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  1. #1
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Looks like former A.G. John Ashcroft, despite being a bad singer, wasn't quite the Neocon we all thought him after all...

    The call came at 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 10, 2004. Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital, struck with a life-threatening case of pancrea is. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey was just leaving his office, being chauffeured by his security detail.

    "I remember exactly where I was, on Cons ution Avenue," Comey testified Tuesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call."

    So begins a remarkable tale that nearly led to the resignation of the Justice Department's senior leadership, an ordeal that was recounted in great detail for the first time Tuesday. Two senior White House officials, Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales, were headed to Ashcroft's hospital bed, despite the instructions of his wife that there would be no phone calls or visitors. They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program, a program that Ashcroft had already decided to reject before falling ill.

    Comey was determined to stop them. "So I hung up the phone," Comey told the committee, and I "immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called [FBI] Director [Robert] Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, 'I'll meet you at the hospital right now.' told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail."

    The story gets better at this point. Comey's testimony reads like a detective story. Minutes later, there is a showdown in the hospital room. Ashcroft, buffered by his wife and three of his senior deputies, faces down Gonzales and Card and refuses to sign off on the spy program. Gonzales and Card storm out of the room. Card calls Comey and demands that he come to the White House, but Comey refuses to go until he can get Ted Olson, the solicitor general, to accompany him. "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness," Comey tells Card.

    The White House meeting produces no breakthrough. So the White House reauthorizes the program without the approval of the Department of Justice, apparently breaking its own procedure. "I prepared a letter of resignation, intending to resign the next day, Friday, March the 12th," Comey said. He expected many other senior Justice Department leaders, including Mueller, to resign as well. Eventually, President Bush steps in to smooth out the waters, overrule his staff and give permission to change the secret spy program to address the concerns of the Department of Justice.

    At the hearing, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was leading the questioning, asked the following. "So in sum, it was your belief that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card were trying to take advantage of an ill and maybe disoriented man to try and get him to do something that many, at least in the Justice Department, thought was against the law? Was that a correct summation?"

    Comey answered directly. "I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded -- the department as a whole -- was unable to be certified as to its legality. And that was my concern."


    Truly remarkable.
    Update: Salon has posted a partial transcript of the hearing here.

    As of Tuesday morning, senior White House aides stand accused of attempting to bully a sick, and possibly dying, man, the former attorney general of the United States, into approving a wiretapping program that he believed to be illegal.

    So how does White House press secretary Tony Snow respond? In his press conference today, he dodged direct questions and suggested that James Comey, the former deputy attorney general, who made the accusations, was grandstanding.

    "The fact is, you've got somebody who has splashy testimony on Capitol Hill. Good for him," said Snow. "We're not talking about internal deliberations."

    That explanation will not stand. At some point the White House will have to respond to these claims in detail, or the story will last for weeks.

    Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has already compared the ordeal to the "Saturday Night Massacre," the fateful night when both the attorney general and the deputy attorney general resigned after being ordered by President Nixon to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in.
    -- Michael Scherer
    Salon

  2. #2
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    Saw the testimony on Hardball. Pretty disturbing.

  3. #3
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    How does Alberto Gonzales still have his job?

  4. #4
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    He won't for much longer. I'm waiting to see the 4 star that tells the czar to off.

  5. #5
    I love J.T. smeagol's Avatar
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    He won't for much longer. I'm waiting to see the 4 star that tells the czar to off.
    Thanks for coming back. We missed you. You were making an ass of yourself over there. At least here you can make an ass of yourselve among acquaintences.

  6. #6
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    John Dean thinks Congress should send plain-clothes police to the WH and arrest Gonzo....

    Recent Developments in the Scandal over the Attorney General's Performance
    By John Dean
    May 18, 2007


    .....

