Archive for category: emptywheel

Since I seem to be the only one interested in Lurita Doan now that Bush has apparently refused to fire her for clear Hatch Act violations, I thought I’d point out the interesting tidbit that shows up in a profile of Scott Bloch, the guy in charge of Office of Special Counsel, the office that carries out Hatch Act violations that Bush studiously ignores.

Meanwhile, the Doan matter is breeding some ironies. Before Blochofficially released his report, The Washington Post’s Web site obtaineda leaked copy in May. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, the topRepublican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,contended the leak denied Doan any effective chance of answering heraccusers. Davis arranged to have Bloch brought before the committeelast month to ask if he authorized the leak, which Bloch denied doing.

Davis previously had been a Bloch defender and had praised the OSC fordramatically cutting back its backlog of personnel cases. But at thehearing, the congressman blew up at the witness, explaining that he’dobtained a personal e-mail by Bloch describing Davis as “acting likeDoan’s defense counsel” when she testified before the Oversightcommittee.

Davis then promised to wage what might be called a Blochian crusade: Heannounced his intention to corral Read more →

The smart lawyers who (I think) didn’t attend YKos have already posted some really important things on the FISA debacle this weekend. Go here, here, here, and here. Oh, and here’s one from a smart lawyer who was at YKos. But the short version is that Bush now has even more rights to wiretap than what he was known to have had under the secret programs that he instituted after 9/11, because the existing law, as distinct from what they claimed about the earlier program, does not require to show a plausible connection to Al Qaeda. Basically, if the government wants to collect my phone calls to my parents-in-law in Ireland and they’re willing to claim that the target of the tap is my parents-in-law and that a significant purpose of that collection is intelligence related, they’re going to get to hear about our plans to meet in South Carolina in the fall.

One thing that not enough people are emphasizing, though, is who gets to make these claims. If BushCo wants to tap my calls to my parents-in-law, then the only proof they need to offer, regarding who is the target and what is the value for intelligence collection, is the word of DNI Mike McConnell and AG Alberto Gonzales. Yup, a man whom much of Congress–to say nothing of clued in observers–believe to be a certifiable liar, is the guy who gets to tap my calls if he wants to claim it serves an important intelligence collection purpose. So a legislative process that should have been used to insist on the firing of Alberto Gonzales instead gave him and his lying eyes vastly increased power. Not to mention the fact that, at a time when we’re worried about Gonzales’ politicization of the judicial system, we’ve just moved more oversight out of the courts and into Gonzales’ pocket.

It has been over 50 days since Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, sent Bush a letter advising that Lurita Doan be disciplined severely for her violations of the Hatch Act. Yet there she is, still in charge of the government’s credit cards as the Administrator of the GSA.

If Doan weren’t a Bush appointee, her fate would be clear–she would have been fired fifty days ago. But in this case, Bush has to fire her himself. And it appears that he has no intention of doing so.

I know that this will surprise no one. After all, Bush effectively pardoned the guy who was covering up Bush’s own involvement in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity. So why wouldn’t he effectively pardon the gal who decided to brainstorm ways to use government resources to get Republicans elected? And also, ensured that a company, Sun Microsystems, under active investigation for ripping off the federal government by charging it more than it charges private companies, would continue to be able to rip off the government.

There’s one more implication of this. If Bush isn’t going to fire Doan, then he’s surely not going to fire anyone else who might Read more →

I’m thrilled by the news that Democrats intend to call Jack Goldsmith to testify on the domestic wiretap program.

Congressional Democrats plan to step up the heat in coming weeks,pressing for Justice memos and other documents. They also plan to calla potentially crucial witness: Jack L. Goldsmith, the former chief ofJustice’s Office of Legal Counsel. It was Goldsmith who wrote a keyopinion concluding the eavesdropping program was illegal.

But do you suppose that Mikey Isikoff might have bothered to follow those "who, what, why, when, where" rules of journalism and told us precisely who "they" are?

After all, "they" (SSCI) also had plans to call an equally critical witness, John Ashcroft, a while back. And that seems to have fizzled into extended negotiations with DOJ over his testimony. And "they" (HPSCI) actually did interview Ashcroft, to little fanfare, though the cryptic comments from Reyes and Holt don’t enlighten us at all on the program [update hat tip Staar]. Meanwhile, "they" (HJC) called the critical witness James Comey and plum forgot to ask him about the dispute over the domestic wiretap program. If "they" (SJC, preferably without giving the White House and DOJ an opportunity to say no, as seems to have happened Read more →

This is going to be a two part post. In this post, I’m going to show a key discrepancy between Libby’s testimony about the questions he asked Addington on July 8, and Addington’s. Addington’s testimony suggests that (contrary to Libby’s claims), Libby was looking for general details about the paperwork behind Wilson’s trip, which would have exposed Valerie’s role at the CIA, potentially her status, as well as prior trips Joe Wilson had made for the CIA. In a following post, I’ll show that this question was probably asked in response to a conversation with Cheney based on Cheney’s scribblings on Wilson’s op-ed.

The Discrepancies between Libby’s and Addington’s Testimony

There are three pieces of testimony regarding the conversation that Scooter Libby and David Addington had on July 8, 2003, about insta-declassification and paperwork on a CIA spouse’s travel to the CIA:

• Libby’s notes recording both what he wanted to ask Addington and what Addington responded
• Libby’s grand jury testimony
• Addington’s trial testimony

However, there are significant discrepancies between Addington’s testimony and Libby’s–and Libby’s own notes only confuse the issue.