No More $$ to Shred our Constitution

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Now that I’m in DC, I’m thinking maybe I’ll just stay here until the impeachment. Because things are getting fun. As in, no more taxpayer dollars to help Cheney shred our Constitution.

Senate Democrats movedTuesday to cut off funding for Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in acontinuing battle over whether he must comply with national securitydisclosure rules.

A Senateappropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused tofund $4.8 million in the vice president’s budget until Cheney’s officecomplies with parts of an executive order governing its handling ofclassified information.

At issueis a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how muchmaterial they classify and declassify. That information is to beprovided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The NationalArchives.

Tomorrow at 10 Sara Taylor will say, over and over, "I can’t reveal that," because it is protected by Executive Privilege (not sure I can make this hearing–we shall see). Then at noon, it’s time for Victor Rita’s lawyer to explain about how SCOTUS thinks 33 months for perjury is reasonable. And then the following day, it’s Miers’ turn to repeat, "I can’t reveal that," over and over again.

And all the while Cheney will be wondering how he can fund his ongoing plan Read more →

“I Don’t Know Enough About It”

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So says Pete Domenici, when asked by Andrea Mitchell whether he would testify before Congress if asked. ThinkProgress points out that a conversation between Rove and Domenici closely preceded David Iglesias’ firing. But I’ll go further, and raise this report.

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush’ssenior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesiasout and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after theelection but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S.attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias’ name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutorswho would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared inOctober.

Lucky for Domenici that Andrea Mitchell is a beltway-sucking simp. Because rather than say, "In fact, Senator Domenici, you apparently do know about it–and your conversation with Bush is the one thing that most implicates executive privilege in this case,  as it is the Read more →

IOB and Gonzales’s Latest Perjury

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I’ve got just a few minutes before I’ve got to pack up for DC. But I wanted to point out a curious detail about the WaPo’s story on NSLs: the centrality of PFIAB in it. The story, of course, reveals that Gonzales received reports of violations of National Security Letter procedures, and then went into Congress and said there had been no problems with the program. But in addition to Gonzales, the board that’s supposed to police our intelligence activities also received reports of the violations.

Each of the violations cited in the reports copied to Gonzales wasserious enough to require notification of the President’s IntelligenceOversight Board, which helps police the government’s surveillanceactivities. The format of each memo was similar, and none minced words.

"Thisenclosure sets forth details of investigative activity which the FBIhas determined was conducted contrary to the attorney general’sguidelines for FBI National Security Investigations and ForeignIntelligence Collection and/or laws, executive orders and presidentialdirectives," said the April 21, 2005, letter to the IntelligenceOversight Board.

The oversight board, staffed with intelligenceexperts from inside and outside government, was established to reportto the attorney general and president about civil liberties abuses orintelligence lapses. But Roehrkasse said the fact that a violation isreported to the Read more →

Conyers Hearing on Libby Commutation

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HJC has announced the list of witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing on Libby’s get-out-of-jail-free. They are:

  • Joe Wilson: You guys know him, I think. I suspect he’ll talk about how Bush and Cheney are involved in this case.
  • Roger Adams, US DOJ Pardon Attorney. He’ll end up talking about the normal process for commutation. Hopefully, some smart Congressperson will ask him about the measures Congress put into place to prevent bogus insta-commutations after the Clinton pardons.
  • Douglas Berman, Fancy Law Professor, who also blogs at Sentencing Law and Policy. Presumably he’ll explain about how Libby had a light sentence within the guidelines and probably about how Libby’s sentence may be used by defense lawyers in the future to argue for leniency.
  • Tom Cochran, Vincent Victor [thanks nolo] Rita’s lawyer. This is great theater. Rita, of course, just lost a SCOTUS challenge on the appropriateness of his 33 month sentence. SCOTUS said 33 months sounded about right for a guy convicted of perjury. I’m sure Cochran will have a lot to say about how his client’s bid to have his sentence lowered because he’s a long-term serviceman didn’t work. I guess he doesn’t have the goods on the Vice President, though.
  • David Rivkin. Rivkin is the designated Read more →

Novak’s July 7 Meeting

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Credit where it’s due. Tom Maguire hits all the right notes about this Novak book excerpt, save one. He notes that Novak’s story has a way of changing with the seasons.

