr links to a transcript; and John Hinderaker of Powerline has a good defense of the Administration.  However The Captain, in an Update, does not buy the PowerStory.

Pretty cryptic, huh?  Well, follow a link!

Meanwhile, the WaPo editors present their nightmare version of events, which I dispute:

AMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.

Let's see - we are told that Gonzalez and Card "tried to coerce a man in intensive care".  Is that based on anything at all?  Comey certainly did not mention any threats in describing their contact with Ashcroft, nor did he mention any attempted coercion of himself.

We are also told that Card and Gonzalez "were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization", but eventually the President backed down.  Come again?  The program did in fact proceed for several weeks without DoJ approval while changes were made.  Nothing in Comey's story tells us that Card and Gonzalez were unwilling to contemplate the changes sought by the DoJ; the problem seems to have been one of timing.

And to round out the timeline - Comey and Ashcroft apparently discussed a DoJ Office of Legal Counsel review of the program on Thursday, March 4.  The review had raised problems with the program and Ashcroft concurred with Comey that it should not be re-authorized the following Thursday, March 11.

Ashcroft was then rushed to a hospital that Thursday night; per his account Comey informed the White House about the problem with re-authorization the following Tuesday:

The attorney general was taken that very afternoon to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general. And over the next week -- particularly the following week, on Tuesday -- we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here. Nor am I confirming it's any particular program.

We then have radio silence until Wednesday night around 8, when Gonzalez and Card make their run to the hospital.  One wonders what, if anything, transpired earlier on Wednesday and Tuesday.  One presumes that Card and Gonzalez spent a bit of their time on Tuesday and Wednesday exploring their alternatives, but Comey says nothing about that - odd, since I can't imagine who Card and Gonzalez might have been talking to that did not include Comey.  Did Card and Gonzalez really just let it slide until Wednesday night?  Hard to believe.

To recap: On March 4 Comey and Ashcroft decide to decline to re-authorize a program Ashcroft had been approving regularly since Sept 2001.  Comey sits on this news until the following Tuesday, but the White House does not commence to scramble for alternatives until Wednesday night.

I think we are missing a lot here.

MORE:  But then again!  The WaPo has a better timeline - Ashcroft's gall bladder was removed on Tuesday, May 9, so one might guess that no one at the White House thought it made sense to engage him on that day.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: The original Times coverage of the NSA program.

Comments

[ordi]

One wonders:

The program did in fact proceed for several weeks without DoJ approval while changes were made.

What if they had not proceeded with the program and their had been an attack? Would we have gotten another round of they did not "connect the dots" or would it have been "Bush didn't SPY, so Americans died".

[Jane]

Ordi,

The first thing I thought about the supposed rush to the hospital was the same thing. What was going on.

The whole thing is very very fishy.

[Roger]

Plame was using NSA assets for domestic political groups. She may have found out some were her old pals like MoveOn, etc. She complained to someone on the Intelligence Committee. She was just finshing up some of her dad's work. He worked for NSA in the Air Force.

She and what she did are classified. There is no way to verify except the Intelligence Committee.

Specter was also changing responsabilities regarding AGs and the AG in intelligence identities at the time. The AGs who were fired may not have been aware of the legislation.

[Jeff Dobbs]

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: The original Times coverage of the NSA program.

AULD LANG SYNE: Lichtblau and Risen's first account of the "emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004"

[Enlightened]

So, any more doubts that Comey is up to his neck in the behind-the-scenes attempts to bring down GWB?

[Enlightened]

Oh brother. Nothing like idiots piling on. hagel wants AG to step down due to this "sick" visit to Ashcroft. That's been known for two years now.

I dare another GOP'er - oh let's say, Fred T, to confront Hagel with that fact. They didn't give a shit about AG going on that visit then.

I'm with HR - I.hate.these.guys.

[anduril]

There is a very complicated context behind all this. If you think back to those times--only three years ago, but so much has gone under the bridge that memory blurs--you'll recall that those were the days when OIPR was desperately defending The Wall, colluding with the FISC judges, leaking to the press, trumping up supposed FBI perjurious affidavits (i.e., typos), etc. It was just after Comey--fully aware that Armitage was the "leaker"--set his favorite pit bull on the trail of Libby and the OVP. Here's what I wrote elsewhere:

On the face of it, there was little of interest in former Deputy Attorney General Comey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. No wrongdoing was alleged against AG Gonzalez or any Administration official, and the matters discussed occurred well before Gonzalez was even nominated for the AG post. However, there is an aspect that deserves to be emphasized--or, rather, there is more to the context than appears in the testimony.

