Cheney Got the Keys to DOJ … But Did Rove?

One more detail about the Ashcroft and Gonzales guidelines on contacts between DOJ and the White House. While the latter explicitly gives Cheney the authority to communicate with DOJ about ongoing cases, I don’t believe it gives Karl Rove–or any of the people who work in Office of Political Affairs save its head–that authority. When the more expansive Gonzales memo lays out whom the AG and his staff may communicate with, it says:

Notwithstanding any procedures or limitations set forth above, the Attorney General may communicate directly with the President, Vice President, their Chiefs of Staff, Counsel to the President or Vice President, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor, or the head of any office within EOP regarding any matter within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Staff members of the Office of the Attorney General, if so designated by the Attorney General, may communicate directly with officials and staff of the White House Office, the Office of the Vice President, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and the Office of Management and Budget.

Now, Karl Rove is Senior Advisor to the President and I think he retains the title Deputy Chief of Staff, but he lost his Policy portfolio in April 2006, when Josh Bolten was named Chief of Staff. He has headed Political Affairs, Office of Public Liaison, and Office of Strategic Initiatives. As the head of these offices ("head of any office," he presumably could interact with the Attorney General if the AG initiated the communication. But he doesn’t serve in that role anymore, and the Deputy Chief of Staff (unlike the Chief of Staff) is not named among those the AG can choose to communicate with. Nor does Karl fall under the subordinate offices (NSC, HSC, OMB) with which AG staff members can communicate. And Karl certainly doesn’t fall under the list of people who can communicate about an ongoing criminal investigation.

…all initial communications that concern or may concern such an investigation or case pending at the trial level should take place only between the Office of the Counsel to the President and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG)…

Now, before I move on to the ways that Karl can communicate with DOJ, let me point out that what holds true here for Karl also holds true for Scott Jennings and other other lower ranking members of the Office of Political Affars. If I’m reading Gonzales’ memo correctly, the only people who get to communicate with the AG are heads of offices. So Sara Taylor would have counted, back when she headed the Office of Political Affairs, but her subordinates like Jennings would not.

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  1. William Ockham says:

    ew,

    Read the last sentence of the memorandum again. Ask yourself if the first clause of the penultimate sentence (â€Notwithstanding any procedures or limitations set forth aboveâ€) was intended to apply to the last sentence as well. I’ll bet that they will argue it does.

  2. Jodi says:

    Why not?

    emptywheel,

    you could call Gonzales and complain about a USA.

    Now it would be another matter all together about whether Gonzales would take your call.

  3. Jodi says:

    Oh,

    someone might say that there can be no discussion about a trial or a pending trial.

    Think a bit.

    If there is no indictment or prosecution, then there is no trial or pending trial. You can complain all day about why someone isn’t being investigated or indicted.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Right WO, but given the way they spell out the parts of WH that can be included (NSC and HSC and OMB), I don’t know whether it technically applies to, well, everybody. That may be the effect, but…

  5. Woodhall Hollow says:

    Because, Jodi-Wormtongue, EW is not Karl Rove. A man who holds real power. But I think you already know that.

  6. P J Evans says:

    I’d think that Rove would be involved if he was told to do it by his boss (whoever that might be at the time), rules or no rules.

  7. Boston1775 says:

    EW, I brought up the look of surprise on Gonzales face, looking at the document as if he never saw it before. You write here that it’s his document, he produced it.

    Do you think the idea that Addington produced this is way off?

  8. Woodhall Hollow says:

    â€the look of surprise on Gonzo’s face, looking at the document as if he never saw it before.â€

    Yes, and the way in which he was frantically flipping through it trying to read it, and for once in his life trying to actually recollect whether or not he had actually seen it before.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Boston

    It’s certainly possible. If not, he looks really stupid for doing close research on the Ashcroft memo when he wrote something worse. But it’s possible someone like Steven Bradbury slipped it under his nose while he wasn’t looking.

  10. Jodi says:

    Mr Gonzales is an important man. He has people to take care of the details. He can’t remember them all without a review.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Of course, there may be delegation memos to everybody and their brother, including Rove.