Interesting.  This old post has the Novak version before he was willing to name Armitage; here is Novak (post-"Hubris") rebutting Armitage’s version.

There are subtle shifts in the story – now we are told that "Hementioned her first name, Valerie", a detail not presented earlier.

I love the way righties note how changeable Novak’s story is–yet they always seem to fall for his most ridiculous lines. Like about how, when he referred to Valerie Plame as a covert Agent, he really meant she was running a Congressional campaign in Wyoming (no really–he did say that once–you think he’s got former Congressmen from Wyoming on his mind)?

Oh wait. This is a credit where it’s due post. Sorry. Maguire also points out that Novak’s cover story about Fran Townsend is changing too.

OK, we have had that before – the prevailing version as told by Murray Waas has been that the Townsend column came out on July 10;Rove defended her to Novak at length on the 8th or 9th, and then Novakslipped in a Read more →

Just Scraps of Snark Remaining

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Fitzgerald’s filing in response to Judge Walton’s request for clarification on Libby’s magical disappearing prison sentence has the feel of bitter duty. Much of it is an attempt to stave off any attempt by Libby’s lawyers to disappear even the supervised release.

As discussed more fully below, it is the government’s position that the supervised release term remains operative, and that, by effect of the commutation, the supervised release term began on July 2, 2007.

It offers three different reasons why Libby should be unable to bid to have the supervised release vacated.

Still, it is not without its snark. It repeats what Fitzgerald said in his statement–that Libby actually got a light sentence.

The Court sentenced the defendant to imprisonment on each of the counts, and the total sentence of imprisonment, 30 months, was at the low-end of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range. [my emphasis]

And it goes to some length to demonstrate that this kind of commutation has almost never happened before. As in, once.

Before setting forth the specific grounds for its position, the government acknowledges the absence of case law authority that directly addresses whether a term of supervised release may follow a commutation of a term of imprisonment where no actual imprisonment has been served. The government is aware of only one other instance since the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 of a ‘prospective’ commutation, that is, where no imprisonment term was actually served, and no case law analysis arose from that other commutation.

And it explains US Code, "not surprisingly," doesn’t account for the kind of commutation Libby received.

Section 3583(e) sets forth the circumstances permitting termination, extension, modification, or revocation of supervised release, and not suprisingly, § 3583(e) contains no provision for vacating a lawfully-imposed term of supervised release because a Presidential commutation deemed the sentence of imprisonment to be “expire[d].”

After all, Libby didn’t do the same things others had to to get their sentence commuted.

Although defendant Libby apparently did not submit a “petition[] for mercy,” the holding of Schick should still apply here: the defendant has readily accepted the “full benefit of a lesser punishment,” and thus it is appropriate that he still meet the much lesser burdens of the sentence he now faces.

The filing makes me more bitter than I was even last Monday. That’s what we’ve come to–arguing diligently to sustain the scrap of punishment Libby still has.

Fred and Paul Forget the Constitution–Time to Remind Them

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I’m supposed to be doing something else entirely. But I’m going to raise a point that I’ve raised already–because it sure seems like Democrats are sleeping through the Constitution.

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 orto 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 Read more →

Isikoff’s Worst

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Wow. When I railed on Mikey Isikoff’s horribly conflicted coverage of the CIA Leak case while on Sam Seder’s show today, I had not yet read Mikey’s latest blowjob to Karl Rove. But this is truly shameful stuff. First, Mikey provides tons of details that make it clear that the White House has scrupulously tried to pretend no one influenced Bush in untoward manner … even while a lot of pressure came to bear.

Libby’s allies pressed their argument with White House aides but gotnowhere. George W. Bush’s senior staff was under strict instructions:listen politely, but give away nothing about what the president mightultimately do.

Uh huh. They carry out that strategy furthest with Cheney.

