Carrie Johnson’s got an interestingly-timed profile of Michael Mukasey today. She accurately describes Mukasey as trying to, above all, just get to the end of the term with no big new scandals erupting.

From a book-lined den on the fifth floor of the Justice Department, the attorney general is watching the clock.

Tenure, after all, is short for Michael B. Mukasey, a retired federal judge who has just six more months to restore confidence in a department battered by allegations of improper political meddling before time runs out on the Bush administration.

Mukasey is one of several elder statesman who accepted the president’s request to rejoin government late in the second term, only to confront increasingly intense political battles and the detritus left by their predecessors. Yet, unlike Michael Hayden at the CIA and Robert M. Gates at the Defense Department, Mukasey has complicated his task with his steadfast refusal to reopen old wounds and purge the ranks of his roiled department.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) recently appraised Mukasey as "content to serve as a caretaker for the regime of excessive executive power established by the Bush administration."

As Democratic lawmakers and White House officials tangle over how actively investigators should explore the past, the attorney general generally has sided with the administration and declined to open criminal probes on matters that predate him.

In the past month, Mukasey has rejected requests to name a special prosecutor to examine whether Cabinet officials committed war crimes when they approved harsh interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects. He refused to take a second look at a public corruption case that 52 bipartisan state attorneys general say smacks of selective prosecution. He refrained from characterizing the department he joined last November as torn apart by partisan discord even though more than a dozen officials, including his forerunner, Alberto R. Gonzales, departed amid a politically charged firing scandal.

I say this is interestingly-timed because most of the stonewalling she lists are the same things Democratic Senate Judiciary Members listed a few weeks back when Mukasey testified before the Committee: torture, Siegelman, the politicization of DOJ (she missed John Yoo’s OLC opinions). But that was then, this is now, and in the interim two weeks, two conflicts have arisen, which both threaten to make Mukasey the point of controversy, rather than the guy trying to tamp it down.

First there’s the matter of Karl Rove’s invocation of absolute immunity. The danger for Mukasey with it is not his involvement. Rather it’s the apparent lack of any involvement from DOJ leading up to Rove’s extraordinary snub of Congress. As I’ve explained, it appears that, rather than having DOJ complete a review of whether Rove had any legal claim to invoke this absolute immunity bullshit, Fred Fielding simply dug out a memo pertaining to a completely different subpoena and used it to claim that the White House had cover from DOJ in advising Rove to blow off Congress. Now, given Mukasey’s stated policy about enforcing contempt from Congress–that is, that he would not refer contempt to DC’s US Attorney so long as the invocation of privilege relied on an opinion from DOJ–he ought to be willing to enforce contempt in this case. After all, the White House has no advice (or has hidden any advice) from DOJ analyzing this instance and asserting that Rove was, in fact, eligible to invoke immunity in this situation. And if Mukasey tried to claim he was okay with Fielding pretending a memo from last year could apply, with no further analysis, to the subpoena this year, then he would then have to buy off on the dangerous claim that it was Karl Rove’s "official duty" to conduct witch hunts against Democrats. Mind you, I don’t doubt that Mukasey will still try to find a loophole to prevent DOJ from arresting Karl Rove. But any possible loophole will have some increasingly dangerous possible repercussions.

And then, last week, Mukasey rather ridiculously begged Bush to invoke executive privilege over Cheney’s FBI interview report, basically asking Bush to obstruct justice again so that Mukasey did not have to risk jail time in his efforts to prevent us from learning whether or not Cheney admitted to ordering Libby to leak Valerie Wilson’s identity. While it appears that Oversight has no business meetings scheduled anytime soon at which it could vote to hold Mukasey in contempt, Waxman did prepare a contempt report that would be ready at hand any time he wants to hold that vote–effectively a metaphorical loaded gun placed in plain view to facilitate further negotiations with Mukasey (No, I don’t mean that to suggest Waxman’s going to use violence–more that he’s using the report to increase the tension behind the negotiations).