Comey came on board as DAG at the beginning of December, 2003, and he had some unusual support for a Republican appointee--Senator Chuck Schumer was very much in his corner. So it was that Comey was pretty much brand new on the job at the time he decided to reverse what appeared to the Administration as settled policy on the NSA eavesdropping program--certainly a shocking and radical development in any Administration. But Comey had already taken actions that boded ill for the White House, and especially for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), with whom the transcript shows he was in serious, and probably personal, conflict.

Comey, when asked for names of his adversaries in the OVP, mentioned his disagreements with VP Dick Cheney and Cheney's Legal Counsel, David Addington. Curiously, Comey failed to mention Scooter Libby--Cheney's Chief of Staff, a prominent attorney in his own right, and a leading architect of policy at the OVP--even though it is known that Libby was also involved in these matters. It is scarcely credible to suppose that Comey had no dealings with Libby, nor that they were in disagreement over the NSA program. Perhaps Comey avoided mention of Libby because he wished to avoid the appearance of personal animus. After all, it is well known that Libby had beaten Comey in a contentious case in the Southern District of New York a few years earlier, and one of Comey's first acts as DAG--before the NSA program came up for recertification--was to talk Ashcroft into recusing himself from the Plame affair. Comey then proceeded to appoint his former SDNY pal Patrick Fitzgerald to go after Libby, even expanding Fitzgerald's purview to "process violations," even though Comey knew that Armitage was the "leaker" and that the supposed "leak" violated no known law.

The upshot was that Comey and his supporters--I'm guessing career lawyers at DoJ with past connections to Schumer and other Democrats--may well have already been targeting the OVP through Fitzgerald when they next precipitated a crisis by refusing to recertify the NSA program. I doubt that it was any coincidence that Fitzgerald dragged Cheney and Addington into the Plamegate charade. Remember, too, that both Comey and Fitzgerald had close connections with Schumer from their days in the SDNY. Seen in the total context, Comey throwing bouquets Ashcroft's way during his testimony was a subterfuge, a way of saying: look, even the arch-conservative Ashcroft was morally outraged at the evil Administration. Certainly Comey tacked back and forth, admitting that nothing illegal was done and so forth, but the PR damage was done--as intended. I suspect that the arrival of Comey at the feckless Ashcroft's DoJ signalled the beginning of a coup attempt that would use DoJ to try to topple, or seriously cripple, the Administration through action on several fronts: prominently Plamegate and legal aspects of the GWOT. To suppose that all this was coincidence is to elevate coincidence to the level of an analytical principle in the study of politics--something no person with any knowledge of the ways in which bureaucracies work can accept.

[Enlightened]

Aduril - Bravo.

It is patently obvious what is transpiring and who the players are.

[Jeff Dobbs]

This article says Libby was the "Administration point man in trying to get Justice to sign off on the NSA wiretapping program" (OpinionJournal article)

Libby Alert! Libby Alert! This story ties in Libby....and Fitz (Marc Rich case)!

All hands on deck!!!

Where's Clarice?

Hey anduril...I was about to post that link. Gooood job.

[glasater]

So could some brilliant child here refresh my memory on what McNulty's connection with all of this is?

[anduril]

Yeah, h&r, don't you just luv this exchange?

SPECTER: Well, Mr. Comey, did you have discussions with anybody else in the administration who disagreed with your conclusions? COMEY: Yes, sir. SPECTER: Who else? COMEY: Vice president. SPECTER: Anybody else? COMEY: Members of his staff. SPECTER: Who on his staff? COMEY: Mr. Addington disagreed with the conclusion. And I'm sure there were others who disagreed, but... SPECTER: Well, I don't want to know who disagreed. I want to know who told you they disagreed. COMEY: OK. SPECTER: Addington? COMEY: Mr. Addington. The vice president told me that he disagreed. I don't remember any other White House officials telling me they disagreed. SPECTER: OK. So you've got Card, Gonzales, Vice President Cheney and Addington who told you they disagreed with you. COMEY: Yes, sir.

Libby who? What's a point man?

