Hillary Said Appoint a Gitmo Champion; The Opposite Happened

By:  Friday May 17, 2013 10:15 am

There’s a weird detail in this Daniel Klaidman piece on Obama’s claimed newfound commitment to closing Gitmo.

One of the new details in it describes a memo Hillary Clinton wrote just before she left the State Department.

One recent plea, two sources told Newsweek, came from Hillary Clinton, who, just before she left office in January 2013, sent a two-page confidential memo to Obama about Guantánamo.

[snip]

Now, in one of her last moves as secretary of State, she was making a final effort to prod her boss to do more. Her memo was replete with practical suggestions for moving ahead on Gitmo. Chief among them: Obama needed to appoint a high-level official to be in charge of the effort, someone who had clout and proximity to the Oval Office. Further, Clinton argued that Obama could start transferring the 86 detainees who’d already been cleared for release. (Congress has imposed onerous restrictions on the administration’s ability to transfer Gitmo detainees—including a stipulation that the secretary of Defense certify that detainees sent to other countries would not engage in acts of terrorism. In her memo, Clinton pointed out that the administration could use “national-security waivers” to circumvent the restriction.)

The Clinton missive perturbed White House aides, who viewed it as an attempt to put them on the spot, according to a senior administration official. It’s unclear how Obama himself reacted to the memo; there’s no evidence that it spurred him to action.

I thought to myself as I read this, “but Clinton’s departure is precisely when the Administration moved backwards on this front, by reassigning Daniel Fried, who had been in charge of resettling detainees.” Fried’s reassignment was reported January 29. That was technically while Hillary was still at State — Kerry took over on February 1.

Still, whoever transferred Fried, she must have written that memo (which pissed off Obama’s minders) at almost precisely the moment State eliminated the person most focused on working towards Gitmo closure.

Klaidman doesn’t entirely ignore this detail. Six paragraphs later he mentions the transfer.

For much of the past few years, without any signal that Obama was going to fight on Gitmo, the policy drifted. Daniel Fried, the veteran State Department official in charge of resettling detainees, was transferred to a different position.

Still, there must be a story explaining why Fried got transferred at precisely the moment Hillary, technically still his boss, was calling to redouble the effort to close Gitmo.


Group Behind Deadly Kabul Blast Upset by Negotiations on US Troops Remaining in Afghanistan

By:  Friday May 17, 2013 9:15 am

There was a deadly blast in Kabul yesterday, shattering what had been several months of relative peace in the capitol. The suicide blast targeted a convoy of US vehicles. From the New York Times:

Hezb-i-Islami, a relatively small insurgent faction that often competes with the Taliban for influence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen Afghans. Haroon Zarghon, the group’s spokesman, reached by telephone in Pakistan, said the bombing was carried out by a 24-year-old man who had grown up south of Kabul.

More attacks against Americans will come soon, Mr. Zarghon added, saying that Hezb-i-Islami was dismayed by the current talks between Afghanistan and the United States about a long-term security deal under which thousands of American soldiers could be based in Afghanistan for years to come.

Hezb-i-Islami has a complex history and has been around Afghanistan for a long time. Even Kimberly Kagan’s Instutite for the Study of War admits that the CIA funneled significant support to this group in fighting the Soviets:

Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is an insurgent group active in Afghanistan. It is a splinter group of one of the prominent , and the most radical of the seven mujahedeen factions fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Hekmatyar , a favorite of the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, received the greatest portion of foreign assistance to the mujahedeen.  Hekmatyar trained Afghan and foreign guerilla fighters in the refugee camps of Shamshatoo and Jalozai in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and also ran numerous schools and hospitals in NWFP. His organization  also received funds from Saudi charity organizations, Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, and other wealthy Arabs.

The political side of the group, however, is active in the current government and is contemplating fielding a candidate for the upcoming Presidential elections:

The party’s deputy chief Ghairat Bahir said that a delegation of four senior party figures are in Kabul meeting local members to discuss the election and possible presidential candidates.