Now, as I noted, Johnson’s profile of Mukasey is rather interestingly-timed. That’s because (as she notes) Mukasey’s got a date with HJC on Wednesday. Given that HJC has issued its own subpoena for Cheney’s interview report (using a much stronger legislative rationale than Waxman has used), and given that HJC is almost certainly going to be quicker to hold its contempt vote for Rove than Oversight will be to hold its contempt vote for Mukasey, I would expect Mukasey to have to take some heat on both of these issues on Wednesday.

Who knows how effective that heat will be. But there’s the distinct possibility that by Thursday, Mukasey will become an active player in Bush’s swamp of scandals, rather than just the guy preventing them from blowing up.

Well that was fun. A replay of the premiere of Meet the Bloggers should be up here shortly. [Update: It’s both there now and at left.] The highlight of the piece, IMO, is that Cenk got the name of the Sargeant at Arms in: Bill Livingood. How cool would it be if a guy named "Livingood" walked up to Karl Rove and put him in handcuffs? It’s like something right out of Dickens. I decided yesterday that, in addition to putting Rove in a shipping container on the Mall in front of Congress (don’t worry–we’ll outfit it and air condition it) until he agrees to testify, Congress ought to contract with Blackwater to help Mr. Livingood do the arrest. After all, they’ll do anything for money, right?

Meanwhile, BNF has a petition drive up so you can encourage HJC to respond to being blown off in a timely and forceful manner.

I’ve got to go pack now so I can get a plane to Netroots Nation. I’ll poke my head in occasionally, but I expect to be pretty busy for the next several days. bmaz will have the keys, so maybe ya’ll can discuss whether or not Brett Favre should continue to start for the Packers.

[See the SendKarlRoiveToJail video here.]

Here’s an exchange between Dick Durbin, Senior Senator from Illinois, and Rove acolyte Kyle Sampson about the firing of Patrick Fitzgerald.

Durbin: Were you ever party to any conversation about the removal of Patrick Fitzgerald from his position as Northern District of Illinois US Attorney?

Sampson: I remember on one occasion in 2006, in discussing the removal of US Attorneys … or, the process of considering some US Attorneys that might be asked to resign, that I was speaking to Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley and I raised Pat Fitzgerald. Immediately after I did it I regretted it. I thought, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I knew that it was inappropriate. And I remember at the time that Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley said nothing, they just looked at me. I regretted it and I withdrew it at the time and I regret it now.

Durbin: Do you recall what you said at the time about Patrick Fitzgerald?

Sampson: I said, Patrick Fitzgerald could be added to this list.

Durbin: And, there was no response?

Sampson: No. They looked at me like I had said something totally inappropriate, and I had.

Durbin: Why did you do it? Why did you recommend, or at least suggest that he be removed as US Attorney?

Sampson: I’m not sure, I don’t remember. I think it was maybe to get a reaction from them. I don’t think that I, I know that I never seriously considered putting Patrick Fitzgerald on a list and he never did appear on a list.

Now put that exchange together with Rove’s non-denial denial that he was involved in having Patrick Fitzgerald fired:

But Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, today issued an unequivocal statement about all of this to the Tribune on behalf of Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President Bush, architect of Bush’s presidential campaigns and a private consultant in Washington now.

"Karl has known Kjellander for many years,” Luskin said, "but does not recall him or anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald’s removal. And he (Rove) is very certain that he didn’t take any steps to do that, or have any conversations with anyone in the White House — or in the Justice Department — about doing anything like that.”

Of course, when Rove says "I don’t recall" about an event, it usually means, "I won’t admit it until you show more evidence" about that incident. That is, Rove doesn’t deny that he knew that his close buddy Kjellander discussed firing Fitzgerald. He simply doesn’t recall it. Just like he didn’t recall outing Valerie Plame until his memory got refreshed with hard evidence.

Yet somehow that non-event–Kjellander discussing getting Fitzgerald fired–seemed to reverberate a year later, when Kyle Sampson was putting together his list of US Attorneys to fire. Rove buddy Kjellander, Rove acolyte Sampson. Now perhaps it’s just a coincidence that such close associates of Rove seem to be thinking the same thing. But I don’t think so.

