In praise of John Ashcroft

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
If successful, nothing would be gained that wouldn’t have been gained by riding out the current administration. A better strategy is for the Democrats to ride herd on Bush with vigorous oversight and investigation.
[/QUOTE]
I dunno. What might be gained is a fear in future presidents that playing fast and loose witht he lawwill not be tolerated. Could an impeachment now have deterrence value for corruption in the future?

Daniel

[OneCentStamp]

[QUOTE=Club 33]
And a big “fuck you” to Tony Snow as well with this little nugget of wisdom: “Because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn’t work?”
[/QUOTE]

That’s right, Tony. What’s your excuse?

[Mr.Svinlesha]

Hmmm… old fogies like myself can’t figure out how you young wippersnappers edit your posts.

Please substitute the “Yoo” for my misspelling “Woo” in post #27, dagnabbit.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
I really don’t see where anyone did anything wrong here.

John Ashcroft was continuously recertifying the program every 45 days
[/quote]
Apparently without having a clear idea of what he was regularly rubber-stamping, until James Comey and Jack Goldsmith showed him.

Let’s do a little timeline:

Sometime in 2002: John Yoo writes classified DoJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion justifying the Administration’s secret domestic wiretapping program.
From behind the Times firewall:

While a mere deputy assistant attorney general in the legal counsel office, Mr. Yoo was a primary author of a series of legal opinions on the fight against terrorism, including one that said the Geneva Conventions did not apply and at least two others that countenanced the use of highly coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects. Recently, current and former officials said he also wrote a still-secret 2002 memorandum that gave legal backing to the administration’s secret program to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans and others inside the United States without federal warrants.

April 2003: Jack Goldsmith appointed Assistant Attorney General to head up the OLC.

Summer 2003: Yoo leaves DoJ for academia.

October 2003: James Comey appointed Deputy Attorney General.

October 2003 - June 2004: Goldsmith, with Comey’s backing, re-eamines Yoo’s work, notably his memoranda on interrogation and wiretapping practices:

For nine months, from October 2003 to June 2004, [Goldsmith] had been the central figure in a secret but intense rebellion of a small coterie of Bush administration lawyers.

Former colleagues say strains with the White House began after the arrival in 2003 of Jack L. Goldsmith to head the department’s Office of Legal Counsel. With Mr. Comey’s backing, Mr. Goldsmith questioned what he considered shaky legal reasoning in several crucial opinions, including some drafted by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.

Mr. Goldsmith’s review of legal memoranda on the N.S.A. program and interrogation practices became a source of friction between Mr. Comey and the White House.

March 10, 2004: Everyone plays Keystone Kops in Ashcroft’s hospital room:

In the jittery aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration had pushed the top-secret National Security Agency to do a better and more expansive job of electronically eavesdropping on Al Qaeda’s global communications. Under existing law—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, adopted in 1978 as a post-Watergate reform—the NSA needed (in the opinion of most legal experts) to get a warrant to eavesdrop on communications coming into or going out of the United States. Reasoning that there was no time to obtain warrants from a secret court set up under FISA (a sometimes cumbersome process), the Bush administration justified going around the law by invoking a post-9/11 congressional resolution authorizing use of force against global terror. The eavesdropping program was very closely held, with cryptic briefings for only a few congressional leaders. Once again, [David] Addington [Cheney’s right-hand man] and his allies made sure that possible dissenters were cut out of the loop.

There was one catch: the secret program had to be reapproved by the attorney general every 45 days. It was Goldsmith’s job to advise the A.G. on the legality of the program. In March 2004, John Ashcroft was in the hospital with a serious pancreatic condition. At Justice, Comey, Ashcroft’s No. 2, was acting as attorney general. The grandson of an Irish cop and a former U.S. attorney from Manhattan, Comey, 45, is a straight arrow. (It was Comey who appointed his friend—the equally straitlaced and dogged Patrick Fitzgerald—to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak-investigation case.) Goldsmith raised with Comey serious questions about the secret eavesdropping program, according to two sources familiar with the episode. He was joined by a former OLC lawyer, Patrick Philbin, who had become national-security aide to the deputy attorney general. Comey backed them up. The White House was told: no reauthorization.

