…In our discussion of Tim Shorrock’s Spies for Hire, it seems appropriate to post on the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report on the Cyber-Security Initiative.

As you’ll recall, the Bush Administration has been struggling for their entire term to address the fact that our cyber-infrastructure is woefully exposed to cyber-attacks. After a series of cyber-czars who either wouldn’t or couldn’t address this problem, back in January the Administration began to make some progress–not least, by taking the project out of Michael Chertoff’s hands. The SASC’s report notes that the Administration has made some progress, though it has three substantive complaints.

The committee applauds the administration for developing a serious, major initiative to begin to close the vulnerabilities in the government’s information networks and the nation’s critical infrastructure. The committee believes that the administration’s actions provide a foundation on which the next president can build.

However, the committee has multiple, significant issues with the administration’s specific proposals and with the overall approach to gaining congressional support for the initiative.

First, the SASC objects to the way the Administration has shielded what is supposed to be at least partly a deterrent program in so much secrecy that the program has lost its deterrence ability.

A chief concern is that virtually everything about the initiative is highly classified, and most of the information that is not classified is categorized as `For Official Use Only.’ These restrictions preclude public education, awareness, and debate about the policy and legal issues, real or imagined, that the initiative poses in the areas of privacy and civil liberties. Without such debate and awareness in such important and sensitive areas, it is likely that the initiative will make slow or modest progress. The committee strongly urges the administration to reconsider the necessity and wisdom of the blanket, indiscriminate classification levels established for the initiative.

The administration itself is starting a serious effort as part of the initiative to develop an information warfare deterrence strategy and declaratory doctrine, much as the superpowers did during the Cold War for nuclear conflict. It is difficult to conceive how the United States could promulgate a meaningful deterrence doctrine if every aspect of our capabilities and operational concepts is classified. In the era of superpower nuclear competition, while neither side disclosed weapons designs, everyone understood the effects of nuclear weapons, how they would be delivered, and the circumstances under which they would be used. Indeed, deterrence was not possible without letting friends and adversaries alike know what capabilities we possessed and the price that adversaries would pay in a real conflict. Some analogous level of disclosure is necessary in the cyber domain.

Not only can’t citizens debate aspects of the program with so much secrecy, but we also can’t tell the Chinese hackers who would like to shut our systems down what will happen if they try to do so. (Hmm, I wonder if the worry is that the Chinese hackers wouldn’t be too concerned?) For more on this complaint, see Steven Aftergood.

To add to the concerns that secrecy prevents any meaningful debate, SASC notes, the initiative is moving far ahead of standard requirements for acquisitions: the Administration is trying to get Congress to pay for stuff that just isn’t ready yet.

The committee also shares the view of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that major elements of the cyber initiative request should be scaled back because policy and legal reviews are not complete, and because the technology is not mature. Indeed, the administration is asking for substantial funds under the cyber initiative for fielding capabilities based on ongoing programs that remain in the prototype, or concept development, phase of the acquisition process. These elements of the cyber initiative, in other words, could not gain approval within the executive branch if held to standards enforced on normal acquisition programs. The committee’s view is that disciplined acquisition processes and practices must be applied to the government-wide cyber initiative as much as to the ongoing development programs upon which the initiative is based.

Hmm. The Committee seems right to be worried that the Administration wants us taxpayers to pay for "concepts" in secret.

And then, there’s the issue that Ryan Singel hits on–the Administration is trying to get us to pay for stuff, in the name of Cyber-Security, that is really just more spying.

The committee also concludes that some major elements of the cyber initiative are not solely or even primarily intended to support the cyber security mission. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that some of the projects support foreign intelligence collection and analysis generally rather than the cyber security mission particularly. If these elements were properly defined, the President’s cyber security initiative would be seen as substantially more modest than it now appears. That is not to say that the proposed projects are not worthwhile, but rather that what will be achieved for the more than $17.0 billion planned by the administration to secure the government’s networks is less than what might be expected.