“We have sent a delegation to Kabul. The delegation is led by Mohammad Rassoul. Its purpose is to visit and discuses [sic] with Hezb-e-Islami members in Kabul, not to talk with [Afghan] government officials,” he told TOLOnews via telephone from Pakistan.

“The delegation has talked with the party members about the election and the party decided to introduce a candidate or support a competent candidate. We will soon make a final decision on this. I cannot name the candidate but our party’s nomination will be a prominent person in the country,” Bahir said.

The presence of US troops in Afghanistan is the primary concern for the group: Continue reading →


Did AP Learn about Fake UndieBomb 2.0 because Real Marshals Deployed to Prevent It?

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 9:03 pm

In my next post, I’m going to revisit this post, where I showed 372 days ago that at least one or two of the major early sources for the most damning information on UndieBomb 2.0 came from non-US based sources.

But before that, check out this passage from the ABC story that first revealed UndieBomb 2.0 was an inside job.

The plot appeared timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, but the bomber did not get as far as purchasing plane tickets or choosing a flight. As ABC News first reported last week, the plot led the U.S. to order scores of air marshals to Europe to protect U.S.-bound aircraft. Flights out of Gatwick Airport in England received 100 percent coverage, according to U.S. officials.

While I haven’t been able to find the reporting in question [update: see below], at least according to the article, ABC had been told the previous week — around the same time the AP first learned about the purported UndieBomb 2.0 plot — that there was a massive effort on the part of the US Air Marshals to cover a bunch of US-bound planes …

… that the Intelligence Community knew had no UndieBomb on board.

Continue reading →


Dzhokhar’s Sharpie Manifesto

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 8:07 pm

CBS had a fascinating scoop this morning, reporting that (presumably in the hours when he was holed up and authorities searched just blocks away), Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a part-confess part-manifesto on the wall of the boat.

The note — scrawled with a marker on the interior wall of the cabin — said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims “collateral damage” in the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” Tsarnaev wrote.

Tsarnaev said he didn’t mourn older brother Tamerlan, the other suspect in the bombings, writing that by that point, Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise — and that he expected to join him there soon.

The CBS version of the story suggests this sharpie manifesto may make up for any evidentiary problems given the FBI’s refusal to give Dzhokhar a lawyer.

Miller explained that while Tsarnaev admitted many of the same details to authorities during his 16 hours [sic] in custody, those admissions came “during the time he was interrogated but before he was given his Miranda warning.” The note gives prosecutors supporting and clearly admissible evidence even if there is an fight over whether things Tsarnaev said before he was given his Miranda rights are admissible as evidence.

Though it’s unclear whether CBS’s reporter came to this conclusion on his own or that’s what his sources told him.

Which brings us to this laughable detail in the ABC version of the story.

Spokespeople for the Massachusetts State Police and the Watertown police had denied the existence of the writings when first asked about them by ABC News two weeks ago.

Today, both departments referred reporters to the FBI. A federal law enforcement official confirmed reports first broadcast by CBS News that writings had been discovered inside the boat.

The discovery of writings intensified tensions between the FBI and local police when FBI agents believed some Boston officers and state police had taken cell phone pictures of the writing.

Agents demanded the phones of all officers at the scene the night of the capture of Dzhokhar be confiscated to avoid the photos becoming public before being used as evidence at trial, according to two law enforcement officials.

A FBI spokesperson said agents cannot confiscate phones without a warrant and officials said none of the police approached would agree to turn over their phones to the FBI.

Hahahaha! The cops would turn over their phones, with their evidence of Dzhokhar’s manifesto, without a warrant!!!

Hahahaha!

Only, there’s something funny about the story. Why would cell phone pictures of the manifesto matter if the FBI had properly documented photos taken immediately after the arrest when the chain of custody was intact? I mean, I could see worrying about tainting the jury pool, but the leaked content of the interrogations already said all this stuff anyway.


