Comey's testimony today on warrantless wiretapping drama

[chiggerbit]

This is incredible:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003221.php

Comey Details White House Attempt to Force Approval of Secret Program
By Paul Kiel - May 15, 2007, 11:31 AM

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey detailed the desperate late night efforts by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card to get the Justice Department to approve a secret program -- the warrantless wiretapping program.

According to Comey's testimony this morning, only when faced with resignations by a number of Justice Department officials including Comey, his chief of staff, Ashcroft's chief of staff, Ashcroft himself and possibly Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, did the White House agree to make changes to the program that would satisfy the requirements of the Justice Department to sign off on it (Comey refused to name the program, but it's apparent from the context and prior reports that this was the warrantless wiretapping program).

The events took place in March of 2004, when the program was in need of renewal by the Justice Department. When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft fell ill and was hospitalized, Comey became the acting-Attorney General.

The deadline for the Justice Department's providing its sign-off of the program was March 11th. On that day, Comey, then the acting AG, informed the White House that he "would not certify the legality" of the program.

According to Comey, he was on his way home when he got a call from Ashcroft's wife that Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card were on their way to the hospital*. Comey then rushed to the hospital (sirens blaring) to beat them there and thwart "an effort to overrule me."

After Comey arrived at the hospital with a group of senior Justice Department officials, Gonzales and Card arrived and walked up to Ashcroft, who was lying barely conscious on his hospital bed. "Gonzales began to explain why he was there, to seek his approval for a matter," Comey testified. But Ashcroft rebuffed Gonzales and told him that Comey was the attorney general now. "The two men turned and walked from the room," said Comey.

A "very upset" Andrew Card then called Comey and demanded that he come to the White House for a meeting at 11 PM that night.

After meeting with Justice Department officials at the Justice Deaprtment, Comey went to the White House with Ted Olson, then the Solicitor General to the White House. He brought Olson along, Comey said, because he wanted a witness for the meeting.

But Card didn't let Olson enter and Comey had a private discussion with Card. This discussion, Comey testified, was much "calmer." According to Comey, Card was concerned about reports that there were to be large numbers of resignations at Justice Department. Gonzales entered with Olson and the four had an apparently not very fruitful discussion.

The program was reauthorized without the signature of the attorney general. Because of that, Comey said, he prepared a letter of resignation. "I believed that I couldn't stay if the administration was going to engage in conduct that Justice Department said had no legal basis."

At this point, according to Comey, a number of senior Justice Department officials, including Ashcroft, were prepared to resign.

When Comey went in on that Friday, March 12th to give the White House its customary morning briefing, Comey said that the president pulled him aside. They had a 15 minute private meeting, the content of which Comey would not divulge. But Comey did suggest at the conclusion of that conversation that the president speak with FBI Director Mueller. And so that meeting followed. Following that meeting, Comey said that Mueller brought word that the Justice Department was to do whatever was "necessary" to make the program into one that the Justice Department could sign off on.

Comey said that it took two to three weeks for the Justice Department to do the analysis necessary to have the program approved. During that time, the program went on without Justice Department approval. But following the Justice Department's suggested changes, the Justice Department (either Ashcroft or Comey) did sign off on the program.

More on this soon.

*Update: A commenter below rightly points out that, according to Comey, the call to Ashcroft's wife that Gonzales and Card were on their way to the hospital came from the president himself.

Update: Here's The New York Times' story last January first reporting word of Gonzales' bedside visit. Comey's, obviously, is a much fuller account.

Update: After hearing Comey's "shocking" account, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that it made him wonder anew how Gonzales could remain as the attorney general, since he evidently had so little respect for the rule of law.

[theeKultleeder]

Good post. Alberto is clearly a slimeball.

Mondays 5/14 Democracy Now! had an excellent segment from Greg Palast on the attorney firings, the missing emails, and RNC positioning to control the election apparatus in '08.

Scary stuff.

