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Analysis: Gonzales Testimony Part of Broader Effort to Conceal Surveillance Program
Alberto Gonzales' testimony that there was "no serious disagreement" within the Bush Administration about the NSA warrantless surveillance program has left senators sputtering and fulminating about the attorney general's apparent prevarications. But a closer examination of Gonzales' testimony and other public statements from the Administration suggest that there may be a method to the madness.
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Gonzales's careful, repeated phrasing to the Senate that he will only discuss the program that "the president described" was deliberate, part of a concerted administration-wide strategy to conceal from the public the very broad scope of that initial program. When, for the first time, Program X (as we'll call it, for convenience's sake) became known to senior Justice Department officials who were not its original architects, those officials -- James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, principally -- balked at its continuation. They did not back down until the program had undergone as-yet-unspecified but apparently significant revisions. But when President Bush announced what he would call the "Terrorist Surveillance Program' in December 2005, he left the clear impression that the program had always functioned the same way since its 2001 inception.
The administration's consistent refusal to discuss any aspect of the program -- current or former -- aside from what President Bush disclosed in December 2005 appears to be intended, specifically, to gloss over Comey and Goldsmith's objections. If that's the case, it could mean that the public has been presented with an inaccurate picture of the origins and scope of Program X. The Bush administration is currently contesting a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documentation establishing Program X's history -- in essence, trying to ensure that the public never learns more about the program and the internal deliberations over it than what President Bush chooses to reveal.
Alberto Gonzales, on this theory, has found himself enmeshed in the administration's attempt to distinguish the less-troublesome Terrorism Surveillance Program from Program X. And it may mean he perjured himself in doing so. Today, Senate Democrats responded to Gonzales's dubious testimony on Tuesday by calling for a perjury investigation. At issue is whether Gonzales' assertions that there was "no serious disagreement" within the government about the TSP was so misleading as to amount to perjury, or whether his distinction between TSP and Program X was merely a careful parsing -- perhaps misleading but not, to use Sen. Arlen Specter's word, actionable.
In December 2005, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau broke the story of the Terrorist Surveillance Program for the New York Times. Risen's resulting book, State of War, described a surveillance effort where the National Security Agency "monitor(s) and eavesdrop(s) on large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States to search for potential evidence of terrorist activity, without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection." Previously, the NSA only eavesdropped on foreign communications. Although the scope of that effort remains unclear, Risen estimated that NSA eavesdrops on "as many as five hundred people in the United States at any given time and it has potentially has access to the phone calls and e-mails of millions more."
The New York Times' publication of those explosive charges prompted President Bush to disclose, on December 19, 2005, what he would later call the Terrorist Surveillance Program:
"I authorized the interception of international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. This program is carefully reviewed approximately every 45 days to ensure it is being used properly. … "(T)he legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.… "I want to make clear to the people listening that this program is limited in nature to those that are known al Qaeda ties and/or affiliates. That's important. So it's a program that's limited, and you brought up something that I want to stress, and that is, is that these calls are not intercepted within the country. They are from outside the country to in the country, or vice versa. So in other words, this is not a -- if you're calling from Houston to L.A., that call is not monitored. And if there was ever any need to monitor, there would be a process to do that."
What President Bush described was far more constrained than the surveillance Risen reported.
Immediately thereafter, whenever administration officials discussed the surveillance program, they would decline to use names for it in most cases (even the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") and instead refer back to what President Bush disclosed. A letter one month later from Gonzales to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), referred only to "the NSA activities described by the president." Stumbling for a shorthand, a Justice Department fact sheet issued January 27, 2006 said that "throughout this document, the 'terrorist surveillance program' and 'the NSA program' refer to the activities described by the president.'"
Most significantly, when Gonzales first testified to the Senate on February 6, 2006, about the NSA's domestic surveillance, he at first used the term "terrorist surveillance program" -- the new choice for describing what Bush disclosed. But when Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) asked Gonzales about press accounts reporting that Comey and Goldsmith objected to the "terrorist surveillance program," Gonzales abandoned the construction. He said he was "only testifying about what the president has confirmed." And when it came to that, he said, "I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you're identifying had concerns about this program." The disagreement, Gonzales said, was about “other matters regarding operations.”
In a move that may prove crucial, the administration convinced then-committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) not to swear in Gonzales for that hearing.
The different phases of the program’s implementation did not become clear until Comey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May of this year. Comey did not identify the program, only calling it “a particular classified program.” We won't rehash his story in full here. But during his brief reign as acting attorney general, Comey refused to reauthorize Program X in March of 2004 (here’s an explanation as to why it took two years for this to happen). Comey’s refusal was based on the concerns of Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, but the precise nature of Goldsmith’s concern isn’t publicly known. Goldsmith declined to comment for this story.
It all came to a head on March 10, 2004, with the deadline for reauthorizing Program X looming. That afternoon, the White House called a meeting with the so-called "Gang of Eight" -- those congressional leaders briefed about Program X -- and Gonzales and Andrew Card made their infamous visit to Ashcroft’s hospital bed that night. The President initially opted to continue the program despite Ashcroft’s refusal to overrule Comey. But the next day, March 11, when faced with the possible resignation of the top echelon of Department of Justice leadership, the President personally told Comey to recommend what changes needed to be made to Program X in order for the Department of Justice to sign off on its legality.
As Comey told the committee, the Department took “two or three weeks” to “get the analysis done and make the changes that need to be made.” Comey (or Ashcroft; Comey couldn’t remember) subsequently signed off on the revised program. Given the depths of Comey's objections and the amount of time needed to overcome them, what must have emerged was a substantially different program.
Another significant revision to Program X occurred around the same time as Comey's objections, according to Risen's book. The Administration had been briefing the chief judge of the FISA court about the program, but in the spring of 2004, a new FISA chief, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, came onto the bench. She raised concerns about NSA-collected intelligence being used, ultimately, for terrorism prosecutions, which could result in suspected terrorists walking free if the evidence that formed the basis for their prosecutions had been collected illegally. Risen reported that "top administration officials suggested that they abandoned some of the most aggressive techniques used in the NSA surveillance operation after the judge complained."
The sparse record suggests that substantial changes were made to Program X after March of 2004. Precisely what they were, we don’t know. The initial reports, which drew no distinction between the program before and after that crucial month, described a program that surveilled the communications of Americans, including some purely domestic communications, without the issuance of warrants by a court. Prior to 9/11, such surveillance had to be approved by a FISA judge so as not to violate the 4th Amendment.
Perhaps the Administration's position is that those elements of Program X that were jettisoned in March of 2004 were so substantial that what remained -- the program that Bush announced in December of 2005 -- was a new and entirely different program. Again, we don’t know. But several members of Congress feel misled, though principally those objections are confined to Democrats, who have an obvious political interest in bringing down Gonzales. Both Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman, members of the Gang of Eight, have stated that there has only ever been one surveillance program.
Unfortunately for Gonzales, not even he has been able to keep the distinction between the Terrorist Surveillance Program and Program X straight. During a June 5th press conference this year, he said that Comey's dispute “related to a highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago” – precisely the opposite of what he’d testified before. By way of explanation, Gonzales testified Tuesday that his spokesman had subsequently contacted the reporter who’d asked the question, Dan Eggen of The Washington Post, to retract that statement.
Despite that embarrassing admission, Gonzales hewed to the same line this Tuesday he’d taken in the hearing the previous February, saying that Comey’s disagreement was “not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.” He maintained that line under blistering questioning – including the questions of senators, such as Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who also sit on the Senate intelligence committee and have been briefed on the program.
Following Gonzales' testimony, Democrats' contention that there was only one warrantless surveillance program was bolstered by the release of a May 2006 letter from John Negroponte, then the director of national intelligence, specifying that the March 10, 2004 meeting was, indeed, a TSP meeting. In response, an anonymous DOJ official told the Washington Post that in his testimony on Tuesday Gonzales "did not say that the TSP was not discussed at the meeting" -- underscoring the absurdity of the distinction that the administration is still trying to draw. Similarly, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee today that he and Comey had objections to the "much discussed" NSA program, a reference clear in context to the TSP.
In essence, the issue is this: if Gonzales succeeds in convincing the committee that there really is a material distinction between the program as it existed before and after Comey’s intervention, he won't just save himself from perjury. He will perhaps have preserved an administration strategy of concealing the scope of Program X from the public and most of Congress -- making it appear that the program that Bush disclosed in December 2005, incorporating Comey's objections, is the same program that existed since October 2001, long before Comey put the brakes on at least some aspects of it. That may be at the heart of the White House's claim of executive privilege to prevent the Senate Judiciary Committee from seeing documents detailing the genesis of Program X.
We may be about to learn whether a perjury investigation will pierce the obfuscations and begin to explore the extent of Program X -- a program the American public was never supposed to know about.
Comments (181)
rubberpants wrote on July 26, 2007 7:00 PM:Ok, then I'm not the only one who picked up on something fishy. ;)
rubberpants wrote on July 26, 2007 7:08 PM:Also: Excellent analysis guys. Top rate work.
Rebel wrote on July 26, 2007 7:11 PM:Why don't you just say Gonzo is covering up Bush's violations on the constitution? There are close to 2 dozen potential charges that Bush openly admitted to the public.
It is no secret then why Bush won't let Gonzo go. Any new attorney general might be inclined to follow the law.
chancellor wrote on July 26, 2007 7:17 PM:It is also possible that the only change in the program (from Program X to TSP) was the justification for the program. Some legal experts on other blogs have opined that the true objections of Comey and Goldsmith to Program X was the initial total reliance on commander-in-chief prerogatives, and that Comey/Goldsmith only felt satisfied once they decided that they could rely on the AUMF. However, AUMF was quickly knocked out of contention by most legal scholars as a legal basis for the program (for a number of reasons), and it may have been at that point that Comey, Ashcroft and others decided it was time to jump ship. Bottom line: what if the program never changed, but only the legal rationale?
RW wrote on July 26, 2007 7:17 PM:Let me repeat this analysis again. The Bush Administration's governing mantra is and always was and remains; politics trumps policy ultimately under the master plan of creating a permanent Republican majority.
Thus one can only assume that the NSA unwarranted surveillance was also about politics and that the surveillance had crossed over to domestic political spying and why they are hiding Program X. Mark these words somehow this is going to come out and Tony Snow will defend it and appropriate use of security forces in that any opposition to the Administration was an enemy of the State.