    It's been clear for a while - and is becoming ever clearer - that the Attorney General ought to resign, or to be fired. Now, it seems that Congress is determined to force Gonzales from office or send him to jail, whichever they can do first.
    This is plainly the right move - and anyone who does not understand why Congress is insisting on getting rid of Gonzales, does not appreciate the important and sensitive role the Department of Justice has in our government.

    .....

    Gonzales's Pattern of Condescending Behavior

    Severing as White House Counsel, Washington government rookie Gonzales was politically baptized in the atmosphere of the first six years of the Bush Administration, when Republicans controlled the Congress. The job of Attorney General, then filled by John Ashcroft, must have looked easy to Gonzales -- with the GOP congressional leaders running Capitol Hill as if they were all on the executive branch payroll. The Republican Congress simply did whatever the White House requested.

    Gonzales watched how Vice President Cheney and his "Lets see how we can trump Congress today" counsel David Addington sent the Government Accountability Office (GAO) back up to the Hill with its tail between its legs, after it had attempted to undertake oversight of executive branch activities. Cheney refused to provide GAO with information about his task force, which was developing the nation's energy policy in a way largely dictated by the energy industry. Congressional Republicans refused to back up GAO's efforts to litigate the scope of its investigative powers and the Republican judges that dominate the federal judiciary backed Cheney up, all the way to the Supreme Court.

    Although the Democrats have taken control of Congress, the Administration is proceeding as if nothing has changed - and Gonzales is clearly aware of that. The Administration resists providing any information requested, almost without exception. Letters from the chairs of Congressional committees are treated like junk mail and ignored. Gonzales sends low-level witnesses to testify before Congress, and they provide minimal if not misleading information. Administration witnesses are uncooperative, and have even been known to walk out of hearings when asked to remain for further questioning.

    .....

    Recently, Gonzales's refused to fully comply with the subpoena for Karl Rove's emails regarding his involvement in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. His refusal caused me to mull what it would be like if Congress were to proceed as Gonzales has -without a shred of respect for the other branches of government.
    Congress could hold Gonzales in contempt by a simple majority vote (and that would not be difficult to obtain, given the feelings in both chambers about this Attorney General). It could hold him in contempt for his failure to respond to the subpoena he virtually ignored, or for his lies to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I will explain shortly.

    Congress has two routes to travel, once it holds any person in contempt. It can proceed by the statutory route, which requires the Department of Justice to handle the prosecution. But since the Attorney General could block that route, the Congress would have good reason to use its inherent powers and procedures, instead.

    Thus, Congress could --taking a page from Gonzales's playbook -- send fifteen plainclothes Capitol Hill police officers to arrest the Attorney General and take him into custody. Either the House or Senate, alone, would have the power to hold him until the end of the 110th Congress. In truth, a majority of either chamber of Congress has more power than a president, the Department of Justice, and federal courts to take summary actions against those who refuse to honor its processes.


    .....

    It is painful to watch this implosion at the Department of Justice. If the Senate does not at minimum adopt a no confidence resolution, I wonder how much longer the career attorneys in the Department will stand for it, before they organize enough support, among themselves, to tell Gonzales that either he goes, or they go - which would simply shut down the Department of Justice.
    Linky

  7. #7
    Veteran
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    the incompetence and evil of dubya's cronies and Repug political operatives has had real impact on the functioning of govt, not that any govt-hating Repugs give a . ing up the govt to their and the corp owners' advantage was their plan all along.

    ================

    In Closed Meeting With Gonzales, Prosecutors Express Their Dismay

    Many Remain Upset, Fear Damage to the Justice Department's Image

    By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Saturday, May 19, 2007; A02

    Even as he came under renewed political pressure in Washington this week, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales faced sharp criticism from many of his own U.S. attorneys at a private meeting in San Antonio, prosecutors who were there said.

    At an executive session Wednesday during the Justice Department's annual U.S. attorneys conference, Gonzales met with most of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys to apologize for the controversy over the firings of nine prosecutors last year and to attempt to shore up sagging morale.