[Uncle $cam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmm1W-H8L-4

So, while dkos and others are dancing on graves, In their necro-celebration, I'm more concerned that this Senate testimony by Comey will not only be overshadowed, but virtually non-existent due to America's mass hypnosis media coverage of America's Saint/martyr or if you prefer, devil's passing.

In other words, this should be damning and explosive testimony, but it will be wiped off the news because of martyr Jerry Falwell's death coverage.

As a commenter at TPM says,"So let me get this straight... Card and Gonzales were discussing a top secret, codeword classified program in a DC hospital? Was this hospital room in a (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) SCIF "? And further, why would it be if ashcroft was not the acting Attorney at the time.

So these "ambulance chasers" Card and Abu Gonzo were pushing asscroft to do illegal shit in a post op grogginess and when he didn't go for it, they did it anyway? No wonder Andrew Card resigned when he did; he saw the Full Spectrum Catastrophe (pun intended) coming, especially after Jr's phone call. I am telling you these guys are traitors, this is felonious, high crimes, if not down right High Treason.

I have said all along, this "warrantless wiretapping" program that Gonzo and the WH were so determined to put into place was not intended to catch "terrorists," but rather to get dirt on their political enemies - mostly Democrats. We have seen the WH exposed more than ever recently about their blatant and ruthless politicization of everything in the government. If the taps were actually against suspected "terrorists," as claimed, there would have been no reason to avoid the scrutiny and accountability of the courts. No, BushCo was after information on people they knew no court would approve of and further, it's not just wiretapping of phones, it's access to all telecommunications which include e-mails and faxes.

Someone mentioned in another thread, 'will there be an autopsy?'

[NavnDansk]

WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO HEAR?

let's examine what this could mean. Here's the sequence: 9/11, wiretapping to catch supposed terrorists, wiretapping not recertified, attempt to circumvent the DOJ, illegal wiretapping that included tapping US citizens in America.

I suggest that the Bush Administration was in fact monitoring American citizens for what they knew or were talking about. I think that "monitoring terrorists talking to US citizens" is a cover for the real purpose. These people wanted to wiretap because they wanted to track what Americans were talking about. There may have been specific Americans targeted, but the TIA program could monitor a lot of bandwidth.

So, care to assemble a list of topics Americans might talk about that the Bush Administration would feel so threatened that it would go around the DOJ? My personal list begins with the Administration's knowledge and involvement in 9/11. Yours?

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

Frontline: Spying at Home If anybody caught that last night, you got a treat - real journalism. Sometimes you can forget what it looks like.

If you missed it, catch it next time. Spoiler: Yes, they are monitoring everything. Greenwald is all over this, and in light of the current "Ashcroft bedside" story, maybe we can revisit the issue of the DoJ authorizing the wholesale surveillance of all Americans.

This is one of the most impeachable offenses on the table.
.......

Warrantless Wiretapping is legal? So after those two or three weeks when Comey couldn't 'certify' the program, it was changed in such a way that he, at least, then believed it was legal?

Here's a guy who clearly doesn't believe the 'if the president does it, it's legal' theory, but after a few changes he certified the legality of the wiretapping?

Help me out here.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 389x899191

Blackhatjack (1000+ posts) Wed May-16-07 08:05 AM
Original message
Comey's testimony points to unrevealed facts/issues....
According to Comey's testimony in response to Sen Chuck Schumer's questioning:

Comey got the call from Ashcroft's wife that Gonzales and Card were on their way over to her husband's hospital room, and Comey immediately swung into action to intercept them before they could get Ashcroft to sign the illegal Executive Order allowing domestic spying.

What is missing here?

#1 For Comey to react this way, he had to have heard of the President's intended plan to engage in domestic spying on Americans. OR was it a fear of something worse that remains unrevealed?

Another point, Comey called his COS and ordered them to get the FBI to Ashcroft's hospital room pronto before Gonzales and Card arrived. Why order this action if he had no idea why they were on their way over?

#2 And FBI Director Mueller orders his agents to make sure Comey was not removed from Ashcroft's hospital room knowing that Gonzales and Card are on their way over.

