Cheney’s and Gonzales’ CYA Libraries
On March 12 or 13, 2004, after Jim Comey threatened to quit because George Bush had reauthorized warrantless wiretapping over Comey’s objections, Bush ordered Alberto Gonzales to write up notes of his March 10, 2004 meeting with members of Congress; the congressional meeting would serve as Gonzales’ excuse for having visited John Ashcroft in the ICU ward. Gonzales would go on to carry those notes around with him in a briefcase, thereby violating rules on treating classified information. After moving to DOJ in 2005, Gonzales did not feel safe leaving the documents in one of the DOJ safes accessible by–among others–Jim Comey (there was also one in the AG office that woudl presumably not be accessible to Comey).
On June 1, 2005, the day after Alberto Gonzales claims to have passed on Jim Comey’s warning to the NSC Principals Committee of the fallout that would come from their continuing to approve torture, the CIA produced a document that purported to tell the benefits of the torture program. That is one of two documents Cheney requested from the National Archives earlier this year to prove that torture worked. It is a document Cheney kept in his "immediate office files" in a file called "detainees."
And if that doesn’t make you suspect Cheney and Gonzales got worried enough to start building up their own little CYA libraries to protect themselves from the torture (and wiretap) fallout, consider some of the other document included in Alberto Gonzales’ briefcase of highly classified documents.
The classified materials that are the subject of this investigation consist of notes that Gonzales drafted to memorialize a classified briefing of congressional leaders about the NSA surveillance program when Gonzales was the White House Counsel; draft and final Office of Legal Counsel opinions about both the NSA surveillance program and a detainee interrogation program;
[snip]
The envelope containing the documents relating to a detainee interrogation program bore classification markings related to that program. Each document inside the envelopes had a cover sheet and header-footer markings indicating the document was TS/SCI. The documents related to the NSA surveillance program discussed in Gonzales’s handwritten notes as well as to a detainee interrogation program. The documents included Office of Legal Counsel opinions that discuss the legal bases for various aspects of the compartmented programs, memoranda summarizing the operational details of the programs, [my emphasis]
Now, as I understand it, only the 2005 memos–and not the 2002 or 2003 memos authorizing torture–bear the markings of the compartment of that program (the middle redacted phrase, as I understand it, would be the compartment). The 2005 memos are also the only ones with both header and footer markings indicating they were TS/SCI *Bybee Two appears to be stamped in lieu of a header). While not definitive, it suggests those OLC memos on torture may have been the 2005 memos, and not the 2002 memo addressed to Alberto Gonzales directly (which has no classification markings whatsoever).
Jim Comey may have been doing a great deal of CYA in his emails to Chuck Rosenberg. But Gonzales and Cheney were just as busy doing CYA.
Update: Let me correct myself on two points. First, arguably the Bybee Two memo has both header and footer for classification. Also, Gonzales could have been keeping the later 2006 and 2007 torture memos, which presumably had the same classification/compartment markings. We know Bellinger was pushing back against those pretty hard, so there are probably reasons he’d want to CYA on that front, too.
I can’t see Darth and Gonzo not doing CYA. It’s the only option they had left for avoiding legal entanglements involving this stuff, in all its ramifications (of which there are enough that I don’t think they can keep track of all the lies they’ve told) … and I hope it fails bigtime.
Ah, but here’s what I wonder. Was Gonzales doing CYA to protect against Comey with those 2005 torture memos, or to protect against Cheney? He was fired shortly after the investigation into his CYA documents started.
I’ll take Cheney behind DarkSideDoor #2. And
So this memo didn’t burn up in the OVP fire, eh?
Which branch of the CIA prepared this file?
Wasn’t Porter Goss at CIA (with Dusty Foggo as his #3) at that time?
It was 3 weeks after Larry Franklin was charged, and (as I left on the prior thread) the news of torture was starting to leak out all over the place.
Gonzo didn’t buckle to Comey; he buckled to Cheney.
Ergo, it stands to reason he was more scared of Cheney.
As you point out, it was three weeks after Larry Franklin and AIPAC were charged with spying for Israel that news of the torture started to leak out all over the place.
Probably just a coincidence, right?
Good morning EW, fwiw, I don’t think it matters who each individual (whether Gonzo, Comey, or Cheney etc.) was covering their ass from. By the time one needs to cover one’s ass it is likely one is afraid of everyone. Kind of like the current finger pointing we are witnessing, all that matters is that when the music stops, you’re not the one without a chair.
Actually, you’ll recall that Israeli Agent (and Cheney-minder), Scooter Libby, reminded co-conspirator, Judith Miller, that their “roots connect them.”
Allow me this translation:
THAT is the nature of a conspiracy so vast, it can scarcely be comprehended. The truth is its enemy.
Was 2oo3 some sort of alternative universe year to 2003?
8^)
Wow. My proofreaders are getting downright meticulous.
I did think it looked sort of cute the way it was originally, anyway.
Me, too. Especially after I thought of the alternate universe possibility, but alas, true to my nature (Virgo) I thought I’d best let you know about it. 8^)
Harumph. I’m gonna start spelling my years with “O’s” all the time now, cause it’s cute. Think of pronouncing it two-ooo-ooo-two, and so on.
Hey EW I like it,2oo3 but on my machine it says 2003
anyway see ya.
bmaz, you alway got something in a comment that makes me bust out laughing.
It’s a tough room yer working here lady.
It still blows my mind not just that he was walking around with those documents, but he had finals of OLC memos. Not just TS/SCI copies, the the actual final originals
This was about the time AGAG realized that he could not trust *anyone*– except maybe his wife. Addington probably creamed him about something, so Cheney may have been the proximate cause. But even Addington’s bellicosity would not have bothered him unless he had misgivings about Bush’s willingness to protect him. I’m predicting that something else happened around that time, and I would suspect it was an as-yet undisclosed part of the conversation he had with Bush in which Bush advised him to make a record of that meeting with the Gang of 4/8/whatever.
Bob in HI
Pretty much what I was just thinking. Wondering how far Addington had his nose up Fredo’s ass and whether Shooter had taken Jr. to the woodshed for giving away the unitary store.