  12. AZ Matt says:

    Henry is back after Prez Record Act Violations:

    http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1431

    Chairman Waxman Asks About the White House Counsel’s Knowledge of Potential Presidential Records Act Violations

    In two separate letters, Chairman Waxman asks when the White House Counsel’s office learned about White House officials’ use of nongovernmental e-mail accounts for official purposes, and what steps, if any, it took to preserve these records and prevent violations of the Presidential Records Act. A staff report issued by the committee’s majority staff in June found that the White House Counsel’s office under Alberto Gonzales may have known about officials’ use of these accounts as early as 2001 and done nothing to prevent continued use of the accounts for official business. Chairman Waxman asks Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Fred F. Fielding, the current White House Counsel, for information and documents.

  13. Josiah Bartlett says:

    After he claimed that he was not familiar with that memo, why didn’t someone ask if he just signs anything he’s asked to sign or if he reads them at all before he signs them.

    Is he so busy signing things that he just doesn’t take the time to read them. If the preznit asks him to sign somthing it must be OK?

    How would you like to have this guy doing the closing when you buy a home?

  14. chris says:

    Staff members of the Office of the Attorney General, if so designated by the Attorney General, may communicate directly with officials and staff of the White House Office, the Office of the Vice President, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and the Office of Management and Budget.

    Were there any followup questions on the designation process? Was it on a case by case basis?
    Or did Gonzalez give certain staff members that permission permanently. Does Gonzalez know who and when he gave that authority? And did Gonzalez keep any written records of having given that authority?

    Pretend for a minute that AGAG was a competent and honest person, serving his country properly. Wouldn’t he keep track of who is talking to whom and about what? One of the issues in the Wilkes/Foggo case is that someone leaked the indictments to the press. Wilkes lawyer Geragos complained about it and the Judge required the prosecution to do an investigation. The investigation was done by USA (in San Francsico, I think) and it came back â€nothing to see here.â€

    Geragos had been attempting to get an acquittal for Wilkes. I was suspicious of Geragos’ move because the WSJ (not San Diego newspapers) had the lead on leaking the indictment story. Did Cheney or one of his minions get their hands on the indictment- maybe copy it and have somebody like Hohlt to take it over to WSJ in an attempt to obstruct justice?

    Tin foil hat? Well maybe, but Cheney’s MO fits.

  15. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Unless a matter is an investigation or prosecution as of the time Karl communicates with the DOJ about it, I assume that Karl will argue that it’s a personnel or policy matter or some such thing, which can be communicated. Of course, that presumably doesn’t stop Miers or now Fielding from being used as a conduit for communicating with the prezelnit’s Deputy Chief of Staff. But these guys clearly don’t always follow their own rules. So there are undoubtedly e-mails that would evidence direct communications.

    Oh, and where in AGAG’s communications policy letter does it say his people can communicate with or through the RNC?

  16. William Ockham says:

    Ok, is somebody else imitating Jodi? Because I don’t think even my Jodi-bot could come up something this inane:

    Mr Gonzales is an important man. He has people to take care of the details. He can’t remember them all without a review.

    Posted by: Jodi | July 25, 2007 at 13:31

  17. Steve Elliott says:

    Whitehouse actually got Gonzo to clearly admit that these so called `guidelines’ are very questionable in regards to all the add ons. Whitehouse definetely had Gonzo blindsided and in the crosshairs. In my opinion he got Gonzo to admit that the polticalization of the DOJ was actually happening and he has no control.

  18. Sojourner says:

    William Ockham, it would be interesting to analyse the IP addresses where all of Jodi’s messages originate to see if they are one and the same…

  19. Neil says:

    You can see worm tongue’s posts coming from a mile away.

    But seriously, if a man was torturing your injured mother’s wallet, and it was buried and running out of interest, and your mortgage was due, in that instance, do you think torture would be moral?

    Oh shit stain. The dog just scratched its ass on the carpet.