The angry reaction bubbled up all the way to the Oval Office. President Bush, with his penchant for put-down nicknames, had begun referring to Comey as “Cuomey” or “Cuomo,” apparently after former New York governor Mario Cuomo, who was notorious for his Hamlet-like indecision over whether to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1980s. A high-level delegation—White House Counsel Gonzales and chief of staff Andy Card—visited Ashcroft in the hospital to appeal Comey’s refusal. In pain and on medication, Ashcroft stood by his No. 2.

A compromise was finally worked out. The NSA was not compelled to go to the secret FISA court to get warrants, but Justice imposed tougher legal standards before permitting eavesdropping on communications into the United States. It was a victory for the Justice lawyers, and it drove Addington to new levels of vexation with Goldsmith.

March 11, 2004: Bush allows wiretapping program to continue without DoJ approval.
March 11, 2004: Ashcroft, Comey, and others threaten to resign.
Mid to late March 2004: DoJ modifies wiretapping program to the point where Ashcroft, Comey are willing to sign off on it.

[The_King_of_Soup]

Just as an aside, does anyone know why I haven’t read or heard so much as a “Mr. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment?” He isn’t dead or incapacitated now, is he?

By the way – the man may have had unbreakable standards, but they weren’t based on the Constitution or the law. They were the product of his own personal interpretation of Pentacostalism. He was perfectly willing to compromise the Bill of Rights for his own purposes. He just couldn’t see how Bush’s wiretaps helped accelerate the Rapture.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
They went to Ashcroft (when they knew he was sick and incapacitated) to try to do an end around Comey. They initially intended to sneak in there under of cover of darkness without witnesses. Comey literally had to race them there and warn Ashcroft what was happening.
[/quote]
And you can’t forget that FBI Director Mueller felt he had to call ahead and tell the FBI agents in Ashcroft’s security detail at the hospital to not let Gonzales and Card throw Comey out of the room.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

Nice review, RT.

Thanks.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=The King of Soup]
Just as an aside, does anyone know why I haven’t read or heard so much as a “Mr. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment?” He isn’t dead or incapacitated now, is he?

By the way – the man may have had unbreakable standards, but they weren’t based on the Constitution or the law. They were the product of his own personal interpretation of Pentacostalism. He was perfectly willing to compromise the Bill of Rights for his own purposes. He just couldn’t see how Bush’s wiretaps helped accelerate the Rapture.
[/QUOTE]

John Ashcroft

He’s still around and still an asshole, if you ask me.

[Mtgman]

[QUOTE=Mr. Svinlesha]
Hmmm… old fogies like myself can’t figure out how you young wippersnappers edit your posts.

Please substitute the “Yoo” for my misspelling “Woo” in post #27, dagnabbit.
[/QUOTE]

You get a five minute edit window after you make your post during which time there will be a big “edit” button in the bottom right corner if you view that post. So basically it’s for the stuff you missed if you did a quick reply and didn’t proofread. If you don’t find it on the first re-read after posting, you may as well make a follow-up post because your edit window is closed anyway.

Enjoy,
Steven

[wring]

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
I really don’t see where anyone did anything wrong here.

[/QUOTE]

Color me unsurprised. Must be difficult to see anything in your situation.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=Mr. Svinlesha]
Nice review, RT.

Thanks.
[/QUOTE]
No prob. And glad to see you back!

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Bush is slicker than a Sunday green at Augusta.
[/QUOTE]

For some reason this totally cracked me up. I think it was the “not so old country saying” flavor.

[marshmallow]

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
March 11, 2004: Bush allows wiretapping program to continue without DoJ approval.
March 11, 2004: Ashcroft, Comey, and others threaten to resign.
Mid to late March 2004: DoJ modifies wiretapping program to the point where Ashcroft, Comey are willing to sign off on it.
[/QUOTE]

I can hear the Republican talking point from here, if they haven’t used it yet (or maybe they haven’t been pushed back against the wall enough): Well, Comey and Ashcroft signed it so it must be legal and in tip top shape. Why don’t you want us to listen to terrorists/communist lefty groups like the Quakers and the ALCU?