DOD Won’t Be Taking Over Drone Strikes Anytime Soon

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 5:42 pm

In today’s Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the AUMF, Carl Levin asked Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict Michael Sheehan whether CIA should get to use drone strikes, in addition to DOD. (at 1:29)

Levin: Should the use of these drones be limited to the Department of Defense or should other government agencies be allowed to use such force as well, for instance the CIA.

Shaheen: Mr. Chairman, the President has indicated that he has a preference preference for those activities be conducted under Title 10 [that is, DOD], we’re reviewing that right now, but I think we also recognize that that type of transition may take quite a while depending on the theater of operation.

That language — depending on the theater of operation — would seem to suggest the problem is target country dependent. Which is to say, the CIA will not give up its authority to use drones in Pakistan and/or Yemen anytime soon.

The reasons why that’s true presented in this Defense Week article aren’t all that convincing. The article starts with the claim that moving CIA’s drone targeting to DOD wouldn’t make much difference, in part because it’s always a uniformed Air Force pilot pulling the trigger to kill someone.

It does point to some nifty toys that CIA has acquired through its more “agile” contracting regime.

The CIA has outfitted its Air Force UAVs, all purchased from General Atomics, with special features, sources say. They say the agency has a more “agile” contracting process than the Air Force.

The refits include four-bladed propellers, which enable the CIA UAVs to take off from shorter runways and may give them a higher operating ceiling as well. With more blades, “you can slice through more air,” one UAV expert said.

The UAVs assigned to the CIA also carry more advanced sensors. For example, they shoot high-definition, 1080p full-motion video, while the Air Force UAV sensors offer just standard definition. Air Force drones may be used as much to gather intelligence as for airstrikes, where CIA UAVs are configured so they can watch, gather intelligence, and eventually kill.

But in either case — at least this article claims — whether DOD or CIA flies the drones, the targeting relies on Counterterrorism Center intelligence.

One former intelligence officer points out that the most important part of the entire program isn’t the UAVs at all. It’s the intelligence that officials use to pick their targets. And that’s the part the Air Force would have the most difficult time getting, if it were not for the CIA.

“Where is the intelligence going to come from in the first place?” he asked rhetorically. “The targeting? It’s the CTC,” the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

Which of course doesn’t explain what about the theaters in which CIA owns the drones  rather than DOD (which the article agrees are Pakistan and Yemen) would make it so hard to transition.

I suspect the reasons are different for each. In Pakistan, we’re facing a new Prime Minister in Nawaz Sharif who has claimed to be skeptical of drones. And we’re facing the tensions between Pakistan’s security establishment and its democratic government that necessitate a thoroughly unconvincing kabuki about whether Pakistan consents.

There’s a similar tension in Yemen, too. In addition, I suspect we’re captive to what our drone base hosts in Saudi Arabia want. And there was never much chance they were going to accept a partner other than the old Riyadh Station Chief, John Brennan, run their drone program.

In other words, nothing will change anytime soon. As has been clear in every single piece that simultaneously said DOD would be taking over drone killing even while admitting there would be exceptions tied to Brennan for quite some time.

Surprise: Obama’s National Security people are going to keep saying they’re moving drones to DOD, even while admitting they don’t mean that’s happening right now.


Did Tommy Vietor Hang Out CIA on UndieBomb 2.0?

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 12:36 pm

The same day that the White House released 94 pages of Benghazi emails, which not only show that most at CIA supported the talking points used by the Administration but also include annotations of the CIA roles involved that reveal far more about CIA’s structure than any FOIA response I’ve ever seen, Tommy Vietor went on the record about UndieBomb 2.0 with both the WaPo and MSNBC. It appears he did so to reinforce the fear-mongering language Eric Holder used (though like Holder, Vietor doesn’t explain why John Brennan got a promotion after contributing to such a damaging leak). He said this to WaPo.

