Gonzales Advised Bush to Halt NSA Probe
Murray Waas, the National Journal reporter that wrote major pieces on the CIA leak investigation, has a huge article out on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the aborted warrantless domestic surveillance investigation. According to Waas, Gonzales counseled President George W. Bush to abandon the investigation after he learned that he would be a subject in it.
Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.
Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work. [emphasis added; link added]
Gonzales’ actions as White House counsel and Attorney General would have been examined, the National Journal reports.
Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales’s role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general. […]
President Bush’s shutting down of the Justice Department probe was disclosed in July. However, it has not been previously reported that investigators were about to question at least two crucial witnesses and examine documents that might have shed light on Gonzales’s role in authorizing and overseeing the eavesdropping program.
Investigators from the Office of Professional Responsibility notified senior aides to Gonzales early last year that the first two people they intended to interview were Jack Goldsmith, who had been an assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, and James A. Baker, the counsel for Justice’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. Both men had raised questions about the propriety and legality of various aspects of the eavesdropping program, which was undertaken after September 11 as an anti-terrorism tool. [original emphasis]
Earlier this year when the administration, likely due to the turnover of the Republican Congress to Democratic control, decided to allow the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to oversee the program, White House officials were possibly feeling the “worries at justice.”
A senior federal law enforcement official said that after OPR launched its inquiry in early 2006, Justice Department political appointees were concerned that the internal ethics office might conclude that Gonzales or other administration officials had sidestepped the law in the authorization and oversight of the program.
OPR did not have a mandate to determine whether the eavesdropping program itself was illegal or unconstitutional. Rather, the office was to investigate “allegations of misconduct involving department attorneys that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice,” according to the office’s policies and procedures.
What OPR could have found over a year ago, the American public may not know for quite sometime. In fact, with Gonzales’ work to shield the records of ex-presidents, it may be longer than tradition. An extremely cynical point to raise would be if the administration retooled the surveillance program prior to submitting it to the jurisdiction of the FISA court.
Both the White House and Gonzales declined to comment and refused to state if Gonzales had informed President Bush that he would be a focus of the investigation.
Last year, Gonzales testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the denied security clearances to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) were decided by the president. The attorney general, at first, did not want to say why the clearances were denied, and he danced around the question to committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) in July.
“The president of the United States makes the decision,” Gonzales replied.
But what Gonzales failed to state was that he advised the president to do it and that his actions would be a subject of the investigation. Gonzales claimed that granting the investigators clearances could “jeopardize” the program and “diminish its usefulness in locating terrorists,” reported the National Journal in May 2006.
Almost a year later and his tenure as the nation’s top law enforcer, Gonzales may have employed the president to protect himself from criminal liability. A separate issue would be if the president knowingly protected Gonzales or was left out of the loop.
ABC News blog, The Blotter, noted in July 2006 that OPR investigators were “frustrated” by the blocked access and how “unusual the action was.”
In the March letter, OPR notes that it had been denied security clearances even though attorneys from the Civil Division and Criminal Division had been granted clearance to learn about the program.
There is serious potential for obstruction of justice charges against Gonzales, though unlikely to unfold that way. With the prosecutor purge already drawing calls for his resignation, the attorney general’s possible interference in an investigation aimed at a government program to protect himself from scrutiny adds a barrel of kerosene onto the fire.
For more background, TPMmuckraker noted the reaction of “senior Justice officials” when the president yanked the security clearances for the investigators.
Meanwhile, the President supports Gonzales, says White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. How long will that last? (Also, Snow flatly lies about the prosecutor purge and the explicit classifications of “strong” and “weak” U.S. attorneys, in part, based on loyalty to the president.)
(Hat tip: Duncan Black, Eschaton)
W.H. Official Used RNC E-Mails in Prosecutor Purge
Think Progress picked up on a Dan Froomkin column that questions the legality of White House officials using e-mail accounts registered to the Republican National Committee to conduct official ‘government business.’ However, that may just be ironic since critics believe that the firings were political decisions anyhow.
One curious aspect of yesterday’s document dump is that it shows e-mails from J. Scott Jennings, who is Karl Rove’s deputy at the White House, coming from an e-mail address at gwb43.com — a domain owned by the Republican National Committee.
It makes some sense that White House officials might have and use such accounts when they conduct party business, rather than White House business. But the distinction between party and government business seems to have been forgotten here — which I guess is exactly the point.
Eggen and Kane write in The Post: “Democratic congressional aides said they will investigate whether using the private address for government business violated laws against using taxpayer resources for political work or signaled that White House officials considered the firing of U.S. attorneys to be primarily a political issue. Jennings did not return a call to his office seeking a comment.
“‘As a matter of course, the RNC provides server space and equipment to certain White House personnel in order to assist them with their political efforts,’ RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said.” [emphasis added by Think Progress]
Sununu Calls for Gonzales’ Ouster
Senator John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) became the first GOP senator to call for the firing of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. However, this move by Sununu, the beneficiary of the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal in 2002, was likely a political maneuver to help his electoral chances next year.