Isn’t it time to ask Sampson whether he ever spoke with Kjellander–or anyone else in Illinois–about firing Fitz?

In a supplement to his responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Patrick Fitzgerald confirms what we’ve always suspected: Karl Rove was trying to have Patrick Fitzgerald fired while Fitzgerald was still investigating Rove for his role in leaking Valerie Wilson’s identity–and the timing lines up perfectly with the Administration’s efforts to fire a bunch of US Attorneys.

Remember back in June, when Fitzgerald publicly suggested he had more details to share with Congress about Rove’s efforts to get him fired?

"If I owe a response [about the putsch to remove him from his job], I owe it to Congress, first," Fitzgerald said when asked about all this after the verdict.

Well, it turns out Fitzgerald did share those details with Congress. And those details make it clear that Fitzgerald learned Rove was trying to fire him while Fitzgerald was still actively investigating Rove’s role in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity.

In my answers submitted on May 2,2008, I noted in my response to Question Eleven that I omitted discussion of when I first learned that I might be asked to resign as United States Attorney. I declined to answer more fully due to the then pending trial of United States v. Antoin Rezko in the Northern District of Illinois. With that trial concluded, I can briefly elaborate further: I learned some time in or about early 2005 from agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") that a cooperating witness (who later testified at the Rezko trial, but not about this topic) had advised the FBI agents that he had earlier been told by one of Mr. Rezko’s co-schemers that it was the responsibility of a third person in Illinois to have me replaced as United States Attorney. I should be clear that I did not understand that any putative effort to replace me as United States Attorney was related to my conduct as Special Counsel but understood instead that it was related to the investigative activities of federal agents and prosecutors conducting a corruption investigation in Illinois. [my emphasis]

As a reminder, here’s the allegation with all the names handily added in (though I think Fitzgerald is referring to someone besides Ata, because Ata was not yet cooperating with the Rezko prosecutors):

In a hearing before court began, prosecutors said they hoped to call Ali Ata, the former Blagojevich administration official who pleaded guilty to corruption yesterday, to the stand.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton said she believed Ata would testify to conversations Ata had with his political patron, Rezko, about working to pull strings to kill the criminal investigation into Rezko and others when it was in its early stages in 2004.

"[Ata] had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.

Note, Fitzgerald emphasizes that Rove was trying to fire him to protect Republican donor Bob Kjellander, not to protect Rove and Libby and Cheney. But that doesn’t change the fact that Rove was in discussions about firing Fitzgerald while he–Rove–was under active investigation.

Also note the timing: while the discussions between this cooperating witness and (presumably) Kjellander happened earlier, the timing lines up with the effort to fire all the US Attorneys–and then, when Kyle Sampson suggested his name, Fitzgerald specifically–at the beginning of 2005.

As you all know, I started calling DOJ last Friday, asking them whether, as Fred Fielding suggested, they had advised the White House that Karl Rove’s duties include witch hunts of Democrats.

We have been further advised that because Mr. Rove was an immediate presidential adviser and because the Committee seeks to question him regarding matters that arose during his tenure and relate to his official duties in that capacity, Mr. Rove is not required to appear in response to the Committee’s subpoena. Accordingly, the President has directed him not to do so.

Apparently, DOJ Deputy Public Affairs Director Peter Carr (whose phone number is 202-616-2777) received the request. Yet, surprise surprise, I have not had a response to my question.

From which I am assuming that Mr. Carr refuses to say whether DOJ actually told the White House, this year, with regards to HJC’s May subpoena of Karl Rove, that the subpoena pertained to his "official duties." I find that mighty curious, given the fact that the White House Counsel, Fred Fielding, strongly implied that DOJ had given the White House that advice. Is Fred Fielding deliberately mis-representing to Congress the advice he has gotten from DOJ? Because that sure sounds like either an ethical or legal problem, to have the White House Counsel making such representations if they are not in fact true. Especially since Fielding suggests that DOJ really reviewed this and decided that making resource allocations in PIN, channeling oppo research on Democrats to DOJ, and talking openly about having Patrick Fitzgerald fired to protect RNC donor Bob Kjellander from investigation were part of Rove’s "official duties."