  20. Jodi says:

    William

    That was a little tongue in cheek, but from me.

    (I haven’t seen my impersonator lately. And only once before anyway, when they seemed to be testing the waters. Not sure how that was done, though there are ways that I won’t list here, but it wasn’t apparent what was used.)

  21. Jodi says:

    Neil,

    you need to clean up your mouth as well because I think your dog has been scratching up there also.

  22. Anonymous says:

    Dept. Drops the Ball Again

    There MAY be a rational reason for this, but with the current environment and the growing amount of corruption and pandering surrounding government agencies and industry, this does not inspire confidence in any capability of our current Justice leadership to do right by the American people. It just looks like more graft and corruption.

    -G.F. Scott
    ———————————————————————-

    Justice Dept. drops massive fraud case
    By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
    WASHINGTON — Two years into a fraud investigation, veteran federal prosecutor David Maguire told colleagues he’d uncovered one of the biggest cases of his career.

    Maguire described crimes â€far worse†than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal. Among those in his sights: executives from a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett.

    [remainder of comment deleted for copyright reasons]

  23. Anonymous says:

    And, one might wish to delve into Cheney’s connections in the Pentagon, where corruption flows freely as well.

    ————————————————————————————————-

    Check this out:
    Senators raise questions on Air Force bid for more cargo planes
    By Megan Scully CongressDaily July 24, 2007
    A bipartisan trio of senators is raising questions about whether the Air Force has launched an inappropriate, behind-the scenes campaign to secure more funding for Boeing Co.’s C-17 Globemaster III aircraft.
    In a letter Friday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Thomas Carper, D-Del., raised concerns that the Air Force may have given Boeing assurances it would keep production going on the cargo plane, which has enjoyed significant congressional support over the years.
    In March, Boeing said it would shut down C-17 production lines if Congress did not step in and buy more planes. Three months later, the aerospace giant announced that it would invest its own money to keep the C-17 lines open.
    Citing a June 19 Boeing statement that there are â€increasing signs that the U.S. Air Force has requirements for 30 additional C-17s,†the senators said they feared Air Force optimism spurred Boeing to avert a production line shut down.
    â€The Air Force has informed us that it does not intend to request funding for additional C-17s in next year’s budget,†they wrote. â€We are therefore disturbed by the possibility that the Air Force may have induced the prime contractor into assuming the business risk of covering the costs of keeping long-lead-time parts available — ostensibly to ensure the continuity of the C-17 production line until new Air Force orders materialize.â€
    Doing so would be â€inappropriate, especially if it exposes taxpayers to liability in the event that Congress declines to purchase additional C-17 aircraft,†they added.
    The senators asked Gates to clarify his plans for the C-17 and requested he respond by July 30 to several questions — including one seeking the department’s â€official position on the Air Force’s apparent communications†with Boeing.
    An Air Force spokesman said Monday the service is aware of the letter, but added that it would be â€inappropriate†to comment.
    [remainder deleted for copyright reasons]

  24. Anonymous says:

    I’m beginning to suspect that these guys are living in an alternate reality that has somehow managed to bleed through into our universe, perhaps as a result of the use of depleted uranium by the Bush administration. Or maybe it’s just that the Republican gene is on the same segment of DNA as the loony gene.

  25. Anonymous says:

    actually, EW — as i read the memo,
    the last paragraph trumps all
    the others
    — and it gives even
    the staff of OVP access — to anyone the AG has
    â€so designated†on â€any matter of DoJ
    jurisdiction
    .†look particularly
    at the second image — the tear
    sheet — it trumps all the others.

    hope this is of help!

    just click to enlarge it.

    that is why i set it separately.

  26. Neil says:

    you need to clean up your mouth as well because I think your dog has been scratching up there also.
    Posted by: Jodi | July 25, 2007 at 16:02

    Except for the shit stain Jodi, my dog has been well behaved.
    .

  27. John Lopresti says:

    HJC mentions AL USA in letter yesterday; I like letters like that, 70pp long. Re WO humor: Funny the ARPA-bot is spoofing even its own OSPF ubiquitous droll; I wonder if one bot can send an adaware bot to respond to the little charade.