Madrid bombings. Don’t forget that. Because not only was it terrorism, and directly related to 9/11 (in terms of the chosen date of 3/11) but that led directly to a change of govt in Spain. The conservatives, in power at that point, wanted to fix the blame on ETA (Basque separatists). But the Left organized protests over the weekend and agreed to all throw their weight (on Sunday’s election) to the Socialists. Thus toppling Aznar. And installing a man committed to pulling out of Iraq.
This may not have been a precipitating factor to the notes. But it must have rocked bushco, as it was an election year. And it must have put everyone on notice that in the blink of an eye they could be out of power and subject to investigation.
I liked it too! It looked like “spook eyes”! Which is appropriate in the context of this post!
OK, if you’re going to take on the proofreading suggestions, how about…?
And, to tout my credentials, I actually did work as proofreader for about five years, even had a union card!
Meanwhile, great, great coverage. The CYA only points to the incredible cynicism of those in power.
I’ve been thinking about the entire torture embroglio, and I can only see it as a tremendous failure of the entire “establishment” (as we used to call it). On one hand, there’s the sadistic, depraved clique around Cheney/Bush, certain spook/Special Ops types, etc.; on the other, milquetoast, even if sometimes brilliant, bureaucrats, whose idea of heroism is sending an email, etc. — This widespread failure is why we have such a lukewarm, at best, response by the political and media elites to any real investigations. It would indict too many.
And btw, Al McCoy has a new article out on current developments, see Confronting the CIA’s Mind Maze: America’s Political Paralysis Over Torture
They simply treated Gonzales as a day laborer.
Cheney was running the government, to all intents and purposes, so it makes sense that Gonzo would be worried about stuff coming from that direction. (The way Darth has been all over the news lately, you’d think he still was running the government.)
second para of embedded quote … written as: “Office of Legal Counsel opinions that discuss the legal bases for various aspects …. ”
should read “…opinions that discuss the legal basis for various… “d hey .. i liked the 2000 vs 2oo3 .. thingy .. kewl ..
an
you’re welcome ..
Nope. “bases”–plural basises for the program. Just checked the IG report itself.
well i will be damned marcy .. first time i’ve ever evah seen the word bases .. used as the plural application of basis … apparently for you too eh .. or you wouldn’t have went to dig it up .. eh ??
hmmm.. soooo.. i learned something today ..[which is why i read you in the first place..btw ]…it’s kinda quirky though .. no ?? and not even an archaic application at that ..
day-um .. [/chuckle].. ever run across “divers” [di-vurrs ..long “i”].. as in “many and varied “… ??
No, I actually do use it from time to time–so I knew it could either be proper or be a typo, which is why I checked.
well it wasn’t my intent to send you off in pursuit of wild semi-aquatic honking fowl … but it’s interesting .imo .. i suppose ..verbally it’s said as “bay-cees” as opposed to “bay-sis” like baseball ‘bases’… as to distinguish it’s differentiation .. which inflection ya don’t get in the written form ??
I thought at the time that bases was correct. Divers is probably diverse. The only thing that shows up in my dictionary widget for “divers” is someone who dives.
You just busted this story WIDE open! Brilliant!
speaking of CYA, according to last week’s WaPo story, Cheney briefed Congress in March 2005 about the interrogation program, a month after the CIA’s Mary McCarthy said “CIA people” lied to Congress about torture and during a time when Congress was considering investigating the legality of the program.
.
[snip]
Does this help explain why Cheney wanted OLC to finalize those memos ASAP? So he could have something to cover his rear?
Not exactly on topic, but b/c I landed on this interesting nugget, I’ll share:
(p. 242 of Gellman’s “Angler”):
“…Eric Edelman ‘was Cheney’s principal deputy national security advisor. It was the second week of January 2003. What Edelman was reading, according to a colleague, was the NSA transcript of an American diplomat’s conversation in the Persian Gulf. Richard Haass**, then the State Dept’s, director of policy planning, was in Abu Dhabi…Haass had been battling the Pentagon and the VP’s office in a tug-of-war over ‘engagement’ with Iran. A close advisor to the senior Pres. Bush, Haass favored efforts to find points of common interest with the leading power in a globally important region. Cheney and Rumsfeld backed strict isolation in order to undermine the regime…. John R. Bolton, a Cheney ally who was undersecretary of state, made a practice of asking the NSA [for names of intercepted conversations]…”
And on p. 243, it appears that someone at Dept of State tipped off Hillary Mann (who IIRC is married to Flynt Leveritt) that she was also being intercepted. By Cheney’s office.
So that was early 2003 — before the Iraq War, but during the period in which the CIA had started waterboarding. Before Goldsmith had settled in at OLC, and before Comey was ‘read in’ (at Goldsmith’s insistence) to the NSA wiretapping program of Cheney’s.
Looks as if Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Addington were successful — while they were ’successful’ — at ‘managing’ what they wanted by controlling who had what information, and then spying on US State Department employees (!). Including the Dir of Policy Planning, no less!
So they must fear that somehow, investigators have been able to link, synthesize, and reconstruct their activities. So it certainly does appear that they invented some ‘CYA libraries’ for this period, and they no doubt count on confusing a majority of the public about the legitimacy, timing, provenance, and credibility of those CYA docs.
Wow, these guys are something else…
bobschacht @11, I’d hoped that I might find something to fill in the blank spot that you point to; instead, I found a different ‘interesting dot’. However, it’s a safe bet that Gonzo knew the OVP was intercepting Dept of State info, and we know that he deliberately kept some of those documents out of Addington’s special filing cabinet. So yeah, looks like Gonzo was living in fear. Because back in March 2004, Comey had stumbled on the fact that GW Bush didn’t know things that he ought to have known. So how was Bush going to back Gonzo…?
————-
** “Richard Haass” currently a fairly frequent guest on “Morning Joe” in his role as Pres of the Council on Foreign Relations. My heavens, the plot thickens…
Well, and Hannah is almost certainly the OVP guy who was brokering meetings iwth Ghorba in that same period.
FWIW.