MediaFreeze wrote on July 26, 2007 7:18 PM:The question I have is: Why did Gonzales "decide" to cope to the fact that there was a Program X?
Clearly he avoids a perjury rap. He can assert that he answered previous questions about the TSP accurately, since the internal ruckus was really about Program X.
I think what they are going to do is paint a picture that Program X morph into the TSP was gradual and that the line is sufficiently fuzzy to permit a degree of interpretation as to what was Program X and what was TSP. Enough of a fuzzy line anyway to wrigle out of perjury.
wrb wrote on July 26, 2007 7:21 PM:Supurb bit of work. When watching the testimony I felt sure that just such was being hidden via careful parsing.
M M wrote on July 26, 2007 7:30 PM:that's what I said on the previous thread; by Gonzo's definition the TSP AND the other program were discussed on March 10, 2004; I also said Bush would not grant clearances to DoJ IG investigators (as he did previously) which will stop a perjury investigation into the matter in its tracks
what's needed is another leak about the full extent of Project X
can't a IT tech person go back to watch the PBS Frontline special on the wiretapping program to see if the hardware put in to the AT&T trunk in SF is much greater than is needed for the TSP program described by Bush?
Jim wrote on July 26, 2007 7:31 PM:Bush thinks he has a Constitutional power that's independent of the written US law to wiretap whoever he wants. The neoconservative ideology calls for the rule of the "enlightened" elites, not the rule of law. If Gonzales is charged with perjury, then Bush will mostly likely pardon him on the basis that he was just trying to conceal classified activities. This isn't about terrorism though. It's about a scary Nixonite right-wing elitist vision of what America should be and what power the White House should have.
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." President Bush, Sept. 13, 2001
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." President Bush, March 13, 2002
1970cs wrote on July 26, 2007 7:32 PM:Feingold's exchange with Abu was interesting.
Feingold: I'm a member of the intelligence committee and from what I know(and cannot divulge) from there you are not being honest with this committee
Abu: Then I don't think you understand what is being said about these programs
Later, Whitehouse reminds Abu that he is also a member of the intelligence committee and that he agrees with Feingold. This message was delivered as a warning to Abu.
Waiting in Texas wrote on July 26, 2007 7:36 PM:What was the point of Gonzales lying about what was discussed at the March 2004 meeting? My point being if everyone at the meeting remembers that it was about TSP and Warrantless Wiretapping, then why would Gonzo lie about what was discussed. Is there a whole other backstory? What am I missing here?
Waiting in Texas wrote on July 26, 2007 7:37 PM:What was the point of Gonzales lying about what was discussed at the meeting? My point being if everyone at the meeting remembers that it was about TSP and Warrantless Wiretapping, then why would Gonzo lie about what was discussed. Is there a whole other backstory?
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 7:45 PM:Am I the only one that recall Gonzales being asked in a previous hearing wheather or not there was another "spy" program that congress was not aware of, to which he answer was no?
1970cs wrote on July 26, 2007 7:45 PM:My thinking is that there is another part of the TSP that hasn't been revealed. When Gonzales says we didn't discuss the TSP I think he is trying to split hairs by saying we discussed the part that hasn't been made public yet, but is part of the same program.
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 7:47 PM:My neighbor described to me an event which happened not long after the Patriot Act was enacted. Two FBI agents showed-up at his house and presented him with an e-mail he had written to his brother in Paris. The e-mail descibed how much he despised the Patriot Act and a list of phrases which would likely red-flag them. It was an act of civil disobedience. He has been pretty quiet the last several years after the visit. I thought I would try to put a human face on domestic spying.
MediaFreeze wrote on July 26, 2007 7:48 PM:It's a perjury avoidance strategy:
Anything discussed at the meeting and the hospital was, by definition, Project X. It only became TSP once it was watered down. So he wasn't lying. See?
1oldlady wrote on July 26, 2007 7:54 PM:"...raised his right hand to take the oath in a ... last week, his left hand flexed tensely three times, then relaxed. ... U.S. Attorney General, betrayed any signs of nervousness. ...perjury,...and obstructing justice as an outgrowth of a secret..."
This tidbit is from April 22, 1974 in John Mitchell's trail when he served as attorney general under Nixon. Follow the link to read the whole article.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943608,00.html
cevrero wrote on July 26, 2007 7:55 PM:Oh have we learned anything from history? Apparently not! Read below, sounds like something that could have happened a few days ago, but its not!
Dear Waiting in Texas,
lampwick wrote on July 26, 2007 7:58 PM:The point is that Gonzales testified earlier or at his confirmation that noone at the DOJ objected to the NSA surveillance program in which Negroponte,Comey, & Mueller have said otherwise. Gonzales now claims that Comey was talking about other activities and the the situation at the Hospital with Ashcroft was not about the NSA surveillance program as described by the president.
"You can never step into the same river twice." - Heraclitus
I predict Gonzales will make ample use of this truism when he's being cross-examined on the stand at his perjury trial, claiming that the object of which he was speaking changed in nature from year to year, nay, from minute to minute; hence he was never making contradictory declarations about the same thing, because the thing itself was never the same.
rubberpants wrote on July 26, 2007 7:58 PM:In order for Gonzales to use Project X as an out from perjury, the administration will have to acknowledge it's existence and enough information about it to prove that it is the same program as the TSP. They wouldn't have let him use this tactic unless they already had a plan that would allow them to do this in such a way as to not incriminate the whitehouse.
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 8:09 PM:Or, they could use this whole other program (which may not even exist) to get Gonzo off a perjury rap. They could claim that he would need to reveal the program to defend himself, and since he can't, the case has to be dismissed.
EH wrote on July 26, 2007 8:20 PM:Maybe I'm cynical, but my sense is that "TSP" or "the activities the president described" are word-game placeholders for approved interrogation techniques. "Project X" and "other intelligence activities" refer to interrogation techniques that fell out of approval. That is, they're buckets: anything approved and/or disclosed goes into the "TSP" bucket. Anything disapproved, disputed, ruled against, illegal, etc. goes into the "Project X" bucket. These techniques can move between buckets depending on whether they are approved or not. If "talking" suddenly became verboten under the rules/laws/whatever, it would go into the "other intelligence activities"/"Project X" bucket and not be referred to or named ever again. If anybody asked about "talking," then they would say "I cannot confirm or deny anything regarding Project X." and be perfectly consistent. TSP is the "legal" stuff, Project X is illegal. That's why they can't talk about it, and it's subject to change at any time.
johnnydoughey wrote on July 26, 2007 8:25 PM:How DARE anyone accuse people who fought to attack the wrong country, attempted to destroy those who criticized the action, said those who disagreed with them had no clue as to what was going on... who have destroyed our relations with other countries, have decided that sending mentally ill troops back into combat with medication was a good opportunity to study the drugs effects, have used rendition, used interrogation technics banned since Hitler times, have kept prisoners without reason... and have aided in allowing terrorists to gain support and power while feeding our entire defense budget to corporations who have wasted and absconded with a good percentage of it (I know I'm leaving out a whole chapter of actions)...
osama_been_forgotten wrote on July 26, 2007 8:32 PM:Meanwhile,Bush, the instigator of all this, and Gonzales, his attorney, cannot see a reason for Congress and the public to question their answers...
Isn't that reason enough to disturb even the Republicans?
MediaFreeze;
That sounds like the sensible thing to do.
But you know damn well that's not what they're going to do.
They're going to continue to stonewall and flip the bird at Congress. They're going to hide behind bogus Executive Privilege claims. Judicial challenges will fly, and the Roberts SCOTUS will shoot them down 5-4 every single time.
For those worried about the spectre of an imperial presidency? It's already here. President Hillary abusing those powers? They don't care. All the money's in the Caymans, which is where they'll all be come Jan 20, 2009, all wearing their shiny Medals of Freedom and holding their Pardons in their fat little hands.
yellowdogfox wrote on July 26, 2007 8:32 PM:Well, personally I'm withholding judgment until I hear what Jake D. thinks.
trailer trash lib wrote on July 26, 2007 8:36 PM:The bush crime family is all about "plausible deniability".You can't tell me that the doesn't know, they just close thier eyes to it.
trailer trash lib wrote on July 26, 2007 8:36 PM:shrub learned up close and personal in 1984 and been riding that since.
gonzo know wher all the bodies are buried and he ain't going until shrubs gone.
press harder!
The bush crime family is all about "plausible deniability".You can't tell me that the public doesn't know, they just close thier eyes to it.
Constance Shea wrote on July 26, 2007 8:36 PM:shrub learned up close and personal in 1984 and been riding that since.
gonzo know wher all the bodies are buried and he ain't going until shrubs gone.
press harder!
On all of the video I have seen of AG's most recent testimony, he appears less rehearsed, less thoughtful, and more dismissive of the Senate committee in general. I expected him to have polished his answers to a high shine or alternately to mentally crack. As my 18 year old son and I were listening to this grade-school level 'it wasn't me' over and over, I said this sounds like someone who has had it and wants to be outed as a liar and released from this hell. My son said, you mean like he's standing up and saying "shoot me, please'.
trailer trash lib wrote on July 26, 2007 8:40 PM:Could they be keeping Alberto as AG against his will, at this point?
The bush crime family is all about "plausible deniability".You can't tell me that the public doesn't know, they just close thier eyes to it.
laocoon wrote on July 26, 2007 8:49 PM:shrub learned up close and personal in 1984 and been riding that since.
gonzo know wher all the bodies are buried and he ain't going until shrubs gone.
press harder!
I'm one of those who have long distrusted and disliked this president and his administration and my own move from simply a partisan Democrat to an impassioned anti-Bush American was over the war in Iraq, which I saw pre-war as insufficiently justified by the evidence made available to us.
Be that as it may, I was glad that Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table in 2006 because I thought it was a hopeless partisan exercise, no matter how much of a tragedy I thought the war, and it's prosecution a farce.
This week has become a new phase for me personally as a political animal in which I now believe that an impeachment is an imperative.
Bruce Fein (former Reagan era Deputy Attorney General and author of impeachment articles on behalf of Congress), on Olbermann, and what he had to say to me (I'm an attorney) was a clarion call and a dire warning. He used a ringing phrase -- Bush has committed "political crimes against the Constition", which he described as precisely and singularly the proper reason for impeachment.
I won't bore you with my entire list (5th Amendment and financial forfeitures recently, but also Habeas Corpus, and this surveillance program's affect on the 4th Amendment, for example), you've read it on this blog and in comments such as these before and I have nothing new or enlightening on the bill of particulars.