    More than a dozen U.S. attorneys spoke during the morning session, most of them expressing concern to Gonzales about the scandal's impact on their own offices and the overall image of the department, several participants said.

    "People were very plainspoken,"
    said one U.S. attorney, who along with others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private. "The overwhelming majority of the comments were about the controversy and how people are still not happy in the way things were going."

    The meeting underscored the challenge facing the embattled attorney general, who is seeking to mend relations with thousands of his own employees even as he fends off an increasing number of calls from Congress for his resignation over the way he has handled the prosecutor dismissals.

    Senate Democrats plan to hold a vote of no confidence in Gonzales next week -- a move White House spokesman Tony Fratto yesterday called "a political stunt." Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded that "just about everyone in America has lost confidence in" Gonzales. But Gonzales has retained President Bush's support.

    Nine prosecutors were fired last year, and 21 others were included on lists of candidates considered for dismissal as part of an effort by Justice officials and the White House to remove U.S. attorneys based in part on whether they were loyal to the administration and its policies. Two prosecutors have alleged that the firings came after improper contact by GOP lawmakers or staffers about criminal investigations.

    Many of the remaining prosecutors have said they are angry at the way their colleagues were treated,
    citing statements by Gonzales and other Justice officials that most of those dismissed were fired for performance issues.

    One U.S. attorney complained to Gonzales on Wednesday that the fired prosecutors were not given "even the minimum professional treatment," said another prosecutor who recounted the comments.

    Several participants said that the San Antonio meeting was polite but that most of those who spoke made clear that there was a great deal of unhappiness in their ranks. No one suggested or even hinted at the prospect of Gonzales's resignation, they said.

    Several prosecutors noted a difference in at ude between the veteran Bush administration U.S. attorneys -- many of whom knew the fired prosecutors -- and more recent arrivals who generally focused on moving past the scandal.

    "There is no secret that a lot of us are still pretty upset by this, and at the impact it's having on an ins ution we love,"
    one U.S. attorney said. "At the same time, there is a desire to get on with our work."

    Wednesday's session came two days after Gonzales's deputy, Paul J. McNulty, announced he would resign this summer, but before revelations that a total of 30 U.S. attorneys were identified as candidates for dismissal on internal Justice do ents beginning in early 2005.

    The meeting was one of a series of attempts by Gonzales to placate his chief federal prosecutors, particularly 40 or so veterans who have been in office since the beginning of the Bush administration. The session followed a series of smaller group meetings with U.S. attorneys around the country, including at least two that featured blunt face-to-face criticism of the attorney general.

    Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse called the meetings "personal, valuable and frank."

    "The attorney general accepted responsibility for the missteps that have helped to fuel the controversy," Roehrkasse said. ". . . He told them he expected all of them to continue to do their jobs in the way they deem best and without any improper interference from anyone."

  8. #8
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  9. #9
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    Thanks for coming back. We missed you. You were making an ass of yourself over there. At least here you can make an ass of yourselve among acquaintences.

    Thanks Smeags. Have you stocked up on febreze?

  10. #10
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Knows political theater when he sees it (or does it)

    Source: Bloomberg

    May 21 (Bloomberg)
    -- President George W. Bush said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continues to have his full support and called an attempt by Senate Democrats to hold a no- confidence vote on the embattled Justice Department chief ``pure political theater.''

    ``He has got my confidence, he has done nothing wrong,'' Bush said today in response to a question during a news conference at his Texas ranch. ``I stand by Al Gonzales.''

    The Senate and House Judiciary committees are investigating whether the firings of eight federal prosecutors last year were the result of improper political influence. At least six Republicans have joined with Democrats in calling for Gonzales to step down because of the way the situation was handled.

    Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California are proposing the Senate vote on a no- confidence resolution as soon as this week.

    ``It is this kind of political theater that has caused the American people to lose confidence in how Washington operates,'' Bush said today.