Cheney did not directly weigh in with Fielding, but nobody involved hadany doubt where he stood. "I’m not sure Bush had a choice," says one ofthe advisers. "If he didn’t act, it would have caused a fracture withthe vice president."

Cheney made the decision, of course, but there was no quid pro quo. Nope, no obstruction here. Now move along…

Mikey nods to Bush’s false claim of respect for the verdict, as if it were sincere.

But Bush didn’t clear Libby entirely. He said he respected the jury’sverdict and described special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald as a"professional prosecutor."

… When any sane observer would say Bush couldn’t have said "fuck you" to Fitzgerald and the jury in any clearer language.

Cheney Plays Dumb

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As a teaser for the post I keep promising, but never delivering (identifying the document from which I think Cheney learned of Plame’s identity), I’m going to make a quick point about Cheney’s request to the CIA on June 10, 2003 for information on Wilson’s trip. This email, written by Robert Grenier’s Executive Assistant (but not seen by Grenier, if we can believe his trial testimony), repeats the story that Cheney gave to John McLaughlin to verify. Here’s the story:

In February 2002, CIA received an initial report of a shipment of uranium from Niger to Chad. Former Ambassador to Cameroon Joe Wilson (an old friend of the Agency and former Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad) was supposedly sent by CIA to Niger to investigate this story. He did so, and he concluded that there was no truth to it. Wilson said that he was debriefed by a CIA case officer who flew in (to where is unclear) [redacted]

Now, I presume that the parenthetical information about Wilson–"an old friend of the Agency and former Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad"–comes from the author of this email or McLaughlin. But I presume the rest comes from Cheney–it’s the story that he told McLaughlin he had heard, and would like verified or refuted.

Notice the false details in the story? Joe Wilson was never Ambassador to Cameroon–he was Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome (and I’ve asked him–he was never otherwise stationed in Cameroon). And the February 2002 report, if it included any information about a shipment of uranium from Niger to Iraq, described that shipment as going through Benin, not Chad. The report described a contract being signed, not a shipment. The bit about the debriefing is weird too, with the ambiguity about where the debriefing took place. Cheney told McLaughlin a story that would lead him to find the real story on Wilson (the 2002 intelligence, the reference to Niger, and Wilson’s name should do that by itself), but that included some noise, some incorrect information.

You Want a Motive? Libby’s Secret Mission

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Big Media Matt and Brendan Nyhan and Tom Maguire are puzzling over what motive Bush might have for commuting Libby’s sentence. Since Maguire was helpful enough to quote from Team USA, I’ll offer an explanation offered by Team Libby. (I could point to a number of Fitzgerald quotes about clouds and VicePresidents that Maguire is overlooking, but I find that Jeffress isbetter at soundbite than Fitzgerald.) In his closing argument, Bill Jeffress described the events surrounding Libby’s July 8 meeting with Judy as a "secret mission" known only to Bush, Cheney, and Libby.

The prosecution has focused on this July 8th meetingwith Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. They said, could Mr. Libby, how, if he was so busy, did he have two hours to go out and have lunch with Ms. Miller on July 8th. The reason he took two hours tohave lunch with Ms. Miller is that Mr. Libby understood that the Vice Presidentof the United States had directed him to go meet with Ms. Miller and that the President, PresidentBush was behind it too.

[snip]

I mean this is basically a secret mission that three people in the world know, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Scooter Libby. Because he goes and does what he is asked todo by the President and the Vice President and meets with her for two hours,suddenly they’re trying to find something bad in that because, in Ms. Miller’snotes at the lunch, she’s got the word WINPAC. [my emphasis]

That’s the defense lawyer speaking, mind you. That’s a pretty good start for a motive, don’t you think? After all, by lying and claiming he first learned about Plame from Tim Russert two days after his "secret mission," Libby pretended it was impossible to have leaked Plame’s identity to Judy Miller during his "secret mission." By lying and obstructing justice, Libby hid his "secret mission"–in which Cheney and Bush were participants–from any scrutiny.

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