The entertaining question now is how to obtain the political will, as the saying goes.
To this, I believe I have the answer.
We must simply say to our alienated 25% brothers and sisters something that is so simple and to the point that they will be able to understand it. They are, after all, accustomed to bumper sticker thinking.
We must ask them: Do you really want Hillary to have that much power as president?
Now, I'm an Obama guy to make fair disclosure, but not so much that I won't work my butt off for her if she's the Dem nominee. However, that's not the point. The point is that she's the big bugaboo to this narrowing minority. They understand her name as a threat, even if they don't really know a damn thing else about her.
We all must understand that if we continue to let him act as he has the past two years, these powers will remain in the White House for the rest of our country's history. We don't know who will be elected in the future, but we can be sure that over time these powers will be abused, just as they've been created as abusive of the common rights and dignity of all voters, the Congress and the Courts.
green heron wrote on July 26, 2007 8:51 PM:We must call a spade a spade. This "unitary executive" is not the presidency as we've come to understand it, nor as it has been traditionally understood. I do not have a name for this new idea of the office of president, although I would not quarrel with monarchial presidency or even Imperial presidency except that the latter has been co-opted as "hype" and "spin".
I am no longer angry. I am afraid. I now believe that impeachment is a higher priority than even the war. The war will end. Unchecked, this treason will be enshrined as patriotism.
Program X? I'd guess they were spying on any American they wanted, including political enemies, and possibly even the campaign of John Kerry.
db wrote on July 26, 2007 8:52 PM:One thing not addressed here. During his testimony this week, Gonzo stated that Ashcroft signed off on 'the program' from its inception until 2004, up to the point Comey balked while serving as acting AG. That would then have to be program X, it would appear.
Yet during the hospital room visit, he would not sign off on it, and stated he was advised he should not, and then defered to Comey.
Did Ashcroft sign off on the program? If not, why would Gonzo say he did. And if so, why did he balk in his hospital room?
steve wrote on July 26, 2007 8:58 PM:One does get the impression that there is more NSA stuff going on than has so far been revealed. Perhaps that is why Tony Snow said today that "at some point this may have to be taken behind closed doors' to be settled. In othere words this can all be explained away.
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 8:58 PM:The last clause of this whole piece is the crux of the matter: "a program the American public was never supposed to know about."
What we have here is something like a set of Russian dolls or Chinese boxes, which fit one inside the other. One small doll or box is an illegal and unconstitutional program, kept secret from the American public - a program which deprives citizens of rights guaranteed under the Constitution. But within that, the true center if you will, is a doll or box representing a secret evisceration of the Constitution - a betrayal of the oath of office. The very basis of a take-over of everything - by means of surveillance.
And it's a secret. A secret we "were never supposed to know about."
Next there are larger dolls or boxes: A set of excuses for and an apparently a fictional picture of what the program is supposed to be. But even then, it's not a program that conforms to the law for how surveillance should be done.
Now another series of even larger dolls. Each one a lie, constructed to hide the other lies. And all the lies put in place to paper over the illegal, unconstitutional encroachments on the rights and privacy of citizens.
For me, I need an image like this so I can wrap my mind around the magnitude, the expansiveness, the vile arrogance of this sweeping criminal conspiracy, together with the lurching attempts to cover it all up. As bits and pieces leak due to all the oversight finally occurring here.
I don't know for sure what's going on. But given all the secret illegal and unconstitutional activity that has come to light so far, I can only conclude that it is best to fear the worst. And for me the worst suggests that the administration has arranged for itself to monitor information in every branch of government, to gather information from both the public and private sectors. And if they can gather it, why would they not have the capacity to disseminate both information and disinformation?
The matter at hand is the perjury of Gonzo-Lies, but the true problem is what his perjury points to. The intention subversion of our very form of government.
Apologies for the long post. I know much of this is conjecture. But I see it as boxes within boxes.
ohiomeister wrote on July 26, 2007 9:09 PM:How many times do we have to make this point:
YOU CAN'T LIE TO CONGRESS, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT UNDER OATH!
That's why Dems were willing to accept Fielding's offer to allow testimony from Rove recently that wasn't under oath.
The stumbling block was the transcript. Without a transcript, any perjury charges would come down to he-said, she-said.
Jen wrote on July 26, 2007 9:18 PM:Thank you, thank you, thank you for a clear and well detailed article. I'm starting to get it...
tekel wrote on July 26, 2007 9:27 PM:from anon at 8:58: And for me the worst suggests that the administration has arranged for itself to monitor information in every branch of government, to gather information from both the public and private sectors. And if they can gather it, why would they not have the capacity to disseminate both information and disinformation?
and then blackmail members of Congress with it. Don't forget the blackmail... that's how this whole goddamn shell game works. That's what you do with intelligence- you use it to destroy your enemies and bind your friends to your will. They're not just using it to keep tabs on what John Conyers is going to wear to the next hearing. They're using it to keep their stooges in line.
Why do you think they allowed Debbie Palfrey to run her call-girl ring for so long? Do you really think they don't have tapes of Vitter wearing a diaper stored safely somewhere? I bet he wants to resign, but he can't do it until Cheney gives him permission, or else the tape will "mysteriously" be discovered.
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 9:29 PM:Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel,
Denali wrote on July 26, 2007 9:30 PM:Thank you for your coverage, work, and reporting. My concern is this implicit conclusion: ["At issue is whether Gonzales' assertions that there was "no serious disagreement" within the government about the TSP was so misleading as to amount to perjury, or whether his distinction between TSP and Program X was merely a careful parsing -- perhaps misleading but not, to use Sen. Arlen Specter's word, actionable."]
I understand that there are many unknowns, but I disagree with the assessment that there is nothing actionable. There may be; but we don't know.
Rather, what we do know is:
1. Either Gonzalez was telling the truth about _this_ program, and there are other programs which have _not_ been coordinated through the FISA court _as required_, another action; or
2. Gonzalez is lying, and that the "TSP" is a broad program with many sub elements; yet, the President did not put that program under the FISA court.
In other words, it appears regardless whether Gonzalez was or wasn't _lying_, he either knows of _one_ or _more_ activities which were not following FISA. This is hardly "not" actionable; but the opposite: Illegal activity.
Again, we don't know, but that's not the issue: The implications are stunning: Either Gonzalez has a big FISA problem, or a _bigger_ FISA problem. Whether he's lying or telling the truth about a big or small illegal activity doesn't appear to be relevant: It's still illegal.
Bottom line......the AG's "careful parsing" of words during
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 9:37 PM:his testimony may allow him to avoid prosecution??
Can any folks with legal experience comment on whether a perjury charge could be successfully prosecuted in this matter in light of the Classified Information Procedures Act? My rudimentary understanding is that CIPA requires that prosecutors produce effective unclassified substitutes for classified exculpatory evidence. If no effective substitute is possible, then the issue is resolved in favor of the Defendant. Since Gonzales would certainly try to defend himself by pointing to the classified differences between the versions of the program (and it seems unlikely that these distinctions could be effectively summarized in an unclassified document), doesn't that essentially make a prosecution kind of pointless?
Iamcuriousyellow wrote on July 26, 2007 9:42 PM:Instead of Project X and TSP we can call these two variations on domestic spying
Bill wrote on July 26, 2007 9:45 PM:"Clearly Unconstitutional Warrantless Domestic Data Mining - Release 1.0"
and NEW improved
"Probably Unconstitutional Warrantless Domestic Data Mining - Release 2.0"
While the Justice Department may blanche at Clearly Unconstitutional Release 1.0, the Bush Administration is more than OK with Probably Unconstitutional Release 2.0. In fact why even acknowledge that there was a Release 1.0 ??
It's hard to keep up with all this but could it be that the "terrorist surveillance program" is just a ghost program while the real program is your Program X? The TSP is what Gonzales and the President talk about in public but it is just a red herring to keep everybody off the real trail. Program X is what Comey was concerned about, the real thing.
Bonnie wrote on July 26, 2007 9:46 PM:But if that's the case, then on January 17 this year, did Gonzales announce the end of the TSP or the end of Program X?
This was really good work; but, wake me up when someone is actually held accountable to these egregious violations of law and the Constitution. I believe that all these crooks are going to get away with all that they have done, which includes murder of all troops sent to this illegal and immoral war and all innocent civilians.
Clay wrote on July 26, 2007 9:46 PM:Hardball commentators got this one right today. Gonzo has to maintain that there was widespread agreement that the wiretapping program was legal. Otherwise, lots of folks are open to criminal prosecution (a felony carrying a significant prison term) under the FISA Act. They are probably worried about this in a long-term sense (e.g., during the Obama administration). So, Gonzo has to dance the dance (and, if it comes to it, take the rap for perjury before being pardoned) in order to protect the President.
angryvietnamvet wrote on July 26, 2007 9:47 PM:RE: testimony from Rove not sworn, not transcripted....Is it a "he said-She said" when you have the recollection of Rove vs. the recollection of 20 other people?
ANd who says it would not be possible to secretly record the interview?
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 9:52 PM:tekel @ 9:27
You've put your finger on it! Thanks.
Corey wrote on July 26, 2007 9:53 PM:Could it be that after Comey and Meuller objected to the version of the program they were asked to sign off on it was changed back to the same program that existed in 2001 and therefor the TSP program and the PROGRAM X could be argued to be one and the same?
I am desperately trying to keep up but it aint easy!!! Thanks for all you do.
SquarePeg wrote on July 26, 2007 9:57 PM:GreenHeron,
You've got it. Everyone is overthinking this. Program X was no more than a new version of Watergate with Bushie/Cheney spying on their political enemies.
If Kerry had been elected all kinds of vile things would have come out of Pandora's box, and all of these criminally immoral people would now be in jail.
Anonymous wrote on July 26, 2007 9:58 PM:I'm calling BS on these "Program X" vs. "TSP" arguments. There's a problem: Recall, NSA had a FISA-compliant surveillance activity. Also, Bush _before_ 9-11 is reported to have started the illegal surveillance. It's premature to think that Gonzalez is only talking about "one" program; or doing it for the "right" reasons: DoJ Staff counsel, while the FISA warrants were supposed to have been getting processed, were not engaged in official business on their computers.
The issue is: How much _data_ are intermediaries, contractors, and non-US-government personnel working for NSA contractors getting access to; and have they obtained the required warrants? If what's happening is the data is routed through GCHQ-Australia-UK-Canada, then back-channelled to NSA contractors around the globe, they've simply described Echelon _without FISA compliance_.