Indeed, after reading your Ghorbanifar Timeline (repeatedly, and always with a state of shocked amazement), landing on the information that Eric Edelman, John Bolton, and almost certainly Scooter Libby and Richard B. Cheney were spying on US Dept of State diplomats — ‘at the highest levels’ — made my eyebrows shoot up about 2 feet.
Rayne @36 — looks like Haass was a guest on Bill Maher’s show last Friday in his role as Pres. of the Council on Foreign Relations, discussing Obama’s speech in Cairo. Looks as if the audience was very receptive to what Haass had to say
(Heaven help me, after not watching any teevee news for over 20 years, now that it’s available ‘on my Internet machine’, I do watch “Morning Joe” a fair amount. They have some interesting guests; whole other thread topic.)
JasonLeopold @ 17, yeah, I’m liking “Angler”; it’s compelling in that creepy way that reading about Iago, or Richard III, is oddly riveting. Cheney clearly has some traits that allowed him to be successful as long as he can/could control information. As near as I can figure, he equates power with secrecy; if he has more secrets, he has more power. That’s 180 degrees opposite the people that I most respect, for whom the ability to share and explain information is key to their influence and ‘power’.
But when you line up “Angler” with any of Emptywheel’s Timelines, it’s a very eerie experience. I recommend you combine the book with her Timelines. That’s how you realize that at the same time Edelman was spying on Haass, OVP and Feith’s little shop of horrors at DoD were setting up ‘private’ meetings in Italy with former Iran-Contra enabler Manuchur Ghorbanifar. Something’s definitely sinister; more evidence that Cheney got played.
Ah, thanks for that, explains why I thought I saw that Haass was on TV inside the last 24 hours. I think I noted that about 2:00 am this morning when I woke up and shut off the TV, must have been a Maher re-run.
Might have to watch that to see if there was anything of worth in it.
I swear Haass was on TV within the last 24 hours — but I can’t remember where I saw that he was scheduled. I don’t watch Morning Joke Scarborough, so I wonder if he’d been on The Today Show and I missed him? Seems like an odd coincidence; was he talking about Iran, or talking about something else, I wonder?
So, up through March 11, W was perfectly willing to authorize “teh program” without DoJ approval.
Then on March 12, first Comey and then — at Comey’s request — Mueller each get a one-on-one with W.
Without. Dick.
According to Comey and Mueller, W then tells them to “Make it right”. Then W tells Abu G to write up notes of the March 10 Gof8 briefing.
What if….. March 12 was the first time W had been told at least some portion(s) of “teh program”? (because Dick wasn’t there to muzzle Comey and Mueller)
What if….. That was the first time Comey and Mueller realized how out-of-the-loop W was?
What if….. W’s gut-reaction to finding out was to (a) call off Cheney’s hounds and tell Comey and Mueller to fix it; and (b) to pick Abu G’s brain for info so he could to find out what was really going on without alerting Dick?
What if….. Dick, Abu G, and probably Addington, Libby, and Card, were the only ones who knew how clueless W was (about “teh program” specifically, not generally) — everybody else assuming that Dick was representing (and reporting to) W at briefings; when Dick was actually substituting himself for W?
If-If-If-If: Would all of these people then act the way we now know they DID act? (up to and including Abu G and W caving on their brief moment of defiance as soon as Dick could get them back under his thumb)
(OTOH, what if…. rincewind’s tinfoil hat is a leeeetle bit too tight?)
You are correct in your presumption that only the 05/10/2005 memo was classified at a compartmental level (SCI=Sensitive Compartmented Information). Aside from obscuring the identity of an al Qaeda detainee and the identities of several SERE associated individuals, the remaining references redacted are all related to other sources pertaining the high-value interrogation program. By compartmentalizing this “program,” they can limit who’s read-in (indoctrinated) to the program based on a ‘need to know’ access.
ha! I just picked up Angler this afternoon! I just started reading it today. I’m on page 77 but I’m going to jump ahead check out that passage. What do you think of the book thus far?
And if these people weren’t C’ing their A’s, they were accusing others of trying to C their A’s. As Bush told the CIA briefer on 8/6/01: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
I guess when you’re an Ass Coverer everyone else looks like one too.
G’mornin everybody
(actually, it’s good night fer me, up a little late on da left coast)
goin WAAAY o/t, but I wanted to share this timely and accurate analysis of newt’s chances of winning the gop nomination for Prez in 2012 that :I saw at C & L
personally I like the Lions’ chances more than newt’s, but I couldn’t resist …
we now return you to the interesting discussion of dead eye ad AGAG trying to cover their asses
(duckin & runnin)
The NY Times has spin, we have Marcy.
“You journalists love the truth. . . . You also know that truth is elusive, that it must be gone after, sought. It doesn’t come easily. No one owns it and dispenses it. In fact, what you usually spend your time going after are those who think they have it.” eulogy on John Wilke
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..=newstrust
Power and control works. And it’s NOT power and control unless it costs you dearly to go up against it.
I really wish we would get rid of the myth that if you do the right thing, good things will happen and the path will be easy. It doesn’t work that way when you go against this kind of power and control. Instead it costs you dearly, and sometimes will cost your life. This is the message that needs to be perpetuated if we are ever going to make ourselves a nation less vulnerable to the Cheney’s of the world.
Gonzales’s brief case (containing such highly damning documents – carried out of government offices and traveling around the streets of DC), is treasonous. Those documents, in the hands of a foreign power, would subject the United States to the most extreme and debilitating blackmail imaginable.
Imagine, for example, if such documents (which also existed electronically on his computer) were to fall into the hands of Israel. Why, they could go right ahead and invade any country (Lebanon) or commit any genocide they cared to (Palestine), and the Administration would be totally powerless to say a word about it (as we witnessed).
Even in the aftermath, as evidence of War Crimes by Israel mounted, the United States would no longer possess the moral authority to condemn the actions of Israel, in light of its own torture program.
Now a conspiracy-minded individual (me) might be led to believe that Israel had the intention from the outset to position the US as an outlaw nation (by insisting that torture be used, and then exposed publicly), so as to make Israel’s own atrocities look less-worse, and leave the US powerless to “call the kettle black.”