[MovieMogul]

[QUOTE=The King of Soup]
Just as an aside, does anyone know why I haven’t read or heard so much as a “Mr. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment?” He isn’t dead or incapacitated now, is he?
[/QUOTE]
Just this from Salon (bolding mine):

One more question about James Comey’s extraordinary testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday: If Comey is wrong – if Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales didn’t try to take advantage of a desperately ill and disoriented John Ashcroft to get authorization for a warrantless wiretap program the Justice Department had already rejected; if FBI Director Robert Mueller wasn’t so worried about what Card and Gonzales were doing that he didn’t order his agents to keep them from removing Comey from Ashcroft’s hospital room – then why isn’t anyone denying Comey’s account today?

As the New York Times reported this morning, spokesmen for Ashcroft, Mueller and the Department of Justice have all declined to comment on Comey’s accusations, and Card didn’t respond to a reporter’s inquiries about them.

[MovieMogul]

Also from Salon: Did Card and Gonzales Break the Law?

The little visit Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales paid to John Ashcroft in his hospital room was brazen and breathtaking. It turns out it also may have been illegal.

Neil Katyal, the Georgetown law professor who served as a national security advisor in Bill Clinton’s Justice Department, tells Time that “executive branch rules require sensitive classified information to be discussed in specialized facilities that are designed to guard against the possibility that officials are being targeted for surveillance outside of the workplace.” Is a hospital room at George Washington such a “specialized facility”? Not exactly, Katyal says. “The hospital room of a cabinet official is exactly the type of target ripe for surveillance by a foreign power,” he explains.

As we noted the other day, no one involved – not Card, not Gonzales, not Ashcroft, not George W. Bush, not the White House – has denied James Comey’s account of the hospital visit. And in refusing to do so Thursday, the president inadvertently conceded one of the elements of potential unlawfulness here: He said he wasn’t going to address Comey’s allegations because they involved a “highly sensitive” and “highly classified” subject matter.

How is the administration responding to word that Card and Gonzales – and, presumably, whoever sent them to Ashcroft’s hospital room – may have been breaking the rules? Well, you can probably guess. “I am not going to speculate on discussions that may or may not have taken place, much less attempt to render a legal judgment on any such discussions,” Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, tells Time.

[wring]

well, wouldn’t that be the capping on the oyster?

I’ts always the coverup that gets folks in the end. so to speak.

[Steve_MB]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Slate link

To elaborate a little on the story, Comey testified that after he refused to sign off on the President’s Secret Peeping Tom program (while Comey was acting as AG while Ashcroft was in the hospital), the White House sent Alberto Gonzales and Andy card to go bum rush Ashcroft in the hospital and try to browbeat him into signing off on it himself. The arch-conservative, Ashcroft, while incapacitated and disoriented from surgery, still had enough wherewithal to throw their asses out of the room.

Good on Ashcroft. Who knew the old bastard had a soul inside him after all?
[/QUOTE]

That visit from the ghosts of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln seems to have had its intended impact.

[Steve_MB]

[QUOTE=Tony Snow]
Snow replied, “Because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn’t work?”
[/QUOTE]

OK, so which conditions do cause that effect?

You might want to start with your boss’ medical records…

[Mr.Svinlesha]

For those interested, here is a link to a very interesting discussion between Glenn Greenwald, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, and former Reagan DOJ official Bruce Fein on these issues.

Fein’s reaction is particularly noteworthy, given his apparently impeccable conservative credentials. Someone in the discussion characterizes the whole mess as a “slow motion coup d’etat against the Constitution and the Rule of Law”. Fein, the Reaganite, is pissed off that the Democratic congress hasn’t already initiated impeachment proceedings. In fact, he sounds a bit like Liberal in his condemnation of the Democratic Congress.

[jayjay]

[QUOTE=Mr. Svinlesha]
Fein, the Reaganite, is pissed off that the Democratic congress hasn’t already initiated impeachment proceedings. In fact, he sounds a bit like Liberal in his condemnation of the Democratic Congress.
[/QUOTE]

It would be nice if all of these people who are angry at the Dem 110th would have been angry enough at the Republican 109th for doing NO oversight whatsoever to actually have spoken out at that time…