Someone needs to look at the Joint Requirements Oversight Counsel Decision Memorandum [JROC] for the NSA; and get a sense of when the President decided to ignore the existing NSA _lawful_ technology. If, as it appears, the NSA had lawful options, but this program funding was _cut_, it remains to be explained what the Gang of 8 was really reviewing:
A. Just technical details?
B. Was it the minimization procedures?
C. Or were they involved with funding baselines?
Again, to throw this problem to Gonzalez, and say "he's covering up a secret program" amounts to sweeping the many other problems under the rug. I applaud your coverage, but believe it is premature to say that Gonzalez doesn't have a problem. Rather, it appears the problem is much _larger_, touching Congress: When did they know; and when should they have followed up; and what is their explanation for not having fully reviewed the inconsistencies between the JROC guidance; and what the NSA contractors were really doing.
Quest CEO had a reason for balking; and the Verizon General Counsel did not do the same thing. It's too easy to explain this away as a simple "Program X' when there are intermediaries connected with NARUS, AT&T, and AMDOCS. The data mining aspect has not been reviewed; and there's no consideration for the likely RNC e-mail connecting: That of the GOP getting media messaging information from this "other program." Someone at Fleishman Hilliard was on contract -- across multiple agencies -- to do media analysis; yet their contract terms had non-disclosure provisions tighter than Verizon. It's not just the interception of the data, but also _who_ and _what_ had access to that data; and was the _use_ of that data outside what was lawful. Again, just because Gonzalez is "aware" of a "classified" program, doesn't mean the program is lawful; or that it is necessarily related to bonafide national security objective: It could very well be something far more troubling: The illegal use of intercepted data to create media messages designed to _target_ industry and civilian leadership to generate support for what is otherwise _not supportable_. The analysis also fails to consider how the NSA data was captured, and subsequently used t support DHS warrantless interrogations; or planning the rendition flights; and prisoner abuse. Nor does the activity adequately discuss how the legal community developed contracts and oversaw these NSA contractors; and whether legal counsel -- not just in the WH, but also DOJ, NSA, CIA Congress needs to reconcile that: Why was a lawful approach ignored; but the abusive one preferred.
Time for We the People to have an NSA_like capability to oversee Congress, the President, JTTF, and the Courts to ensure we can sample their data, and ensure they are not abusing their authority as they have done. They have recklessly ignored their oath. It looks as through the same contractors who were involved with the _capture_ of the data also benefited by _using_ that data as it relates to prisoner abuse, rendition, and subsequent archiving and translation services. The revolving door is quite nice, especially when at the expense of the Constitution, American public's rights.
deRougemont wrote on July 26, 2007 10:15 PM:I have a recollection of John Bolton (prev. UN Amb) being 'outed' in one venue (911 hearings?) or another, as having made use of the NSA queries associated with the "disclosed" program. What was ever made of that? Given Bolton's sleasiness, the only thing he'd be looking up is some dirt on a politician, diplomat or person of thought other than neocon.
Max wrote on July 26, 2007 10:24 PM:Others who have posted here are exactly right, the original program (X?) probably gave the Pres carte blache to snoop wherever he (or Cheney or Rove) wanted. And it is probably still in force.
I never thought the Congresspeople in the 'Gang of Eight" should have abrocated their responsibility to notify the American people. And if the need for secrecey was so great (in times of 'war'), why hasn't OBL been tracked, why haven't plots been exposed that were terror-lite and ricdiculous? What has the program accomplished, except political thuggery?
I believe their was a news report around 2004 that
Fiyero wrote on July 26, 2007 10:26 PM:the person who invented mcafee stormed out of the
Whitehouse and quit the same day as he reported something to the effect that US did not want a security system but the report never stated what
he was asked to do in the Whitehouse. It may have
been a illegal program Anyone else remember that
article?
Thank you for a superb summary and analysis. I'm afraid I'm also inclined to take very seriously EH's comment that "TSP" and anything we might dub "X" are like dynamic, movable "buckets" and convenient nameplace holders. The whole thing may have been deliberately set up - for maximum deniability purposes - as a hierarchy of programs within programs or, alternatively, a decentralized network of a multitude of programs, some of which could become lumped singly into the "program which the president confirmed" and some of which would remain in the dark. I wouldn't put this past any of them, whose job it is to crack codes and think of ways to create uncrackable ones.
One minor obvservation regarding the following sentence in the post: "That afternoon, the White House called a meeting with the so-called 'Gang of Eight' -- those congressional leaders briefed about Program X -- and Gonzales and Andrew Card made their infamous visit to Ashcroft’s hospital bed that night."
I want to point out that until that point - March 10, 2004 - not ALL of the Gang of 8 had been briefed - prior - about anything related to TSP, according to the Negroponte memo. If the memo is accurate and complete, then Daschle, Hastert, and Frist had not been briefed until March 10 (while Pelosi, Harman, Rockefeller, Roberts, and Goss all had). So we have to be careful not imply that the entire G of 8 had been briefed PRIOR to that date. That was their first day briefed all together.
Emptywheel has a great post today looking at the names and meeting dates in that memo, in which she also notices that briefings initiated by Cheney are not listed.
skeletonman wrote on July 26, 2007 10:57 PM:If you want to get shrub and chub (dickie darth cheney), then the answer is simple - threaten Gonzo with multiple counts of perjury and contempt of congress and initiate impeachment procedings.
Then grant the slimeball blanket immunity in exchange for testimony on his bosses and watch him sing like the scared little puke he is.
Platner Brook wrote on July 26, 2007 11:14 PM:Does the Gang of Eight know exactly what either Program "x" or TSP is? What information do they get? If they know what's going on, and its a violation of the Constitution, why can't they just say that (not reveal the details, but say publicly that there is a serious consitutaional problem)? Procescutable? Maybe Hillary would pardon the brave sole and grant a Medal of Freedom.
interested litigant wrote on July 26, 2007 11:47 PM:I'd say the 'gang of four' know what it is as the other 'four' who can't keep their mouths shut can't know what it is.
JNagarya wrote on July 26, 2007 11:51 PM:I am no longer angry. I am afraid. I now believe that impeachment is a higher priority than even the war. The war will end. Unchecked, this treason will be enshrined as patriotism.
Posted by: laocoon
Date: July 26, 2007 8:49 PM
I've been saying since at latest mid-2001 that impeachment is inevitable: nothing less than that will stop this criminal enterprise.
JNagarya wrote on July 26, 2007 11:58 PM:ANd who says it would not be possible to secretly record the interview?
Posted by: angryvietnamvet
Date: July 26, 2007 9:47 PM
Gee, let's condemn the unethical, and possibly illegal, by engaging in the unethical, and possibly illegal.
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 12:32 AM:Thanks for a really superb analysis.
I was struck by this exchange in the hearing between Senator Whitehouse and Gonzales. In response to questions by Whitehouse, Gonzales testified that Ashcroft had been read-in on the “program at issue” from the very beginning and they (the White House) believed they had Ashcroft’s approval for “intelligence activities” from the very beginning. He said this a couple of time - they believed they had his approval. But every time Gonzales said Ashcroft approved, he went off on a tangent and said there were complicated, additional facts and he wanted to be fair to Ashcroft. It sounded like Whitehouse might have been trying to find out if the “program” or “activities” Ashcroft approved was the actual program at issue. Whitehouse asked him if would be reflected in any document, and Gonzales said yes.
oldtree wrote on July 27, 2007 12:37 AM:It is a police state. Mr. Mueller and Comey were willing participants in something they know was illegal. The complained about something that was grossly illegal.
We have no heroes here folks, only scabs whose testimony open wounds and fissures. These two above both opened and closed them to hide them. Some amount of totalitarianism seems to be okay with them. Why hasn't the FBI been asked if it collected information by illegal means on Congress members?
Guess extortion, bribery, obstruction of justice, lying to congress, lying to the FBI, (thats a good one considering), wiretapping of political enemies, contempt of congress, inherent contempt of congress, dissemination of material known to be false, using evidence known to be false, conspiracy to obstruct investigations of known wrongdoing, et al and etc...., are just de rigueur for these two heroes.
this makes both of these people criminals of high order, and they are the ones we have to count on to do the right thing?
the butterfly is waking up and it needs to take a piss.
ahem wrote on July 27, 2007 12:37 AM:Just to clear up some of the terminology: Negroponte's 2006 memo conflates the acknowledged TSP and 'Program X'. That might be useful for covering up the tracks, and it may be attractive for pursuing Abu G on perjury, but it's misleading. And kudos to Kiel and Ackerman for pointing out that muddying the distinctions between what was acknowledged in December 2005 and what was rejected by Comey and Goldsmith in March 2004.
Program X, I'd guess, is far closer to Poindexter's TIA. Automated mass filtering of voice and data, with a bit of datamining thrown in for good luck.
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 1:04 AM:Yes, ahem, good old poindexter, the prick. Recall that members of congress put enough pressure on the WH over the TIA program being flagrantly illegal and over-broad in its reach that the WH claimed to abandon it.
I figured then that they would just re-name it and move it to a shop protected by the cloak of national security. No way they were giving that monster up so easily. So here it is, in all its ugly glory. Total Information Awareness - in the literal sense...that's how broad it is. ANd now it's known as Program X!
The Boo Hoo Band wrote on July 27, 2007 1:33 AM:I am happy to see that Josh Marshall is beginning to see the light regarding impeachment.
Splendid article on a very convoluted subject. Mr. Gonzales is a very amazing man. Such a shame he's working for the dark side.
Judging from the article and the comments, one would have to project nothing less than a military coup will depose Bush/Cheney. I would like to see them impeached and removed from office, but expect little chance of conviction by the Senate.
Captain Nemo wrote on July 27, 2007 1:45 AM:"My son said, you mean like he's standing up and saying "shoot me, please'.
Could they be keeping Alberto as AG against his will, at this point?
Posted by: Constance Shea
Date: July 26, 2007 8:36 PM"
Only until the Congressional recess
Paul wrote on July 27, 2007 1:50 AM:Note that 3/11 is a six-month benchmark from 9/11 - this might be obvious, but sounds like Program X started on the infamous date in 2001.
The Oracle wrote on July 27, 2007 2:17 AM:"In a move that may prove crucial, the administration convinced then-committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) not to swear in Gonzales for that hearing."
Arlen Specter cannot be trusted to anything more than a Bush crime family sock puppet.