In May 2006, James Tobin, the New England campaign chairman for Bush-Cheney ‘04, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his involvement. Phone traffic between Tobin and then-White House Political Director Ken Mehlman suggested involvement of the Bush administration but Mehlman denies the calls were related to the phone jamming scheme.
Another Hole in “Performance Related Issues” Explanation
The initial defense in the prosecutor firings from last December was that the eight U.S. attorneys were canned due to “performance-related issues.” TPMmuckraker found yet another hold in that claim. Paul Kiel writes:
U.S. News reports that Comey, when he was still with the department (he left in August of 2005), produced his own list of “weak U.S. attorneys” who, in his opinion, were under performing.
Only, it was, well, different:
…a former Justice official says that Comey’s list bore little resemblance to the list of those fired last year. The only prosecutor on the fired list who also was on Comey’s list was Kevin Ryan, in San Francisco, who, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, had “widespread management and morale problems in his office.”
As we pointed out before, Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson had Ryan on his list as a “strong” U.S. attorney. In other words, not only was he not to be fired, he was to be commended.
Kiel notes that the basis for a “strong” classification by the chief of staff to the Attorney General, Kyle Sampson was described as loyalty to President George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales. (Speaking of Comey’s list of “weak U.S. attorneys,” San Diego-based prosecutor, Carol Lam? Not on it.)
It is another sign that the White House, in conjunction with highest levels of the Department of Justice, were going after U.S. attorneys that were not “playing ball” and making the party proud.
As for the “resigned” chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, it turns out that the administration is so upset his behavior that while he looks for another job, Sampson will remain at his post indefinitely.
Good eye, or good ear, from TPM Reader JB. Apparently, the White House and Alberto Gonzales are so miffed with Kyle Sampson for doing the whole Attorney Purge on his own that they’re letting him stay on the job — from which he supposedly resigned on Monday — indefinitely as he “goes job hunting.”
The chairman of the Washington State Republican Party, Chris Vance, said he contacted the U.S. attorney, John McKay, who was fired last year.
TPMmuckraker reported that Lam was targeted prior to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune that exposed the corruption scandal of Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego, Calif.). However, it would be difficult to dispute the correspondence regarding Lam being a pain to the administration in May 2006, when the Cunningham scandal was expanding.
Will they appear? Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and William Kelley.
Giuliani Silent on Prosecutor Purge
The furor over the prosecutor purge at the Department of Justice has connections to the 2008 presidential race for the Republican nomination.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-New York City, N.Y.) has a history in the U.S. attorney’s office in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Much of the aura surrounding Giuliani, in addition to the phony 9/11 hero worship, involves his days as “Rudy the Crime Fighter” as an Associate Attorney General in 1981 and as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Josh Marshall, writing at Talking Points Memo, wonders why Giuliani, of all people, is choosing to be silent on the purge. Marshall says that with Rudy’s background as a federal prosecutor, Giuliani would have a “unique” perspective on the matter.
2008 presidential tie-in question: Can Rudy Giuliani really get away with refusing to comment on the US Attorney Purge story? Rudy made his name as a mob-busting US Attorney in New York. I’m pretty sure he’s the only former US Attorney in the race in either party. And I’m pretty sure he worked at Main Justice early in the Reagan administration before becoming US Attorney. So he’s uniquely positioned to have something relevant and knowledgeable to say. But he won’t answer. How long can that last?
So how ’bout it, Rudy? What’s your take?
Gonzales Defends Himself on Today Show
In a television appearance on NBC’s Today Show, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the actions of the Department of Justice, including his own, in the prosecutor purge.
“I think you can look at the record of the department in terms of what we’ve done … going after child predators, public corruption cases,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “I think our record is outstanding.”
Gonzales acknowledged, as he had on Tuesday, that mistakes were made in the handling of the U.S. attorney firings and said he wanted to remain in the job to make things right with Congress.
“I think we’ve done a good job in managing the department. .. Things are going to happen,” he said. “We are going to work with Congress to make sure they know what happened. … We want to ensure that they have a complete and accurate picture of what happened here.” [emphasis added]
Gonzales’ assertion that the Justice Department wants to “ensure” Congress has the “complete and accurate picture” of what happened is nothing short of laughable. Administration officials tried to distort what they did after they the mass firings on December 7.
There was a concerted effort on the part of the administration to force out U.S. attorneys that were uncooperative with the White House’s partisan political agenda. Since the story of the firings broke, the administration has continually used falsities and outright lies to defend their actions.
Quotes of the Day
“Appearances are troubling. This has not been handled well. But in Texas we believe in having a fair trial and then the hanging.”
–Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)
(Congressional Quarterly, 03/13/07)[Asked about support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] “I think we’ve got to have one.” [QUESTION: “This one?”] “I didn’t answer that.”
–Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma)
(Congressional Quarterly, 03/13/07)
(Hat tip: Think Progress)
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