It sure sounds like Mueller had a heads up about what was about to come down. And for Mueller to become personally involved in this way, it sure sounds like he and Comey might have discussed such a tactic might be used by the White House.

#3 Card's demand that Comey come to the White House immediately after the hospital room tactic did not work, and Comey's refusal to come without the Solicitor General as a witness, most likely reveals a conversation(maybe heated exchange) occurred at the hospital after Ashcroft refused to sign. (Comey did not testify to this on the record, but he may very well reveal this to the Committee behind closed doors).

#4 Comey and Mueller met separately with the President, but Comey was very clear that only Mueller was told to communicate to Comey that he should 'do the right thing'. And then this bombshell, Comey testified that the President authorized the domestic spying anyway without the DOJ signing off on it. And the program remained in place, fully implemented, for at least 2-3 weeks while the DOJ negotiated with the White House over the proper safeguards that would have to be included to make it legal.

So if Bush wanted Comey to 'do the right thing', why did he not tell Comey face-to-face instead of going through Mueller to deliver that message?

The unrevealed fact here might be that Comey had already told the President that it would be illegal to proceed with his intended plan, and that he would resign rather than be a part of it on behalf of the DOJ. The President had already decided to go forward without Comey and the DOJ signing off on it. But when Mueller told Bush that he and many others would resign if Bush did not change the domestic spying program he was proposing Bush realized that mass resignations would light up Washington like a Christmas tree and draw Press attention before the program could be implemented.

So Bush had to maintain 'plausible deniability' without agreeing to comply with the existing law that Comey was upholding --so he communicates his feigned intention to follow the law by using Mueller to pass on his direction that Comey 'do the right thing.' That prevents Comey from testifying later that Bush promised him in a direct exchange that Bush would follow the law, when Bush fully intended to circumvent the law anyway.

#5 Did Comey fail to reveal in his testimony that he did not believe Bush's implied promise to follow the law by telling him indirectly to 'do the right thing'? Comey did testify that he planned to resign after this meeting and was encouraged to stay on by an Ashcroft aide until Ashcroft was well enough to resign with him at the same time.

#6 Comey was the acting AG while Ashcroft was in the hospital. Comey in that capacity fully empowered Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak and to subsequently prosecute Scooter Libby. Comey speaks with Bush.

Was there any discussion with the President regarding Comey's appointment of Fitzgerald and his empowerment of him to investigate the Plame leak and subsequently prosecute Libby?

Does anyone believe that Bush could restrain himself from addressing the Plame investigation with the man who empowered Fitzgerald in this setting?

#7 Comey and Mueller were on the same page, both intending to resign. Comey resigns and Mueller stays on. What happened? What was Mueller told that changed his mind? And what did Comey learn that did not change his mind about resigning? Seems to be a parting of ways between the two on the proper response to this attempted illegal act.

These and other questions naturally arise from the shocking testimony received from Comey so far.

Sometimes there is a timing issue, and the lack of the right questions being asked, that prevents a witness like Comey from revealing all he knows. It would appear that there is lots more fertile ground to plow by the SJC with Comey.

The general rule is when a career employee like Comey stands up to the President of the United States there is a lot more beneath the surface than is publicly revealed.

IMHO there is one whale of a story left to reveal that triggered the events we know about so far.

Stay tuned.

(If I made any factual errors please do us all a favor and point them out. I posted here from memory after reading the liveblogging account, and did not see the actual testimony).

......

Blackhatjack (1000+ posts) Wed May-16-07 10:34 AM
Response to Original message
7. Here are what I consider 'nuggets' from the transcript, and more Questions....
Edited on Wed May-16-07 10:39 AM by Blackhatjack
Having availed myself of the link above to the transcript at thinkprogress.com, I have pulled what I consider the real 'nuggets' from that transcript, and have included my questions and comments in << >> below.

These excerpts answer some of the questions I raised in the OP.

