Thursday, July 26, 2007

FBI Director Mueller Contradicts Gonzales (4:19 pm)

Laurie Kellman and Lara Jakes Jordan for AP report:

The head of the FBI contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ sworn testimony and Senate Democrats requested a perjury investigation Thursday in a fresh barrage against President Bush’s embattled longtime friend and aide.
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The White House defiantly stuck by Gonzales and denied that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller had contradicted him.
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Among the Democrats’ examples of Gonzales’ untruthfulness was his emphatic and repeated statement to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday that his dramatic nighttime visit to the bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 was not related to an internal administration dispute about the president’s secret warrantless eavesdropping program.

In his own sworn testimony Thursday, Mueller contradicted his boss, saying under questioning that the terrorist surveillance program (TSP) was the topic of the hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials.
“The White House defiantly stuck by Gonzales and denied that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller had contradicted him.” Now the White House is just brazenly stealing material from Monty Python.

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Democrats Request Special Counsel Be Appointed to Investigate Perjury Charges Against Gonzales (12:44 pm)

Laurie Kellman and Lara Jakes Jordan for AP report:

Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration.

“It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,” four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.
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Democrats issued a laundry list of examples of what one called Gonzales’ “lying” before Congress.

“We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year,” said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Also at issue, the Democrats said, is a conflict between Gonzales’ testimony that he had not spoken with other witnesses about the firings and his former White House liaison’s account of an “uncomfortable” conversation” in which the attorney general reviewed his recollection of the events and asked her opinion.
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In a separate letter Thursday to Gonzales, Leahy said he would give the attorney general eight days to correct, clarify or otherwise change his testimony “so that, consistent with your oath, they are the whole truth.”

In their letter to Clement, the four senators wrote that Gonzales’ testimony last year that there had been no internal dissent over the president’s warrantless wiretapping program conflicted with testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey...   read more

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Rove and Deputy Jennings Subpoenaed by Senate Judiciary Committee (12:27 pm)

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker reports:

Finally, the big one.

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued two more subpoenas as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation today: one for Karl Rove and the other for his deputy, Scott Jennings. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced the subpoenas on the Senate floor.

The question for Rove and Jennings, of course, is whether to take the same course taken by Rove’s former aide, Sara Taylor, who appeared before the committee to answer questions that were not covered by executive privilege — or to take the approach taken by Harriet Miers, who refused to show up at all.

posted by Brian Zick | 2 comments

Two Reagan Administration Officials Say Bush Can Be Charged with War Crimes (2:24 am)

P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner have written an editorial in WaPo titled “War Crimes and the White House; The Dishonor in a Tortured New ‘Interpretation’ of the Geneva Conventions.”

One of us was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps by President Ronald Reagan; the other served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and has vigorously defended the constitutionality of warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps, presidential signing statements and many other controversial aspects of the war on terrorism. But we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come.
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The Geneva Conventions provide important protections to our own military forces when we send them into harm’s way. Our troops deserve those protections, and we betray their interests when we gratuitously “interpret” key provisions of the conventions in a manner likely to undermine their effectiveness. Policymakers should also keep in mind that violations of Common Article 3 are “war crimes” for which everyone involved — potentially up to and including the president of the United States — may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions.

posted by Brian Zick | 4 comments

NY Times: Congress Should Proceed Against Miers and Bolten Using Powers of Inherent Contempt (2:09 am)

The editors of the New York Times say:

The House Judiciary Committee did its duty yesterday, voting to cite Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, for contempt. The Bush administration has been acting lawlessly in refusing to hand over information that Congress needs to carry out its responsibility to oversee the executive branch and investigate its actions when needed. If the White House continues its obstruction, Congress should use all of the contempt powers at its disposal.
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The administration has indicated that it is unlikely to allow the United States attorney for the District of Columbia to bring Congress’s contempt charges before a grand jury. That would be a regrettable stance. But if the administration sticks to it, Congress can and should proceed against Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten on its own, using its inherent contempt powers.

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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Gonzales Is Gonna Need a Pardon Too (7:24 pm)

Lara Jakes Jordan for AP reports:

Documents show that eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.
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“The dissent related to other intelligence activities,” Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. “The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.”

“Not the TSP?” responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.”

“It was not,” Gonzales answered. “It was about other intelligence activities.”

A four-page memo from the national intelligence director’s office shows that the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.

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Contempt Hearings (11:05 am)

Jesse Lee at The Gavel reports on the House Judiciary Committee’s

“Meeting to Consider: a Resolution and Report Recommending to the House of Representatives that Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten be Cited for Contempt of Congress.” Yesterday the Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers prepared a 52-page memo “that for the first time alleges specific ways that several administration officials may have broken the law during the multiple firings of U.S. attorneys.”
Christy at firedoglake is live blogging the hearings.
Part 1
Part 2

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Gonzales’ Perjuries (10:53 am)

Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker keeps score.

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