[Enlightened]

Stealing from the Honorable Clarice:

"If he succeeds in forcing Gonzales to resign , Gonzales’ Deputy will undoubtedly take over. That deputy, McNulty, like Comey and Fitzgerald, also comes from the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and is close to Schumer and his former colleage”

Connections, Connections, Connections.

Chuck Schumer is smeared like s--t all over it.

Hmmmm.

[Enlightened]

glasater - I'm sorry your not getting the bigger picture yet. Most fifth grade children would be able to connect these dots.

The core group of players in almost every GOP Super Scandal to date - boomerang directly back into Charles Schumers lap.

[Enlightened]

Seriously, this is just pathetic. The loons of the left, FDL et al are just foaming at the mouth over this "hospital trip".

Now - with Comey's testimony, the shift is from getting AG to getting and impeaching GWB.

Unfreakinbelievable. I'm excited to witness utter derangement unfolding before my very eyes for the uh, hmmm fogot how many, time. Thank god for leftard blogs. Keeps the gnat population centralized.

[clarice]

I posted (or so I thought) a very good blog on AT about this very subject. Ran out on an errand and found out it hadn;t posted because I was *urgh*signed out.

[Sue]

::sigh::

Keeps the gnat, PBUH, population centralized.

respect, people, respect

It is crazy how everything goes around in circles right back to Plame. I don't believe in conspiracies, even though I love them, but damn it, this one won't let go...

[clarice]

Here is Al Johnson's AT piece:
"May 16, 2007
Comey's testimony yesterday
Al Johnson
On the face of it, there was little of interest in former Deputy Attorney General Comey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. No wrongdoing was alleged against AG Gonzalez or any Administration official, and the matters discussed occurred well before Gonzalez was even nominated for the AG post. However, there is an aspect that deserves to be emphasized--or, rather, there is more to the context than appears in the testimony.

Comey came on board as DAG at the beginning of December, 2003, and he had some unusual support for a Republican appointee--Senator Chuck Schumer was very much in his corner. So it was that Comey was pretty much brand new on the job at the time he decided to reverse what appeared to the Administration as settled policy on the NSA eavesdropping program--certainly a shocking and radical development in any Administration. But Comey had already taken actions that boded ill for the White House, and especially for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), with whom the transcript shows he was in serious, and probably personal, conflict.

Comey, when asked for names of his adversaries in the OVP, mentioned his disagreements with VP Dick Cheney and Cheney's Legal Counsel, David Addington. Curiously, Comey failed to mention Scooter Libby--Cheney's Chief of Staff, a prominent attorney in his own right, and a leading architect of policy at the OVP--even though it is known that Libby was also involved in these matters. It is scarcely credible to suppose that Comey had no dealings with Libby, nor that they were in disagreement over the NSA program. Perhaps Comey avoided mention of Libby because he wished to avoid the appearance of personal animus. After all, it is well known that Libby had beaten Comey in a contentious case in the Southern District of New York a few years earlier, and one of Comey's first acts as DAG--before the NSA program came up for recertification--was to talk Ashcroft into recusing himself from the Plame affair. Comey then proceeded to appoint his former SDNY pal Patrick Fitzgerald to go after Libby, even expanding Fitzgerald's purview to "process violations," even though Comey knew that Armitage was the "leaker" and that the supposed "leak" violated no known law.

The upshot was that Comey and his supporters--I'm guessing career lawyers at DoJ with past connections to Schumer and other Democrats--may well have already been targeting the OVP through Fitzgerald when they next precipitated a crisis by refusing to recertify the NSA program. I doubt that it was any coincidence that Fitzgerald dragged Cheney and Addington into the Plamegate charade. Remember, too, that both Comey and Fitzgerald had close connections with Schumer from their days in the SDNY. Seen in the total context, Comey throwing bouquets Ashcroft's way during his testimony was a subterfuge, a way of saying: look, even the arch-conservative Ashcroft was morally outraged at the evil Administration. Certainly Comey tacked back and forth, admitting that nothing illegal was done and so forth, but the PR damage was done--as intended. I suspect that the arrival of Comey at the feckless Ashcroft's DoJ signalled the beginning of a coup attempt that would use DoJ to try to topple, or seriously cripple, the Administration through action on several fronts: prominently Plamegate and legal aspects of the GWOT. To suppose that all this was coincidence is to elevate coincidence to the level of an analytical principle in the study of politics--something no person with any knowledge of the ways in which bureaucracies work can accept.