Put blackmail on the top of your mind, and keep it there. It serves to explain pretty much everything about why our government is so broken. This thread is about a CYA mentality. Israel has wiretaps and spies throughout the US government, controls US foreign policy, helped plan the military strategy for the invasion of Iraq, and know literally everything, including every detail about 9/11.
The CYA mentality of the Bush Administration prevented any of them from admitting that Israel is in fact blackmailing the shit out of the United States, but make no mistake, they are.
BY WAY OF DECEPTION…
I forget who made the criticism but the well-documented Gonzales-Comey-Ashcroft “meeting” at the hospital was seen as a nightmare by espionage experts. The fact that the same administration fingered Sandy Berger for allegedly trying to pocket classified documents (IMO strictly a political opportunity to bash a Clintonite) while Gonzales risked national security by demanding a meeting with a doped up Ashcroft (that’s an interesting concept) is yet another example of rank GOPocrisy.
Thanks for adding the word “claims.” I believe all Gonzales did at the Principals Meeting was see which way the wind was blowing. Then he claimed he fought the good fight.
yeah .. i too have the nagging suspicion abu gonzo* passed on the actual parsing out of the particulars of the issue ala-comey to the principals .. and just “said he did” .. i think the little shit was too intimidated by cheney and addington to buck them ..
*[alternates- abu gutless .. abu clueless.. abu amnesiac .. abu suck-up ]
It appears Jim Comey may have a “practice” professionally that may jive with Robert Graham’s quirk practice of journaling.
When you combined Robert Graham’s journal notes on torture issues with Comey’s:
and compare them with the creation of the Cheney Gonzo CYA library; Graham and Comey win hands down.
My guess is the combo of the Graham notes and Comey notes on the OLC (which is why Gonzo probably carried them) are pretty damning evidence.
Interview with Gitmo detainee. Torture.
Thank you so much for posting this. I’m circulating it.
Thanks for that link.
Greenwald has an article up now about that Boumediene interview.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..oumediene/
Thanks! Did you see his Juan Cole update? Ticking time bomb on abortion killings!
Gonzo got to keep his security clearence after that became public. I know what whould have happened to my clearence if I’d accidently been carrying stuff like that around. Never mind INTENTIONALLY removing SCI level information from a secure facility.
My papers would have been pulled at once. If they thought it was intentional, I might face criminal charges though that’s uncommon.
Boxturtle (It’s good to be Atty General, I guess)
Random musings…
Just prior to Fredo’s resignation there was an Al-Haramain hearing. Also, EW has speculated (item #3 at the bottom) that an OLC memo had been hidden and the Obama DOJ owned up to it.
And in the same timeframe I also believe there was a “Best Practices” memorandum issued for OLC. Makes one wonder about our friend Fredo.
O/T: A little sweetener for your morning coffee.
Report: House Dems Angry With Reid For Caving To Centrists And GOP
The Plum LineGreg Sargent’s blog
“Apparently some of what’s driving this is Reid’s run for reelection. He has repeatedly shown he’s determined not to be painted by Republicans as too liberal. As a result, he has let Republicans frame the debate on key issues, even though they don’t even have candidate to run against him yet; one example was Reid’s decision to part ways with Obama on the closing of Guantanamo.”
http://theplumline.whorunsgov……ng-to-gop/
Sorry about the o/t reply, but I need to rage a bit here. It is time for term limits and campaign finance reform.
These yahoos spend 90% or more of their time raising money from their corporate masters and running for re-election. They don’t appear to give a rat’s a$$ about doing what they were elected to do, which is to serve the interests of the country.
Thank you for your patience. Please continue with your execelent conversation.
O/T again, but I’m hoping this will make you feel a bit better (you might avoid reading the minority dissenting comment from Roberts, though).
Campaign Money Can Disqualify Judges, Top Court Says (Update3)
By Greg Stohr
June 8 (Bloomberg) — “Judges must disqualify themselves in some cases involving their top campaign contributors, the U.S. Supreme Court said, ruling for the first time that judicial elections can create a risk of bias that violates the Constitution.
“The justices, voting 5-4, said West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin shouldn’t have taken part in two 3-2 decisions that blocked a $50 million jury verdict against units of Massey Energy Co. The company’s chairman, Donald Blankenship, had spent $3 million to get Benjamin elected.
. . .
‘The case split the court along ideological lines, with Kennedy joining the court’s liberal wing of John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and David Souter. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
. . .
‘“This will inevitably lead to an increase in allegations that judges are biased, however groundless those charges may be,” Roberts wrote. “The end result will do far more to erode public confidence in judicial impartiality than an isolated failure to recuse in a particular case.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..EDxeYAKid4
Shorter Roberts: If we can’t be biased then why would anyone want to be a judge?
Roberts; once an asshole, always an asshole.
Stellar Wind…..
Now We Know What the Battle Was About
Justice Department lawyers defied President Bush over secret surveillance—but not for the reasons you might think.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/174602
http://www.brookings.edu/opini…..ittes.aspx
Was it just the “stellar wind’ project that Bush spoke to Comey about that day?
who wrote this?
“the authorized use of the waterboard by adequately trained interrogators and other team members could not reasonably be considered specifically intended to cause severe physical or mental pain or suffering and thus would not violate sections 2340-2340A.”
Suppose we changed it to guillotine:
It might cause death. But you might not suffer all that much first! (but if properly trained and with a nice sharp guillotine…)
However, if you intend for the person to live and you make them feel like their dying, over and over and over and over…. well, I bet some might even prefer the guillotine! Because at least death would bring their suffering to an end. The mere fact that many have tried to commit suicide tells me that simply an endless imprisonment with no legal recourse for years and years is such great pain and suffering that a person would rather be dead. That’s why I am so opposed to this idea of letting these detainees plead guilty. To me, that’s like asking a suicidal person if they want to die.
Ya know, if a case is ever brought against these people, the greymail will be so huge as to make it almost impossible.
Standard disclaimer: I used to known as HelplessDancer.
The term: “Kidnap Victim” is a far more apt description of those held at GITMO. The press has completely caved-in to the “Agenda” of their overlords/owners. Reporters have failed to follow their own guidelines when they fail to include the word “alleged” – every single time – as a required qualifier when referring to these kidnapping victims as “terrorists.”
