It would have been nice if a lot of the revelations were made in a little more “real time” and less close to: “after Congress folds on the legislation” I thought some of the stuff about Thompson was very interesting. Thompson, as acting Attorney General (because Ashcroft was traveling) is the guy who expressly signed off on sending Maher Arar to Syrian torture. He owns every minute of that terror flight and everything that happened to that man and the degredation of using the Dept. of Justice to accomplish torture (remember that when next you order a carbonated beverage or a torture-lovers pizza – Thompson landed as Gen Counsel for Pepsico and is one of the guys who pitched hard for Haynes to get a Fourth Circuit lifetime torture-reward appointment) .

So it caught my eye that Thomspon was so worried at signing off on applications that he refused. I think this article does tie back to the article I keep flogging on the FISA Chief Judges and their reactions to “teh program”. While the article isn’t a model of clarity (talking vaguely about not signing “warrant applications because it was unclear where the wiretaps were coming from”) I think it is pretty clear they are talking about the immediate firewall orders from the FISA Chief Judge.

The old story indicated that both Lamberth and Kollar-Kotelly required (and I have to think that was by order) “firewalls” to keep what they considered to be the clearly illegal program from contaminating the orders granted by the FISA courts. And the story indicates that, at about the same time as the hospital showdown, the FISA court was contacting DOJ and making noises about perjury and other issues because it seems that the firewall procedures were not being complied with and DOJ was merrily requesting and getting FISA warrants based on the illegal program, without complying with the requirements of filing only with the chief judges and making full disclosure.

So this story seems to reinforce the point that, perhaps more so than a sudden attack of concern over felonies (who cares when you own the prosecutors?) that the worry at DOJ was that because they were not monitoring the illegal program at all, everytime someone signed off on applications for the FISA court they were likely violating that court’s firewall orders and Thompson was a little too worried to put his neck on that line. And the article seems to imply that part of Ashcroft’s strength of mind and purpose in the hospital showdown may have had more to do with concerns over personal liability and that liability almost had to be tied to actions that might be taken by the FISA judges (again, since Ashcroft and his fellow conspirators owned the thoroughly corrupt DOJ and since everyone there, including Goldsmith and Comey, were devoted to concealing the felonies during elections so that they would continue to own the prosecutors for another 4 years and since Congress was supine, the only semblance of law at all was emanating from the FISA panel itself – kind of sorry to see that become fodder for Chief Justice Roberts to play with – something that bears some thinking as FISA is being ‘reformed’). It would be interesting to see the memo for Thompson that assessed “ramifications” but I’m sure that is now just a piece of historic trivia – from a time before men like Ashcroft, Thompson, Philbin, Comey, Yoo, Bybee, Goldsmith, Gonzales, etc. finished destroying any lingering respect for law at DOJ.

I liked the back to back sentences in the article, ending one paragraph and starting another, that a) even after they were written, the OLC opinions were not provided to NSA attorneys, and b) Justice declined comment because they could not comment on ‘internal deliberations.’ Cutesy.

Then when they drop in that Hayden, that model of truth and veracity, says he got the go ahead from three NSA lawyers – but yet, they were never provided with opinions and never provided him with opinions, well, it all really raises a lot more questions than it answers, doesn’t it? Why in the world would Comey and Goldsmith have prevented the NSA lawyers from seeing their approvals of the “cleaned up” program (the one that Judge Taylor ruled on the merits to be unconstitutional and which the FISA Chief Judges still felt required firewalls because it was unconstitutional and …)

And the part about the FBI technicians is interesting too. Did the end up getting told by telecom crews about it when they were trying to get other wiretaps going? Or can they tell if there are other taps on the lines they are tapping? I have to wonder if it wasn’t FBI tech to telecom tech (who thought FBI was in on the program perhaps) talking? Who knows, but we do know that through most of the operative time, Wainstein was either Gen Counsel or COS for Mueller, so he was out there selling the program as “approved” from early on too. And don’t we now pretty much know that a boatload of the illegal NSL requests all claiming reliance on warrants that would be forthcoming were likely spin offs from the illegal NSA program too?

Oh well. In the end, so what I guess. Not one of the presidential candidates gives a damn, Congress doesn’t give a damn, and after years of DOJ led cheerleading over torture, disappearing children, and massive felony violations of law and of the constitution, a part of this nation has intrinsically changed. No one expects anyone in the DOJ to ever do the right thing and no one expects Bush to ever be held responsible (other than in the cooing references by people like Comey and Townsend rhapsodizing over how wonderful he is) for violating the law. We’ve had national acquiescence to using the Dept of Justice merely as a conduit to torture innocent people without apology and to cover up for a dry drunks crimes in office. And sitting on stories and facts helped get us there.