Well, just to be sure, I called Fielding’s office. Yup, not holding my breath there, either, but you’ll be the first to know if I do get a response. But it is sure beginning to look like Fred Fielding decided, on his own, that Rove’s official duties included witch hunts of Democrats.

Or maybe he decided that because Bush told him to?

Brave New Foundation–the folks who put together all those videos on why Fox News sucks–is launching a cool new show tomorrow: Meet the Bloggers. The goal is to grow the show into something that will rival Meet the Press and the other Sunday shows, but feature bloggers.

And tomorrow, it will include me!

We’re going to be discussing Kontemptuous Karl–and ways to make sure Congress actually does something this time after getting blown off. BNF is also going to be launching a petition drive to gather support for holding Karl in Kontempt–which is a pretty easy sell. 

Tune in tomorrow to watch the show. 

In yesterday’s chat about detainee treatment, I asked Carl Levin if he had suggestions for ways to improve intelligence oversight.

Which raises another good point.

Senator Levin, what can we do to improve intelligence oversight? Just before this chat started, Trent Franks proposed calling Speaker Pelosi and Jane Harman before HJC to testify about how they reacted in briefings on interrogation methods. There’s also the example of FISA.

What can we do to enable Administrations to present information to Congress in classified fashion–but make it possible for those Members of Congress on oversight positions to do something if they find the Administration policies are illegal?

Senator Levin responded:

Congress has three powers that can be used: they can pass a law, even in classified form as a classified annex to an unclassified bill (such as the intelligence authorization bill), second, the power of the purse which can be carried out in a classified or unclassified manner, and third there is of course our oversight power and responsibility. [my emphasis]

To which Jim White astutely asked this question:

What did you think of his mentioning of the ability of Congress to pass classified annex to the public versions of bills. Should we be hoping that there has been a little more oversight through this route? I haven’t heard much discussion on this front. He seems to be pointing us to the Intelligence Authorization Bill in this regard.

As it happens, Bush issued a veto threat of the House Intelligence Authorization Bill today. And look at one of Bush’s objections to the bill (h/t Steven Aftergood):

Secret Law. Section 317 would incorporate by reference all reporting requirements in the classified annex into the act, thereby making them a requirement in law. The Administration strongly opposes the imposition of reporting requirements in this opaque manner. Further, such a provision would remove the flexibility that Congress and the Executive branch would otherwise have to modify and adapt provisions in the classified annex to meet changing conditions and requirements without seeking a statutory change.

Now, I have no clue what it is in the annex that Bush is objecting to. In Laura Rozen’s discussion of Tim Starks’ coverage of the veto threat, she included this observation from him:

Since interrogation stuff is still in the Senate bill, and that’ll make it hard for that bill even to get to the floor, it may not ever get to a veto, because the bill may never get to the president at all,

As Starks points out, the anti-torture provision is still in the Senate bill–the one Levin has worked on in SSCI and SASC. As I said, I have no idea what might be in the Senate bill–and neither do the terrorists. But there sure seem to be some interesting goodies in that classified annex.

Unlike HJC, Oversight does not publicly release subpoenas when they serve them. So Mukasey’s cowardly letter begging Bush to invoke executive privilege so he doesn’t have to go to jail for shielding Dick Cheney’s role in outing Valerie Plame is one of the first hints of the scope of what Waxman was after. Here are some details I find particularly interesting.

The subpoenaed documents concern the Department’s investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. The documents include Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") reports of the Special Counsel’s interviews with the Vice President and senior White House staff, as well as handwritten notes taken by FBI agents during some of these interviews. The subpoena also seeks notes taken by the Deputy National Security Advisor during conversations with the Vice President and senior White House officials and other documents provided by the White House to the Special Counsel during the count of the investigation. Many of the subpoenaed materials reflect frank and candid deliberations among senior presidential advisers, including the Vice President, the White House Chief of Staff, the National Security Advisor, and the White House Press Secretary. The deliberations concern a number of sensitive issues, including the preparation of your January 2003 State of the Union Address, possible responses to public assertions challenging the accuracy of a statement in the address, and the decision to send Ms. Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger in 2002 to investigate Iraqi efforts to acquire yellowcake uranium. Some of the subpoenaed documents also contain information about communications between you and senior White House officials.