Vietor said that it would be a mistake to dismiss the unauthorized disclosure because al-Qaeda failed to carry out its plot.

“We shouldn’t pretend that this leak of an unbelievably sensitive dangerous piece of information is okay because nobody died,” he said.

But the WaPo account also seems to serve (like the Benghazi email dump does) to place blame on CIA.

It answers a question I hinted at yesterday: whether the CIA and White House were on different pages on what to do with the AP story. Reportedly, after AP had given the CIA time to kill Fahd al-Quso (the WaPo doesn’t mention that was the purpose of the delay), CIA’s Mike Morell told the AP the security issue had been addressed, but asked for one more day. As AP considered that request, the White House overrode that discussion.

Michael J. Morell, the CIA’s deputy director, gave AP reporters some additional background information to persuade them to hold off, Vietor said. The agency needed several days more to protect what it had in the works.

Then, in a meeting on Monday, May 7, CIA officials reported that the national security concerns were “no longer an issue,” according to the individuals familiar with the discussion.

When the journalists rejected a plea to hold off longer, the CIA then offered a compromise. Would they wait a day if AP could have the story exclusively for an hour, with no government officials confirming it for that time?

The reporters left the meeting to discuss the idea with their editors. Within an hour, an administration official was on the line to AP’s offices.

The White House had quashed the one-hour offer as impossible. AP could have the story exclusively for five minutes before the White House made its own announcement. AP then rejected the request to postpone publication any longer.

This must be the crux of the animosity here. CIA told AP the danger had passed (though according to some reports, our informant was still in Yemen). At that point, the AP should have and ultimately did feel safe to publish. But then the White House made this ridiculous request, effectively refusing to let AP tell this story before the White House had a shot at it.

Which is why this claim, from Tommy Vietor, is so absurd.

But former White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor, recalling the discussion in the administration last year, said officials were simply realistic in their response to AP’s story. They knew that if it were published, the White House would have to address it with an official, detailed statement.

“There was not some press conference planned to take credit for this,” Vietor said in an interview. “There was certainly an understanding [that] we’d have to mitigate and triage this and offer context for other reporters.”

Jeebus Pete! If your idea of “mitigating and triaging” AP’s fairly complimentary story is to make it far, far worse by hinting about the infiltrator, you’re doing it wrong!

Vietor, who presumably had a role in setting up the conference all at which Brennan tipped off Richard Clarke (though according to Brennan, he did not sit in on the call), insists to MSNBC that telling someone we had “inside control” of this plot does not constitute a gigantic clue that the entire plot was just a sting.

Tommy Vietor, then chief national security spokesman for the White House, disputed the idea that Brennan disclosed sensitive details in his background briefing and said  it was “ridiculous” to equate Brennan’s use of the  phrase  “inside control” with having an “informant.”

It’s a nonsense claim, of course. Someone fucked up the “mitigating and triaging” process, and that’s what made this leak so dangerous, not AP’s initial story. But, presumably because AP didn’t let White House tell the official story before they reported their scoop (and did they plan on telling us all we had inside control on the op if they got to tell the story first?!?), the AP has, as far as we know, borne the brunt of the investigation into the leak.

For the moment let me reiterate two more details.

It appears that Vietor is blaming CIA for the way this went down. And guess what? The guy who blathered about “inside control” has now taken over the CIA.

Then there’s this. Eric Holder noted yesterday that the investigation into David Petraeus for leaking classified information — understood to be limited to his mistress Paula Broadwell, mind you — is ongoing. That means the FBI interview he had on April 10 was not sufficient to answer concerns about his involvement in leaking classified information.

It’s interesting this is coming down to a conflict between White House and CIA, isn’t it?


What Is the Attrition Rate for Afghan Special Operations Forces?

