Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Remarkably, Sheldon Whitehouse asked Mukasey very few written questions. But I am intrigued by this one.
2. Do you believe that the President may act contrary to a valid executive order? In the event he does, need he amend the executive order or provide any notice that he is acting contrary to the executive order?
ANSWER:
Here’s an interesting question from Dick Durbin to Mukasey. It addresses whom the Administration felt it needed to give buy-in before nominating Judge Mukasey:
11. According to the Washington Post, before you were confirmed you “spent part of the weekend meeting with leading figures in the conservative world, seeking to allay their concerns about [your] philosophy and suitability for running [the] Justice Department.”
a.
Here’s a response from Mukasey that frankly stumps me. It comes in response to a Joe Biden question on extraordinary renditions.
If the purpose [of renditions] is to gather intelligence, why would the United States trust interrogations carried out by Egyptian or Syrian intelligence agencies–agencies that the United States has long acknowledged and criticized for engaging in torture and abuse?
ANSWER:
One of the sub-scandals that came out as part of the USA purge is that DOJ recently revised the manual on Election Offenses. Gonzales’ DOJ basically removed the language restricting indictments just prior to elections–precisely the restriction that Hans Von Spakovsky violated when he brought indictments against former ACORN workers just before the 2006 elections.
Even more than Mukasey’s woozy answers on waterboarding, I’m disturbed by his opinions on executive privilege and contempt, partly because I suspect Mukasey would make sure no waterboarding happened going forward, and that his answers on waterboarding are designed primarily to avoid putting those who waterboarded–or signed off on it–in the past at legal risk.
Here’s the letter from Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, and Philbin that came up so often in today’s SJC hearing. The key graf is this one, in which four top lawyers say, “to hell with the Courts, we’ve got two branches plus Cheney, who needs a third?”
Finally, we note that we are familiar with the legal analysis conducted within the Executive Branch of intelligence activities allegedly connected to the lawsuits against telecommunications carriers
Jane Harman sent a response to this post via a staffer.What rubbish! For those like me whoinsist that the President’s domestic surveillance program must complyfully with the Constitution and the 4th Amendment, the only way forCongress to get there is with a veto-proof majority. That’s why I’mworking with Republicans.
I’ve imagined (and it’s largely imagination) that Condi’s little PR campaign of the last week was a desperate attempt to stave off DOD control over State’s bodyguards–an attempt to retain an army for the exclusive use of the State Department. Condi went to (for her) unheard of lengths to try to play nice and pretend that State could manage a very large band of mercenaries.
Is it just coincidence that that effort
In an email to Laura Rozen and Jeff Lomonaco this morning, I predicted Henry Waxman would be mightily interested in the news that the Blackwater guards involved in the September 16 shooting had been granted immunity.
In any case, I suspect Condi will regret that she didn’t mention thiswhen visiting Congress last week.
Buried in this article on Democrats compromising with Republicans, I noticed this paragraph:
And as Democratic leaders push their own legislation to rein in the wiretapping program, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) has been quietly exploring avenues of compromise with Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.),the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee. CentristDemocrats hope those talks can dovetail with the Senate intelligencecommittee’s own bipartisan measure on surveillance of suspectedterrorists.
Jane Harman, of course, is a