Keith Olbermann mentioned on his program tonight that Specter missed today's hearing because he was flying with President Bush on Air Force One.
Hmmmm.
Too bad we'll never know what was discussed between Specter and Bush, but I'm certain it had something to do with them "strategerizing" about what Specter needs to do to thwart Democrats from delving any deeper into the criminality of the Bush administration.
Or maybe it had to do with the Bush gang on board warning Specter away from his looking into perjury committed by Roberts and Alito in their Supreme Court confirmation hearings. We all know these two "good" Catholics lied to get seated on the Supreme Court, where they've been following the dictates of Bush's political operatives and the Pope, overturning sixty years of legal precedents in the process. But for Specter to even raise this issue of perjury by Roberts and Alito must have panicked the White House, so Specter gets a plane trip with the President, probably to straighten him out, to warn him to stick with the program.
And the program?
To subjugate our freedom-loving democracy to the dictates of right-wing ideologues and religious fanatics, as well as white supremacists and corporatists. (Or as some people call it: Fascism).
And poor, poor Arlen is acting as an accessory.
Bill W wrote on July 27, 2007 3:15 AM:Maybe there is a project X and maybe there isn't. Did Gonzales just want to drag out this "other" secret program, if there is one or not, just to better set up having the whole thing thrown out on state secrets grounds?
Am I wrong in thinking this? Isn't that what threw roadblocks in the ACLU v NSA, Sibel Edmonds v Dept. of Justice, Khaled El-Masri v Tenet, Steven J. Hatfill v. NYT, Hepting v AT&T (Alleging Complicity in Illegal NSA spy program), etc....
Bill W wrote on July 27, 2007 3:19 AM:Maybe there is a project X and maybe there isn't. Did Gonzales just want to drag out this "other" secret program, if there is one or not, just to better set up having the whole thing thrown out on state secrets grounds?
Am I wrong in thinking this? Isn't that what threw roadblocks in the ACLU v NSA, Sibel Edmonds v Dept. of Justice, Khaled El-Masri v Tenet, Steven J. Hatfill v. NYT, Hepting v AT&T (Alleging Complicity in Illegal NSA spy program), etc....
malia wrote on July 27, 2007 4:37 AM:Just want you to know how much I appreciate this kind of strong analysis and the effort that goes into it.
Halcyon wrote on July 27, 2007 7:23 AM:I think there's a simpler explanation for Alberto Gonzales' testimony: When he keeps referring to 'the program that the president described' it's not 'the program' to which he refers, but rather to what the president said. I believe the president lied about the program he was describing (insisting only international communications were being monitored). By trying to limit his testimony to 'what the president said' Gonzales is not really talking about the TSP, or Program X. He's only trying to speak to what the president said. It is because what the president said bears no relation to the actual surveillance program that the confusion arises. What the Judiciary Committee has to do is parse out this distinction in order to try to get real answers. The AG is protecting the president from taking a hit for lying about the surveillance program.
We are falling for the ruse by trying to scope out whether the program changed after March 10, 2004. The Committee has to insist that AGAG answer questions about the program, rather than about 'what the president described'.
Again: 'the program that the president described' was a fiction, not the actual program. Confining his testimony to the president's fictional program is a way to avoid revealing anything about the real program. I don't know how one could find AGAG guilty of perjury for talking about a fiction when he told the committee that he would only be testifying about the fiction.
Waiting for Truth wrote on July 27, 2007 8:49 AM:Mr. Gonzales will depart only in time for the president to make a Congressional-recess appointment.
JEP wrote on July 27, 2007 8:50 AM:I'm thinkin' that's been the plan since the first hearing.
Tony Snow can say that Mr. Gonzales is leaving "to spend more time with his family."
Bet we get Fred Fielding.
"Poindexter's TIA."
And, we have a winner!!!
Old spies never die, they just fade into the woodwork, along with their listening devices...
The scary part isn't that they are trying to make this all legal, what worries me is that we all don't seem to realize that IT HAS BEEN GOING ON EVER SINCE POINDEXTER STARTED IT!
Poindexter's privacy-eating beast never was dismantled or terminated, it was quietly instituted despite it's known illegalities.
And everything since then has been for the purpose of legitimizing it, even as it spies automatically on ALL of us.
No tin-foil hats a tingling here, all this is information is available, id you look at the history and evolution of TIA, and the mysterious disappearance act it performed, you have to come the inevitable conclusion that TIA never went away, it only go bigger.
Waiting for Truth wrote on July 27, 2007 8:52 AM:Halcyon,
party-of-one wrote on July 27, 2007 9:03 AM:I think you've hit the nail on the head.
Wouldn't this still be an issue for Mr. Gonzales, though, since he swore to tell "... the whole truth..."?
The detailed research/documentation is impressive, but wasn't the conclusion obvious from the outset?
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 9:07 AM:Comey’s disagreement was “not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.”
Well, no kidding... since "what " the president announced to the American people is the watered-down version of what Comey would agree to
MNW wrote on July 27, 2007 9:10 AM:Just remember...this "administration" relies heavily on the "hey, look over there" bait-and-switch tactic.
So while everyone is eye-balling Gonzales and his OBVIOUS, by design, lies...what are we missing that's happening in the other direction?
Phillybits wrote on July 27, 2007 9:21 AM:I haven't read all the comments but while watching some analysis on this last night, I had a thought.
Aside from the idea that there's yet another program (and how it allows Gonzo some wiggle room to beat a perjury charge), isn't it fairly possible that the administration could fight back and say that because we've been pressing so much on Gonzo on the TSP, that in order for Gonzo to clear his name once and for all, he's going to have to reveal the nature of the hospital conversation, which will (by moving the goalposts) involve the disclosure of a new and otherwise unknown security program aimed at protecting us and that by disclosing this information to clear Gonzo, Democrats are putting the nation at greater risk by exposing this "other" program and tipping the turrists off to our plans and methods?
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 9:30 AM:Great analysis, Spencer and Paul. And great comments too. Apologies to others with similar posts but these comments express my thinking:
MediaFreeze:"Anything discussed at the meeting and the hospital was, by definition, Project X. It only became TSP once it was watered down. So he wasn't lying. See?"
rubberpants:"In order for Gonzales to use Project X as an out from perjury, the administration will have to acknowledge it's existence and enough information about it to prove that it is the same program as the TSP. They wouldn't have let him use this tactic unless they already had a plan that would allow them to do this in such a way as to not incriminate the whitehouse."
greenheron:"Program X? I'd guess they were spying on any American they wanted, including political enemies, and possibly even the campaign of John Kerry."
tekel:"and then blackmail members of Congress with it. Don't forget the blackmail... that's how this whole goddamn shell game works. That's what you do with intelligence- you use it to destroy your enemies and bind your friends to your will. They're not just using it to keep tabs on what John Conyers is going to wear to the next hearing. They're using it to keep their stooges in line."
re stooges: Why do you think Specter, Lindsay Graham, and others speak out against Bush but then vote with him? He's got something on them or a close family member, more likely. I truly believe this is the reason people like Colin Powell and perhaps some generals have caved on their convictions.
mpower1952 wrote on July 27, 2007 9:31 AM:Great analysis, Spencer and Paul. And great comments too. Apologies to others with similar posts but these comments express my thinking:
MediaFreeze:"Anything discussed at the meeting and the hospital was, by definition, Project X. It only became TSP once it was watered down. So he wasn't lying. See?"
rubberpants:"In order for Gonzales to use Project X as an out from perjury, the administration will have to acknowledge it's existence and enough information about it to prove that it is the same program as the TSP. They wouldn't have let him use this tactic unless they already had a plan that would allow them to do this in such a way as to not incriminate the whitehouse."
greenheron:"Program X? I'd guess they were spying on any American they wanted, including political enemies, and possibly even the campaign of John Kerry."
tekel:"and then blackmail members of Congress with it. Don't forget the blackmail... that's how this whole goddamn shell game works. That's what you do with intelligence- you use it to destroy your enemies and bind your friends to your will. They're not just using it to keep tabs on what John Conyers is going to wear to the next hearing. They're using it to keep their stooges in line."
re stooges: Why do you think Specter, Lindsay Graham, and others speak out against Bush but then vote with him? He's got something on them or a close family member, more likely. I truly believe this is the reason people like Colin Powell and perhaps some generals have caved on their convictions.
bigfatdrunk wrote on July 27, 2007 9:33 AM:This is truly exceptional work. Chilling, but outstanding nonetheless.
Dan wrote on July 27, 2007 9:53 AM:Interesting theory, but it seems to be just one possible reason for the careful language parsing. I'm not convinced it captures the scope of the deception and illegal activity.
I hope Dems and investigators do not confine the scope of their inquiry to the theory put forth here.
Deadeye Dick Cheney wrote on July 27, 2007 10:12 AM:I hope that the Democrats in Congress realize that they themselves are prime targets for this surveillance and wiretapping. It's just the same crap Nixon tried with the Watergate burglars taken to a new level of technological sophistication. Republicans can't win without cheating.
cfaller96 wrote on July 27, 2007 10:17 AM:Other commenters have already said this, but it bears repeating: I find it hard to believe the Bush Administration would fight this hard on a (relatively) harmless data-mining or pen register program the NSA was running.
If it was a surveillance program that only occasionally caught the Pizza Hut or Aunt Edna in the dragnet, there would be no reason to vehemently conceal this. There's a reason they're fighting so hard, and I speculate it's because they used the NSA to spy on political enemies.
Occasionally catching Aunt Edna's conversations is one thing...listening to all of MoveOn's and the DNC's conversations is quite another.
FRP wrote on July 27, 2007 10:19 AM:Few things would bring my attention to focus more pleasantly than sanctions for the tormentor of Anita Hill (I have a letter in my pocket) and the mealy mouthed protector of the Constitution circa 2006 .
TheraP wrote on July 27, 2007 10:21 AM:Well good luck with the stiff backed prosecutor's pose Arlen !
All your fan in Massachusetts
Goofy
TPM people - you continue to outdo yourselves.!
Tiny comment only as I accidentally posted yesterday without attribution.
Ever since Colin Powell appeared to turn on a dime and present a case for war to the UN, I kept wondering... "what did they use to turn the guy?" And now we know...
Golspinner wrote on July 27, 2007 10:26 AM:At this point, could Gonzales face RICO charges?
kentuck wrote on July 27, 2007 10:35 AM:What exactly was in "Program X"? And was it in effect even before 9/11? We can only speculate. However, if it was so bad that Mueller and Ashcroft objected to it, then it must have been truly and obviously illegal?
