So, we have more spying programs after all... We are SO-O-O-O-OO surprised...!

there's no news whatsoever in this story... not only do we have more spying programs being conducted by our government than they have previously admitted to, but alberto gonzales has been lying about their existence... DAMN...! lies, lies, and damn lies... nothing new to report here...

In his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) to address inaccuracies in his 2006 testimony in relation to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

[...]

The disagreement that occurred was about other intelligence activities and the reason for the visit to the hospital was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.

Today’s testimony contradicts what Gonzales had said previously. In June, Gonzales claimed that both he and Comey were referring to the same domestic spying program. “Mr. Comey’s testimony related to a highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago,” he said.

If Gonzales’ testimony is accurate today, then he is confirming the existence of a new administration spying program.

< yawn > just one more instance of our elected government lying through its teeth to its citizens...

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More from the Constitution Subcommittee hearings on domestic spying

from think progress and the nyt...

Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC):
I’m not asking you to make anything public. I’m asking you, does that mean that the former attorney general had some reservations about — legal reservations about some aspects of the program, Mr. Bradbury?

Principal deputy assistant attorney general and the head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury:
Well, all I’ll say is what the attorney general has said, which is that disagreements arose, disagreements were addressed and resolved; however, those disagreements did not — were not about the particular activities that the president has publicly described, that we have termed the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Bradbury’s testimony contradicts what Alberto Gonzales said just last week. Gonzales claimed that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony about Ashcroft’s reservations related to the “program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago.”

So, if Gonzales is telling the truth, Bradbury misled Congress under oath. If Bradbury is telling the truth, it means that Gonzales has again lied about the controversy surrounding the administration’s spying efforts. Moreover, if Bradbury is correct that Ashcroft’s disagreements were not about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program, that must mean other spying programs exist.

any way you slice it, it's lies, lies, and more lies... speaking for myself, i have no doubt whatsoever that intensive, in-depth domestic surveillance is being conducted and has been for some time, extending back prior to the clinton administration...

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Dear John Ashcroft, the pleasure of your company is requested

standard business attire... rsvp to john rockefeller or silvestre reyes...

The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are asking former attorney general John Ashcroft to testify about a March 2004 hospital-room confrontation during which he refused to sign off on a continuation of President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, according to congressional and administration sources.

The sources, who asked not to identified talking about sensitive matters, said the Senate Intelligence Committee has tentatively scheduled a closed-door hearing for later this month. The panel plans to question Ashcroft, his former chief of staff David Ayres and former deputy attorney general James Comey about a heated dispute with the White House that roiled the Justice Department three years ago. The House committee is also planning a separate closed-door hearing with Ashcroft, according to a spokeswoman for Ashcroft.

i find this encouraging for two reasons... one, i wondered when somebody was going to go after ashcroft... it seems he's got a lot to offer none of which he's shared... two, i'm glad to see the house and senate intelligence committees getting really cranked up in the oversight department... i definitely don't think silvestre reyes is the sharpest tack in the box, but maybe between him and rockefeller, they can put together a squeeze play... and, then again, maybe not... it does kinda sound like it might happen, tho'... if ashcroft and half of his gang were ready to resign as comey stated, john's got a lot o'splainin' to do...

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Oh, please, please, WATCH this, while I wipe tears of laughter from my eyes

oh. my.



anything i could add would be entirely superfluous...

(thanks SO much to think progress...)

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Day #3 that the WaPo smells the coffee, kinda sorta

i do believe a new term has entered the lexicon...

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AMBUSH

day 1, the wapo is simply SHOCKED about comey's testimony...

day 2, they're calling láffaire gonzo a cover-up...

and, now, day 3, they are excoriating bush for trying to hide behind "the national security curtain"...

It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

there's one statement in the op-ed, however, that is profoundly disturbing...

Under the Constitution, the president has the final authority in the executive branch to say what the law is. But as a matter of presidential practice, this is breathtaking.

is it just me, or is that an endorsement of the bogus unitary executive, signing statement scam, wartime powers of the commander in chief under article II of the constitution bullshit that bush has been slinging at us for years...?

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A domestic spying timeline

TPMmuckraker, always in the thick of it, offers a reader's narrative timeline of the domestic spying program for the period october 2003 through june 2004... it's a good backgrounder for what's getting the reality-based community up in arms today...