    Bloomberg

  11. #11
    Veteran exstatic's Avatar
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    Wasn't he standing firmly by Wolfowitz a week ago?

  12. #12
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Looks like Comey's testimony is gonna give the WH and Gonzo some sleepless nights

    Here are some key details that were new with Comey's testimony:

    George Bush was actively involved. Comey remembered vaguely that Bush called Mrs. Ashcroft to get Andy Card and Gonzales admitted into the hospital. This means Bush took active part in an attempt to use Ashcroft's indisposition to give his spying program legal cover.

    ...................

    With his testimony, Comey made it crystal clear: The White House moved ahead without certification, and for at least two weeks, the program operated outside the bounds of what OLC believed to be legal.

    ..................

    The key disagreement relates to issues that Bush won't confirm. Comey's testimony and Gonzales' subsequent insistence that he did not lie when asked about Comey's objections to the program make clear something that has been implied for a year: the most represensible aspects of the program remain hidden. The Bush Administration has been hiding the most questionable aspects of its domestic spying program from Congress.While not surprising, this is an important detail for Congress to exercise oversight.

    Those are new details. But just as important as the new details are the way Comey's testimony changes the scope of this investigation. By describing an event that clearly implicated the White House--and George Bush specifically--in flouting the law, Comey undercut Gonzales' effectiveness as a firewall. For four months, Gonzales has remained in office because he prevented Congress from investigating the White House. But Comey's testimony gave Congress all it needed to justify much more intrusive investigations of the White House.
    Linky

  13. #13
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Goodling Says Deputy Attorney General Misled Congress
    By Dan Eggen
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Wednesday, May 23, 2007; 11:42 AM


    Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty knew about extensive White House involvement in the firings of U.S. attorneys before he provided inaccurate information about the issue to Congress, a former senior Justice aide testified this morning.

    Monica M. Goodling, speaking publicly for the first time about her role in the prosecutor firings, also said McNulty urged her not to attend a private Senate briefing, saying that her status as White House liaison would raise questions among lawmakers about possible White House involvement in the dismissals.

    "I believe the deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of the White House's involvement," Goodling testified at the House Judiciary Committee, which has granted her immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

    The statements from Goodling, a former senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, provides dramatic new evidence of the growing rifts between current and former Justice officials involved in the firings. The testimony also provides another serious challenge for McNulty, who announced last week that he was resigning later this summer.

    McNulty and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William E. Mosc a have told lawmakers that both of them felt misled by Goodling, who participated in briefings prior to testimony that each of them provided in February and March.
    Washington Post

    ...hot potato, hot potato....

  14. #14
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    Gonzales is such a smart crook that no one can find a crime
    against him. But the charges are so serious that they need to
    be investigated. Typical dimm-o-crap BS!

  15. #15
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Mr. Bush’s new authorization proclaimed that the N.S.A. could “obtain and retain” metadata in general, and that the agency would be deemed to have “acquired” only those records that analysts specifically “searched for and retrieved” within the larger database.

    This formulation appeared to permit bulk collection of domestic metadata, so long as the N.S.A. searched the database only for records related to terrorism suspects.


    Mr. Bush also declared that this newly drafted distinction between obtaining and acquiring data reflected previous N.S.A. conduct that had been “known to and authorized by me.” The new language, Mr. Bush added, would be deemed to have been a part of his previous authorizations as if those words had been included in them when he signed them, so that he was ratifying and confirming the N.S.A.’s prior actions.


    Mr. Addington also added language in which Mr. Bush, for the first time, explicitly said that his authorizations were “displacing” specific federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and criminal wiretapping laws. The White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, then told Mr. Goldsmith that the president had “made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities” and that the Justice Department could not act in contradiction of Mr. Bush’s determinations.


    But Mr. Bush’s willingness to go forward with the program without operational changes prompted a threat of mass resignation by top department officials. To avert that meltdown, Mr. Bush then agreed to accept curbs on the program.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/us...down.html?_r=0

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