Were they spying on average Americans? Were they spying on the political opposition? Were they eavesdropping on members of Congress? From the history of lies and obfuscation, I would suggest that all of the above may be true.
However, we will never get to the bottom of it unless there is a "Deepthroat" that is presently holding the information. Mr Ashcroft? Mr Comey? The oath of secrecy of this information does not over-ride the national interest. We should hope that someone comes forward. They would be a true hero to America.
Bindarra wrote on July 27, 2007 10:36 AM:mpower1952 wrote: "He's got something on them or a close family member, more likely. I truly believe this is the reason people like Colin Powell and perhaps some generals have caved on their convictions."
Powell's wife Alma suffers from severe depression -- a disabling ailment I battle as well. I wouldn't be the least surprised if Cheney threatened to make details of her treatment public.
Or something about his son Michael, who was severely injured in a Jeep crash -- and married to a white woman. You know Cheney would love to stir up some racial muck.
None of this stuff should be available to Cheney or anyone else. But you know it is, and he's precisely the slimy type of bastard who'd take advantage of that.
Goldspinner wrote on July 27, 2007 10:37 AM:Clarification of the above question: could Gonzales face RICO charges if it can shown that he does not have absolute official immunity?
dead last wrote on July 27, 2007 10:46 AM:Let's not forget this interesting event, as reported by AP:
Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry
NSA won’t grant Justice Department lawyers required security clearance
Updated: 7:41 p.m. CT May 10, 2006
WASHINGTON - The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
The inquiry headed by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers’ role in the program.
“We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program,” OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey. Hinchey’s office shared the letter with The Associated Press.
Louise wrote on July 27, 2007 11:02 AM:Gee- ya think that the Bush/Cheney White House could conceivably have used the authorization of the Patriot Act spying program to spy on their political enemies? Really? Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit. Who woulda thunk that a Republican President would ever do such a thing - and in our lifetime, too.
Seriously, didn't every Democrat that lived through the Nixon years already assume this was happening? The law is written so that everyone who has "materially contributed" or "supports" those who might be related to vaguely defined "terrorism" will be wiretapped and investigated without a warrant. Hell, they can even be picked up and thrown in a detention camp.
"Card-carrying members of the ACLU", or of Move On, or of PFAW, or of the Democratic party itself, could all be argued to qualify for surveillance. Certainly their cultists understand, and make no bones about calling all Americans that support these groups "terrorist sympathizers," "traitors", and "treasonous". The cultists would consider the White House remiss if it WASN"T tapping your phone, Josh.
That is the main blowback that I can see from revealing the full dimensions of these political wiretappings and their subsequent use to blackmail and to effect elections: a large percentage of the American population will think that the whole thing is just great, and that all Democrats should be implanted with GPS chips so that they can be located more easily on Great RoundUp Day.
For seven years, the media has called us "Conspiracy Theorists" and "tinfoil-hat nutcases".
We have called the media monumentally naive, blind, and ahistorical sloths, who have sold this once-great republic for a mess of pottage.
Mark F. wrote on July 27, 2007 11:03 AM:It's maddening to watch Specter tear into Gonzales during questioning, clearly aware that Gonzales is perjuring himself, and then tear into Shumer after the questioning is over. Specter is 100% FDA Approved Pure Boneless Nitwit.
Louise wrote on July 27, 2007 11:07 AM:By the way, can someone better at catchphrases than I give me a shorter way to call the MSM "monumentally naive, blind, and ahistorical sloths, who have sold this once-great republic for a mess of pottage." That's a bit of a mouthful.
cfaller96 wrote on July 27, 2007 11:14 AM:Louise, just call them stupid. Or Very Serious People (TM).
Chas wrote on July 27, 2007 11:15 AM:So what is Program X? Nothing short of TOTAL Information Awareness. I think 1984 is NOW! Every single data point available anywhere from government and corporate networks, traffic cameras, Opt out actions, travel and financial transactions (motel, gasoline, Air Line, Bus), Do not call lists, cell phone communications, EVERYTHING any of us do that a track able record is made (all communication) are recorded and correlated in the DATA BASE of the lord (bush). It's for your security because it's a dangerous world. "We must deceive the public in order to protect the public". That is what government minions think.
It's been a secret program for years and will never stop or be dismantled. Think of it as "everything is corporate espionage" to maintain "free trade".
High Tech fascism is NOW. Now go to work and shut UP!
KYJurisDoctor wrote on July 27, 2007 11:18 AM:Gonzales is bring all this on himself by not leaving!
http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-trouble-for-gonzales-as-p-word-is.html#links
molly wrote on July 27, 2007 11:28 AM:Remember when Poor Martha Stewart lied to a FBI agent. We were assured it was the cover up that landed her in jail. All I can say is she must be a democrat because cover up is business as usual for these criminals. They don't like to be questioned about their cover ups either.
molly wrote on July 27, 2007 11:31 AM:Remember when lying to an FBI agent landed poor Martha Stewart in jail. We were assured it was the cover up. She must have been a democrat. The criminals in DC don't like to be questioned about their cover ups.
kentuck wrote on July 27, 2007 11:33 AM:I remember Watergate. And how long it took for the story to finally break. We knew most of the details in 1972. But, Nixon did not resign until August, 1974.
Now, I get the same deja vu feeling with this story. All we need is one person or one revelation to break this wide open.
They are hiding something. But what is it? I think it is the same type of information that the Watergate conspirators were trying to hide. Many people knew what was going on at that time but no one was willing to break from their loyalty to their Party or their President.
Now, here we are experiencing another hot summer of conspiracy theories and cover-ups. But, my hunch is that if this story were to break, it would not just destroy this Presidency, it would destroy the Republican Party as we know it. Would that be a bad thing?
However, this bunch is much more clever than the Nixon White House. They will not permit an Independent Counsel and they are even more loyal to the nimrod now in charge. They will excuse everything as Democrats simply playing "politics".
So, we are doomed once again to experience the purgatory of another assault upon our Constitution by a bunch of criminal partisans intent on nothing except enriching themselves and their greedy friends.
litigatormom wrote on July 27, 2007 11:33 AM:My theory about Rockefeller and Harman's insistence that there was only "one program" and Mueller's testimony that the program at issue was the NSA warrantless surveillance program, and the memo about the 3/10/04 Gang of 8 meeting:
1.Administration "briefings" about the program to the Gang of 8 and the DOJ were initially misleading as to its true scope. The Gang of 8 was never told the full story.
2. At some point, however, the DOJ discovered that the NSA warrantless surveillance was MUCH BROADER than they had previously disclosed. They decided that it couldn't "reauthorize" because they had never realized that they were authorizing these additional aspects in the first place.
3.The WH didn't tell the Gang of 8 on March 10, 2004 that Comey was objecting to aspects of the program that they had never been told about (because that would mean telling them about those concealed aspects).
4.Abu G told the Gang of 8 that Comey was refusing to reauthorize "the same program" that DOJ had been authorizing for years. Hence, the Gang of 8's insistence that there was only ever 1 program.
5. This leads to Abu G's testimony that the DOJ never objected to the program the president confirmed because the president never confirmed all the parts of it to which DOJ objected. Hence, his "technically accurate" testimony.
6. BUT if Abu G's defense to perjury before the Senate is that the pre- and post- March 2004 versions of the program are so different as to constitute different programs, that means he LIED to the Gang of 8 when he told them that Comey was refusing to "reauthorize" the "same program."
7. Comey testified that Bush told Mueller that the program would be changed to deal with DOJ's objections. But how do we know that really happened? Bush was initially willing to go ahead and continue the program without DOJ authorization, according to Comey -- in fact he did, pending the changes that were supposedly made several weeks later that DOJ wanted. But what if Bush simply TOLD DOJ that the changes were being made, and they continued to conduct the "other" activites in secret?
Am I wearing a tinfoil hat?
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 11:36 AM:6. Bush told
I have believed since the start of the ramp up to the war, that these swine were driven by a dangerous ideology combined with astounding short sightedness. But until the testimony of AGAG, it didnt dawn on me whats really going on. They really believed KR's permanent majority plan and have implemented everything in every dept with the "knowledge" that they will never have to be accountable to anyone again.
I am not a conspiracy buff, but this is the only conclusion that I can come to based on their behavior. Now that they have to be somewhat accountable (lost election), all the actions of all the exec branch for the last 4 plus years are cannotstand the light of day. Everything they have done is imperial power.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
security code: free... fredo would say: how quaint
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 11:43 AM:"Project X" or not, Gonzo just set up having the whole perjury charge leveled at him over the Ashcroft bedside incident thrown out of court on state secrets grounds.
Bushco has been using the state secrets privilege to kill many cases. That's how they threw roadblocks in ACLU v NSA, Sibel Edmonds v Dept. of Justice, Khaled El-Masri v Tenet, Steven J. Hatfill v. NYT, Hepting v AT&T (Alleging Complicity in Illegal NSA spy program), etc I could go on.
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 11:50 AM:You got 2 names,.....sometimes its convenient to call it Program X because there's aspects that are illegal,...sometimes its convenient to call TSP because those other aspects are sorta legal,...just like sometimes its convenient for Cheney to claim executive privilege under executive branch and other times not because he's under the legislative branch.
Pure Semantics, they are obviously doing shit they shouldn't be doing and we're powerless. We need a whistleblower to blow a hole in this boat.
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 11:50 AM:re: arlen spector
Living in Pa for last 20+yrs trust me when I tell you he is the master of "moderate" soundbite, but in reality just another GOP hack.
cevrero wrote on July 27, 2007 11:50 AM:Dont count on him to do anything that will make bush and co uncomfortalbe.
You got 2 names,.....sometimes its convenient to call it Program X because there's aspects that are illegal,...sometimes its convenient to call TSP because those other aspects are sorta legal,...just like sometimes its convenient for Cheney to claim executive privilege under executive branch and other times not because he's under the legislative branch.
Pure Semantics, they are obviously doing shit they shouldn't be doing and we're powerless. We need a whistleblower to blow a hole in this boat.
Austin Cooper wrote on July 27, 2007 11:56 AM:I agree with Ackerman and Kiel's analysis. This is ground zero.
The Senate and House Judiciary Committees will demand much from the White House. Bush and Cheney will claim Executive privilege and refuse, obfuscate, deny and delay.