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 10:41 am

Yesterday, Major General Tony Thomas, who heads US Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, fielded questions via satellite from a number of reporters gathered in Washington. The transcript of the session can be found here. One claim by Thomas that stood out to me as  I listened was an assertion that Afghan Special Operations Forces do not suffer the same high level of attrition that is seen generally for ANSF. Here is the exchange, where Thomas’ response to the first half of the question has been edited out and emphasis has been added:

 Q: General, it’s Luis Martinez with ABC News. Can I ask you about what your command’s role is going to be after 2014? What — will there be a shift in emphasis? What exactly will your operators be doing?

And also, the Afghan national army as a whole seems to suffer from attrition and retention problems. How does that manifest itself in the commando kandaks, if at all?

MAJ. GEN. THOMAS:

/snip/

We are not suffering similar attrition or, as we prefer to look at it, retention challenges with the commandos and with other formations. But again, here again, we’re lucky. We’ve been working with them for a while. They are on a cycle which has a built-in break, so it’s a great, amber, red cycle, where green, combat is on the schedule, they are going into operation and they know that they’ll have, you know, a — they’ll be applied in the hardest possible scenarios. But on the other cycles, they’ll have a chance to recoup, take leave. They’ll also have a chance to train as they come back into green cycle.

And I know that others are attempting to apply that same cycle to the rest of the force. That’s been the great challenge for the rest of the Afghan security forces, is they’re almost in a relentless combat cycle, and it’s breeding some of the retention challenges. But we are — we are looking to fix that over time, and, again, the special operations example is applicable to the rest of the force. We just need to bring that into line.

I noted at the time Thomas said this that it should be fairly easy to fact-check Thomas on his claim that Afghan Special Forces do not suffer the same high attrition rate as the rest of ANSF. One reason for my thinking this is that Afghan Special Forces are not nearly as highly trained as US Special Forces. There is only a twelve week extra training period for Afghan troops to be classified as special. I have a hard time seeing how such a short period of additional training will add significantly to retention rate.

If we look fist to Defense Department claims only, the most recent Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (pdf), dated December 2012, has this paragraph (emphasis added):

ANASOC continues to develop its institutional capacity to conduct training programs. Currently, a majority of courses taught at the Division School of Excellence are Afghan-led, with minimal Coalition Force oversight. The ANASOC has produced 11,710 Commandos and 955 ANASF. Graduation rates for both CDO and SF operators remained steady and are on schedule to meet end-strength targets. From April through September 2012, the School of Excellence produced a total of 621 new CDO, and 282 new SF operators. Based on current recruiting and graduation trends, ANASF are anticipated to achieve their end-strength force level of 1,863 personnel by the 4th quarter of 2013. ANA Commandos (ANACDO) are currently at their endstrength force level of 12,525. Staff training at all levels is occurring through uniformed and civilian mentorship programs; the target of ANASOC reaching FOC for all units is 2014, with the exception of the SMW.

There are several different categories of ANSF troops described in the paragraph, but from the context of Thomas’ remarks and the reports analyzed here, the category of commando is what is relevant. Note that this Defense Department report claims 621 new commandos trained in an approximately five month period and that the commandos are at the endstrength force level of 12,525.

However, if we check these numbers against the more independent information from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, we find both Thomas’ claim of low attrition for commandos and the current force level for commandos in the Defense Department report to be misleading. Continue reading →


The Internet Didn’t Kill the Middle Class; Laxity and Apathy Did

By:  Thursday May 16, 2013 7:00 am

KodakBldgAtlanta_mcclanahoochie-Flickr_modIn tandem with the release of his book, Who Owns the Future?, Jaron Lanier’s interview with Salon generated a lot of hand-wringing across social media. It seems Lanier, one of our so-called intellectual visionaries, believes that the collapse of Kodak and its 140,000 jobs, and the rise of Instagram and its 13 jobs, exemplifies the killing field of the internet. Lanier theorizes good paying jobs that once supported a thriving middle class have disappeared as internet-enabled firms replaced them. As these jobs vaporized, so did necessary benefits. Here’s a key excerpt from the interview:

“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?”