Look up the definition of “Terrorist,” and see who the REAL terrorists are.
I never read the DOJ report on Gonzales and the mishandled docs, but taking a quick look at it I saw something that had never really computed with me. I’m sure it has been discussed before when the report came out, but this was news to me:
Gonazles helped create the program? And escaped ever having to sign off on a separate confidentiality on it too, since he wasn’t formally read in, but the big thing that hit me was Gonzales helped create the program?!? And his expertise was …?
Good cya v. notgood cya.
I have to comment a bit on cya in general, esp in the Comey emails v. Cheney/Gonzales sense. I don’t view cya as an always perjorative term. It is actually just a “part of the job” activity for most people involved in communications sensitive jobs where there are oral communications. So to go back and paper a file with correct info or contemporaneous recollections is, IMO, not only not a big deal, it can be a mistake or professional lapse to NOT get a cya record together in some cases. There is another kind of cya though, where you have done a bad thing and you set out to either create a false record or illicitly obtain exculpation from consequences for the bad thing. Like – well, torturing people then getting the prosecutors to give you de facto immunity for it. Or possibly creating notes that mischaracterize or mislead.
Two different things in my book, fwiw. I wouldn’t actually fault even a Bush for wanting his rep at an important meeting to make some notes. The overall circumstances, though, make you query the “good cya” v. “notgood cya” aspects of the Gonzales notes.
On the Gonzales info, I kind of wonder about the list of techniques that Comey gave Gonzales on a card. Esp the “preliminaries” I would think that had pretty classified info and I wonder what was done with it. Was it preserved? The report EW links talks about things other than the Gonzales notes that Gonzales handed over, but I’m not sure that the description would include that list:
I also haven’t been through the doc production indexes like WO, but I wonder if any of the “non-produced but described” docs sound like they could be this list? I think that the way in which it seems now clear that they artificially severed out the “preliminaries” (of purchase, kidnap, anal assault, drugging, forcible stripping by masked men, non-consensual nude photographs, contemporaneous threats to person and family and effect on family of kidnapping, etc.) and created a “transition to interrogation” fiction that allowed them to skip over these issues in their memos (the lack of discussion of these aspects has been noted earlier).
In particular with respect to the Jeppeson litigation I think that it would be pretty relevant to that to find out what were deemed to be the “preliminaries” (to which Jeppeson personnel might reasonably have been exposed) and I also think that there might need to be some discovery clarification in cases involving allegations of “interrogation” torture, if DOJ is treating the initial torture as just “preliminary” to the interrogations.
Mary
That is an interesting detail, isn’t it? And I suppose Addington similarly did not get “read in” to the program. It’s also interesting given the changing classifications for the OLC memos, which is implicit to what I’ve said in this post, but I didn’t make explicit.
Over the course of the the torture program, they were playing with classifications of the OLC memos.
The Bybee One memo was not classified. Which meant that the CIA contractors coudl presumably wave it around as their golden shield. Bybee Two was, though. And the 2003 Yoo DOD memo was also not classified, but we know they were withholding it from Mora and others. The 2005 memos, though, had a formal compartment. I talked with Bill Leonard, former head of ISOO about this stuff last week, and he suggested that maybe CIA wanted to compartment the program and that’s why it later came to have compartment info included in the classification of it. BUt maybe it was Cheney or someone building in a compartment bc it had become bureaucratically necessary to exclude–say–people like Zelikow and Comey from ready access.
That’s interesting. I had always assumed they were simply intent on a shroud of classification secrecy from the start, but the thought here is that it evolved and grew because of the necessity of affirmative exclusions; am I reading that right?
Maybe–that was just a hypothesis. It might just be that CIA was getting antsy.
Maybe related (maybe not) and I might even just be misremembering this, but one of the DoD torture memos that was released was “declassified” for release and had the acting gen counsle sign off on the “declassification” but there was nowhere to be seen on the memo any “classification” or the classifier (classifying authority, originator, etc.)
Again, I may be misremembering, but I don’t think anyone wanted to fess up to being the person at DoD or DOJ who “classified” the memos authorizing direct violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Right–my thoughts on classification came out of a convesation with Bill Leonard last week. He’s the one who pointed out the totally illegal classification on the Yoo memo. It’s the 2003 one, the one they used to undercut Mora et al. Though I think they may have just “classified” it to keep Carl Levin from getting a hold of it.
Oh, how very interesting. And it certainly does tie in with using NSA capabilities to spy on Powell and his subordinates; don’t let anyone know what you know. Spy on them, restrict assess to info, compartmentalize torture authorizations, and you’ll ‘control the world’.
My, oh, my….
As to the non-produced documents–I haven’t been through these as closely as WO, but remember that these are just a selection, every 10 or so documents (I forget the number). So chances are it’d be missed unless there were many copies of it. I didn’t see anything that would qualify, though that list may well not have had a date, which would make it harder still to track.
Though it could be the talking points document described there.
Oh, and one more point about good v bad CYA.
I agree with that–and that’s why I wondered whether some of this wasn’t Gonzales protecting himself not against what Comey would have to say, but against what Cheney et al still pushed through. If AGAG really DID try–best as he was able–to get them out of the torture business in 2005, then proving he did might be important.
(It also might mean he’d somehow strangely not get any wingnut welfare when he quit govt.)
Remember: he was fired not long after this cache became known to the WH. And he is still only marginally employed.
I didn’t see it mentioned here but let’s look at when the first claims that the OVP was not part of either the legislative or executive branches. That sort of thing has to be related to all this in some way…and very specifically. Lawyers like Addington don’t throw something like this against the wall unless they have a specific in mind…and how did that relate to the crisis that apparently occurring in DOJ land in 2005? And before in 2003? What is being prevented from being disclosed here? Is it information that would be perjury in the Plame investigation? Or is it the reading of our own Diplomats cables that might indicate that some sort of treason was afoot?