[snip]

Much of the content of the subpoenaed documents falls squarely within the presidential communications and deliberative process components of executive privilege. Several of the subpoenaed interview reports summarize conversations between you and your advisors, which are direct presidential communications. Other portions of the documents fall within the scope of the presidential communications component of the privilege because they summarize
deliberations among your most senior advisers in the course of preparing information or advice for presentation to you, including information related to the preparation of your 2003 State of the Union Address and possible responses to public assertions that the address contained an inaccurate statement. In addition, many of the documents summarize deliberations among senior White House officials about how to respond to media inquiries concerning the 2003 State of the Union Address and Ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger.

First, as LS astutely points out, Mukasey mis-characterizes the entire investigation, claiming it was about "the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency." No, AG Mukasey, the investigation was into the disclosure of Valerie’s identity as a covert operative. Your guess why Mukasey does this is as good as mine, but some possibilities thrown out in this thread include:

• Mukasey knows Bush and Cheney insta-declassified her covert status so he wants to carefully maintain that she was not covert
• Mukasey’s primary source of news is Bob Novak’s column, so he genuinely believes that Novak used the word operative as one big mistake, meaning the key leak was Armitage’s
• Mukasey hasn’t read all the documents affirming that she was covert
• Mukasey’s trying to diminish this whole thing to absolve himself from thinking it’s okay that the Vice President outed a CIA operative
• Mukasey disagrees with the Special Counsel interpretation that CIA was taking affirmative actions to keep Valerie’s identity secret

From this mis-characterization, Mukasey launches into a list of things covered by the subpoena. I’m not really sure whether Mukasey lists them this way to establish the "claim" for privilege, or whether he’s trying to warn Bush what they contain. For example, why does Mukasey mention the "handwritten notes taken by FBI agents during some of these interviews" unless he wanted to warn Bush (and Cheney) that Agent Eckenrode had written, "this confirms that Cheney did order the Plame outing" or "Cheney doesn’t admit what Libby admitted–that they had compared stories"?

The request for "notes taken by the Deputy National Security Advisor during conversations with the Vice President and senior White House officials" makes me wonder whether Waxman requested Hadley’s side of the conversations he had with Cheney and Libby the week of the leak, particularly the conversation on July 10, in which Hadley passed on the news from Condi that "the President is comfortable," just after Libby’s own notes include empty space that he left to record what Hadley said, leaving us wondering what the President is comfortable with. Note, too, that Libby tried to declassify Hadley’s notes from this meeting through CIPA, to no avail.

Mukasey mentions "frank and candid deliberations" among senior advisors, listing Cheney, Card, Condi, and Scottie McC. Given the mention of Scottie McC, I’m guessing this reference might be a specific reference to the Libby-exoneration discussions from October 4, 2003. Which raises the question whether Condi was involved in that discussion? (We do know that she and Scottie McC may have discussed saying that Rove didn’t leak at all).

The reference to "deliberations concern a number of sensitive issues, including the preparation of your January 2003 State of the Union Address, possible responses to public assertions challenging the accuracy of a statement in the address, and the decision to send Ms. Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger in 2002 to investigate Iraqi efforts to acquire yellowcake uranium" leads me to believe that–at a minimum–the subpoenaed documents would make it very clear that everyone knew Alan Foley had told the White House not to use the uranium claim in the SOTU–and that they had to check with him before they finalized Tenet’s July 11, 2003 statement. The documents also probably include some record of George Tenet making it clear to Condi Rice that NSC, even more than CIA, owned most of the blame for the Niger claim appearing in the SOTU. Also, note the weird construction from Attorney General Orwell. Do the subpoenaed documents include "deliberations concern[ing] … the decision to send" Wilson to Niger? Or do they contain "deliberations concern[ing] … possible responses to … the decision to send" Wilson to Niger? Grammatically, it is the former. If so, is Mukasey referring to CIA deliberations? Or was there some White House deliberation about that trip we don’t know about?