It’s all pretty dismal.

65 – Thanks. I knew it was denied but no, we never get US coverage of things like Arar’s trial that would include the crowd and judges laughing at the assertions Arar was al-Qaeda.

From the post:

It makes his support of Comey and Goldsmith in the hospital confrontation much more akin to stories of how Comey convinced Ashcroft to recuse himself in the CIA Leak investigation–because it badly tainted his own authority–rather than a heroic stand from his ICU ward.

I think this is what bmaz and I were thinking pretty much from the time the story came out – that there was a personal problem for Ashcroft and for anyone signing off on either the approval OR FISA applications for that matter (which is why Thompson wouldn’t sign applications) and a lot of the newfound spine at DOJ with talks of walkouts had much less to do with sudden desire to quit violating the constitution and the law, and a lot more to do with concerns about careers if the FISA Judges (who had already gone after Townsend earlier for problems with applications) saw their names on these applications/affidavits that violated the FISA firewall rulings.

I just don’t see how people can get by with claiming that they didn’t think there was a problem, when the top FISA Judge immediately tells DOJ that he thinks the program is illegal (followed in a couple of years by the successor chief judge who says the same thing) and issues orders to bar introduction of that illegal evidence from the FISA proceedings AND the then DAG, Thompson, won’t even sign off on normal FISA applications (and so a cumbersome process gets put in place that has to have involved several people in the knowledge that Thompson wouldn’t sign applications) because of the FISA orders.

Or, for that matter, how anyone could claim they didn’t know there was a problem when they realized that Hayden was saying, in his press responses, that there was no requirement in the 4th amendment for warrants and probable cause – if they could read, they knew that was crap.

Or, for that matter, if nothing else, how they could claim they didn’t know there was a problem from the time of Judge Diggs-Taylor’s ruling that — there was a problem.

Leaving, unless it was done before you were involved, wouldn’t make a difference but what does make a difference is that the Senate is a lost cause on immunity by now and a new AG would have to a) have something less slimey than the rotting, puss filled caracas of Justice left behind for law to ever get traction again, b) have a president who appointed with expectations that criminals (including some of the darlings and heroes of the narratives that have been spun, like heroic Ashcroft lifting his head on his sick bed to defend the constitution uh huh)would actually be pursued even if they were ex-President, WHCOS, WHCounsel, AG, DAG, head of OLC, etc., and c) evidence that wasn’t destroyed by DOJ and people who were not actively involved in ongoing obstruction, etc. etc.

It’s not going to happen. The crew at DOJ didn’t just get away with – quite literally in the case of at least one guy frozen to death and who knows how many others from their secret detention and torture programs – murder, but they also managed as the leading institution of law in the nation and as the only institution to offer only public support at every revelation of Executive Branch crime – they not only got away with being criminals and corrupt prosecutors but they even managed to change the national psyche. They didn’t just do evil, see evil and speak evil; they managed to make us all a little more evil – they took the nation with them.

Now they will enjoy their jobs at Chevron and Harvard and Lockheed etc. and some of their victims are still suffering, or have families that are still suffering, and journalists like Lichtblau may continue to, so far after the fact, leak a little more and a little more, to milk the stories for what they can be worth but only when they are going to be neutered and now and then people will read about yet another crime unpunished and even eulogize without even much of a tsk tsk.

I left a similar comment for Scarecrow’s post on the 60 minutes Kurnaz story – but what does it say about our journalists that it is only after something like Habeas being killed by the MCA that 60 minutes runs the Kurnaz case? It’s been around and reported over and over for years, but just now – not before the MCA – they decide to publicize. Now that the fights are mostly lined and lost on telecom immunity, Lichtblau fills us in on a few other items, but only as fodder for book buying.

Mukasey is completely supportive of Executive Branch crime being sprinkled with DOJ holy water. I think the most you can expect later is that you’ll have a DoJ riddled with people who have gotten by with anything and everything with no consequences and who will target politically and at will anyone they want – including a Democratic president, and if that president doesn’t adopt the same scorch and burn tactics, to brutalize the system of justice for personal gain and power, then that president will have the beast that’s been left behind at their own throat.

There were just too many men and women who made their peace with doing the wrong things for too long. I don’t see how you clean house now, not with people like Rockefeller and Pelosi in Congress and not with a DOJ now riddled with corruption.