Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (763874)	7/27/2007 12:07:49 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

FBI Chief Disputes Gonzales On Spying Mueller Describes Internal Debate By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane Washington Post Staff Writer and Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Friday, July 27, 2007; A01 washingtonpost.com FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday contradicted the sworn testimony of his boss, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, by telling Congress that a prominent warrantless surveillance program was the subject of a dramatic legal debate within the Bush administration. Mueller's testimony appears to mark the first public confirmation from a Bush administration official that the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program was at issue in an unusual nighttime visit by Gonzales to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who was under sedation and recovering from surgery. Mueller's remarks to the House Judiciary Committee differed from testimony earlier in the week from Gonzales, who told a Senate panel that a legal disagreement aired at the hospital did not concern the NSA program. Details of the program, kept secret for four years, were confirmed by President Bush in December 2005, provoking wide controversy on Capitol Hill. "The discussion was on a national -- an NSA program that has been much discussed, yes," Mueller said in response to a question from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.). Mueller told another lawmaker that he had serious reservations about the warrantless wiretapping program. His testimony presents a new problem for the beleaguered attorney general, whose credibility has come under attack from Democrats and some Republicans. They say Gonzales deceived them on a number of issues, including the NSA program and events surrounding the firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys. "He tells the half-truth, the partial truth and anything but the truth," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), as he and three other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department yesterday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Gonzales lied to Congress about the NSA program. Complicating the administration's predicament, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) yesterday issued subpoenas to White House adviser Karl Rove and a deputy, demanding their testimony by Thursday as part of the panel's long-running investigation into the prosecutor firings and the alleged politicization of Justice Department career personnel jobs. The White House has refused such requests, prompting House lawmakers to move toward criminal contempt citations against a former Bush legal counsel and his current chief of staff. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement that Gonzales's testimony and statements about the NSA program have been accurate, but that "confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum." Gonzales is under fire in particular for his testimony in February 2006 that there had been no "serious disagreement" about the NSA wiretapping program. Gonzales and his aides have since said that he was referring to the monitoring of international communications confirmed by Bush and not to other, undisclosed "intelligence activities" that attracted controversy within the administration. "The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified," Roehrkasse said. Other officials, including Mueller and several Democratic lawmakers who were briefed on the NSA's activities, have said that the surveillance, or some part of it, was at the heart of the dispute. Mueller declined at the hearing to discuss Gonzales's statements on the topic. "I really can't comment on what Judge Gonzales was thinking or saying," he said. "I can tell you what I understood at the time." Mueller's testimony is particularly striking in light of his opposition to Gonzales's view of the matter at issue during the 2004 legal dispute. Then-Acting Attorney General James B. Comey sought Mueller's help in ensuring that an FBI security detail did not evict Comey from Ashcroft's hospital room during the visit by Gonzales, then White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Mueller was not present during the hospital visit but testified yesterday that Ashcroft briefed him on the conversation. He repeatedly said he agreed with Comey's version of events, which included testimony that Mueller, Ashcroft, Comey and others were prepared to quit if the program went ahead without changes to render it legal. Bush agreed to make the changes after he met with Mueller and discussed the objections Mueller shared with Comey, according to Comey's account. Mueller conveyed that promise to Comey. Signaling that Democrats intend to keep pursuing the issue, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) wrote to Mueller after yesterday's hearing, requesting notes about the 2004 hospital incident. Mueller testified that he kept records because the episode was "out of the ordinary." FBI officials declined to comment. The request by four senators to appoint a special prosecutor was sent to Solicitor General Paul D. Clement. He has taken charge of matters relating to the U.S. attorney firings and related controversies because Gonzales and numerous other aides are recused. Leahy also raised the possibility this week of asking Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to open a perjury investigation of Gonzales if the attorney general declines to correct testimony that Leahy considers inaccurate. Besides demanding Rove's testimony on the attorney firings, Leahy sent a subpoena to J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy political director. Rove and Jennings appear in Justice Department e-mails discussing steps in the plan to fire the prosecutors. Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