"COMEY: 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. That was Tuesday that we communicated that.
The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident."

<<So the White House knew Comey would never sign off and the reasons why he would not sign off BEFORE the hospital visit>>

<snip>

"And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.
SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don’t know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital."

<<And Comey believes the call came from the President himself, but definitely from the White House. So now we have confirmation that Bush knew exactly what Gonzales and Card were attempting.>>

<snip>

"And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me — drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier — and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general.
SCHUMER: But he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they — give the authorization that they had asked, is that right?
COMEY: Yes.
And as he laid back down, he said, But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general, and he pointed to me, and I was just to his left.
The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room. And within just a few moments after that, Director Mueller arrived. I told him quickly what had happened. He had a brief — a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general and then we went outside in the hallway."

<<Gonzales and Card do not acknowledge Comey because they already know Comey's position and that they have been caught trying to undercut him. And Mueller arrives inside the hospital room, and this must be an understatement: "He(Mueller) had a brief--a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general(Ashcroft).>>

<snip>

"And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me. I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately.
I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.
He replied, What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.
And I said again, After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.
SCHUMER: That would be Mr. Olson.
COMEY: Yes, sir. Ted Olson.
Until I can connect with Mr. Olson, I’m not going to meet with you.
He asked whether I was refusing to come to the White House. I said, No, sir, I’m not. I’ll be there. I need to go back to the Department of Justice first.
And then I reached out through the command center for Mr. Olson, who was at a dinner party. And Mr. Olson and the other leadership of the Department of Justice immediately went to the department, where we sat down together in a conference room and talked about what we were going to do.
And about 11 o’clock that night — this evening had started at about 8 o’clock, when I was on my way home. At 11 o’clock that night, Mr. Olson and I went to the White House together."

<<Comey pulls Olson from a dinner party and with the other leadership of the DOJ they go to the department conference room and talk about what they are going to do. Put this together with Card's change in demeanor at the White House, and it sounds like they all agreed to resign in protest if the President went forward with this program as presented. And to leave at 11:00 pm for a meeting at the White House makes this sound ominous since both Comey and Mueller would be appearing at the White House early the next morning, less than 8 hrs later, to conduct the regular morning meeting. One could infer that Card and the President realized that massive resignations had to be averted that night and could not wait until the morning.>>

<snip>

"SCHUMER: Can you tell us a little bit about the discussion at the Justice Department when all of you convened? I guess it was that night.
COMEY: I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go into the substance of it. We discussed what to do. I recall the associate attorney general being there, the solicitor general, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, senior staff from the attorney general, senior staff of mine. And we just — I don’t want to reveal the substances of those…"

<<LOOK AT THIS LINEUP OF TOP DOJ NAMES: This indicates the breadth and importance of what was being discussed>>

"SCHUMER: I don’t want you to reveal the substance.
They all thought what you did — what you were doing was the right thing, I presume.
COMEY: I presume. I didn’t ask people. But I felt like we were a team, we all understood what was going on, and we were trying to do what was best for the country and the Department of Justice. But it was a very hard night."

<snip>

"SCHUMER: Right. OK.
Was there any discussion of resignations with Mr. Card?
COMEY: Mr. Card was concerned that he had heard reports that there were to be a large number of resignations at the Department of Justice.
SCHUMER: OK. OK.
And the conversations, the issue, whatever it was, was not resolved.
COMEY: Correct. We communicated about it. I communicated again the Department of Justice’s view on the matter. And that was it.
SCHUMER: Right.
And you stated that the next day, Thursday, was the deadline for reauthorization of the program, is that right?
COMEY: Yes, sir.
SCHUMER: OK.
Can you tell us what happened the next day?
COMEY: The program was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality. And I prepared a letter of resignation, intending to resign the next day, Friday, March the 12th."