The Administration is waving a $17 billion price tag around, which won’t get us the Cyber-Security the project is intended to, but will get us a bunch of other spying programs that really aren’t about Cyber-Security. No word, then, on what the real price tag would end up being to actually implement a Cyber-Security program that, you know, is something more than a concept. $17 billion is an awful lot for a concept with some more spying added in just for kicks.

Finally, the SASC attaches a laundry list of other major problems with the program–which basically make it sound like this isn’t a "program" yet at all.

Finally, the committee concludes that, for all its ambitions, the cyber initiative sidesteps some of the most important issues that must be addressed to develop the means to defend the country. These tough issues include the establishment of clear command chains, definition of roles and missions for the various agencies and departments, and engagement of the private sector.

Though, given the discussion we had earlier today, it sure seems like the Intelligence Community really hasn’t yet figured out the chain of command, defined the roles and missions, and figured out how to integrate the private sector effectively anyway.

All in all, this report looks like the kind of report you’d get from a very positive elementary school teacher. "Very nice try, Johnny. It’s so nice to see you trying to finish the homework you’ve been working on for eight years. Now let’s talk about the bare minimum you’re going to need to do in order to actually complete this homework. And no, you can’t have $17 billion dollars for what thus far is still C minus work."

Boy, George Bush must not have liked his Granddaddy Prescott very much. Here’s what he just said to Israel’s Knesset:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Or maybe it’s just negotiating with Nazis that’s the problem–making tons of dough by serving as their banker? The Bush family doesn’t appear to have any problem with that.

George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

If we had a press corps with any historical memory, I guess, such a statement might get Bush in trouble (not to mention make it difficult for his hosts who invited a lame duck grandson of a banker to the Nazis to speak to the Knesset). But instead they’re likely to focus on the false claim that Obama wants to appease Hamas.

I wanted to give you all a heads up to a mid-week book salon I’ll be hosting today at 3PM ET over at the mother ship: Tim Shorrock’s Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. I pushed to include Shorrock on the schedule because (as you’ll see in my post at 3) his book offers some key insights on FISA–and we seem to be gearing up for another FISA fight.

But there’s more than FISA that might interest you about the book (and about chatting with Shorrock). He gives the corporate back-story to:

• Rick Renzi’s corruption
• The domestic spying Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)
• CACI, the company whose contractors directed the torture at Abu Ghraib
• Total Information Awareness
• The domestic satellite surveillance Chertoff wants to use with DHS

Shorrock wraps that background story in a discussion both of the ideology behind the privatization of our intelligence function:

…as we’ve seen, money and profits are not the sole motivators for the corporations and executives who populate the Intelligence Industrial Complex. Because so many top executives are former intelligence officers themselves, many of their companies are motivated by politics as well. For CACI’s CEO, Jack London, that translates into a desire to "disseminate vital intelligence" for the fight against "Islamofascists." For ManTech CEO George Pederson, it’s a yearning for his company to be "on the battlefield," whether in Iraq, South Korea, or the Philippines. For the senior vice presidents of the big prime contractors, Booz Allen Hamilton and Science Applications International Corporation, it involves power, either as a way to influence future policy or make changes in the way the Intelligence Community is organized.

And a discussion of the subservience of public to private interest in such an Intelligence-Industrial Complex.

In the past, [former NSA Director Kenneth] Minihan said, contractors "used to support military operations; now we participate [in them]. We’re inextricably tied to the success of their operations." This new situation, he argued, presents corporations with "interesting opportunities" to create technologies that governments can take advantage of, "with all the complexities that exist in merging the interests of the private and public sector in the intelligence apparatus."

Merging the interests of the private and public sector. That astonishing phrase, which is now the mantra of the intelligence contracting industry, suggests the creation of a new mode of capitalism that specifically serves theneeds of government and its "intelligence apparatus." The implications are staggering: once private and public interests are merged, then the need for oversight disappears, along with regulation and other institutions designed to act as a brake on unbridled capitalist development or as watchdogs against corruption. Indeed, with 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget now going to private sector contractors, we may have already reached the point of no return. [emphasis and second brackets original; first brackets mine]

Under the leadership of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, the Bush Administration has handed over the keys to our privacy to these companies that believe in profit and the fight against Islamofascists.

