|
Banned
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Elphaba
If Congress chooses to investigate Gonzales, would he not have to recuse himself and request a independent prosecutor? Ashcroft did much the same at the time of the Plame affair which led to the assignment of Patrick Fitzgerald.
I agree that Bush intends to keep Gonzales in place to prevent congressional investigations into the Administration, but Gonzales *must* recuse himself if he is the focus of an investigation. The resignation of the DOJ's #2 adds a new dimension to the US Attorney firings, in addition to the testimony of Gooding. Comey represents just one of the dog's cornering this rat.
|
.....snooze on....fellow TFP-ers....I'm puttin' the popcorn in the microwave and turnin' on the TeeVee....OUTRAGE ?....<h6>....what outrage ?</h6>
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews
No Dissent on Spying, Says Justice Dept.
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A06
<h2>The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.</h2>
<h1>The department's affirmation of Gonzales's remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute,</h1> which former U.S. officials say led then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and as many as eight colleagues to discuss resigning.
Testifying Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Comey declined to describe the program. He said it "was renewed on a regular basis" and required the attorney general's signature.
He said a review by the Justice's Office of Legal Counsel in spring 2004 had concluded the program was not legal.
Comey said he and the others were prepared to resign when the White House renewed the program after failing to get a certification of its legality -- first from him and later from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, while Ashcroft was ill and heavily sedated at George Washington University Hospital.
Gonzales, testifying for the first time in February 2006 about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which involved eavesdropping on phone calls between the United States and places overseas, told two congressional committees that the program had not provoked serious disagreement involving Comey or others.
"None of the reservations dealt with the program that we are talking about today," Gonzales said then.
Four Democratic senators sent a letter to Gonzales yesterday asking, "do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it," prompting the Justice Department's response.
|
Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/16/...-gonzales-nsa/
Senators Question Whether Gonzales Lied Under Oath About NSA Wiretapping Program
feingold4.jpgA group of senators led by Russ Feingold (D-WI) sent Alberto Gonzales a letter today highlighting an apparent lie Gonzales told while testifying under oath last year about the NSA warrantless spying program.
As ThinkProgress noted this morning, Gonzales said in 2006 that there was no “serious disagreement about the program,” a claim that flies in the face of the extraordinary testimony delivered by former Justice official James Comey yesterday. In the letter, the senators ask Gonzales if he stands by his claim:
You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the <b>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. …</b>
We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey’s testimony yesterday, <h3>do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?</h3>
As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Peter Swire wrote this morning, Gonzales’s testimony raises two possibilities:
1) Comey’s objections apply to the NSA warrantless wiretapping program that Gonzales was discussing. If so, then Gonzales quite likely made serious mis-statements under oath. And Gonzales was deeply and personally involved in the meeting at Ashcroft’s hospital bed, so he won’t be able to claim “I forgot.”
2) Perhaps Comey’s objections applied to a different domestic spying program. That has a big advantage for Gonzales — he wasn’t lying under oath. But then we would have senior Justice officials confirming that other “programs” exist for domestic spying, something the Administration has never previously stated.
Read the full letter <a href="http://websrvr80il.audiovideoweb.com/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2007/document.pdf">HERE.</a>
|
....and, don't the revelations from Comey, two days ago..... make this seem like a deliberate falsehood:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060320-7.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 20, 2006
President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom
......Q Could you explain why living within the legislation that allowed your administration to get a warrant from a secret court within 72 hours after putting in a wiretap wouldn't be just as effective?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I appreciate the question. He's talking about the terrorist surveillance program that was -- created quite a kerfuffle in the press, and I owe an explanation to. Because our people -- first of all, after September the 11th, I spoke to a variety of folks on the front line of protecting us, and I said, is there anything more we could be doing, given the current laws? And General Mike Hayden of the NSA said there is. The FISA law -- he's referring to the FISA law, I believe -- is -- was designed for a previous period, and is slow and cumbersome in being able to do what Mike Hayden thinks is necessarily -- called hot pursuit.
And so he designed a program that will enable us to listen from a known al Qaeda, or suspected al Qaeda person and/or affiliate, from making any phone call outside the United States in, or inside the United States out -- with the idea of being able to pick up quickly information for which to be able to respond in this environment that we're in. I was concerned about the legality of the program, and so I asked lawyers -- which you got plenty of them in Washington -- (laughter) -- to determine whether or not I could do this legally. And they came back and said, yes. That's part of the debate which you're beginning to see.
<b>I fully understood that Congress needed to be briefed. And so I had Hayden and others brief members of the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, House members and senators, about the program. The program is under constant review. I sign a reauthorization every -- I'm not exactly sure -- 45 days, say. It's something like that. In other words, it's constantly being reviewed. There's an IG that is very active at the NSA to make sure that the program stays within the bounds that it was designed.</b>
I fully understand people's concerns about it, but ours is a town, by the way, in Washington, where when you don't connect the dots, you're held up to Congress, and when you do connect the dots, you're held up to Congress. I believe what I'm doing is constitutional, and I know it's necessary. And so we're going to keep doing it. (Applause.)
|
Last edited by host; 05-17-2007 at 05:28 AM..
|