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.
Telecom lobbyist John Ashcroft is back on the influence circuit again, trying to admonish us that refusing the telecoms immunity will kill people. Only he usually doesn’t refer to telecom immunity as such. Instead, he calls on Congress to “terminate” the lawsuits against the telecom companies.
There are many complex and difficult issues associated with thesedebates, but whether to terminate the huge lawsuits that have beenfiled against the nation’s major telecommunications carriers
Seth Hettena notes that one of Mark Geragos’ most effective lines in the Brent Wilkes trial was the insinuation that the government backed off calling Duke Cunningham as a witness.
During his closing argument to jurors, defense attorney Mark Geragosasked jurors to keep one question in mind. If the governmentprosecutors believed Brent Wilkes had plied Congressman Randy “Dukeâ€Cunningham with more than $600,00 in bribes, why didn’t they put theex-honorable gentleman on the
Okay, not bear-hunting. But mr. emptywheel and McCaffrey the MilleniaLab and I are going on a road trip–I’m calling it mr. emptywheel’s NFC North driving tour. Where I’m going, the WiFi gods really are jealous gods, so I can’t even guarantee I can check in. Though I think I’ll find WiFi in time to check in for the Pats-Colts game on Sunday.
David Kurtz reports that the Mukasey nomination will come down to the Senate Judiciary Committee vote (and TPM is tracking votes so far). I believe this sets up some really interesting tension between Bush and Chuck Schumer.
You see, events thus far have made it very important for Bush to get Mukasey approved.
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.