Al Johnson is a retired attorney. "

[Enlightened]

BWAAHHHHaaaahhh Drudge reporting

Madame Speaker not getting her way again - losing too many floor votes. Professes's to change the germaneness rules to thwart the GOPs motions to recommit. A rule in place since 1822.

Stunningly Priceless.

GOP says okey dokey - we just gonna hit you with procedural motions every 30 minutes. Aight?

Madame Speaker of The 110th Congress - the gift that just keeps on giving.

[glasater]

Well, Enlightened--I too have been concerned that the left is out to impeach the President. It's always been a multi-pronged attack but they're surely running out of time....unless ofcourse they want to spoil the '08 elections.

Having lived through the Washington State governor race and the travesty that produced--voting fraud has been high on my agenda.

[manys]

The age of laws didn't matter so much when the issue at hand was habeas corpus.

That said, if Comey's working "behind the scenes" to unseat Bush, the Republican Party surely has lost all discipline.

[Enlightened]

The Republican party has lost discipline? Perhaps - but

I'm not sure how a leftwing Dem would recognize discipline or lack/thereof -

Oh, unless of course you try and change the rules to fit your discipline. See: Speaker, Madame Nancy

[cathyf]

Ok, so cross-posting is rude, but I'll go ahead. This is what I posted over at CQ, because I don't agree with the Captain on this one:

So, on a Thursday, the brand-new counsel to the DoJ sits down with the brand-new deputy AG and informs him that there is "a problem" with some aspect of the NSA program. Not the whole program, but some detail. The next Thursday, a whole week later, the deputy AG sits down to discuss with the AG what this particular problem is. The AG, who has authorized the program 29 times already in it's heretofore unappreciated defective state, agrees that they need to get this changed before agreeing to the next "reauthorization."

The AG is not the Chief Executive, the AG is the Chief Executive's lawyer. The AG can not and could not "authorize" or "approve" of the NSA program, only the president or his delegate (the NSA chief or management) can authorize or approve of an NSA program. Or de-authorize, or dis-approve. Under the system that the president set up, what the AG was authorizing was not the program, but a legal opinion which was about the program. You know, the crafting of legal advice -- the job of lawyers.

What we know from the structure of the president's approval process is that the president recognized (and still recognizes) that the program is skating very close to the edge of what is proper and legal. He refused to simply authorize the program, and then let the bureaucrats implement it under minimal supervision, like when the air force needs a new airplane or the army needs new recipes for MREs. Instead, he insisted that his authorization had to be renewed every 45 days, and he demanded that the Chief Executive's lawyer (that would be the Attorney General) give him legal advice every 45 days to make sure that no one had realized that there was something wrong with the program in the interim.

As Comey describes it, that is exactly what happened. "The new guy" (a new DoJ counsel) looked at the program with "fresh eyes" and saw something. Something that was not an emergency -- he briefed Comey, then Comey briefed Ashcroft a week later. Then, in an unfortunate coincidence, the very same day, Ashcroft became very ill and was rushed to the hospital. This was still not an emergency, because the now-acting-AG Comey waited five days to mention word one to the white house. According to Comey's own story, he did not tell the white house the truth -- he told them that he would not re-authorize approval of the program. According to Comey's own story he did not say, "not authorize unless X, Y, Z is done to change it, no his story is "I am the acting attorney general, and I will not authorize it."

Then, according to his own story, he did the whole hospital-drama bedside thing. (Sheesh, who knew Comey was such a freaking drama queen?!?) MeMeMe!!! I am the acting attorney general! Ashcroft's voice from the cloud, "this is my Acting AG; listen to him." Then the president had to freaking personally intervene to get the whole DoJ drama society to get past "we will resign!!!" and "you can't make us sign!!!" and tell the White House and NSA what the problem was. Which the NSA spent a week or so thinking about, and figured out a way to change the program so that the objectionable part was eliminated. In the meantime, the president re-authorized the program with the understanding that the issue (whatever it was) had to be resolved right away in a way that Comey would agree to. As in the president exercised presidential authority to demand that one group of his subordinates (NSA) change their program to satisfy the opinion of another group of his subordinates (DoJ).