<<Kind of says it all --Bush went forward without the DOJ signoff, and Comey prepared a letter of resignation. Bush cannot say he was uninformed as to the illegality of the step he was taking>>

<snip>

"SCHUMER: OK.
And why did you decide to resign? COMEY: I just believed…
SCHUMER: Or to offer your resignation, is a better way to put it?
COMEY: I believed that I couldn’t — I couldn’t stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis. I just simply couldn’t stay.
SCHUMER: Right. OK.
Now, let me just ask you this. And this obviously is all troubling.
As I understand it, you believed that others were also prepared to resign, not just you, is that correct?
COMEY: Yes.
SCHUMER: OK.
Was one of those Director Mueller?
COMEY: I believe so. You’d have to ask him, but I believe so.
SCHUMER: You had conversations with him about it.
COMEY: Yes.
SCHUMER: OK.
How about the associate attorney general, Robert McCallum?
COMEY: I don’t know. We didn’t discuss it.
SCHUMER: How about your chief of staff?
COMEY: Yes. He was certainly going to go when I went.
SCHUMER: Right.
How about Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff?
COMEY: My understanding was that he would go as well.
SCHUMER: And how…
COMEY: I should say…
SCHUMER: Please.
COMEY: … to make sure I’m accurate, I…
SCHUMER: This is your surmise, not…
COMEY: Yes.
I ended up agreeing — Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff asked me something that meant a great deal to him, and that is that I not resign until Mr. Ashcroft was well enough to resign with me. He was very concerned that Mr. Ashcroft was not well enough to understand fully what was going on. And he begged me to wait until — this was Thursday that I was making this decision — to wait til Monday to give him the weekend to get oriented enough so that I wouldn’t leave him behind, was his concern.
SCHUMER: And it was his view that Mr. Ashcroft was likely to resign as well?
COMEY: Yes.
SCHUMER: So what did you do when you heard that?
COMEY: I agreed to wait. I said that what I would do is — that Friday would be last day. And Monday morning I would resign."

<<Holy Cow! Threatening to resign --Comey, Mueller, Assoc AG McCallum, Comey's COS, Ashcroft's COS, and ASHCROFT HIMSELF. Who would be left at DOJ to carry on? It would have been a massive abandonment of the DOJ on the grounds that the President was acting unlawfully. Bigger than the 'Saturday Night Massacre' during the Nixon Watergate Investigation when AG Eliot Richardson and his assistant refused to fire the Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox as directed by Nixon, and Bork eventually stepped in and fired him.>>

<snip>

"SCHUMER: Thank you.
Now, let’s go to the next day, which was March 12. Can you tell us what happened then?
COMEY: I went to the Oval Office — as I did every morning as acting attorney general — with Director Mueller to brief the president and the vice president on what was going on on Justice Department’s counterterrorism work.
We had the briefing. And as I was leaving, the president asked to speak to me, took me in his study and we had a one-on-one meeting for about 15 minutes — again, which I will not go into the substance of. It was a very full exchange. And at the end of that meeting, at my urging, he met with Director Mueller, who was waiting for me downstairs."

<<A 'very full exchange' during a 'one-on-one meeting for about 15 minutes' with Bush in his study? This speaks volumes about the seriousness of the situation. And it obviously was not resolved since Comey urged Bush to speak with Mueller downstairs. I would imagine that Comey told Bush he was resigning shortly and that Mueller would follow, and Bush should ask Mueller himself to confirm that.>>

"He met with Director Mueller again privately, just the two of them. And then after those two sessions, we had his direction to do the right thing, to do what we…
SCHUMER: Had the president’s direction to do the right thing?
COMEY: Right.
We had the president’s direction to do what we believed, what the Justice Department believed was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality.
And so we then set out to do that. And we did that."

<<In questioning by Arlene Specter, Comey confirms that Bush's direction to 'do the right thing' came through Mueller to him.>>

---Many thanks to the ThinkProgress transcript link above. The actual words are even more incriminating.

One additional question: Why did Comey and Mueller and the others not resign the next day UNLESS they were falsely led to believe that the domestic spying program would be changed to make it legal BEFORE it was to be implemented on March 11, the next day? And we now know that Bush went forward for at least 2-3 weeks without DOJ recommended changes or approval. Sounds like there might have been some promises made by Bush designed to head off the resignations which Bush had no intention of keeping.]

