Throwing Nukes and Merging Offices

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  1. Rayne says:

    In other words, Sampson tried to take the hiring/firing powers much earlier from DAG’s office, while Comey was still there…but we don’t know if that was with Gonzo’s blessing or the directives of the White House. Somebody must have flinched about this since the Delegation of Authority wasn’t signed until early March 2006, a mere couple of weeks before Paul McNulty was sworn in.

    Who flinched? Why the long pause to transfer authority between early 2004 and early 2006?

  2. SaltinWound says:

    It was shocking to me, in the Senate hearing, that no one asked Comey why he had left. They got why he had threatened to leave at an earlier time and acted as if they had all the information they needed.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Ah, but Rayne, remember how they put through the delegation? On the PATRIOT Act. Which was approved by each house in July 2005. But then not actually sent to conference until December 2005. At which point the Risen-Lichtblau bombshell (as well as Dana Priest’s bombshell on the black prisons in Europe) had hit. So PATRIOT went to temporary authorization in December, until March 2006.

    I’m now curious what took McNulty from November 2005 until March 2006 to get appointed and sworn in. Because it sure seems like the delay is related.

  4. orionATL says:

    yes, indeed.

    and this has been quite a tricky little jigsaw puzzle.

    thanks.

    p.s.

    if it’s any comfort to him, comey has my assurance he is no hero of mine. he was a major manager in a major government department whose primary concern was to protect his agency’s standing in policy disputes with the bush white house, which disputes, because it was doj, centered on â€rule of law†notions.

  5. bmaz says:

    Rayne – Just a thought, because I really have no idea what motivates these guys. Perhaps there was no flinching; there was just no longer the need for the manipulation of organizational authority with Comey gone, McCallum pinch hitting and Flannigan on the way. However, when Flanigan is ruled out and McNulty is soon to be installed, the power shift is pulled back out of the closet.

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    This is reminiscent of Stalin’s purges, but without the niceties. One of those was that Stalin would occasionally relax, and encourage dissenters – eg, the reality-based community – to offer suggestions to help the party â€renew†itself.

    Inevitably, some of the most courageous and dedicated would surface inside this ministry or that, come to the attention of managers and their shadow political commisars, and gently urge corrections and changes. Smack! comes the hammer and sickle, no renewal, no more dissenters, lots more bones in Siberia. People forget or are no longer there to remember, and Stalin repeats his winnowing. Pour encourager les autres.

    â€Now tell me, Mr. Comey,†say ’Fredo and commissar Kyle, â€just how would you like to improve the Justice Department?â€

  7. *xyz says:

    TPM is reporting that Senator Schumer announced that he is sending letters to the president, to Vice President Cheney, and to Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, asking if they were the ones who ordered the hospital visit to Ashcroft, and if not, if they know who did order it.

  8. Mary says:

    The day Maher Arar’s children look at Comey and call him a hero I’ll consider changing my mind. Probably won’t do it, but I’ll consider it.

    Anyway – I stopped by to drop this link. I don’t know anything about rugby and I’ve got to believe it’s likely that someone who does already has all the links and info they want, but this was getting a splash from TimesOnLine so I thought of lhp & you

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t…..ont_rugby/

  9. Anonymous says:

    *xyz

    That’s why this is about throwing Nukes. This gets Schumer a door right into the heart of the corrupt endeavor. I’m sure they’re going to want to close it, quickly.

  10. Rayne says:

    EW — the delegation was in sync with the PatAct, yes, but not embedded in it, was it? As soon as the ink dried on the PatAct they signed the delegation. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I’m likely to have missed something here.

    So…did Comey tell Sampson to piss up a rope in 1Q2005, or did he point to regs that said â€No Can Doâ€? Obviously if Sampson approached Comey about the shift in responsibilities in 1Q2005, they had all along intended to pull off the purge of the USA’s, and the initiation was not Gonzo in any way but Sampson’s Maxi-Me in the White House. (We already know this intuitively, but now we have more data to solidify this point, getting us closer to Rove and Miers.) We also move the PatAct change closer to the White House, too.