And once the NSA implemented or at least agreed to implement whatever solution it was to whatever problem it was, the Acting AG signed off on the legal opinion. Which brings us to olddeadmeat's ROFLPIMP example of projection

You could argue that behavior extends to the administration's entire attitude toward governance in general - we are going to do whatever we deem right, and to heck with anyone else's concerns or issues - regardless of any valid basis for objecting and regardless of whether the objector is friend or foe.

Read the transcript of Comey's testimony. Substitute dept of justice drama society for administration in your description, and you have Comey's story in a nutshell.

[Maybeex]

Very good, cathyf!

In the admin's eyes, this whole drama played out over 2 days. That's it. Two days of tense (mis)communication, and the President eventually heard what they had to say.

Think about it, though. Of course Card and Gonzales aren't just going to take the word of Comey- Acting Attorney General- for a major change in ongoing policy. Of course they are not, because it isn't like Ashcroft is dead. He's still around, he's the real AG.

You tell me. If Bush was in the hospital for gall bladder surgery, and Cheney as acting President announced he was going to send missiles to Iran... would anybody flock to Bush's bedside to get his opinion on things, do you think?

[anduril]

Right, cathyf, but ask yourself: is this the way government bureaucracies work, or was this a stage managed crisis--a deliberately created one?

[Maybeex]

Am I pretty safe in my assumption that Comey was a source for Risen?

[JM Hanes]

"[J]AMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow..."

I'd start the disputation right there. Comey Twists & Turns with the best of 'em.

[Maybeex]

Good time machine steering, JMH. (and good to see you, btw)

Here's my favorite part of Comey's authorization of Fitzgerald:
and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General

Comey embraced his Acting Attorney Generalness with a passion. I think it's obvious this was a man that really wanted to be Attorney General.
He isn't some neutral party, as he is portrayed. Even if he isn't in bed with Schumer, he obviously had some goals of his own. It must have killed him to see Gonzales get his job.

[Enlightened]

Woah - AJ Strata and FDL in a bitchfest over Comey/NSA legality.

Looks like Schumer set his blogdogs loose to defend Comey. Cuz ya know, we need Comey on that Wall. Ya know, Impeachment an' all.

Oh buhruhther.

[Tom Maguire]

Then, in an unfortunate coincidence, the very same day, Ashcroft became very ill and was rushed to the hospital. This was still not an emergency, because the now-acting-AG Comey waited five days to mention word one to the white house.

FWIW, it occurs to me that when Ashcroft and Comeu first went over the new problem with the program, there was no reason for the meeting to end with Comey fully briefed on what Ashcroft had in mind as a next step - Ashcroft wasn't scheduled to fall ill, so he may have simply left it at "I'll talk this over with Gonzalez".

Then Ashcroft gets sick and for a few days the situation drifted - would Ashcroft come back and resume his duties or not?

The Saturday Mar 6 Times reported that Ashcfroft had cancelled his Senate appearance scheduled for the following Wednesday, so they knew he was pretty sick. But there may have been a hold-up while they figured out if he would deal wuth the NSA program or not.

[anduril]

FWIW, it occurs to me that when Ashcroft and Comeu first went over the new problem with the program...

This wasn't really a new problem. The FISA related problems became serious after 1993 when Richard Scruggs took over at OIPR. The situation kept worsening over the years when Gorelick was at DoJ and after James Baker--the FISC mole at DoJ--took over OIPR. Most of this infighting (usually FBI and Criminal Division on one side against OIPR) was hidden from public view, but it did surface at times: the Aldrich Ames and Wen Ho Lee cases are two examples.

After 9/11--the fault for which can largely be attributed to OIPR's interpretation of FISA--the Patriot Act was passed; one of its primary aims was to fix FISA. Even in the face of 9/11 Royce Lamberth (FISC Chief Judge) and James Baker sought to maintain the old FISA rules. Judge Silberman trashed all that in In re Sealed Case--even stating (as OPR had also maintained) that there had never been any justification for OIPR's interpretation, even pre-Patriot Act, but, incredibly, OIPR and the FISC (Lamberth replaced by Kollar-Kotelly) tried continual endruns around In re Sealed Case. This amounted to legal guerrilla warfare between the liberal careerists at DoJ and a handful of conservative scholars, like John Yoo. When Yoo left DoJ the WH really had just about no reliable supporters at DoJ, so Gonzalez and Cheney's office had to try to ride herd over DoJ--Ashcroft could certainly not be counted on; he was more concerned with singing at public gatherings (doofuss). That's why they were so quick to try to reassert some control when Comey precipitated a confrontation--that was a losing hand (for the WH) from the start, since they had to try to work through Ashcroft. And at the same time OVP was trying to maintain some semblance of control over the CIA--hey, good luck!