Along these same lines, what ever happened to the Phillipine spy in the OVP? Did information that the OVP will not turn over to the archives happen to end up in the Phillipine (and also presumably Israeli) intelligence agencies? This is also a powder keg that I believe that Cheney and his supporters are seeking to avoid as well…the secrets they transmitted to foreign governments by not having a secure OVP…
None of this stuff happened in a vacuum. In May 2005, an appeals court ruled that “Fourth Branch” could keep his preciousssss! Energy Task Force documents secret, since “Fourth Branch” had quasi-executive branch privileges but none of the responsibilities when it came to consulting with lobbyists. This decision helped to cement OVP’s nebulous role between EO and Legislature.
Oh, good catch! Reminds me of this info about Abramoff (from Wikipedia, 8 June 2009, although no doubt as soon as the more depraved GOPers see it, this will change):
So… millions for lobbying about USSR energy supplies? Check.
Millions for trying to get the energy resources away from the Native Claims and into private coffers? Check.
Millions for ‘astroturfing’ (i.e., propaganda via the Internet)? Check.
And I didn’t even include lobbying on behalf of the Israeli telecomm that is now ‘based’ in Vienna, VA.
Sleaze of the lowest phylum.
Really now OT, but there’s more to that whole mess. Remember the Bush admin killed internet gambling? they made trade negotiations with other countries to offset the losses they experienced from the closure of internet gambling. Some of the same players (like Cornyn) were involved in the political squeeze play to close down the gambling. But the trade negotiations were classified, the terms deemed state secrets when FOIA’d. When the terms were finally discerned, they included granting rights to other countries to build LNG terminals within ridiculously close proximity to population centers along America’s coastlines. I still haven’t gone and done my homework about which countries and companies benefited the most; I suspect the legwork for this was completed during the Energy Task Force meetings which Deadeye retains in his claw-like Fourth Estate grasp.
But more on that when we’ve made a dent in torture…
Ick!
You mean, on top of $80,000,000 paid by Native Tribes for lobbying, on top of using tax shelters and offshore banking to subsidize West Bank terrorism, on top of employing former legislative aids as
shake down artists‘lobbyists’, on top of privatizing the US energy resources, and also ‘privatizing’ (or, at the very least, creating involvements in Russia that could lead to McCainian stupidity like, “We’re all Georgians now”… on top of all that, I’ve not even scratched the surface?!If these people aren’t sociopaths, then I don’t have a clue what that word means.
In a word, yes, on top of that. I’m certain there’s more, and I know the good folks at ePluribus Media are working on some of it.
I think there might be some wiggle room yet with the trade stuff, don’t know that the Bushies got it all wrapped up before they left for the shadows. But left-behinds could make traction while we floundered around looking for answers. Ultimately we will find that nearly every one of these problems we’ve been wrestling with, from Enron’s frauds to the Plame affair to the Abramoff corruptions to the matter of torture, they have all revolved around the same core issue: energy.
The French used to say, Cherchez la femme. Not any more; now it’s Cherchez de l’énergie.
Wow, so many topics here and I **could** write for hours…
But won’t.
Yes, it’s all about forms of chemical energy. And atomic energy.
It’s about energy, but also about finance; it never could have occurred without eCommerce and offshoring and money laundering. (And completely corrupt system of election financing helped enormously.)
When you have dark money, predatory relationships, and thugs in expensive suits, you have growing financial inequalities, social destabilization, you incentivize thugs at the expense of thoughtful, competent people, and then violence reigns.
Personally, the only way that I see to restore some balance is through better (international) law enforcement and some kind of Peace Corps 6.0 concept: languages, better aid for really solid education, health care, and the kind of unsexy drudgery involved in digging wells. And better alternative energy programs, locally based. Sunlight doesn’t cost a dime, a euro, a yuan, a ruble, a peso, or a yen.
Gonzales takes all of his cues from the movie Clear and Present Danger including his mantra “I do not recollect” and the notes you mention. He is the Chauncey the gardener of the “W” era.
to Loo Hoo @55 (reply no workee on opera browser)
John Cole, not Juan
Right0. Quite a difference!
So, to summarize, after the discovery of the torture program authorized by Cheney via OLC pixie dust, Cheney rendered retrospectively documentation of a positive result several years after the fact.
Question: Why didn’t Cheney advise the country of the virtues of torture at the time of this retrospectively identified positive result?
Interesting dynamics… EW @ 57
With your suggestion on Gonzo, do I read this alignment of “people” evidence correctly?
The line-up of dots via Graham, Comey(to a degree), Zelikow, Goldsmith, Mora … vs Cheney, Bradbury, Addington, Yoo, Condi, Bush and then in the middle perhaps Pelosi, Jello Jay and then Gonzo (slightly left of center by your possible view of Cheney protection)?
Yes, there were at least three different “teams” at work, although their membership on each team was for highly individual reasons.
The more I read of the give-and-take over Comey’s role I conclude he’s an old school conservative versus a neo-conservative; he’s all about the rule of law, by the books, but this is “reason free from passion,” not humane or empathic, only to the letter. In contrast, neo-conservatives believe they can mold any law to fit their needs, the ends justifying the means since their ideology is vastly preferable, at least in their own minds. There’s a narrow overlap between these camps, but it is breached when the letter of the law has been warped beyond recognition to the point where it is clearly criminality. This means Comey is no white knight to progressives, but not a rogue official, either.
Someday years from now this will make a great movie…
I have been trying to put a timeline, a diagram of the “teams” and a diagram of the “torture evidence” teams together within EW’s overall torture timeline. “Narrow overlap” is a good choice of words…The narrow overlaps seem to be where the most damning evidence can be found pointing at Cheney (and Bush). Then, I have been applying a lens of team A and team B at CIA to those narrow overlaps to view the news leaks and try to track the internal struggle there.
…which is linked to a YouTube titled Kennedy Speech Conspiracy Secret Societies with the description…
Except it’s not that. It’s a few stitched-together excerpts from this Cold War speech: The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, made by president John F. Kennedy at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, April 27, 1961.
Some nutjob with an audio editor cherry-picked the bits of the speech that supported his whacked conspiracy theories. Omitted are any references to the Cold War and national security.
Plunger, why are you linking this crap here, of all places?
Consider yourself challenged.
You have made a statement that implies that the majority of the recording I linked to of JFK was spliced together to create a whole new meaning of his words. I think his words speak for themselves and encourage everyone to follow along with the text that you linked to:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Hist…..271961.htm
and listen to the You Tube version that I linked simultaneously. While the You Tube version is not his entire speech, I leave it to each individual to take away from it what they choose. As for your Swiftboating of me for posting it, that speaks for itself.