[Uncle $cam]

Here is a much more detailed vid of the testimony that my last post...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxHjWYA50Ds

Many more nuances, and questions than my original post. And excellent all round questions here on the rig board especially, seemslikeadream's post.

Glenn Greenwald is all over this if you can take anymore.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html

I myself am burnt out at the moment and can't digest any more without down-time to process it all. When I watched the above I got knots in my stomach and a sore jaw from clenching my teeth, so I need to time myself out, but I will be back.

[chiggerbit]

COMEY: Thursday, March 11th, was the morning of the Madrid train bombings.

SCHUMER: And so, obviously, people were very concerned with all of that.

COMEY: Yes. It was a very busy day in the counterterrorism aspect.

SCHUMER: Yet, even in light of that, you still felt so strongly that you drafted a letter of resignation.

COMEY: Yes.

SCHUMER: OK.

Is it my imagination, or does Comey seem to put a subtle emphasis on the fact that this went down on the same day as the Madrid bombings, as if to say, "read between the lines here"?

[chiggerbit]

Keep in mind that this Comey is the one who appointed Fitzgeral to do the Plame leak investigation, did it in such a way that Fitzgerald was able to conduct the investigation as he saw fit. I've always said there was something odd about Ashcroft's resignation, and now I'm guessing that this hospital incident is what brought it about.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853002/site/newsweek/

[seemslikeadream]

Comey virtually gave it away — IT’S A SECRET FBI SPYING PROGRAM, NOT AN NSA PROGRAM!!!!!!!!


http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/16/sen ... nzales-nsa

[robert d reed]

Glenn Greenwald gets to the point again, this time on the Comey testimony:

...the more important issue here, by far, is that we should not have to speculate in this way about how the illegal eavesdropping powers were used. We enacted a law 30 years ago making it a felony for the government to eavesdrop on us without warrants, precisely because that power had been so severely and continuously abused. The President deliberately violated that law by eavesdropping in secret.Why don't we know -- a-year-a-half after this lawbreaking was revealed -- whether these eavesdropping powers were abused for improper purposes? Is anyone in Congress investigating that question? Why don't we know the answers to that?

Back in September, the then-ranking member (and current Chairman) of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, made clear how little even he knew about the answers to any of these questions in a letter he released:

For the past six months, I have been requesting without success specific details about the program, including: how many terrorists have been identified; how many arrested; how many convicted; and how many terrorists have been deported or killed as a direct result of information obtained through the warrantless wiretapping program.

I can assure you, not one person in Congress has the answers to these and many other fundamental questions.

The NSA scandal has always presented two equally critical but completely distinct issues: (1) the eavesdropping was against the law; and (2) precisely because it was conducted in secret, we do not know whether the administration engaged in the eavesdropping abuses which the law (by requiring judicial oversight) was designed to prevent.

Proposition (1) has long been established, and ought to result in serious consequences by itself. But we still do not know the answer to (2) -- were these eavesdropping powers used for improper purposes? -- and whether anyone in Congress yet knows is still a mystery. But Comey's testimony yesterday adds some obviously significant information that ought to heighten the concern about whether there was such abuse.

There is one other aspect of Comey's testimony worth highlighting. This is part of what he said when describing the scene in Ashcroft's hospital room:

I tried to see if I could help him get oriented. As I said, it wasn't clear that I had succeeded. I went out in the hallway.

Spoke to Director Mueller by phone. He was on his way. I handed the phone to the head of the security detail and Director Mueller instructed the FBI agents present not to allow me to be removed from the room under any circumstances.

Comey repeatedly stated that it appeared that Ashcroft was not even oriented to his surroundings. Compare that to Tony Snow's disgustingly dismissive defense yesterday of the behavior of Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales: "Trying to take advantage of a sick man -- because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn't work?"