Solution? Bush should have wielded a broom at all national security related departments and agencies. He thought nice-nice would work. That's the 25 words or less version, metaphorically speaking. Plenty more detail and intrigue, but it's the basic picture. Very sorry situation.

[Sara]

Did anyone listen to Greta Van Sustern tonight and all the intrigue they were touting as surrounding the hospital visit to Ashcroft by Comey, Muller, Gonzalez and Card?

[clarice]

I heard the beginning and was interrupted by a phone call. What is the letter they were talking about?

[clarice]

The NYT is running some B.S. about how loyal Comey was to Bush......Who leaked the story over a year ago to Risen? Asked and answered.

[anduril]

The NYT is running some B.S. about how loyal Comey was to Bush......Who leaked the story over a year ago to Risen? Asked and answered.

Posted by: clarice | May 16, 2007 at 11:47 PM

One of the nurses, who wasn't as straight an arrow as Comey?

It seems to be a general principle that anyone whom the WaPo or NYT labels "as-straight-as-an-arrow" speaks with a forked tongue.

[anduril]

Did anyone listen to Greta Van Sustern tonight...

Posted by: Lady Sara | May 16, 2007 at 11:37 PM

I don't have cable, so I only see Foxnews when I travel--which is a rare event. When I do watch Greta I never seem able to actually take in what she's saying because I'm too preoccupied watching the way her mouth works.

[topsecretk9]

as a sidenote - recall that CIA's chief counsel was in cahoots with Comey on this or torture - and "adamantly" defying the administration...(I will look for the site)

[topsecretk9]

Sorry, I shouldn't have put adamantly in "quotes"

When I do watch Greta I never seem able to actually take in what she's saying because I'm too preoccupied watching the way her mouth works.

OK this is hilarious. I find myself doing the sam things - it's actually mesmerizing, I think it's that NO other part of her face moves.

[ordi]

Anduril and TS

You mean kind of like the opposite of how Pelosi's forehead doesn't move?

[topsecretk9]

**same thing**

[ordi]

TS

I think it was AJ that wrote today that Clarice is working the dope on Comey's politcal connections. Do you know if this is so, if so when?

Thanks!

[topsecretk9]

thought so

By JESSICA YELLIN, ABC News

Jan. 11, 2006 — Former CIA General Counsel Jeffrey Smith will testify in House hearings that there is no legal basis for President Bush's controversial National Security Agency domestic surveillance program, ABC News has learned.

ABC News has obtained a copy of a 14-page memo Smith wrote to the House Select Committee on Intelligence in which he argues that the wiretaps are illegal...

..Smith is a Democrat who worked at the CIA in the Clinton years and as general counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee under Sam Nunn, then a Democratic senator from Georgia.

Smith is now in private practice. He plans to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 20.

and there is Scott W. Muller, who I am sure there is a TIME magazine super glow of Comey article.

In any event, there as at least more circumstantial evidence that DOJ'ers and CIA'ers were illegally leaking and manipulating than the stupid committee has come up with Gonzales.

[topsecretk9]

Ordi

There is someone else - and it was a Time (or maybe Newsweek) report about this - but it was CIA general counsel and I do know that Fitzgerald moved to block all CIA - DOJ communications/correspondence from public view - he sited attorney client privilege or some such - that CIA was his client was the rational (and Fitzgerald said he'd like to conceal the go between "rational" whether or not to pursue a prosecution)

(JMH might recall this particular bit of nonsense)

[clarice]

AJ said that? Well, I'm not. I;ve written about whatever I know and have no new information.

Just reheard Greta. The "hot" new info is that the Senate Committee (Schumer) has written to Gonzales , demanding to know why he'd earlier testified there was no conlfict about the NSA program's being legal.

[topsecretk9]

he **cited** attorney

[topsecretk9]

Clarice

I think that ORDI is responding to my CIA attorney comment and saying he'd like more info on that.

BUT - I haven't been to AJ's so I will now.