Got anything on the nest of Israeli spies inside the US Government?
To take one case, the YouTube omits the final sentence (struck through, below) from one of the paragraphs of JFK’s speech which provides a key bit of context:
Plunger, yes, I was a bit harsh, so I’m sorry. Maybe it didn’t come through this way, but most of my ire was directed at the content of the link, not you. I just think it would help to apply some sanity checking before posting such links.
I don’t want to further derail this thread with off-topic stuff, so I’ll shut up now.
That is part of your apology?
Dude, don’t apologize to me – apologize to the broader community that your posting was designed to completely mislead. I did not characterize the link, I merely provided it in the context of “massive conspiracies,” which that speech by JFK serves to illustrate very nicely. Therefore I was not obligated to check to see if it matched the speech transcript verbatim (as I never claimed it did), or whether it was excerpted from a larger speech – which I of course assumed it was.
Your accusatory tone was completely uncalled for, and your posting was inaccurate. As for your “ire,” deal with it.
American Detained, Tortured in UAE at U.S. Govt’s Behest, ACLU Says
Naji Hamdan Says He Was Beaten Until Losing Consciousness in Abu Dhabi Prison
By ANNA SCHECTER
June 8, 2009
“An American citizen has been detained and tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the behest of the U.S. government, according to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed in federal court.
“The judge has called for a hearing today in Washington, DC, and ACLU lawyers say they hope to hear that their case on behalf of Naji Hamdan, 42, will go forward.
“Hamdan, who had moved to Dubai several years ago after living in the U.S. for more than 20 years, becoming an American citizen, and raising a family in California, was arrested in August 2008 by state security forces of the UAE. Several weeks before the arrest, FBI agents interrogated Hamdan at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, the lawsuit said.
“In a handwritten statement given to the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, Hamdan said he was kept in a frigid cell with blinding lights on 24 hours a day, and only left to be interrogated and tortured and to go to the toilet.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/…..038;page=1
fatster June 8th, 2009 at 10:25 am
There are plenty of highly qualified people in this country to fill every elected public office, many times over. It is not necessary for a small sub-set of citizens to suck at the public trough for years and years and years. Seems to me that a ’public servant’, once elected should serve the term of office, be paid while in office, and then go back to being an ordinary citizen — not able to hold elected public office ever again. Over the years, most of them become so far removed from reality that they are useless. Those seeking to be elected, should be sufficiently prepared to ’hit the ground running’ once they are elected, do the work they promised to do, and then let someone else have a turn at ’serving the country’. If more people actually had an opportunity to ’participate’, I think we would see a public that was much better informed. The reality of politics today is that the public has no real choice in candidates — the political party honchos (under direction of corporate $ponsor$) do the chosing. The public then gets a vote-or-don’t-vote choice. They really don’t care if we vote or not, and as a result, I think many people just give up caring.
This business of having to pay pensions to these do-nothing career ’public servants’ is galling.
Rant over for today.
OK, I lied in the last sentence. Two last questions: If any politician is convicted of crimes committed while in office, do we still have to pay their pensions? Do they still get to keep their government subsidized health care?
Done. Promise.
Rayne @ 68
Well put. Probably sums up my view of Comey despite my view being interpreted as “hero” worship! s/
Ornery sucker, aren’t I??
That’s your charm and appeal to all of us bmaz readers!
Well, I think it says something larger about our democracy when some of us must cheer what should be the minimum requirement of each citizen — following the law to the letter of the law — because we’ve had so very few leaders and elected officials who not only live to the letter but to the spirit of the law as well.
The argument over the legality of interrogation within 18 USC 2340-2340A, specifically, was confined to the letter, playing with the word “intention.” Interrogation methods were intended to obtain intelligence — no argument about the validity of that intelligence, or whether the spirit of the law was violated in such a narrow interpretation. Further, the real intentions are never communicated fully, clearly, and across the breadth of the organization, making uniformity of legal opinion and compliance impossible.
Amazing irony…
Playing with the word “intention” within the context of violating the spirit of the law (intention of the law) with voided validity.
Twisted.
I’ve probably already done this too much but I’ll add my overlay.
I don’t think Comey’s actions in respect of the unconsititional, felonious etc. Bush programs fit under either of Rayne’s “old school conservative versus a neo-conservative” headings. Not that I have any basis for insight or knowledge other than looking at the last portion of a decade’s actions, but here’s my take.
If Comey had been calling the shots originally on any of a variety of activities – from disappearing Padilla into military detention to torture to the institution of the massive felony wiretap program, probably none of them would have been approved bc, ideology of “old fashioned conservative” or “neocon” aside, he’s too good a lawyer to think those things were really valid and he wouldn’t have wanted the walk back on liability to his “clients” (President, DOJ, FBI etc.) that would accompany them.
OTOH, Comey’s actions over and over seem to be right smack in line with what you’d expect from a lawyer infected with political ambition and an overdeveloped sense of “them v. us” where the “them” is the American public and the “us” is what he views as “his” circle, be that DOJ colleagues specifically or the President and DOJ institutionally, or the Republican party, or counterterrorism agencies. So my take, which hasn’t disappointed me a whole heckuva lot so far although it can be picked apart, is that when faced with these existing bad decisions, what he typically did was to dig in and cooperate with making sure that existing malfeasance was protected and simultaneously insure that he personally didn’t get put onto something that could be walked back to him for personal liability and also working to try to disengage his “clients” (who were not the felony victims of gov’s programs) from continuing in ongoing at risk behaviour.
IMO, the old fashioned conservatives are evidenced by people like Mora and Fein. IMO (as if I would know), left to his own Comey might be more progressive in some aspects than those guys. But his determining action factor, IMO, has more often been a political equation of how to protect his power base associations whatever they have done to date (without much ideology) while at the same time offering up better legal advice to them for future actions and yet also making sure that no court or direct plaintiff action would put him, personally, at risk based on his actions/advice in office.
FWIW, but use it as a predictive model and you don’t get disappointed often.