    And McNulty was intended to be firewalled off and used as a scapegoat before he was even sworn in, making Gonzo’s blamecasting even more egregious.

  11. ExcuseMeExcuseMe says:

    â€Idolizedâ€? He would have had to smash that Pinata a long time ago to get near the Idol category. That statement makes me furious in so many ways I can hardly list them all with the subsequent migraine.

    Note to Mr. Comey: You don’t get raises and kudos just for showing up at work. You don’t get gold stars for doing the right thing. In fact, you deserve a few demerits, so not to worry about that wacky left putting you on any type of pedestal. You’re usefulness is limited to getting us farther down the track.

    Sorry. It just bothered me a little.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Rayne

    It was not embedded in the PATRIOT Act in July 2005 (though I wonder what was, and if that’s related to Comey’s decision to leave). With Flanigan, who had been one of the brains behind the torture policies, they wouldn’t have needed it. But it was in PATRIOT by December 2005. So for the period between December through March, it was on hold along with the larger PATRIOT Act because of the emerging stink about the illegal spying program.

  13. *xyz says:

    â€That’s why this is about throwing Nukes. This gets Schumer a door right into the heart of the corrupt endeavor. I’m sure they’re going to want to close it, quickly.â€

    EW – Thanks. How are they going to try to close the door? And what can Schumer, and we the people, do to stop it?

  14. Anonymous says:

    Well, for starters, Schumer’s going to have a pretty big job getting Bush, Cheney, or ADD to respond to a subpoena. But IIRC, Congress is still withholding funding for DOJ this year, as well as any nominations on DOJ positions. If they can find a way to let the USAs and FBI continue to operate while depriving some of DOJ funding, he might be able to get some answers.

    Dunno. Schumer seems to be playing for keeps this time. Let’s hope he has thought this all through.

  15. Rayne says:

    EW 12:07 — then my guess is that somewhere in regs is a requirement that stipulates hiring/firing belongs only to one of two offices, USAG or DAG, and they either had to override it with a delegation or rewrite it. I wonder if they tried the latter and had to go with the former, or if they moved the responsibilities back from DAG to USAG and then did the delegation. Seems like there would be foot- and fingerprints all over.

    Should probably revisit timeline, match up McCallum and Flanagan with different events. Were either of them in the loop on changes being made, part of developing the strategy on how to pull this off — and worth the time to subpoena?

  16. Anonymous says:

    Rayne

    I must be missing your point.

    My point is that they didn’t need the reg until McNulty went in. THey knew they loved McCAllum, and knew they loved Flanigan. The change was in to insulate against a lesser known candidate.

    As to Flanigan–he never got confirmed–he was in limbo during the whole summer 2005, and withdrew his nomination in October 2005. He does know about the initial justifications for torture, etc., but that’s secondary at this point.

    As to McCollum, he may have had some input on the lists–though he was sent to Australia in mid-2006. His big black mark, though, was his intervention in the tobacco case. He’s the one who forced DOJ’s own lawyers to lower the settlement.

  17. Sparkles the Iguana says:

    So Comey, devoted Republican, would presumably have been happy to see the Republicans retain Congress in 2006, which would have meant the full details of the hospital bed drama would not have come to light. Without a Congress bent on oversight, these details Comey found sooooo disturbing would have remained inside his own head.

    As much as I have enjoyed Comey’s testimony, and these details seeing the light of day, I continue to recall an article about Comey I read a couple years ago in which the reporter heard Mrs. Comey cheering at the Bush election results (can’t recall if it was 2000 or 2004).

  18. Mauimom says:

    . . .incriminating E-mails, damaging memorandums,

    Jeeze, can’t these guys get 8th grade grammar right? It’s â€memoranda,†nimrods.

    On another topic, has the â€hole†in the Patriot Act re â€appoint without confirmation†been fixed? I seem to recall there was some talk about that.