[topsecretk9]

--The "hot" new info is that the Senate Committee (Schumer) has written to Gonzales , demanding to know why he'd earlier testified there was no conlfict about the NSA program's being legal.--

Sigh. A program in existence since the beginning of US intelligence. Like I said a year or so ago - every dog smells their own hole fist.

Here's betting the leakers were leaking a program that had the potential OR already DID bust their pathetic asses.

[topsecretk9]

Clarice

this is what AJ wrote:

"...Actually, it is well known in town (Clarice will have all the dope out) that Comey is politically connected. ..."

So i think he was just writing on memory and assumption - harmless is all.

[topsecretk9]

as if the acting CIA counsel does not sound like the arrogant Comey today, I don't know what does...(is their some moie script we don't know about?)

this Democrat for history: A. John Radsan:

Assistant general counsel, C.I.A., Langley, Va., 2002-04

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/05/confirming-cias-legal-eagle.php

While many lawyers have come and gone from the Justice Department, John Rizzo, a career public servant, has held a steady watch at the Central Intelligence Agency. Since 9/11, Rizzo has sometimes been called the Acting General Counsel, sometimes the senior deputy general counsel. Whatever his title, he has kept the trust of the secret soldiers who fight for our nation’s security.

On May 15, Rizzo will step from the shadows to face questions from the Senate intelligence committee in his confirmation hearing to become the official General Counsel. John’s colleagues, away from the spotlights, all know about his flair, the matching ties and suspenders, but for our country’s sake, the Senate should reveal more of what lies beneath the surface. While Rizzo’s confirmation process should be fair, the Senate, whether in open or closed session, should not give him a free pass.

The Senate, having given other lawyers a pass on controversial aspects of President Bush’s “global war on terror,” may be tempted to posture on extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, and coercive interrogations. The Senate should resist that temptation, delving into deeper issues about the lawyer’s role in secret agencies. Although the lawyers in the CIA’s Office of General Counsel have been involved in sensitive issues, they have done so in consultation with lawyers in the White House, the Vice President’s Office, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Justice Department. John Rizzo, whatever his role, was not the person who ultimately authorized extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, or coercive interrogations.

Am I alone in getting the feeling that a bunch of careerist bureaucrats were a bunch of pussies ready to sell out the country because they were no longer top dog?

[ordi]

TS

this is what AJ wrote:

'...Actually, it is well known in town (Clarice will have all the dope out) that Comey is politically connected. ...'

So i think he was just writing on memory and assumption - harmless is all.

Exactly where I got the questions on what Clarice was up too.

[ordi]

Clarice

I did not mean to upset you. If I did I am sorry.

I know all the great work you have done on this recent fake scandal as well as the PlameGame and Libby trial. I thought AJ may have some inside "dope" to what your latest project in the works was.

I am a lurker and sometimes commenter here - mostly during PlameGame and Libby Trial. I have been amazed how a lot of you keep all the minutia straight. Sometimes it made my little blonde head swim. TM and his comment thread were the place to be!

[clarice]

Ordi--I am certainly not angry at you or AJ--I just wanted to set the record straight.

[ordi]

*****PLAME ALERT*****

http://www.nysun.com/article/54630>Plame Seeks Showdown With Cheney

A lawsuit brought by a CIA agent whose cover was blown by Bush administration officials, Valerie Plame, is expected to face a withering attack this morning at a court hearing in Washington.

Through their attorneys, the defendants in the case have denounced it as a political vendetta on the part of Ms. Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador. Named in the lawsuit are Vice President Cheney, his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and a former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage.

'This case is a political exercise masquerading as a civil lawsuit,' Mr. Armitage's lawyers complained in their motion to dismiss the case. Judge John Bates is scheduled to hear two hours of arguments today on whether the suit should go forward. The federal government, which was not named as a defendant, has also urged that the case be thrown out.

Read this rest.....

[ordi]

Clarice

Glad to hear you are not mad and glad you had the chance to set the record straight.

What do you think the chances of Val and Joe's suit being allowed to go forward? I don't think it will go forward but the PlameGame has taken turns that it should not have so we wait........

[Maybeex]

TM:
FWIW, it occurs to me that when Ashcroft and Comeu first went over the new problem with the program, there was no reason for the meeting to end with Comey fully briefed on what Ashcroft had in mind as a next step - Ashcroft wasn't scheduled to fall ill, so he may have simply left it at "I'll talk this over with Gonzalez".