What a crock of decade-late shit.

Where the hell was Lanier in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the U.S. manufacturing sector nose-dived due to government policies created by corporate-acquired elected officials and appointees?

It wasn’t the internet that killed the middle class. The apathy of intellectuals and the technology elite did; too few bothered to point out the potential repercussions of NAFTA and other domestic job-depleting policies. In the absence of thought leaders, corporatists sold the public and their electeds on job creation anticipated from globalizing policies; they just didn’t tell us the jobs created wouldn’t be ours.

It wasn’t the rise of digitization that killed the middle class. It was the insufficiency of protests among U.S. brain power, including publicly-funded academics, failing to advocate for labor and home-grown innovation; their ignorance about the nature of blue collar jobs and the creative output they help realize compounded the problem.

Manufacturing has increasingly reduced man hours in tandem with productivity-increasing technological improvements. It wasn’t the internet that killed these jobs, though technology reduced some of them. The inability to plan for the necessary shift of jobs to other fields revealed the lack of comprehensive, forward-thinking manufacturing and labor policies.

It all smells of Not-My-Problem, i.e., “I’m educated, technology-enabled, white collar; those stupid low-tech blue collar folks’ jobs aren’t my problem.”

Until suddenly it is. Continue reading →


Dear Eric Holder: You’re Doing Recusal Wrong

By:  Wednesday May 15, 2013 9:01 pm

Let me start this post by saying I think it is absolutely appropriate for Eric Holder to have recused himself from the UndieBomb 2.0 investigation, in part because — as someone read into the UndieBomb 2.0 operation, he was interviewed by the FBI (though so was James Cole, who is now in charge of the investigation), and he turned over his own phone contacts to the FBI — but also because top Administration officials like John Brennan at least should be under close scrutiny in this investigation.

Nor do I think, in his recusal, Eric Holder did anything in bad faith. I have zero reason to believe Holder is tampering with this investigation, in any way shape or form.

But Jeebus, Holder is doing this entire recusal thing wrong.

That’s true, first of all, because with a rabid Congress (at the time he recused from the investigation and now) accusing him of wrongly delegating this investigation to Ronald Machen in an investigation that could net incredibly powerful people as suspects, Holder did not write his recusal — or a delegation of authority of Attorney General powers — to James Cole, who is overseeing the investigation.

Now, Holder claims not to remember whether he memorialized his recusal in past cases, including the John Edwards investigation — the most high profile case in which he has recused. And though George Holding, who conducted that investigation and now represents the Raleigh, NC, area in Congress, was in the room, I’m not sure they clarified whether he had written anything down there, either. Holder was, however, very clear about what authorities he delegated to Patrick Fitzgerald when he investigated the John Adams Society, which led to the prosecution of John Kiriakou, having sent 3 letters (1, 2, 3) memorializing the limits of Fitz’ authority.

I think part of the problem is that Holder didn’t really appoint special counsels to investigate this matter, even while he made a big deal of appointing the people who — US Attorney for DC Ronald Machen’s appointment rather then US Attorney for Eastern District of VA Neil MacBride aside — would have been investigating it anyway. Dumb. Congress was screaming for some kind of formality, and Holder didn’t establish that formality.

And then there’s the journalist-subpoenaing precedent of the Plame investigation where Fitz several times got letters clarifying his authority. The first of those reads,

By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U. S .C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 508, I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department’s investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee’s identity, and I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.

This came in handy later in the investigation when Libby’s lawyers challenged Fitz’ authority.

Then, Holder’s recusal hasn’t been very strict. Most troublingly, Eric Holder reviewed the letter James Cole sent to the AP (though Holder saw a draft which, according to his press conference, included things like details on the specific scope of the subpoena that don’t appear in the final letter). NPR’s Carrie Johnson asked him about this.

Johnson: Is that normal practice when you’re recused from a case?