Executive privilege is the key, the only card the 'administration' has left to play. And that card is all that stands between the breaches of law that 'Program X' may have committed (and they'd have to be immense for so many to threaten resignation over it), and Congressional oversight.
And that's the real battle, here -- whether the Executive branch stands superior to the Judiciary branch, and the Legislative... whether it stands above The People of The United States, and the Law.
If Congress prevails (and given the current, politicized makeup of the Supreme Court, that's a definite "if"), then the floodgates on the sewage created by this the 'administration' will open.
If Congress loses... then we've crossed a red line in the precedents of American government, and it will be tougher to go back without more clarity and effort than we possess at this point in our history.
MNW wrote on July 27, 2007 12:16 PM:I wrote this on another thread, but it was supposed to go on this one...
Donning my tin-foil...
Is it possible that a component of "Project X" includes re-directing phone calls and emails, etc to a server or servers outside of the United States, then bouncing them back to the United States in order to "force" them into being "international"?
Do the phone companies, etc (the internet purveyors) own and operate servers outside of the United States? I can only imagine that they do. What if part of this program required them to redirect specified traffic/data (specific phone numbers, specific people, specific MAC addresses, specific IP addresses, specific email addresses, etc) to servers outside of the United States in order to then label them "international", thus circumventing the "international" requirement?
I wouldn't put it past this "administration" to do such a thing...given that they circumvent any and every law they feel like bypassing.
JimBob wrote on July 27, 2007 12:16 PM:Hats off to you guys for thoroughness and incisiveness. Writers like you are our only hope.
kevo wrote on July 27, 2007 12:17 PM:Ilike the meme of keeping its own in line with this illegal data mining. This WH has beem Orwellian from the get go, and remember in 1984 it was the party members who needed to be the most cautious in regard to Big Brother. Yeah, now I get it, these Neocons throw anyone of themselves who question their grand narrative under the bus. What a ruthless way to exercise "democratic" principles! -Kevo
Nathan Miller wrote on July 27, 2007 12:19 PM:Excellent analysis. The administration's position is very, very thin on this one. It seems to me that in practice it will boil down to another 'trust me.' They will claim that there was an entirely different program, and will simultaneously claim that they can't substantiate the existence of that program because it's classified. But it existed. Really. We'll just have to trust them.
This is so transparently flimsy that it amounts to daring someone to contradict an obvious lie. It reminds me of a schoolyard bully, holding a limp and bloody victim, staring the teacher down and saying, "My friend here just fell down the stairs."
dbl06 wrote on July 27, 2007 12:19 PM:The first rule of despotism is to convince the majority of the populace that, "I will keep you safe" from an evil you don't fully understand. "I can't tell you all I know about the evil because it will hamper my ability to keep you safe". Rule no. 2: Use imaginary and/or real threats(an occassional legitimate threat adds to the anxiety) to keep the public fearful and focused. Rule 3: Insist that ultimate power must reside in The Protector (Despot) to make those clandestine decisions neccessary to keep us safe. Rule 4: Descent is treasonous!!
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 12:20 PM:I agree with laocoons' take on this (7/26 8:49PM), do GOP wingnuts really want any of the dem candidates to pick up the ball power-wise and run exec like shrub has? If I were a wingnut Id be very nervous looking at political landscape and seeing real possibility of Hillary using signing statements, shrinking supreme court by 2 (last in first out), any other nightmares those types have. I think Id be pretty receptive to sacrificing W.
AK wrote on July 27, 2007 12:39 PM:It should be noted that Gonzalez purposely put himself in a troubling position by bringing up the Gang of Eight meaning during the hearing. He was the one who brought up the meeting, and he seemed intent on doing it. He obviously had planned that to be his response to questions about the hospital visit. He almost seemed anxious to lie. Unfortunately for him, other people were at the meeting and contradict what he said.
anon wrote on July 27, 2007 12:40 PM:Amazing really, the hospital visit is an issue because he said there wasn't disagreement regarding the legality of the TSP, and the visit is clearly an example of disagreement. However, in order to defend that trip, he pointed to the meeting with the Gang of Eight to show cause for going to the hospital. But Gonzo faces another problem when we get this far, because he's also said their's only one domestic spying program. He now claims that he wasn't lying about disagreement regarding the TSP because the Gang of Eight was referencing a different program, one that he before said didn't exist.
By him bringing the Gang of Eight meeting into the evidence, he's put himself in a position where he either lied about their being no disagreement, or he lied about whether or not there is more than one program, the TSP.
How much do you want to bet a lot of Democratic operatives somehow got mixed in with the TSP list?
osage wrote on July 27, 2007 1:06 PM:Gonzales MUST BE IMPEACHED NOW in order to get to the truth. It is clear he is lying. Trying to ascertain precisely what he is lying about can't be accomplished without the testimony and disclosure that an impeachment would facilitate. The vast majority of the American people will cheer their approval if impeachment proceedings are initiated against Gonzales. It would be positive both legally and politically for Democrats to do so.
osage wrote on July 27, 2007 1:07 PM:IMPEACH GONZALES IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER!!!
Austin Cooper wrote on July 27, 2007 1:13 PM:I'm coming back here after reading Dave Niewert's analysis of the Executive Order involving seizure of assets and property, and I have to calm *way* down.
There is no ready answer, and pure speculation wouldn't be helpful -- but the real question I keep asking myself is:
"What could 'Program X' have been, that it would cause even Ashcroft to refuse to sign off on it, and Mueller, Comey, and senior DoJ personnel (none of whom could be considered Liberals) to threaten to *resign in protest* if it *were* reapproved?"
Understand something -- there had already been debate within Justice over the use of torture, and *so long as there was a legal basis for it*, torture appeared to be acceptable to this same crowd.
What was Program X?
TheraP wrote on July 27, 2007 1:20 PM:Austin:
I've been extremely concerned about that EO involving seizure of assets etc. ever since it came out.
At the time, Austin, I was certain that we were seeing a convergence of puzzle pieces being locked into place -- the dictatorship in place, along with all the tentacles of repression.
annex wrote on July 27, 2007 1:21 PM:When I was growing up in the 1950s, the joke around Washington was that "NSA" stood for "No Such Agency". In Fall 2005, I met some people who worked there and mentioned the old joke. One muttered, "It doesn't stand for that anymore. It stands for "Nothing's Sacred Anymore".
I know there are career NSAers who must be sick over this. This is another example of the "de-professionalization" effort the Bush administration has been implementing throughout the government.
Austin Cooper wrote on July 27, 2007 1:29 PM:TheraP, this is OT, but I share the same concerns.
Niewert takes great care to analyze the import of that Order and walks a fine line in presenting a case for real concern -- and the concern is that such an Order has been written at all.
It's getting hard to know where the line is between being alarmed, and letting your imagination run away with you... and when life starts imitating not just fiction but *science* fiction -- like, Phillip K. Dick -- that worries me more than anything else.
bluestatedon wrote on July 27, 2007 1:38 PM:I doubt whether we'll learn the whole truth, at least until after the current administration leaves. IF we ever do, I guarantee that the reason the Bushies are so anxious to hide the real nature and scope of Project X or whatever you want to call it is that it involved extensive spying on domestic political opponents, including but not limited to the Kerry campaign.
Doing so would fit very comfortably within the value systems of Karl Rove and George Bush, and Bush is surrounded by people whose stated beliefs make it a given that they would enthusiastically endorse such activities.
Did the Watergate burglars get caught breaking into the Soviet or Vietnamese embassy? Or the headquarters of the American Nazi Party? Or the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan? No, it was the Democratic National Committee offices, and the coverup of that "third-rate burglary" is what brought Nixon down. That's what Bush is so desperately trying to avoid.
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 2:06 PM:I agree with bluestatedon, these guys have been operating on the assumption that there is/was a permanent GOP majority. The past election caught them off-guard, and there is cracks in the levee everywhere. I think what we're seeing at DOJ is probably exactly the same at every dept in the government. If you look, the clues are in plain sight. They ran with this "we are in power and will stay in power forever" Rovian fantasy (ring any bells from from Euro history?)
Louise wrote on July 27, 2007 2:09 PM:So because they didnt think they needed to be careful(no oversight), they werent. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Lets tear down the curtains!
I feel Im entering tinfoil hatland, but I really believe these guys are out to end the republic as we now know it.
Bluestatedon,
You say that we will not learn "the whole truth, at least until after the current administration leaves." You must have confidence in the Bush sense of ethics that I do not share. What makes you think that they will risk leaving office? As moondancer and others ask, "do GOP wingnuts really want any of the dem candidates to pick up the ball power-wise and run exec like shrub has?" Of course not! But they don't think that day is going to come.
Rove has been working since he was a freshman in high school to turn this into a one-party state - by hook and by crook. The arguments that he and Cheney are making regarding the "unitary executive" and "executive privilege", and the crimes that they have committed in the name of "fighting terrorism" show that they intend never to leave. Period. They may permit "elections", but they will never leave. (Shrub will retire, but he is only the coverboy.)
All of their domestic policy arguments serve one end: to keep them - the financial forces behind the Bush administration - in power in perpetuity.
But the power isn't for its own ends. Right now, the power is all about endless - really, ENDLESS- war profiteering. The power they want is the freedom to loot the Treasury of both present tax dollars and all future tax dollars for the next 200 years. It is the freedom to arrange the tax structure, credit system, and employment system - not to mention health care and old age pensions - so that the middle class is reduced to the penury and stuggle of the lowest classes, and all middle class wealth is transferred to them.
That is why we are fighting "terrorism." It is a war without end, which must never ever be stopped, and which is all about the Money. Not the oil - which is okay, but not the big draw. The big score is the never-ending public financing of corrupt and incompetent cronies who are getting paid to "fight the war", and will continue to suck the dollars until they are all gone and the nation is bankrupt.
By the time that happens, Cheney and Rove will have managed to finance a new American noble class, which will all live in fortified castles, passing on their hereditary wealth and status, and calling on their serfs for work, wages, and soldiers.
Brush up on your 13th century history - that's the model we're aiming for.
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 2:41 PM:To be honest, Louise, I hadn't even thought about the extension of their teutonic fantasy to the social order, but it makes sense. Without a middle class. Middle ages were trickle down in action.
Steve5117 wrote on July 27, 2007 2:52 PM:Louise
Where is our Don Quixote?
witlist wrote on July 27, 2007 3:41 PM:a better question, perhaps: where are the ethical republicans? james comey may be one, arlen specter may be another, but where is our John Dean? where is the insider who will come forth with the truth?
another plausible theory about that hospital visit by the panicked hispanic.