When Mukasey refers to "information about communications between you and senior White House officials," it sure makes me wonder if this is a reference to communication between Bush and Libby–particularly the communication on June 9, 2003, that effectively sparked OVP to go into hyperdrive collecting oppo research on Joe Wilson?

Mostly, though, Mukasey seems intent on shielding not only Cheney’s FBI interview report, which would reveal how he answered when asked, "did you authorize the leak of Valerie Wilson’s name?" but also anything pertaining to the discussions between Hadley, Libby, and Cheney, which would not only reveal the lengths to which Cheney went to try to blame all this on CIA, but also might provide more details about "what the President knew and when did he know it?"

One more detail. I’m certain, from these descriptions, that Libby is among the "senior advisors" listed here. But you note that Mukasey never admits he’s trying to protect communications between the President and a convicted felon?

Update: As I review this, I realize that the White House Press Secretary named in the letter may actually be Ari Fleischer. According to Scottie McC’s book, there was a discussion in the White House–apparently not including Tenet–that led to the July 7 admission that the uranium claim should never have been in the SOTU. That conversation almost certainly included Card, Condi, and Ari; if it also included Dick, it might explain why he ordered the Code Red with Libby that set off the leak of Plame’s identity.

Joe Wilson sent the following response to Bush’s invocation of executive privilege to hide Dick Cheney’s involvement in ordering the Plame leak:

Today the president took the unprecedented step of asserting executive privilege to thwart congressional efforts to review Vice President Cheney’s interview with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald concerning the betrayal of Valerie Wilson’s covert CIA identity. We agree with Congressman Waxman that the position taken by the president is ludicrous.

The American people have a right to know what role the vice president played in the leak of Ms. Wilson’s covert identity for political purposes. The fact that the Attorney General is recommending the assertion of executive privilege reveals that this Department of Justice is as beholden to the White House as that run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Given the White House’s continued efforts to cover up the truth and subvert legitimate congressional inquiries, our civil suit may be the only way the American people will learn the truth. We seek to hold those public officials responsible for this serious breach of national security accountable for their actions, and to ensure that future generations of public servants are not tempted to engage in similarly despicable behavior.

Here’s an update on the status of their case with a link to support the suit.

Working on confirmation now, but I’m hearing word that George Bush just took his second step in the cover-up of Cheney’s leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity–by invoking executive privilege to shield Cheney’s interview with Fitzgerald.

No, I’m not surprised by this, if this turns out to be true. But if IS true, then it marks the second time that Bush will have used his privileges to shield something either terribly embarrassing–or downright illegal.

Update: Oversight Committee won’t confirm–but they have postponed their vote on contempt for Attorney General Mukasey to review their options.

Update: Here are the documents (Mukasey to Bush; Mukasey to Waxman). Note, Mukasey asked Bush to invoke executive privilege over this. What a fucking corrupt disgrace.

Update: Here’s Mukasey:

I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the Committee’s subpona would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations. For the reasons set forth above, I believe it is legally permissible for you to assert executive privilege. I respectfully request that you do so.

Shorter Mukasey: "Please don’t make me go to jail to cover-up the Vice President’s smear job!!"

Update: Waxman hits the right notes:

The claim of executive privilege is ludicrous.
We are not seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and the President. We are seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and FBI investigators. The Vice President talked with the FBI investigators voluntarily and he did so knowing that what he said could be disclosed publicly in a criminal trial. Mr. Fitzgerald told us that "there were no agreements, conditions and understandings" that limited Mr. Fitzgerald’s use
of the interview in any way.

This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person.

The President is wrong to shield Vice President Cheney from scrutiny. In our system of government, even the Vice President should be accountable for his actions.