Dates
The AP has a story out that seems to clear all the White House lawyers of supporting the destruction of the torture tapes. All of them, that is, except David Addington.
But it also raises still more questions about timing, focusing (as a WaPo article yesterday did) on discussions in 2004. If the substantive discussions happened in 2004, then why did the tapes get destroyed in 2005?
Dick and Ed and the NH Phone-Jamming
Now that we know that Dick Cheney's lawyer was working DOJ to make sure that James Tobin would not be indicted until after the 2004 election, it's probably worth returning to another few aspects of this story that involves the White House.
Dick Cheney's Lawyer Spikes the Phone-Jamming Case
McClatchy has a long story out detailing how indictments for the New Hampshire phone-jamming case got stalled. The whole thing is worth reading. But I'm particularly intrigued by the role of Terry O'Donnell, who was apparently responsible for getting Tobin's indictment stalled until after the 2004 election. That's rather curious, since O'Donnell is actually Dick Cheney's personal lawyer.
2004
It seems the NYT was not the only one who knew that Addington, Gonzales, and Bellinger got a briefing on the terror tapes. It appears the whole SSCI knew that too. But Hayden said those briefings took place in 2004, not in 2003, as the NYT implies. Which is it?
Why Is Dana So Touchy?
In all fairness to Dana "Pig Missile" Perino, she probably doesn't want to become the next Scottie McClellan, forced to say things from the podium while Dick Cheney is hiding his criminal ways behind those public statements. Still, Dana comes off very badly in yesterday's attempt to explain why anonymous sources at the White House are saying one thing and she's saying another.
"Trent Lott Called"
It sure looks like there is solid evidence that Trent Lott only returned to the Senate this term to "get" State Farm. Which would sure suggest that his realization that such efforts were falling apart might explain his hasty retirement.
In Which Country Were the Tapes Stored?
The NYT's article has one more detail of note--again, reporting something that is intuitive, but not something that had been confirmed before AFAIK. That's that the torture tapes were stored in the country--singular--where the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri took place.
Sub-Heading: White House Panics
The White House has gone to the trouble of making the NYT correct their headline indicating that news of the involvement of Addington and Gonzales in discussions of the terror tapes differs from the story the White House was pitching--that Harriet Miers was the only one involved.
While the White House is correct that they never officially claimed that Harriet was the only one involved, someone has certainly been shopping that story for over a week. Which is why it behooves those who received that story to out their source, particularly if that person is in the White House.
Lawyering the Torture Tapes
Yes, the NYT story tells us something we were safe to assume: that David Addington and Alberto Gonzales were involved in the torture tape destruction conversations. But I'm more interested in that news in light of the mounting evidence that Jose Rodriguez got legal advice that he could destroy the tapes in seeming isolation from all the discussions about the wisdom of destroying the tapes or even the explicit court orders regarding the torture tapes.
DiFi's Amendment
DiFi's discussion of her amendment on immunity raises all sorts of interesting questions. Did the telecoms get oral authorizations to wiretap Americans, or were they all written? Did those authorizations specifically vest their authority in the President's Article II power, rather than in the statutes governing wiretapping?
From what I can see in her discussion, though, her amendment offers one great advantage: it asks the FISA Court to review the program and rule on the limits of the President's Article II power to wiretap. Oh--and of course she requires the one court against which Bush can't invoke State Secrets to conduct this review.
Henry Gets Impatient
Apparently, I'm not the only one who noticed that, since the time when Henry Waxman first asked Michael Mukasey to hand over the White House-related materials from the CIA Leak Case investigation, he has proven to be mighty responsive to requests from Congress when it involves covering up for the White House.
Dick versus Scottish Haggis: The Grudge Match
Arlen "Scottish Haggis" Specter introduced a letter exchange with Dick Cheney into the Congressional record yesterday. In case you needed any proof, the letters show that Dick is an asshole, even to nice little compliant Senators like Scottish Haggis.
U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, DC, June 7, 2006.
Hon. Richard B. Cheney,
The Vice President,
Washington, DC.
The Torture Debate
Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus have an interesting article describing the debate between CIA and FBI over whether waterboarding worked with Abu Zubaydah. If the timeline they describe is accurate, then it means that Abu Zubaydah gave up his most important intelligence before they started torturing him. As to the information he gave up under torture, the CIA and FBI dispute whether it was useful or not. The implication of the article is that the CIA may have destroyed the torture tapes to hide the fact that the water-boarding was ineffective.
The article explains that Abu
Why Did Reid Pull the Bill?
Senator's Dodd demonstration that he was serious about a filibuster was undoubtedly one of the things that led to Reid pulling the bill yesterday. But I suspect it also has a lot to do with plans the moderate Dems had to introduce amendments that, while perfectly reasonable, would have been poison pills for the Republicans.
WHORM and WAVES
Amid the excitement today, you may have missed the news that the White House visitor logs are public documents. I'm sure this will be in the Courts for another year and a half--at which point Dick will invite Scalia to go quail hunting again, and we'll never get the records. But for now, look at the oozing skepticism of Judge Royce Lamberth.
Leadership
As you've likely heard, Senator Reid has pulled the FISA bill. We win--for today, at least.
Noel Hillman Gets a Subpoena
Hey, remember how I asked whether, if Noel Hillman were subpoenaed in the woods but no one saw it, whether he really got subpoenaed?
Well, he did ... he did get subpoenaed.
Sheldon Whitehouse's Speech
Whitehouse is up, hitting on the same issues he hit in his speech a week ago Friday. He accuses Mukasey and McConnell are being disingenuous when they ignore the issues outstanding on the FISA debate.
These two gentlemen do know what is going on and chose to talk past the issue, ignore it's very existence.
Senator Dodd Tries to Save the Constitution
Senator Dodd says that Mike McConnell thinks "certain corporations are too rich to be sued." And that's just the start of Dodd's case to vote down telecom immunity.
Competence versus Populism
Is David Frum really calling for competence in Republican nominees and appointees? Or is he instead calling for ideological purity in the guise of competence?
