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Banned
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Cheney confirmed that he had the power to order the president's two closest aids to Ashcroft's ICU bed in 2004, and Cheney and Mueller contradict Gonzales's sworn testimony to congress....interesting that the FBI and Cheney undermine the carefully crafted defense of Gonzales...that he did not perjure himself...
Quote:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/07/w...-part-427.html
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Who's the Decider? (Part 427)
Marty Lederman
Larry King: Did you dispatch the White House Chief of Staff and the Counsel to the President to the Attorney General's hospital room to try to get him to sign off on the NSA surveillance program?
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3X3hNtrGhg">Dick Cheney</a>: "I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect."
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What's interesting is that Cheney pretended to wrack his brain to recall whether he gave the fateful "instructions." As if that might actually have happened -- as if there would be nothing out of the ordinary if the Vice President had "instructed" the President's two closest advisors to try to squeeze a cabinet official.
<h3>Any other Vice President in the history of the Republic would have responded in a way that revealed how absurd the question was (i.e., how absurd it should be), to wit:</h3>
"I don't give instructions to those persons. They work for the President, not for me. Indeed, when they do act, they act as agents of the President. I can make recommendations, of course. But that's really beside the point, because ultimately it's the President's call whether to send his two c-losest advisers to bring pressure to bear on a cabinet official."
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051602715.html
No Dissent on Spying, Says Justice Dept.
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 17, 2007; A06
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.
The department's affirmation of Gonzales's remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute, 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.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_r...er_gonzo_.html
Freeze! D.C. lawmen feud over Gonzo
Congressional hearing chills FBI-Justice relations
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Monday, July 30th 2007, 4:00 AM
WASHINGTON - A chill akin to a new Ice Age has frozen the relationship between the FBI and the Justice Department following a very public split between the agencies' leaders.
FBI chief Robert Mueller nuked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a congressional hearing last week, essentially calling the nation's top lawman a liar.
Since then, a distinctly cold air has settled between FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave. and the main Justice building directly across the street.
"You could open an ice rink between the buildings," one Mueller aide said.
<h3>Mueller was asked about a March 2004 confrontation at then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital sickbed.
James Comey, acting attorney general at that time, has told Congress that then-White House counsel Gonzales tried to get the sedated Ashcroft to approve the National Security Agency's secret wiretapping program.
Comey rejected the program as illegal and said the seriously ill Ashcroft resisted considerable pressure from Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to rubber-stamp it.
Appearing on Tuesday, Gonzales testified that he talked to Ashcroft about "other intelligence activities" - not the NSA's domestic spying.
But Mueller testified he "had an understanding the discussion was on an NSA program."
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said "confusion is inevitable" when officials discuss classified activities in public.
FBI officials bristled at that.
"If you read the [FBI] director's testimony, it is anything but confusing," said a top Mueller ally at the FBI.</h3>
Yesterday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called on Gonzales to quickly clear up the confusion, otherwise "this is going to have a devastating effect on law enforcement."
Mike Fedarcyk, a retired senior FBI official called Mueller's shot at Gonzales a "jawdropper inside the bureau."
Mueller, who was not in the hospital room, spoke to Ashcroft right after Gonzales left and testified he took notes about the incident. Fedarcyk said that appeared to be insurance against a White House counterattack.
"Usually you take notes to protect yourself. He used them to throw Gonzales under the bus. That's huge," Fedarcyk said.
"This is not partisan politics. It's a bold, strategic, calculated move."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...31/lkl.01.html
Interview With Vice President Dick Cheney
Aired July 31, 2007 - 21:00 ET
....Q In that regard, The New York Times -- which, as you said, is not your favorite -- reports it was you who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital in 2004 to push Ashcroft to certify the President's intelligence-gathering program. Was it you?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall -- first of all, I haven't seen the story. And I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect.
Q That would be something you would recall.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would think so. But certainly I was involved because <h3>I was a big advocate of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had been responsible and working with General Hayden and George Tenet to get it to the President for approval. By the time this occurred, it had already been approved about 12 times by the Department of Justice.</h3> There was nothing new about it.
Q So you didn't send them to get permission.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital.....
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Last edited by host; 08-02-2007 at 07:06 AM..
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