  19. Rayne says:

    EW — I think they needed the delegation for some other reason, regardless of whether McCallum or Flanagan made it in, or they wouldn’t have had to sync with the PatAct. It wouldn’t otherwise have had to be confidential and not recorded in the Federal Register. Maybe I’ve been in the corporate world too long, but if a COS told a staffer subordinate to their boss (the top banana) that they wanted to shift responsibilities AND it had the top banana’s approval, it would be a fait accompli. Unless there were other structural reasons like bylaws or regulations that dictated otherwise. Why even have the delegation in 2006 at all? Why not just have Gonzo execute the delegation in 2005 and sign off on it while kiss-up McCallum was there, so that everything was read to roll when PatAct provision was done, ostensibly in time for the election had the PatAct gone more smoothly?

    Or did even McCallum have his limits, refuse to be the fall-guy, making what looked like sheer stupidity of nominating proven-loyalist Flanagan absolutely necessary?

    Something about this still doesn’t make sense; there’s a hunt-and-peck feel to the narrative, like they were casting about. I’ll just have to dig some more.

  20. Anonymous says:

    Mauimom – hole has not been patched in Patriot Act (28 USC 546). Bills are pending in Senate.

  21. Rayne says:

    EW — Okay, I missed this article by Waas dd. 30-APR-07 about the Delegation; he’s on it, and I think he’s got most of my concerns addressed (although not all of them). They clearly knew they were doing something unConstitutional and they weaseled with the Delegation as best they could around this, hence the hunt-and-peck. However the efforts they took were in bad faith, making the Delegation questionable at best. I think that’s part of what has been stuck in my craw since I first read the Delegation, that OLC had given an opinion on this. If it was such a straight-forward done-deal, why didn’t it happen earlier and why would it have needed an OLC opinion?

    I’d like to know how this went to and from OLC; I’d like any and all communications about this Delegation, because they are as important to this mess as the communications related to selection and dismissal of the USA’s.

  22. Anonymous says:

    Rayne

    I don’t understand your point.

    Through the entire time when McCallum and Flanigan were Acting or nominee DAG, they did not move to do EITHER the PATRIOT appoint OR the Sampson and Delilah personnal delegation. The latter is almost certainly tied to McNulty coming in–both the removal of power from DAG and the delegation of that removal came in teh month before McNulty was sworn in.

    As to the PATRIOT move–it clearly is still about centralizing authority and had a lot to do with votes and criminality and so on.

    Though–here’s a question. COmey may have been the sign-off for the raid of Cunningham’s house, which occurred before Comey left. Add that to his treatment of Plame, and you’ve got USAs run amok under Comey. So maybe that, too, was a response to Comey.

    In any case, one of my points is simply that the Risen Lichtblau sources (and I’d bet some change Goldsmith was among them) managed to postpone the measure pushing for further consolidation of the justice system with the scoop about the program.

  23. Sally says:

    I’ll not idolize Comey, either. Once a Republic, always a Republic, and I’m disgusted with the whole lot of them for enabling the wrecking crew, Comey included.

  24. Jane S. says:

    I have to take a moment to defend Comey–while understanding full well that he may be not be a true friend to civil liberties. You do get kudos in my book for doing the right thing. He stood up against them on the spy program and he stood up to Ashcroft on appointing Fitzgerald. And in the Bush administration, doing the right thing has been an anomaly, albeit this is setting the bar pretty low.

    Comey was also pretty smart in his dissonance–surrounding himself with witnesses. Karl hasn’t been able to ratchet up his swiftboat machine against Comey unless you count Douglas Kmiec’s piece in the Post which was kind of a joke.

    So I give Comey credit where credit is due–for standing up for the rule of law and for being smart in the way he did it.

