It is interesting to note that the neocons were never in any doubt about what was to be done. They didn't seem all that shocked. Maybe that is because they weren't.
They were all reading "My Pet Goat."
Today's Must ReadBy Spencer Ackerman - July 25, 2007, 10:27 AM
It was all going so well for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. After months of withering revelations about his mismanagement of the Justice Department on issues great and small, he appeared secure in his job, thanks to the unflagging confidence of President Bush. But yesterday, he tripped himself up repeatedly during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee -- quite possibly entering perjury territory.
Gonzales's big problem is that he told the Senate on February 6, 2006 that no one within the Justice Department dissented from President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, a contention made dubious by James Comey's testimony in May that, as acting attorney general in March 2004, Comey refused to reauthorize a program he considered illegal. In 2006, Gonzales told the Senate that he was testifying about "what the president has confirmed" exists -- meaning the warrantless surveillance program known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Gonzales yesterday attempted to reconcile his testimony with Comey's by saying that Comey raised objections to a different program than the one Gonzales told the Senate was uncontroversial.
In today's New York Times, Jane Harman -- who until last year was the chief Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and part of the "Gang of Eight" briefed on the surveillance program -- deals a very serious blow to Gonzales' "multiple-program" line.
“The program had different parts, but there was only one program,” Ms. Harman said, adding that Mr. Gonzales was “selectively declassifying information to defend his own conduct,” which she called improper.
If Harman is telling the truth, then there are only two understandings of Gonzales' testimony. The attorney general could be describing "different parts" of the program to mean different surveillance programs. That's the generous reading. The alternative is that Gonzales misled the Senate in his 2006 testimony, and yesterday issued an outright lie in order to contain the damage. (Some might say the two interpretations aren't really very different.)
That's problem number one for Gonzales. Problem number two is his description of a March 10, 2004 briefing for the congressional leadership on the classified surveillance program.
Calling his account "context" for his decision to rouse an infirm John Ashcroft from his hospital bed, Gonzales said that the point of the briefing was to inform the so-called Gang of Eight that Comey had withheld Department of Justice reauthorization for the program. Crucially, he said that the congressional leaders had a bone to pick with Comey:
The purpose of that meeting was for the White House to advise the Congress that Mr. Comey had advised us that he could not approve the continuation of vitally important intelligence activities despite the repeated approvals during the past two years of the same activities. ...The consensus in the room from the congressional leadership is that we should continue the activities, at least for now, despite the objections of Mr. Comey. There was also consensus that it would be very, very difficult to obtain legislation without compromising this program, but that we should look for a way ahead. It is for this reason that within a matter of hours Andy Card and I went to the hospital.
Three Democrats on the Gang of Eight present at the meeting --Tom Daschle, Jay Rockefeller and Nancy Pelosi -- dispute that account. In today's Washington Post, three anonymous officials at the meeting give reason for skepticism as well:
Three people who were present, but who declined to be identified discussing classified activities, said the March 2004 meeting in the White House Situation Room was an operational briefing on the NSA surveillance program. The legal underpinnings of the program were never discussed, they said, but the congressional group raised no objections and agreed that the program should go forward, they said.
It can't be the case that Comey's objections were "never discussed," since Pelosi's office told me yesterday that Pelosi objected when she learned at the meeting that Comey withheld his support for the program. But Rockefeller told the Post that the meeting wasn't an opportunity for the Gang of Eight to give approval or disapproval to the program, as Gonzales suggested yesterday. It might be the case that the Democrats in the meeting did not raise forceful objections, leading Gonzales and the officials cited by the Post to the conclusion that they were saying the program should, in fact, proceed.
In today's Times, another member of the Gang of Eight, speaking anonymously, backs Gonzales:
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he confirmed the attorney general’s testimony that the group reached a “consensus” that the disputed intelligence activity should continue and that passing emergency legislation would risk revealing secrets.
Pelosi's office told the Times (and me) that there was no "consensus" in the room that the program should proceed without Comey. According to the Times's account, her surrogates said that a "majority" did moving forward, however. So far we haven't heard from Harman or the GOP members of the Gang of Eight for their descriptions of what support existed for the program on March 9, 2004. And while not much is clear about that meeting, one thing is: someone isn't telling the truth.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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