  28. Jodi says:

    Sojourner,
    William

    right now they are coming through my grandmother’s, because I am always connected to her house and 4 cameras plus audio there. I keep track of her and the day nurse.

    She has been having some difficulty and we don’t trust her to use the â€Lifebutton alarm.†She is a bit stubborn.

    But where would you like them to come from? (I am a bit of a geek by the way.)

  29. Scott Horton says:

    http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000629

    Cheney’s Persecutions

    Sheldon Whitehouse, the freshman senator from Rhode Island who is a former prosecutor, continues to figure as one of the most effective questioners on the committee. Previously, Whitehouse had established that the Justice Department in 2002 had given in to a request from Gonzales that the door be opened to allow some 447 political appointees (almost all of them in the White House) to tinker with pending criminal investigations and prosecutions. This was done for one purpose: to permit the political manipulation of the prosecutorial process, which available evidence now suggests ran rampant over a period of at least five years.

    Now Whitehouse discloses that Gonzales signed a memo in May 2006, while he was attorney general, to allow Vice President Dick Cheney, and particularly his chief of staff, David Addington, to discuss on-going cases with prosecutors. Note that this is while Cheney’s former chief-of-staff, Scooter Libby, was facing indictment on charges of lying to the grand jury and an independent prosecutor was conducting an investigation that ultimately established that Cheney had orchestrated the exposure of a covert CIA agent as an act of political retaliation. When Whitehouse asked Gonzales “What on earth business does the Office of the Vice President have in the internal workings of the Department of Justice with respect to criminal investigations, civil investigations, and ongoing matters?†And as a response, Gonzales offered this: “As a general matter, I would say that’s a good question.â€

    Of course, Gonzales understands perfectly well what was going on; he’s not an idiot. Cheney wanted to be able to monitor criminal proceedings and manipulate prosecutors into doing his will, and Gonzales gave him a green light to do so. This is a vice president who very likely committed a series of crimes, and whose chief-of-staff took the fall, lying to a grand jury to protect him. Cheney’s interest, first and foremost, was the protection of Cheney. And giving him a key to the safe under these circumstances was a criminal defalcation.

  30. jodi truth teller says:

    right now they [my IP addresses] are coming through my grandmother’s, because I am always connected to her house and 4 cameras plus audio there. I keep track of her and the day nurse.

    Jodi
    ————-

    why would your ip address come from the alleged ip devices at grandma’s house? we’re suppose to believe grandma’s house has your dhcp server installed in her clothing closet? pffft.

    Interesting that the day freepatriot tells us his mother is suffering from small cell cancer and he will be unable to post because he is attending to her needs, you decide to share information about the precarious health of your grandmother and how she doesn’t mind you watching her from your spy station at an undisclosed location. get a life.

  31. Jodi says:

    (I don’t usually react to bad posts, but I balk at certain levels of stupidity and poor taste.)

    jodi truth teller

    look up vpn stupid. I run a secure connection into her house where I remotely control a Dell there that is hooked up to 4 cameras, and audio feeds as well. She also has a day nurse/living assistant and a â€lifebutton†type alarm. From that Dell (actually a computer I bought) I come out on a second line. i.e. a vpn.
    But you name the location and I can come out of there as well. [[try me, but stick to the US]]

    I actually can relate to freepatriot in this matter.
    If you look back in the blog some months you will find where I mention grandmom deteriorating in part because of the Iraq War and my brother still being over there.
    {{Are you going to accuse him now of copying me, fool?))

    We watch grandmom very carefully because she doesn’t want to leave her home and go to an assisted living facility or move out to where my family home is now, many states away. We have a day nurse/assistant that takes care of the house, and her needs like meals, baths,medicine, doctor trips, etc. But my mom and I are tuned into her 24×7.

    Many, many elderly people are like this. They don’t want to leave their homes and more importantly it seems their lifelong friends, their church, their Sunday School group.