Want to find out more? Join Tim Shorrock and me at 3PM ET.

As some of you pointed out before I got distracted with the aura of actually having Democratic Presidential candidate(s) in my state, Paul Clement is done. He’s not going to stick around and lend his purportedly considerable skills defending the Bush Administration before SCOTUS anymore.

Today, the Department of Justice announced that Solicitor General Paul D. Clement will end his current service to the Department on June 2, 2008.

[snip]

Clement’s tenure of over seven years in the Office of the Solicitor General is the longest period of continuous service in that office by an individual who served as Solicitor General since Samuel Phillips, who served from 1872-1885.

[snip]

During his time in the Office of the Solicitor General, Clement argued 49 cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in the vast majority of them. Landmark cases argued by Clement include Tennessee v. Lane, McConnell v. FEC, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Gonzales v. Raich, and Gonzales v. Carhart. He also argued many other significant cases in both the Supreme Court and the lower courts involving novel and important legal issues concerning the conduct of the War on Terror.

The Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for conducting all litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court, and for supervising litigation in the federal appellate courts. Oral arguments for the 2007 Supreme Court term were completed in April 2008. The Department will submit all of its briefs for action during this term by the end of May 2008.

Prior to today’s announcement, Clement informed the President and the Attorney General of his plans to resign.

Let me just note several things. First, I still very strongly believe that Paul Clement is the guy about whom Sidney Blumenthal wrote last year,

Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration’s policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "Not everything we’ve done has been illegal." He adds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" — a legal term referring to actions beyond the law.

That is, as early as last June (I suspect) Paul Clement recognized he was on sinking ship–and recognized that a good many things the Bush Administration had done were illegal.

The release–by noting that SCOTUS is all done for the year, save waiting for final briefs, which are all due before Clement leaves on June 2–suggests Clement simply picked his departure based on the SCOTUS season. Though it’s not that different from the timing of Ted Olson, and he reportedly left because he was miffed that the Administration hadn’t shared some of the OLC opinions (given the timing, probably relating to torture) that Olson got stuck defending.

But consider these other events that, by leaving at the beginning of June, Clement will avoid any association with:

June 23: Hearing before Judge John Bates on Contempt for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten

SCHEDULING ORDER: Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment due by 4/10/2008. Defendants’ opposition thereto, along with any dispositive cross-motions, due by not later than 5/9/2008. Plaintiff’s reply in support of partial summary judgment, along with any opposition to the dispositive cross-motions, due by not later than 5/29/2008. Defendants’ reply in support of any dispositive cross-motions due by not later than 6/12/2008. Motion Hearing set for 6/23/2008 10:00 AM in Courtroom 8 before Judge John D. Bates. SEE TEXT OF THE ORDER FOR MORE DETAILS. SO ORDERED. Signed by Judge John D. Bates on 3/21/08. (lcjdb1) (Entered: 03/21/2008)

Normally, I wouldn’t think this hearing would be resignation-worthy. After all, John Bates tends to bend the law in favor of this Administration. He just told the Democrats to hold off (until June 24) on suits against McCain for breaking his own damn campaign finance laws. He’s the guy who dismissed the suit against Cheney’s Energy Task Force. And he’s the guy who dismissed the Wilsons’ suit against all the Administration officials who deliberately outed Valerie. So it’s not like Clement has to worry about a tough hearing (and he probably wouldn’t argue this one anyway).

But the Administration’s case for invoking privilege was based on a particularly specious Clement opinion.

Paul Clement, in his explanation of why BushCo could invoke executive privilege in the USA scandal, claimed that the President has "nondelegable Presidential power" "to nominate or to remove U.S. Attorneys." It’s a claim repeated (though in more humble form) by Fred Fielding in his invocation of executive privilege.

In the present setting, where the President’s authority to appoint and remove U.S. Attorneys is at stake, the institutional interest of the Executive Branch is very strong.