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How long will we tolerate criminals in the White House?

inquiring minds want to know...

There is just no excuse left for allowing the administration to keep this behavior concealed from the country. What James Comey described on Tuesday is the behavior of a government completely unmoored from any constraints of law, operating only by the rules of thuggery, intimidation, and pure lawlessness. Even for the most establishment-defending organs, there are now indisputably clear facts suggesting that the scope and breadth and brazenness of the lawbreaking here is far beyond even what was known previously, and it occurred at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

We are so plainly beyond the point of no return with this criminality. It is now inescapably evident even for those who struggled for so long to avoid acknowledging it. Here is one of the most establishment-friendly voices of the Bush administration [referring to Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post - see previous post] proclaiming the Attorney General of the United States to be a chronic liar and accusing the Bush administration -- as part of events in which the President was deeply and personally involved -- of engaging in deliberate cover-up of blatant lawbreaking.

in response to greenwald's painfully clear and plaintive call, atrios writes this...

I kind of feel like Glenn Greenwald has to write a version of this post every day for the next 5000 years before maybe a few more people will understand: the Bush administration was, for years, illegally spying on unknown numbers of Americans in clear and obvious violation of statute and likely still are.

i hasten to point out that greenwald isn't just talking about illegal spying... there's a whole host of criminal bush administration actions that are crying out for accountability, and i, for one, am not willing to wait 5000 years...

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Bush: "I'm not going to talk about it"

click over to think progress and watch the president of the united states verbally flip off the media and the american people...

During a press conference today, President Bush was confronted about recent accusations made by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey regarding the White House’s shocking efforts to seek legal sanction for its warrantless wiretapping program.

[...]

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell pressed Bush on this point. “Sir, did you send your then Chief of Staff and White House Counsel to the bedside of John Ashcroft while he was ill to get him to approve that program,” she asked, “and do you believe that kind of conduct from White House officials is appropriate?”

Bush twice dodged the question entirely. “Kelly, there’s a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn’t happen. I’m not going to talk about it.” He added, “I’m not going to move the issue forward by talking about” it.

our president has absolutely no respect for the truth... he doesn't speak it himself and he refuses to respond to others' attempts to discover it... george bush and his criminal administration must be removed...

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Comey: "devotion to the law trumped political considerations"

now, THERE'S a concept... devotion to the law, something we ought to be able to take for granted with our top justice department officials, right...? ok, i don't think anyone's so naive that they think political leanings and personal opinions don't affect judgment... of course they do... but i've also assumed that, when you are given a position of stewardship over the laws of a nation and the obligation to see that justice is served, you would bend over backwards to keep politics and your own biases out of your work... so, here's comey, obviously (to me, at least) a sincere and dedicated public servant who just so happens to be a republican and a supporter of george bush... does that keep him from doing the right thing...? no... should it have...? no... but just look at the agony and suffering the bush criminal cabal has put a good man through...

Colleagues say Mr. Comey is, even now, a reluctant critic of the administration he served. But they say he feels strongly that there was no justification for the purge of prosecutors and remains furious about what he saw in 2004 as an improper attempt by the White House to bypass the Justice Department.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who led Mr. Comey through his dramatic tale on Tuesday said it was clearly an emotional release for the former No. 2 Justice Department official. “When we asked him about it, it was like a dam broke,” Mr. Schumer said.

“He had been carrying this weight around inside him and wanted the appropriate opportunity to get it off his conscience,” Mr. Schumer added. “When you watched him, he was both pained and relieved.”

Mr. Comey, a former federal terrorism prosecutor in New York and Virginia, is described by colleagues as a solid Republican but one whose devotion to the law trumped political considerations.

Steven R. Peikin, who prosecuted securities fraud cases under Mr. Comey when he was United States attorney in Manhattan, said he found Mr. Comey’s intervention in the N.S.A. program “totally unsurprising.”