To: jlallen who wrote (763874)	7/27/2007 12:15:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Bedtime for Gonzo By Eugene Robinson Friday, July 27, 2007; A21 washingtonpost.com It's way past bedtime for Gonzo. At this point, every day Alberto Gonzales continues as attorney general means more dishonor for the office and the nation -- and higher blood pressure for Senate Judiciary Committee members trying desperately to get a straight answer out of the man. Gonzo has managed to do something no one else in Washington has managed in years: create a spirit of true bipartisanship. After his pathetic act in front of the committee Tuesday, it's no surprise that Democrats are threatening to investigate him for perjury. But it was Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, who looked Gonzo in the face and told him, "I do not find your testimony credible, candidly." Specter seems ready to pop a gasket. "The hearing two days ago was devastating" for Gonzo, Specter said yesterday. "But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that." Over time, one becomes almost numb to this administration's relentless lies and can-you-top-this transgressions. A kind of "outrage fatigue" sets in, accompanied by the knowledge that whatever it is that they've done this time, it could have been worse. So when George W. Bush rewrote history the other day by saying that "al-Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11 [and] they're fighting us in Iraq," the tendency is to duly note that the president is not telling the truth -- there is no evidence whatsoever that al-Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't exist on Sept. 11, 2001, takes orders from Osama bin Laden -- and then move on. Hey, at least it's just talk. At least he didn't invade Iran or Pakistan. Yet. For me, at least, Gonzo is the perfect antidote to midsummer apathy. The guy is . . . I was going to say the guy's unbelievable, but I'd just be repeating the bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill. What set the senators a-sputtering was Gonzo's testimony about the night in 2004 when he showed up at the hospital bedside of his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to try to get him to overrule his deputy and reauthorize Bush's secret program of warrantless electronic eavesdropping. The Justice Department had concluded, most inconveniently for the White House, that the program as constituted was illegal. James Comey, the former Ashcroft deputy who intercepted Gonzo in Ashcroft's hospital room, revealed that incident in gripping testimony earlier this year. But Gonzo had previously told Congress that there was no "serious disagreement" within the administration over the surveillance program. Kind of a conflict there. Asked about the glaring discrepancy, Gonzo said Tuesday that the disagreement and the hospital visit were about "other intelligence activities," and "not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people." Specter's response: "Mr. Attorney General, do you expect us to believe that?" No one believes it. The most generous interpretation is that Gonzo, fearful of facing a perjury rap, is insisting on an artificially and dishonestly narrow definition of "the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced" -- leaving out "intelligence activities" that any reasonable person, including Comey, would consider part of the program. The nice word for that would be dissembling. The not-so-nice word would be lying. Hence the call yesterday by a group of Senate Democrats for a perjury investigation. I hope they nail him. Anyone tempted to feel sympathy for Gonzo should check out his weaselly explanation for why he would think it appropriate to buttonhole a sick man in his hospital room, regardless of the issue. "There are no rules governing whether or not General Ashcroft can decide 'I'm feeling well enough to make this decision,' " Gonzo said. When Specter pointed out that Ashcroft had already turned his powers over to Comey, Gonzo replied, "And he could always reclaim it. There are no rules." "While he was in the hospital under sedation?" Specter interrupted, before giving up on getting a straight answer. Gonzo answered the question, all right -- inadvertently, of course: "There are no rules." That's the guiding philosophy of this administration. As far as these people are concerned, there are no rules of common decency. There are no rules of customary practice. There are no rules governing respect for the truth, or even respect for the privacy and health of an ailing colleague. And we all know who sets that tone. Sen. Chuck Schumer tried valiantly to get Gonzo to say who sent him on that Mafia-movie errand to the hospital. Gonzo's a loyal soldier; he wouldn't snitch. All Schumer got out of him was that the visit was "on behalf of the president of the United States." eugenerobinson@washpost.com