Holder: No, I just wanted to see the le–I saw I mean I saw saw the draft letter this morning. And I just wanted to have an opportunity to see what it looked like so I’d have at least some sense of the case in case there were things in the letter that I could talk about with the press.

Reviewing this letter — particularly before changes got made to it!! (changes which appear to have deprived the AP of full notice of the call record grab) — simply isn’t appropriate for someone recused from the case!

Again, I’m not suggesting malice here.

But the AP has already — rightly, in my opinion — challenged whether DOJ complied with its own guidelines on media subpoenas. In particular, AP complained that they had not been given notice and an opportunity to cooperate. That’s one of the guidelines that requires AG involvement.

Negotiations with the affected member of the news media shall be pursued in all cases in which a subpoena for the telephone toll records of any member of the news media is contemplated where the responsible Assistant Attorney General determines that such negotiations would not pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation in connection with which the records are sought. Such determination shall be reviewed by the Attorney General when considering a subpoena authorized under paragraph (e) of this section.

Yet the guy who signed this subpoena and with it signed off on the claim that alerting AP to the subpoena would do grave damage to the investigation  — James Cole — apparently has no piece of paper giving him authority to sign it.

If DOJ ultimately decides to charge the AP’s sources, if that person has the kind of legal representation DC bigwigs often have, I fully expect them to challenge every bit of their prosecution. After all, by subpoenaing the AP, Cole claimed that DOJ could not get the information from any other source. So if AP’s sources are indicted, they can rest assured that their prosecution went through this bottleneck of an Acting AG who had no paperwork to prove he had the authority to sign off on the claims he was making to get information he was certifying was absolutely necessary to find them. And from this subpoena forward, everything else will be fruit of a tainted AG, at least if you’ve got fancy lawyers.

Dumb.

One last thing. Also in today’s hearing, Holder admitted that it probably would have been a good idea to write down this recusal thing in public. Which, if they do ever charge AP’s sources and if said sources have the resources to make this obvious challenge, they’ll cite in court to document that even the guy who delegated this authority thinks it would be smarter if he did so in writing.

Seriously, this entire recusal process has been an own goal. As I said, I don’t think DOJ is pulling anything fishy. But the entire point of recusing is to ensure there’s proof nothing fishy happened. And in this case, DOJ has anything but.


The White House’s Imminent Benghazi Coup de Grace

By:  Wednesday May 15, 2013 5:45 pm

As I was watching the Eric Holder hearing and news came out that the White House had released 94 pages of Benghazi emails, I thought at first it was a strategy of whack-a-scandal. The Benghazi scandal is not one; the AP and IRS stories are genuinely damning (though not of the White House per se).

But I predict — and this is just a wildarseguess — that the White House is about to deliver the coup de grace to the Benghazi scandal.

Eric Holder was asked several times (always by Republicans, of course) whether the FBI had let the trail run cold in the Benghazi attack. In response to Jason Chaffetz (one of the chief Bengazhi truthers), Holder suggested that DOJ would imminently announce major progress on the investigation. There were a few more questions, and then Ron DeSantis, who is a very smart but very crazy former JAG who worked with the SEALs asked again.

And Holder — perhaps getting a bit cocky and/or impatient answering one of the last questioners in an interminable hearing — suggested again (this is from memory; I was just getting off the phone) there would be an imminent announcement showing significant progress. DeSantis, who missed that hint but at least knows the boundary between military and civilian law, asked whether it would be military progress or DOJ. Holder announced that something involving their portfolio would show progress.

Again, I’m guessing, but I would bet a fair amount of money one of the main conspirators in the Benghazi attack is sitting somewhere being interrogated by FBI’s High Value Interrogation Group as we speak.

So the way this will roll out is there will be about 2 days of manic scrutiny of the emails, and then just as people begin to get into the nitty gritty that might go further than refuting what the GOP has already leaked, the White House will announce the arrest of the guy that, Holder knows, is already in custody.

Just a prediction, but …