[snip]

Your letter does not dispute these principles.

[snip]

The letter does not challenge the exclusive character of the President’s appointment and removal power, nor does the letter attempt to establish a constitutional basis for the Committees’ inquiry into this matter.

Now, IANAL. But, particularly given Fielding’s retreat on this issue, I believe BushCo is on shaky ground on this issue and the Democrats really need to start pointing that out. After all, the Constitution itself disputes Clement’s and Fielding’s claims that Bush’s appointment power is non-delegable and exclusive.

but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

But don’t take my word for it. This whole scandal started when BushCo had Brett Tolman sneak a provision into the PATRIOT Act to take appointment power away from judges and give it to the AG. In other words, the history of this scandal itself proves Clement and Fielding’s claim to be false, because it proves Congress does have the authority to dictate how appointments are made (and BushCO didn’t make a squeak of complaint when Congress rearranged the appointment powers last year).

This kind of puts Clement in the realm of John Yoo-type hackery–arguments so bad that my sorry old NAL arse can poke big holes through them. This is probably not why Clement wants out before June–but you never know. It was a pretty crappy argument.

June 5: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Shows Up for His First Show Trial Appearance

This date I find much much more likely to have caused Clement’s departure.

The chief judge of the Guantánamo Bay war court has set June 5 for the first court appearances of reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators.

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, notified military defense attorneys by email Wednesday afternoon that he would preside over the case himself. He scheduled arraignment of the five men at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

That date is likely to precede a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether Guantánamo detainees are entitled to challenge their detention in civilian courts, expected in late June before the high court ends this year’s term.

Mind you, it’s not like Clement would have to go before the Show Trial to represent the government in this hearing, either. But if I were the kind of lawyer particularly attuned to how many things the President I worked for did that were illegal, I might want to have nothing to do with the Gitmo show trials.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. Perhaps Clement just wants to spend time with his family (though the press release thankfully spared us that sorry excuse).

The other day, Cliff did a post listing all the ties to bloody dictators McCain’s advisors have. They include ties to dictators in Myanmar, Zaire, Nigeria, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and–through Sun Myung Moon, North Korea.

Well, apparently, it’s not just his advisors McCain has to worry about. It’s also his wife:

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

[snip]

According to McCain’s personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain’s investments include two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund — that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.

"Those have been sold as of today," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

Both funds have holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., an India-based company that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned oil company with vast investments in Sudan.

Last year, in a speech on energy policy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, McCain cited China’s investments in Sudan as an example of regimes that survive off free-flowing petro dollars.

[snip]

On Wednesday, Rogers said: "Senator and Mrs. McCain remain committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur."

Rogers also said, "Now that you’ve busted the McCains failing to meet the standards Senator McCain claims to uphold on the campaign trail, we’ve decided Cindy should release her tax returns, just so you can be sure there are no other surprises like this–or her onetime $400,000 investment with Charles Keating that almost ruined Senator McCain’s career."

Oh wait, he didn’t say that last bit. Silly me! The McCain campaign obviously doesn’t need help vetting its staff and Cindy’s bank accounts!

Update: small edits thanks to watercarrier4diogenes. 

(Updated with Conyers video–did I mention he seems cranky of late?) 

…And, besides, we want to see you sweat.

Karl Rove, still trying to back out of Robert Luskin’s taunt that Rove would be happy to testify, tried to get John Conyers to settle on written responses to questions. Conyers, who’s finally beginning to lose his temper, said no.

Our position remains, however, that since your client has made a number of on-the-record comments on these subjects to the media, and in light of your (now modified) statement that Mr. Rove would be willing to testify, we can see no justification for his refusal to speak on the record to the Committee. Please contact Committee counsel or respond in writing no later than May 21 as to whether your client will make himself available to the Committee for questioning.