1. ashcroft DID sign off on extra-legal spying after 9/11.
2. the group of 8 initially approved, provided the program was renewed every 45 days (as Bush said).
3. when the 45-day period was about to expire in march 2004, they suddenly realized ashcroft was no longer the US AG. they knew, or suspected, that the acting AG (comey) would not reauthorize the illegal spying.
4. they tried to do an end run by going back to a sure thing -- ashcroft - for reauthorization. but comey got wind of it and showed up before gonzo and card got there.
5. ashcroft, faced with the real AG in the room, refused to sign. the bushies had to 'adjust' the program to get it reauthorized.
make sense?
witlist wrote on July 27, 2007 3:42 PM:a better question, perhaps: where are the ethical republicans? james comey may be one, arlen specter may be another, but where is our John Dean? where is the insider who will come forth with the truth?
another plausible theory about that hospital visit by the panicked hispanic.
1. ashcroft DID sign off on extra-legal spying after 9/11.
2. the group of 8 initially approved, provided the program was renewed every 45 days (as Bush said).
3. when the 45-day period was about to expire in march 2004, they suddenly realized ashcroft was no longer the US AG. they knew, or suspected, that the acting AG (comey) would not reauthorize the illegal spying.
4. they tried to do an end run by going back to a sure thing -- ashcroft - for reauthorization. but comey got wind of it and showed up before gonzo and card got there.
5. ashcroft, faced with the real AG in the room, refused to sign. the bushies had to 'adjust' the program to get it reauthorized.
make sense?
MNW wrote on July 27, 2007 3:44 PM:Right on!
The "war on terror" is their means of placing a pipeline into the US Treasury and sucking out OUR money and giving it to their friends (with a fee of course).
The real war that's being waged (ala the "look over there...nothing to see here so move along" tactic) is the war on the middle class.
The wealthy are robbing the rest of us blind, and by the time something actually gets done to stop them, it'll be too late...and it probably already is.
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 4:04 PM:Does make sense, witlist. Ashcrofts "spine" has bothered me. I think he grew one when Comey went to him w/objections. Sort of a death bed conversion. I dont think AGAG and bolten would have bothered to risk trip to ICU w/out real expectation of Ashcroft compliance.
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 4:30 PM:I'd be REAL interested in hearing Goldsmith testimony, and follow-up w/Comey, even if its closed session w/redacted synopsis released.
While we're being paranoid, does anyone really think these guys would hesitate to keep program X rolling as it was while writing a acceptable fantasy version for Comey? Whose going to stop them. They are home team and umpire all in one.
Remember, to them oversight is a pesty fly that needs swatting.
Anonymous wrote on July 27, 2007 6:31 PM:Let's not forget that the New York Times had the story in 2004 around the presidential elections, but chose to bench it for an ENTIRE YEAR. LA Times, too.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Clearer_timeline_emerges_for_New_York_0812.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/nyti-a22.shtml A damning admission New York Times concealed NSA spying until after 2004 election
moondancer wrote on July 27, 2007 7:31 PM:Incidently, the trip to hospital is exactly why fredo will never leave unless in chains. Look at the extreme discomfort caused by Comey, who was really considered a team player. Imagine the problems for Cheney and Rove if there was a real AG; their house of cards falls almost immediately.
code: where, as in where are the patriots who will end this nonsense
wrknt wrote on July 28, 2007 7:29 AM:laocoon is kind of right. This is treason but it looks like it is here to stay.
jah627 wrote on July 28, 2007 11:02 AM:The dems are going feign indignation- stamp their feet -and wait to benefit from the '08 landslide. The thing that ANY poitician hates is accountability. NO one likes to be scrutinized. Bush has been so eager to avoid any accountability that he has sacrificed his whole party - with their blessing. In the process he has laid the GOLDEN EGG for all politicians including the incoming democrats. The dems will continue to give Bush/Cheney every opportunity to embarass themselves and then step into control of the congress and the administration with the precedents of NO ACCOUNTABILITY intact. Pelosi said right up front that impeachment is off the table--sure- we are not going to stop the nut job from paving the way for us to operate unfettered. Conyers is going to RELUCTANTLY issue supeonas to Harriet Meyers et al. Get tough--fat chance!! The dems will continue to PRETEND to hold the wack job accountable but they don't want to really set any tough precedents that they will have to live with. We are Screwed. Unless the media steps up to the plate and earns its freedom of the press.
Whew! Its enough to make your head spin. Let's go back to the begining.
After 9/11, we "discovered" that, while the FBI had enough information to uncover the 9/11 plots, it did not have the ability to combine its agents' reports in a cohesive analysis.
Recall that the Administration's somewhat ludicrous response to the FBI's inability to handle the information it had, was to propose that it astronomically increase the amount of information collected. Logically, this made no sense -- we can't deal with the information we have, so we should drastically increase the amount of information we collect.
But there's a dirty little secret: overseas, we knew something was coming. Embassies and military bases were on standby alert. How can this be? Answer: NSA had picked it up monitoring overseas calls and internet traffic. But they weren't allowed to tune their considerable electronic ears to calls within the US.
First try: TIA. Which is shot down, pre-Patriot, Patriot II, etc..
Second try (whether or not First Try was covertly continued): Executive orders to enable NSA to listen in on domestic traffic, allow Defense Department personnel to operate within the US, and pre-emption of FISA restrictions. Surprise! this is followed by apparent installation of eavesdropping equipment at domestic switching centers.
All classified of course, so that when inklings of the program are exposed, through a glass darkly, by the NYTimes etc., there is no way to get to the bottom of it.
Except, they're really bumbling incompetents, and AlbertG et al are left dangling on hot seats while Rome burns...
Anonymous wrote on July 28, 2007 5:29 PM:"While we're being paranoid, does anyone really think these guys would hesitate to keep program X rolling as it was while writing a acceptable fantasy version for Comey?"
Posted by: moondancer
Date: July 27, 2007 4:30 PM
DNC continued funding of things that it "can't get answers on" answers your question: Yes, they are keeping "somethign that they _know_ they don't know about" still funded. That's recklessless. Either
A. They knoew what is "really" going on and are lying about wanting to engage in "new oversight", when all they're doing is more of the same; or
B. Despite "not knowing" what is going on, they still fund it.
That's malfeasaance and 5 USC 3331. US Attys don't have the "swing vote"; and a cominbed Presidential-Congressional decision to Not enforce teh Constution is meaningless: State AG's can enforce the Constitution as well.
NC Dem wrote on July 28, 2007 7:14 PM:One correction to the story above. The President never told Comey personally to make the necessary changes to the program. Look at the actual testimony by Comey. He clarifies his statement and says that when he left the President, Bush was still not convinced. Comey ask him to meet with Mueller to hear his concerns also. Bush then told Mueller to let Comey know to make the necessary changes to the program. Small point but all the pieces need to be in the right place to make this puzzle work. Great work on this project.
anon wrote on July 28, 2007 9:00 PM:The post above that starts "I'm calling BS on these "Program X" vs. "TSP" arguments." is worth scrolling up to reading. Esp. in light of today's NYT article that says project X was (is) a data mining operation. Fine, okay, there was a date mining operation but I think there was _a lot_ more going on than just a plain vanilla data mining operation. The NYT article reads to me like damage control and not real journalism. There are way too many bits and pieces that we know about that just fit into the clean scenario outlined by today's NYT article. And, duh, who had access to the programs--contractors?, GOP operatives?--and what kind of oversight might have occurred are surely as important questions as what data the programs were sifting through and how.
Also, I'd like to say that I went back to the early 2005, shortly after the NYT broke the fist big (well, outside, say Slashdot) NSA warrantless wiretapping story and, whew, it was like reverse deja vu. Did you remember that Barron's was calling for Bush's impeachment based on the wiretaps? There seemed to be a consensus that we needed to get to the bottom of the NSA story and make those who broke the law accountable. And here we are, two years later and it's like we are starting from scratch. Damn.
Code: screw
anon wrote on July 28, 2007 9:05 PM:Argh. The no preview business here and the odd delays posting are my excuse. That said, sorry for the hideous typos.
Well, the code is: free
db wrote on July 29, 2007 1:55 PM:Well, in defense of Gonzo, now the admin is leaking that Program X was "data mining" (which was Poindexter's TIA program core). The TIA data mining program included technology that transcribed phone conversations and e-mail text that could then be mined. However, I think what they are hiding went much further.
Step back for a second. Gonzo has testified that program x activities commenced after 9/11 but before adoption of the patriot act. (See Anonymous Liberal's blog) That means it started in fall 2001. The prez claims that he was legally authorized to do this as COC, and also under the authorization for use of military force. The argument is that the president's powers are at their zenith at time of war and in defending the country.
We all knoiw bush. He instinctively over-reaches no matter what he is doing when in pursuit of Cheney's objectives. And we have seen that nothing was sacred in this WH and everything is politicized. Look what Rove did to the DOJ (and Cheney, now that we know he had parallel access and authority over doj). Apply Occam's razor to these circumstances. What did they do? The absolute maximum they could. The president was not bound by the law, only by the limits of his power as CIC. According to the WH and Cheney, there really is no limit on the CIC powers. Anything goes so long as it is in defense of the nation.
So what would that be? Everything our intelligence services were capable of. EVERYTHING. That means real-time monitoring of domestic phone calls and e-mail of anyone thery want without oversight, bugging and easedropping, surveillance, black-mail, infiltration of news media, etc.
Do you really think bush is going to use restraint once he grabs total power for himself with no one watching or able to find out? I don't think so. And as rove has demonstrated in the DOJ US attorney scandal, even this use of power would be poloticized. Ever breath they take in that admin is political, aimed toward consolidating power.
So, this is our watergate. Gonzo is the firewall. There are others, but with him in charge of DOJ, that means Cheney is in charge. Once he goes, as Josh has noted again and again, it will be much harder to keep the lid on the investigations and the illegal activities.
Congress has to wake up and recognize that they may be forced to choose between impeachment and survival of the constitution. There will be no middle ground with this gang, because this is it for them, do or die.
code: sheep (possibly an endagered species or the defining characteristic of those who hold the future of our democracy in their hands, it's up to congress)
db wrote on July 29, 2007 2:07 PM:One minor correction (substantive, that is)
"Anything goes so long as it is in defense of the nation."
Should read
"Anything goes so long as it is done while bush