  25. ExcuseMeExcuseMe says:

    I’m fully aware that my commenting here is bringing a knife to a gun fight, but…

    As to Comey, and kudos – the interview also contained this bit:

    Comey told U.S. News he was prepared to testify about the Ashcroft incident for more than three years but never did. Why? â€Nobody ever asked,†he said. â€I’ve never been in a forum where I was obligated to answer the question. Short of that, it was not something I was going to volunteer.â€[My emphasis]

    So, while gazing through my window if I should happen to notice my neighbor kill her husband I have no responsibility to act on that knowledge unless someone specifically asks me if I saw the murder.

    Why has the bar been lowered so substantially that when someone, anyone, does either what they are supposed to do, or what is ethical, or what is moral, or what is merely the “right†thing to do, we find that worthy of extra special praise? (And on certain blogs can automatically get you nominated for some version of President, or AG, or new King.)

    Because relative to what is usual, the right thing becomes praiseworthy?

    Those pesky diminished expectations will be another Bush legacy.

  26. Rayne says:

    Drafting a timeline now, includes some of your 02-MAY-07 timeline, to try and piece this together. The problem is that none of this stuff happened in a vacuum, other events shaped what they did that we aren’t discussing. Like Libby’s indictment inside less than 3 weeks after Flanigan pulls his nomination and a scant 6 weeks before the PatActII comes out of conference. When did they start chasing the Delegation — during this period of time, or earlier? Volokh (who once worked in OLC under Flanigan) writes in a post that he think POTUS can ignore OLC — so why did OLC get involved at all?

    No response required; I’m the one who’s stewing on this, has been bugging me since that Delegation came out, nothing about it looked at all right.

  27. bmaz says:

    ExcuseMe – You are right about the diminished expectations all across the board as a result of Bush’s presidency. However, as to Comey, that criticism really is not valid. Comey is not you or your neighbor witnessing a crime. Comey was a licensed attorney employed in a sensitive position by the United States government. Unless subject to process (subpoena) or granted explicit permission by the DOJ, it was his duty to not disclose information. When he said he was not asked the questions, what he really meant was not only was he not asked the right questions, they were not asked by the right people, i.e.Congressional oversight bodies. When they were, he let loose. Quite frankly, that is as it should be.

  28. Rayne says:

    ExcuseMeExcuseMe 14:31 — remember in the course of Comey’s testimony that he indicated that he’d been questioned by the FBI about the â€leak†about the NSA program to the press. That’s what they did to intimidate people who came out, called them traitors and harassed them about leaking classified information. There was a concrete reason Comey could not simply take it upon himself to say anything. The right time and the right circumstances had to be in place for Comey to be able to talk about the events at the hospital — like a Democratic majority, the right SJC composition, the right opening like the hearings about the USA’s and DOJ operations, a weakened USAG and so on. Comey clearly appeared to be agitated about this, too, having said he expected he would have to testify about it at some point.

    The real question is why the Republican majority was completely incurious about the goings on in USDOJ, and why they never asked Comey during the previous 3 years what happened. But I think we all know the answers to that question.

  29. Jane S. says:

    ExcuseMeExcuseMe: I understand your frustration and trust me, I don’t want to pick any fights. My reaction to Tenet and Colin Powell has been–too little, too late. But I do put Comey in a different category.

    And there is a possibility that Comey was the one who leaked it to Risen and Lictblau, which had the NYT not been the joke that it is, would have run in Oct. 2004. In fact, it would be hard for me to believe that Risen/Lictblau didn’t call Comey to confirm the story.

    Also, Comey’s view of the thing probably was that he went to the mat, threatened to resign, and they ultimately, did make changes to the program. So there is that whole notion that working from within, he was able to do more than if he had called Walter Pincus at that time and told him the story.

    Our government is so full of thugs that the bar is low but I am grateful that there were a few souls willing to stand up.