[snip]

Your letter also suggests that we address written questions to Mr. Rove, which may reflect a misunderstanding of Committee procedure. Although we do often address written questions to witnesses, that occurs after live testimony, which is critical in order to allow the follow up and give-and-take that is necessary to inquiries of this nature. Since you indicate Mr. Rove is now willing to submit written answers to questions, which by definition would be recorded in a manner similar to a transcript, we do not understand why he would not submit to providing transcribed answers to live questions, as he has done in media interviews. [my emphasis]

Actually, Conyers would even agree to an almost-open-book test, providing Rove the questions before he testified.

We are willing to consider other possible accommodations, such as providing a list of initial questions that may be asked.

I thought Turdblossom was smarter than this–why does he need so much help to pass a simple little test?

One answer may have to do with scope. Rove is on the hook, of course, for all his blabbing about the Siegelman affair. But he appears to want to limit all questions to that narrow subject, something Conyers is unwilling to let him do.

We are writing in response to your May 9 letter with respect to the invitation to Karl Rove to testify before the House Judiciary Committee concerning the politicization of the Department of Justice, including allegations regarding the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. Because your letter appears to reflect several misunderstandings concerning the subjects we wish to question Mr. Rove about…

[snip]

As our previous letters have made clear, the Siegelman case is a principal reason for our invitation to Mr. Rove. But as we have also explained, that issue cannot be separated from the broader concerns about politicization within the Department and the U.S. Attorney firings, and Mr. Rove has made on-the-record comments to the media about all these interrelated matters. This is different from the case of Harriet Miers, who has not made such public statements and has not been linked to the Siegelman case.

I’m pretty sure Robert Luskin would be pulling his hair out about now, if he had any. It’s a really tough sell to argue that Rove can blab all he wants about Siegelman, but it’s still privileged material. But Conyers is clearly using Karl’s Siegelman comments to haul Karl’s fat ass into HJC to at least force him to answer questions about his role in firing David Iglesias, and others.

I also can’t help but wonder whether Karl wants to limit testimony to Siegelman because of something he noticed on HJC’s website. HJC has put PatFitz’s QFRs right there alongside all the material on politicized prosecutions. The only thing PatFitz mentioned regarding politicized prosecutions had to do with the revelations that have since come out in the Rezko trial–revelations that put at least 3 people, some of them solidly corrupt Republicans like Turdblossom, on the record with hearsay evidence about Rove working to fire PatFitz. And since Rove has already sent his BFF Michael Isikoff out to figure out what evidence there is against him, it sure seems like Rove doesn’t want to testify about the conversations he had with Bob Kjellander about firing Patrick Fitzgerald.

Luskin has probably resigned Turdblossom to having to testify in some sense or another, given all the blabbing Rove has done. But he sure seems intent on keeping these other damaging things out of it.

This could be interesting. Nicolo Pollari–the right wing former head of Italian intelligence–is calling Silvio Berlusconi to testify as a defense witness in the Abu Omar rendition trial.

Berlusconi’s testimony had been requested by lawyers for Nicolo Pollari, a former intelligence chief who is one of the defendants in the case.

Pollari hopes the testimony might help prove that he was against the rendition, lawyers said. He could face from one to 10 years in jail if convicted.

Pollari has denied any involvement by Italian intelligence in the abduction.

Berlusconi, one of the United States’ close allies in its battle against terrorism, has expressed support for Pollari and has maintained his government was not informed about the operation and did not take part in it.

I haven’t followed the trial closely enough to know what Pollari intends to achieve. This could be a bid–similar to that of the AIPAC spying trial defendants–to provide the government with a big disincentive to continuing the trial (Pollari already tried a state secrets defense). Or it may be a bid to argue that, since the Italians were tracking Abu Omar themselves, they had no incentive to help the CIA in its rendition plans. (Here’s a NYT story reporting on Pollari getting charged.)

I just wish we could get eriposte to Italy to cross-examine Berlusconi about what he knew of Pollari’s involvement with American GWOT efforts. Pollari was, almost certainly, involved in the plot to propagate the Niger forgeries. He also should have informed Stephen Hadley that the aluminum tubes that the US claimed were nuclear centrifuge parts were clearly intended to support Iraqi reverse-engineering of Italian missiles; either he did, and Hadley proceeded to claim the tubes were for nukes anyway, or Pollari willfully let the Americans make claims he knew were false. In short, Nicolo Pollari has close ties to those Americans (people like Michael Ledeen) who were flogging this war from the start. And he did it, by most accounts, because Silvio wanted to curry favor with the Bush Administration.