“We always joked that Jimmy Stewart’s going to play him in the movie,” Mr. Peikin said. “He’s the picture of rectitude — a charming, engaging, funny guy, but one who set a tone for the office about doing the right thing, not necessarily about winning every case.”

in reading about comey's attempts to find legal justification for bushco's surveillance program and harsh interrogation methods, neither of which i support in the least, i can't say i support the guy's positions... what i DO support wholeheartedly is his effort to stay within the law and the framework of the constitution... THAT is what someone in his position is put there to do and it is deeply wrong to attempt to make someone like that a political and partisan tool...

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It's a coverup! Two days in a row, the WaPo smells the coffee!

the title of the op-ed is...

The Gonzales Coverup

could it be any more aptly named...?

What was the administration doing, and what was it willing to continue to do, that its lawyers concluded was without a legal basis? Without an answer to that fundamental question, the coverup will have succeeded.

well, well, well... whaddaya know... maybe it's starting to come clear to them that, when revelations surface like the bombshell comey dropped the other day, there's no way they can continue to shill for the bush administration without losing all of their credibility as a shaper of opinion, not that there was that much credibility left anyway...

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The public statement of an impeachment convert

wmtriallawyer at daily kos sees the light...

It's time for all of them to go.

For all this, one needs a catalyst to make [Congress] reach this conclusion. To me, it's Comey's testimony from yesterday. It is so damning in so many ways. It was a deliberate usurping of our Department of Justice by the Presidency. It was an attempt to illegally seize the reins of government to circumvent the Constitution and deliberately trample on the Bill of Rights. Who gave them the right to do this? Who gave them the right to act in such a heinous matter?

Sometimes, it takes a day for this stuff to sink in. When I finally got around to watching Comey's testimony today, it only took a matter of minutes.

They...must...go.

On Katrina, they could hide behind incompetence. On Iraq, they could hide behind the so-called faulty intelligence. But on what has gone on with our Department of "Just-us", there is no more hiding.

It's Nixon again. Maybe worse...Nixon covered it up. These guys were just more brazen about it all.

Even if we're not successful in impeaching, even if it doesn't deliver a single resignation, even if we have to wait until 2009 to get our new President...we MUST CONTINUE THESE INVESTIGATIONS. We MUST CONTINUE TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.

Because we all DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

Sorry, this diary is kinda short. I'm just seething right now. I've had it with the lot of them.

Forgive me my past trangressions. I stand on the side of justice now.

to earn your forgiveness, you need to shout this from the rooftops, post it on every available weblog, and preach it to your friends, family and colleagues... the clock is ticking...

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Dear Gonzo, we hope this finds you well

as one think progress commenter said...

A letter?

Wow, I guess that they’ve really taken off the gloves now.

yeah, an honest-to-god letter... they're really bringing out the BIG GUNS...!

Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and Richard Durbin (D-IL) sent Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a letter regarding former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee about this incident. On February 6, 2006, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you were asked whether Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department had raised concerns about the NSA wiretapping program. You stated in response that the disagreement that occurred was not related to the wiretapping program confirmed by the President in December 2005, which was the topic of the hearing. …

We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey’s testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

there MUST be stronger moves taken to restore accountability... i appreciate the fact that congress must move slowly and deliberately, but time is of the essence... day by day, the foundations of our republic are being chipped away to the point where our country is becoming unrecognizable... congress needs to MOVE... we cannot afford to wait...

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Can we please get on with indicting the criminals in the Bush administration?

please...? pretty please...?

What more glaring and clear evidence do we need that the President of the United States deliberately committed felonies, knowing that his conduct lacked any legal authority? And what justifies simply walking away from these serial acts of deliberate criminality? At this point, how can anyone justify the lack of criminal investigations or the appointment of a Special Counsel? The President engaged in extremely serious conduct that the law expressly criminalizes and which his own DOJ made clear was illegal.

it seems like i have been waiting for eons for the bushco house of cards to come tumbling down, and every time i think it might be getting close, my hopes are dashed... glenn greenwald, the source of the above snippet, concludes with the same plaintive questions i am asking, phrased more eloquently than i could hope to do...

How is this not a major scandal on the level of the greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals in our country's history? Why is this only a one-day story that will focus on the hospital drama but not on what it reveals about the bulging and unparalleled corruption of this administration and the complete erosion of the rule of law in our country? And, as I've asked many times before, if we passively allow the President to simply break the law with impunity in how the government spies on our conversations, what don't we allow?