  30. bmaz says:

    Rayne – Contrary to Volokh though, Comey said OLC memorandum interpretations were binding on the executive. I cannot remember specifically from where the belief comes, but Comey’s take was always my understanding of the situation and I remeber breaching this issue in sorting through stuff back around the time of the furor surrounding the despicable Bybee torture opinions. This is not to say I, and/or Comey, am correct as opposed to Volokh; just that has been my understanding for long before Comey made that statement last week. On the delegation, I am curious to hear your thoughts on the two page memo behind the delegation by the two theocrats Corts and Allen. There is something that has really troubled me about it from the second I saw it; something much deeper than the usual questions that have been raised, and I can’t put my finger on it. Lastly, I saw your question at the bottom of a earlier post about researching names in litigation. If I can be of assistance, let me know. EW has contact info. The Shepphards reference probably not what you need however, Shepphards allow you to take a legal citation for a reported case such as 423 P.3d 1126 and check to see what other reported cases cite that case. If you have a PACER account, that should be of use in searching for names of people and/or businesses in plaintiff and defendant indexes.

  31. ExcuseMeExcuseMe says:

    Thanks, all, for the thoughtful responses. IANAL, so your perspectives are helpful.

  32. Rayne says:

    bmaz — so it’s bugging you, too? IANAL, but I used to draft Delegations for executives at a Fortune 100 company, cannot ever remember seeing anything quite so disturbing in my time in the way of a Delegation. It’s â€torturedâ€, for the lack of a better word, on the face of it; highly contorted to get what they needed. Were this Delegation to have been reviewed by an auditor, it would have run up a number of flags. And why internal only, not on the Federal Register? they were deliberately trying to fly below radar — which makes me wonder if it is still binding or legal, in spite of the OLC sign-off. I referred to Volokh not as much as an expert as much as a reference to the mindset in play; did OLC have the same opinion of this Delegation, did they roll over on the content, but not on the manner of execution and let it go at that?

    Thanks for the info on the research; I’ve been thinking about getting a PACER account, may try that first, but I’ll keep your offer in mind.

  33. Mimikatz says:

    The people who really need to be subpoenaed are the Ashcrofts. Ask Mrs who called and on whose behalf to have her let Gonzo and Card in.

  34. looseheadprop says:

    MimiKatz is right. But Shumer is smart.

    Fisrt he puts the question to the president. If the president stonewalls or lies, then, voila, we will see tstimony by Mrs. A or by the agent who took the call, or by a switchboard operator at the hospital.

    Asking the President first and having him not come clean, give evidence of â€conciousness of guiltâ€.

    Much more damning than going straight to the 3rd party witness w/o giving the President the chance to come clean fist.

    Also, much fairer and more sporting to belie the â€witch hunt†charge.

    Nice, very nice

  35. Anonymous says:

    Rayne – i too was interested in the fact that Comey was interviewed re a leak (presumably re the Risen/NSA story). I’ve been trying to get my head around how that played.
    FBI: Mr Comey, did you leak to Risen?
    Comey: Yes, and I did it because there was this big scene at the hospital.

    That seems somewhat unlikely to me, for some reason.

  36. Davis. X. Machina says:

    Asking the President first and having him not come clean, give evidence of â€conciousness of guiltâ€.

    Looseheadprop, that immediately occurred to me, having recently stressed it in HS mock trial work. The order in which you ask things, and people, can make all the difference.

    Schumer musta been a practicing attorney at some point, maybe even a prosecutor, ya think?

    Jeeze, can’t these guys get 8th grade grammar right? It’s â€memoranda,†nimrods.

    mauimom, I once worked for a principal once so anal that when there was only one item on the docket for the faculty meeting, he sent out an agendum.

    Everyone hated him, except me. But I’m a Latin teacher….

  37. orionATL says:

    mauimom

    and

    tired fred

    ask and answer questions in this story that interest me very much, and
    have gotten far too little attention in this matter.

    questions that lead naturally to the next chapter:

    â€have the insidious, wee additions to the â€patriot†act (permitted by senate judiciary chair arlen specter) been rescinded?

    i take it from tired fred’s answer,

    that they have not.

    when will the not-very-qualified â€interim†u.s. attnys be dismissed?

    who knows.

    put differently,

    when is the senate going to be given a proper shot at evaluating a u.s. attorney nominated by the president for a specific area?