(Updated) Gonzales: no doubt wistful for those days when concern about illegal wiretaps were strictly “moonbat hysteria”
By Mona
When the New York Times revealed in December of 2005 that President Bush’s National Security Agency was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by intercepting the electronic communications of U.S. persons — i.e., eavesdropping on their telephone calls and email — without the required warrants being procured from the secret FIS Court, many legal scholars and lawyers condemned the lawlessness, as well as the noxious supporting theories of an imperial Executive deployed by Administration defenders. Old news, that.
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Eventually, however, the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) attempted to investigate “allegations of misconduct involving department attorneys that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice,” pertaining to the NSA program, given that it was apparently operating in violation of the criminal law. Among the attorneys whom OPR apparently would have investigated was Alberto Gonzales in his role as both White House counsel, and subsequent position as Attorney General.
In a March 21, 2006, memo citing his inability to obtain security clearances, [H. Marshall] Jarrett, the head of OPR, wrote to Paul McNulty, the deputy attorney general, complaining that OPR was being “precluded from performing its duties.”.In contrast, Jarrett noted, the administration promptly approved “the Criminal Division’s request for the same security clearances for a large team of attorneys and FBI agents that was investigating who initially leaked details of the NSA eavesdropping program to The New York Times.”Jarrett continued: “We have also learned that individuals involved in the Civil Division’s response to legal challenges to the NSA program and responses to [Freedom of Information Act] litigation have received the same clearances. And according to the recent press reports, the five private individuals who make up the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have been briefed on the NSA program and have been granted authorization to receive the clearances in question..“In contrast, our repeated requests for access to classified information about the NSA program have not been granted. As a result, this office, which is charged with monitoring the integrity of the department’s attorneys and with ensuring that the highest standards of professional ethics are maintained, has been precluded from performing its duties.”
A senior federal law enforcement official said in an interview that granting clearances to nongovernmental citizens while refusing to grant them to department attorneys demonstrates “that the decision not to grant clearances to OPR had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with keeping national security secrets.”
Current and former Justice Department officials called Bush’s actions unprecedented in the office’s history.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
March 15, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
The way in which maximalization is the only way to predict Bush scandals worries me. I mean, what can you say to people who claim that Bush personally authorized the 9/11 terrorism? It’s looking more and more rational.
Comment by Minor Ripper —
March 15, 2007 @ 1:56 pm
I’ve found this Dept. of Justice firings business very complicated, and a bit boring. Thankfully, Jon Stewart explains it to me in this video:
http://minor-ripper.blogspot.com/2007/03/jon-stewart-explains-department-of.html
[MR: Within about an hour of my post, you posted two comments that were almost identical and offered the same url. That did not disturb me because double comments are not uncommon and are usually mere mistakes. Then, however, about nine hours later you did this for the third time. I deleted the last two of the three. Please do not repeat this conduct or I'll enter your comment as spam which would cause the spam filter to reject all of your comments.-Mona]
Comment by michael holloway —
March 15, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
Minor Ripper foiled already.
On the thing,
All avenues seem to lead to impeachment.
Comment by Swan —
March 15, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
OT
A few days ago, the Carpetbagger wrote this and I wrote this. So what’s going on with the media? I think everyone who pays attention can agree it seems like something- from our own experiences with the major outlets, to what we see reported on in the blogs, to all the things Media Matters catches because they’re looking for it all the time, the irregularities in the media have been proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, irregular. FNC’s regular promotion of statements a blog later proves false, or headlines that are misleading, without ever a correction or a retraction, make FNC’s operations equal to those of a propaganda news organization in a fascist state. So I have to ask you, if someone is using improper influence on major newspapers throughout the country as well as major news channels, why after all these years hasn’t evidence turned up? Why hasn’t the scandal come to light as evidence of any scandal involving bumbling party politicians and activists always inevitably does? If this is just the people who do K-street, if this is just the Harriet Miers types, the young Republicans, the people who were involved in the prosecutor purge scandal or the outing of Valerie Plame– just threatening to blacklist people or to spread gossip about them, the usual modus operandi we always hear about by way of explanation– why hasn’t somebody leaked something about it this time? Think about that, and you’ll start to appreciate why I write on my blog and say in my videos that someone has to create an organization to deal with the threat of FNC, and the problem has to be taken seriously by liberals.