If we had a functioning political press, these are the questions that would be dominating our political discourse and which would have been resolved long ago.

of course, it's not just about a functioning political press, although that is a large piece of it... it's also about the docile, stuff- and entertainment-addicted, willfully self-deluded citizenry... it's not like the reality of bushco is completely hidden and impossible to dig out... the american people have been all too compliant in the ceaseless campaign of the elites to abdicate thinking for themselves and thus arming themselves with the information necessary to function as effective monitors of their own elected government...

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The WaPo on Comey - smelling the coffee?

they're SHOCKED, simply SHOCKED...!

The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers. Remember, this was a Justice Department that had embraced an expansive view of the president's inherent constitutional powers, allowing the administration to dispense with following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Justice's conclusions are supposed to be the final word in the executive branch about what is lawful or not, and the administration has emphasized since the warrantless wiretapping story broke that it was being done under the department's supervision.

Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.

guess what... there's a LOT more where this came from, and i only hope it all surfaces quickly... we can't afford to wait...

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Comey speaks

go read it for yourself at TPMmuckraker... it's very scary stuff... you can only imagine what's taken place that we don't yet know about... you can only imagine what's going on right NOW that we don't know about... it's easy to see why george was so eager to put gonzo in the ag seat and why he's so loath to let him go...

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Was DOJ #2, McNulty, Comey's successor, cut out as well?

following on my earlier post...

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told congressional investigators last week that he, too, was kept in the dark about the White House's role in the firings.

[...]

According to a congressional aide, McNulty said he attended a White House meeting with Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, and other officials on March 5, the day before McNulty's deputy William Moschella was to testify to Congress about the firings.

White House officials told the Justice Department group that they needed to agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired and explain them to Congress, McNulty said, according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the transcript of McNulty's interview hasn't been made public.

McNulty said that White House officials never revealed during the meeting that they'd been discussing plans to replace some prosecutors with Gonzales aides, the congressional aide said.

McNulty recalled feeling disturbed and concerned when he found out days later that the White House had been involved, the congressional aide said. McNulty considered the extent of White House coordination to be "extremely problematic."

this raises a few questions in josh's mind, as well it should...

Why do you need to 'agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired' if the reasons were actually clear when you did the firing and if the reasons can be stated publicly? Think about [it]. Why do Rove and the other heavies from the White House need to tell these guys how important it is to get their stories straight?

yeah... why...?

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"One of the finest federal prosecutors there is"

my view exactly...

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, long believed to be one of Patrick Fitzgerald's best friends, turned on his one-time colleague during a House hearing a few moments ago.

Asked about his reaction to a now-infamous listing of U.S. attorneys in which Fitzgerald was ranked mediocre, Comey replied: "I've never thought much of him."

One beat...two beats...Comey grinned and said, "No, I'm just kidding."

Acknowledging that Fitzgerald is a close friend, Comey described the Chicago prosecutor as "one of the finest federal prosecutors there is...maybe has ever been."

and we desperately need him to be back in the thick of what's happening now...

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Why was the former DOJ #2 cut out of attorney firings?

ya gotta ask yourself... why...?

Comey was completely ignorant of Kyle Sampson's list of U.S. attorneys to be removed that Sampson drafted at around the same time. [February 2005]

[...]

Sampson seems to have intentionally ignored all of Comey's recommendations as to who were the weak U.S. attorneys -- and kept Comey, the #2 at the DoJ, ignorant that Sampson and the White House were targeting certain U.S. attorneys with the goal of firing them.

why was it so important that comey be kept out of the loop...? i think we can all hazard a guess - because they didn't want him to know that rove was working with goodling and sampson to remove those who weren't regarded as "loyal bushies" and to replace them with those who were...

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Comey goes before the committee day after tomorrow

heh... it's a good move scheduling this before gonzo goes before the committee next week...

Earlier today, a House Judiciary subcommittee approved a subpoena for former Deputy Attorney General James Comey to testify on the firings of U.S. Attorneys.”Comey has agreed to comply with the subpoena and will appear before the committee on May 3, 2007.”

cool… potentially more grounds for inherent contempt if he refuses (altho’ i don’t think that would be applicable in the case of FORMER doj employees)… as a civilian, i think he's pretty much compelled to appear...

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