But more revealingly, just consider what it says about this administration. Not only did Comey think that he had to rush to the hospital room to protect Ashcroft from having a conniving Card and Gonzales manipulate his severe illness and confusion by coercing his signature on a document -- behavior that is seen only in the worst cases of deceitful, conniving relatives coercing a sick and confused person to sign a new will -- but the administration's own FBI Director thought it was necessary to instruct his FBI agents not to allow Comey to be removed from the room.

Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs. Indeed, Comey said that when Card ordred him to the White House, Comey refused to meet with Card without a witness being present, and that Card refused to allow Comey's summoned witness (Solicitor General Ted Olson) even to enter Card's office. These are the most trusted intimates of the White House -- the ones who are politically sympathetic to them and know them best -- and they prepared for, defended themselves against, the most extreme acts of corruption and thuggery from the President's Chief of Staff and his then-legal counsel (and current Attorney General of the United States).

Does this sound in any way like the behavior of a government operating under the rule of law, which believes that it had legal authority to spy on Americans without the warrants required for three decades by law? How can we possibly permit our government to engage in this behavior, to spy on us in deliberate violation of the laws which we enacted democratically precisely in order to limit how they can spy on us, and to literally commit felonies at will, knowing that they are breaking the law?...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html

[robert d reed]

How's this, for "getting to the point"?

"...just consider what it says about this administration. Not only did Comey think that he had to rush to the hospital room to protect Ashcroft from having a conniving Card and Gonzales manipulate his severe illness and confusion by coercing his signature on a document -- behavior that is seen only in the worst cases of deceitful, conniving relatives coercing a sick and confused person to sign a new will -- but the administration's own FBI Director thought it was necessary to instruct his FBI agents not to allow Comey to be removed from the room.

Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs..."

Incidentally, I heard Gonzalez on C-Span Tuesday evening taking questions from reporters- one of the questions was about torture, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and he was knowingly lying and willfully misleading the public with his reply.

Someone ought to to nail him with a follow-up question on that topic some time, referencing those comments.

[chiggerbit]

Impeachment needs to work its way up the food chain, starting with Abu Gonzales to Cheney to GW. When does Ashcroft get subpoenaed?

[chiggerbit]

Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs..."

No, I think they were considering this event as a "mini-coup".

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

This illegal surveillance powerplay came to a head on the day of the Madrid train bombing?!

I don't think that is a coincidence. The timing is too perfect.

[antiaristo]

.

This illegal surveillance powerplay came to a head on the day of the Madrid train bombing?!

I don't think that is a coincidence. The timing is too perfect.

Hugh,
I agree, but it's a bit more complex than that.
There are good indications that the bombing was intended to take place three days earlier, on 8 March. See this thread:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... ght=madrid


But if you look closely at the dynamics of Spanish politics, the intention was to blame ETA during the week leading up to the General Election. Even now, with the court hearings going on, the Partido Popular are still trying to implicate the Basques in the bombing.

There was a scene at the European parliament last week where one of the Partido Popular MEPs was boycotted by all Socialists because he had lied about a police report. The judge had required him to reveal his source and he refused (it does not exist), so he has been cited for non-cooperation with justice. Which will put him in prison.

That being the background, we WOULD have had an election campaign dominated by ETA. The key issue WOULD have been: "WHICH terrorist group was responsible?

Kinda makes the case for wiretapping, no?



One other interesting analogy is the "loans for peerages" scandal in Britain that has dominated Blair's last months in office.

One safeguard against corruption is that all names that go forward must be certified to have no financial relationship with the party proposing them. Obviously that was dodgy under these circumstances.

At the time the Chairman of the Labour Party, Ian McCartney, was in hospital facing a fairly serious operation.

So the Labour Party functionaries took the documents to McCartney to sign, even though he could not possibly verify that what he was signing was true. And he signed them.

I've always laughed at Ashcroft, what with his singing and being beaten by a dead man and covering-up breasts on statues.

But it seems he's a better man than the then Labour Party Chairman.