You know, that makes sense.
When you read Comey's narrative, he states how surprised he was, how shocked he was, to hear Ashcroft so clearly relate the details of their prior 1 hour meeting (and, we are left to assume, back up Comey) from his hospital bed.
If they had come to a clear understanding, I doubt Comey would be so surprised to hear Ashcroft agree with...Ashcroft.
It's not like he had a brain injury, so he wouldn't have to worry about forgetfulness or dementia. It seems the fear Ashcroft wouldn't back Comey up would have to come from them having not completely agreed to this course of action.

[PatrickR]

On Comey's best friend; Mark Steyn's Patrick Fitzgerald impression:

...Fitzgerald has done it again. At least two of the four defendants in this courtroom - Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis - are only here because they refused to be steamrollered into a plea bargain by the US Attorney's heavies. But the hollowness of the case against Kipnis, the Hollinger in-house counsel in Chicago and the most junior defendant, beggars belief. The government's proposition is that the bonuses Kipnis received during his time with Hollinger was a pay-off for facilitating the $60 million scam. "He got $150,000 in bonus money to help do their crime," said [prosecutor] Jeffrey Cramer during his opening address. That seems like a very piffling share of the swag, but, as Cramer put it, "His price was just a little bit lower. That’s all. That’s the only difference."

Yesterday, [star prosecution witness] David Radler testified that he'd told the government that Kipnis' bonuses had nothing to do with the non-competes and were related to money he'd saved the company on outside legal fees by his work on CanWest and the other deals.

In other words, Cramer and his fellow prosecutors knew all along that they had no case against this guy but they chose to pursue it anyway. He will most likely survive, but they've destroyed his reputation and his legal career, and he now runs a branch of a commercial-sign store. Kipnis' signature is on a lot of documents for the same reason my assistant's is: she's around when I'm out of town. Radler was mostly in Vancouver, and Kipnis was the guy who signed for him in Chicago.

Patrick Fitzgerald's team knew this. For them to punish Kipnis for declining to submit to their retrospective criminalization of events is the act of a third-rate bully.

[alcibiades]

True to form, yesterday at the Corner, Andy McCarthy vouched for Comey:

I write only to add that Jim Comey has been my friend for 20 years. He is among the most decent, patriotic men it's been my privilege to know. If he says it happened that way then, so far as I'm concerned, it happened that way. End of story.

[Maybeex]

I absolutely believe it happened that way. What isn't to believe?

What I don't believe is how anyone thought two long-time Sr Admin Officials would take the new, ACTING AG's word that the AG planned to shift course on a long-standing program.

OF course they aren't going to take his word that Ashcroft had told him something diffferent than he'd ever told them. They shouldn't.
The AG wasn't dead, he was in the hospital. Of course they are going to ask him his real opinion.

Why is this a scandal?

[anduril]

tsk9, you're absolutely right: those issues (electronic surveillance, "torture", etc.) were pretty much a package deal--anyone with google and a few key names can put together the history of all this in a lot more detail than my thumbnail (actually, I've done so elsewhere). Same players throughout.

FISA and its dubious (at best) constitutionality is one of those hugely important issues for our political system that somehow flies mostly under the radar. Today's WSJ has a fine editorial that highlights some of the implications of politics in post-FISA America: Wiretap Tales

alcib, all I can say re Andy McCarthy is... Well, best left unwritten.

Wonderful catch, PatickR.

[anduril]

alcib, McCarthy was responding to Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg's post is somewhat cryptic, but he seems to be writing in a positive vein re Ashcroft when he writes:

Me: The upshot: The entire narrative of "John Ashcroft's America" was always deeply flawed. The principled Christian conservative was never the man his detractors thought. More discussion tomorrow. This is debate night.

To which I respond:

Me: Ashcroft was never the man his supporters thought he was, either. His lack of effective leadership (and this is not to excuse Bush) led to or certainly contributed to many of the problems we are seeing today. Wrong man for the job.

[topsecretk9]

Patrick Fitzgerald's team knew this. For them to punish Kipnis for declining to submit to their retrospective criminalization of events is the act of a third-rate bully.

3 times and it's a trend, as Kaus says. Libby, the VA car dealer, Black. Fitzgerald is the new Nifong.

[BarbaraS]

Topsecretk9

Don't forget to add Judith Miller to that list. This guy evidently thinks the ends justify the means. Dangerous.