I’m not sure we’ll get really astute questioning of Silvio Berlusconi’s knowledge of Pollari’s close ties with the most hawkish elements in America. But it would be fun if we did.

This is funny on so many levels (h/t TP).

President Bush reveals that when he finally leaves the White House, the first thing he’ll do is resume E-mailing his buddies. "I can remember as governor, I could stay in touch with all kinds of people around the country firing off E-mails at all times of the day to stay in touch with my pals," he says in a Yahoo-Politico interview. "One of the things that I will have ended my public service time with is a group of friends, a lot of friends, and I want to stay in touch with them, and there’s no better way to stay in touch with them than through E-mail."

First, is the President suggesting he’s been forgoing the best way to stay in touch for the last seven years?

Second, who do you suppose will go through and delete massive amounts of Bush’s emails in the future? Pickles?

Finally, this means we can look forward to a collection of Bush’s personal emails to be published in about 2050. I’m placing my bets that that will be the humor book of the year the year it does get published.

Maybe Bush will start blogging after he’s done, too. 

Still reading through the Yoo side of the Esquire transcript. At times, it’s very frustrating, since Esquire gave only Yoo’s side of the conversation, without the questions. But by putting this passage of the final article…

So let’s go back to that moment in the heat of battle. The way Yoo tells the story, he was sitting at his desk at the Justice Department when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He had only been working there two months, hired to answer the White House’s questions on foreign-policy laws at a time when the biggest legal issue before him was a treaty about polar bears. When the order came to evacuate Washington and people began heading out into the streets, someone from the attorney general’s office told him to stick around.

Soon the questions came:

Is this a war?

Do we need to declare war?

Can we scramble planes?

And again: Is this a war?

Together with these two answers from the transcript…

Yes, that was a question [Can planes be scrambled to shoot down any remaining hijacked aircraft]. That was earlier: Can we use force?

I must have. I can’t tell you what I said. No, I don’t think that’s actually public. Can you use force in response? What kind of force? What are the standards that guide the use of force?

I think it’s fairly safe to say that sometime on 9/11, Yoo gave an opinion about whether or not the US could shoot down remaining hijacked planes.

Only he’s not going to tell us what that opinion said.

The opinion is relevant, of course, because one thing Dick Cheney attempted to hide from the 9/11 Commission was that he–without consulting George Bush–issued an order to shoot down any remaining planes. He even tried (unsuccessfully) to get the 9/11 Commission to reverse its finding that Cheney gave the shoot-down order before speaking to Bush.

Now, Yoo’s opinion almost certainly came after Cheney issued the order and after he told Bush he had made it. According to Libby’s notes, Cheney issued the order between 10:15 and 10:18; according to Ari’s notes, Cheney informed Bush of the opinion shoot-down order at 10:20. In other words, Yoo’s opinion probably didn’t contribute to Cheney’s extra-constitutional order.

Still, it’s notable that they went to Yoo for such an opinion, presumably after the fact. And it’s notable that this is yet another of Yoo’s opinions they haven’t released.

Update: fixed unclear chronology on shoot-down order per phred.

I’m reading the transcript of John Yoo’s side of the Esquire interview, and found this rather amusing bit.

Yoo explained that he had considered becoming a journalist. But didn’t do it because it was too ephemeral.

I gave a lot of thought to becoming a journalist. I was an intern at the Wall Street Journal under Al Hunt in the summer between college and law school. I gave that a lot of thought. It was very exciting. I had a great time. But there was something — no offense, but there was something about journalism that was very ephemeral. You write the story and then it’s gone and nobody remembers it.

I guess we ought to consider Yoo a success, then. Because it’ll be a long time before people forget his most famous writings.