I have heard what you are stating irt Comey. I do agree with a good portion of your analysis but would argue some issues.
So, in broad generalization terms in moving forward on torture, based on your view of Comey and his email evidence; Comey would be better on the stand as part of the Cheney defense as opposed to an offensive against Cheney?
You bet.
In any actual legal proceeding against members of the Exec, he would also have duties stemming from his prior role in offering advice on the programs to them.
OTOH, I don’t think that, if you get around privilege he would outright lie (he is not going to put himself in that situation vis a vis Congress or the courts, at least, no more so than he did with the Arar affidavit and his claims under penalty of perjury to the court that Arar’s shipment to torture was correctly categorized as a state secret) and I’m guessing that, after “they” kicked his guy, Philbin, in the teeth there are some that he would be happy to bury if he could, but only if he could keep all his crew safe doing it. That’s what made the hospital story one he’d share -it protected and glorified Ashcroft and Philbin and Ayres and Mueller and painted Gonzales and Card as they should have been, all without actually legally jeopardizing Bush, The Clueless.
There’s not much, though, where he can bury Cheneyco and not take down others with them, so IMO, he won’t.
Agreed
Mary @ 99:
“There’s not much, though, where he can bury Cheneyco and not take down others with them, so IMO, he won’t.”
Thanks for your response. I thought you might make those points (especially the last one above). Which makes me think there is potential that Comey really does have “something” on team B but they put him in a position to be a better witness for team B through the NYT’s leak.
This bit from the emails really supports your take on Comey:
I wonder what he meant by disaster.
Disaster might have been eventually going into court without a single DoJ attorney willing to argue the case. To me that is one of the things about secret OLC opinions and probably one of the issues raised in the OPR report.
I mean, really, at some point those opinions may have to stand before a judge and someone from DoJ will have to argue the case. In fact, that is what I think Holder is doing with Al-H. He is going to let the case run out on the arguments made in the memos. And its going to be a major slap down. First nut to crack is going to be the exec’s claim that they can withhold from judiciary. I guess the precedent would be that denial of clearances for OPR.
msmolly June 8th, 2009 at 10:49 am 69
In response to Jkat @ 28 (show text)
(reply isn’t working for me)
My dictionary has:
divers: Various; several; sundry [Middle English divers(e)]
OT – but in the case of the American citizen claiming that the UAE is holding him and tortured him at the behest of the US,
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/…..038;page=1
I thought this was interesting and wondered if it was made under penalty of perjury
I guess what they mean is, that’s the CIA’s job?
To paraphrase the Big Dog, it “depends on what the definition of ‘it’ is”.
DOJ Torture Emails: How The Times Could Have Reported The Story
By Zachary Roth – June 8, 2009, 1:01PM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..hp?ref=fpa
Apologies if already linked – How Cheney Bent DOJ Over – from Dan Froomkin/ WaPo
Religious leaders to lobby Obama for torture inquiry
BY STEPHEN C. WEBSTER Published: June 8, 2009 Updated 3 hours ago
“Eight spiritual leaders from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, representing some 250 member organizations from around the United States, will demonstrate in front of the White House on Thursday, giving “public witness” to their support of an inquiry on torture.
. . .
‘“We agree we must look forward — forward to a future where torture will never happen again,” the group’s letter submits. “But we believe that the only avenue to, and guarantee of, such a future is a Commission of Inquiry. An investigation of U.S.-sponsored torture will only be credible and thorough if conducted by a Commission comprised of citizens who are well-respected, non-partisan, and independent-minded.”
. . .
‘“We beseech you, in furtherance of your responsibility to restore, protect, and preserve the sanctity and rule of law in this nation, to commit yourself to the creation of a Commission of Inquiry that will uncover the truth, identify and establish legal safeguards, and guarantee for our children and grand-children a future in this country free of torture, without exceptions,” the group’s letter will ask.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..s-torture/
Christians & non- Christians uniting for a common purpose. Dubya was right, he is a Uniterer …
This ought to get interesting…as the “faux religious” Right piles into the debate – presumably on the “Pro Torture” side. Apparently they’ll be setting a good example to their children at home, teaching when it is absolutely essential to lie, and precisely who Jesus would Waterboard for a coerced (if false) confession.
Is the URL, http://www.Christians4torture.com too over the top?
Watch closely as the links between the Zionist Zealots and the Christian Zealots (AKA co-conspirators) are revealed for all to see, as their spokespersons trip all over themselves justifying torture.
Is it Christmas in June, or what?
“Heathen, reveal thyself!”
I finally got up my nerve to click on that link to christians4torture, figuring I could stop by bettybowers.com on my way back and restore some sanity. Was I relieved that your link went nowhere! (I’m really not that gullible–I just have confidence that some nutz somewhere would have such a site.)
Tell looks like me what treason looks like,
This is looking T R E A S O N in the eye and this is what G O D D A M N E D T R E A S O N looks like .
Not something to leave to the grandkids and please no violent solutions just reasoned passion please.
CIA urges judge to keep detainee papers secret
By DEVLIN BARRETT Associated Press Writer
Jun 8th, 2009 | WASHINGTON — “CIA Director Leon Panetta told a federal judge Monday that releasing documents about the agency’s terror interrogations would gravely damage national security.
“Panetta sent a 24-page missive to New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, arguing that release of agency cables describing tough interrogation methods used on al-Qaida suspects would tell the enemy far too much about U.S. counterterrorism work.”
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/…..index.html
Apologies if this has already been posted.
The enemy?
He means you and me. He means The Truthseekers. Just ask Lindsey Graham who he perceives “the enemy” to be. It’s us.
They speak in code.
Life Inside Gitmo: Former Detainee Speaks
Held Seven Years, Former Aid Worker Tells ABC News He Was Tortured
http://informationclearinghous…..e22792.htm
I have an idea: prove what plunger says is wrong! With evidence.
I have a better idea, take that crap to your own blog (yes I know who you are) or to Oxdown. It is neither your right, nor permissive privilege, to litter our threads nor to demand diddly squat from us. We owe you absolutely nothing. Participate in good faith, or not at all. It is your choice. We have had this discussion before, this will be the last time.