Alberto Gonzales’ Blackmail Notes and Jane Harman’s Support
As I explained in the last post, CQ is reporting that NSA intercepts caught Jane Harman agreeing to help AIPAC avoid criminal charges in exchange for AIPAC’s support for her to get the House Intelligence Chair. That post suggests Harman was willing to intervene in a criminal case in hopes of getting a powerful Chairmanship of a committee.
But the story also shows that Alberto Gonzales’ efforts to ensure support from those members of Congress who didn’t object to the illegal wiretap program worked. The story reveals that Gonzales spiked an investigation into Harman because he needed her to support the Administration as news of the warrantless wiretap program broke in 2005.
Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.
And they were prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests.
First, however, they needed the certification of top intelligence officials that Harman’s wiretapped conversations justified a national security investigation.
[snip]
But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.
According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program
He was right.
On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”
I suspect there is even more here than meets the eye.
As I noted in 2007, when the Administration came to the Gang of Eight on March 10, 2004 and told them Comey had concerns about the warrantless wiretap program, but that they wanted to go forward anyway, Harman appears to have been one of (if not the only) the Democrats who agreed the program should move forward, making a majority with the Republicans who supported keeping the program in spite of the legal problems with it.
Since that time, we’ve learned that Alberto Gonzales, after the fact, made notes of that meeting and illegally dragged the notes around with him in a briefcase even after he became Attorney General.
Gonzales told the OIG that President Bush directed him to memorialize the March 10, 2004, meeting. Gonzales stated that he drafted notes about the meeting in a spiral notebook in his White House Counsel’s Office within a few days of the meeting, probably on the weekend immediately following the meeting. Gonzales stated that he wrote the notes in a single sitting except for one line, which he told us he wrote within the next day. Gonzales said that his intent in drafting the notes was to record the reactions of the congressional leaders during the meeting, as opposed to recording any operational details about the program that were discussed. In the notes, Gonzales listed who was present, followed by a general summary of the briefing given to the congressional leaders by intelligence agency officials, and the congressional leaders’ responses to the briefing. [my emphasis]
As I suggested last year, it appears he was using the notes for his own self-protection, but also as a weapon to use against those members of Congress who had attended the meeting.
So here’s what this looks like. In 2004, Gonzales makes notes of the March 10 meeting after it became clear Comey and friends might make legal trouble after Bush continued the program without DOJ authorization. He did so specifically to record the reactions of the Gang of Eight. Later that year, Jane Harman encourages the NYT to drop its story about Bush’s law-breaking.
The following year, Gonzales’ DOJ has Jane Harman caught in what it considers "a completed crime." Yet Gonzales declines further investigation and prosecution of that alleged crime, because he needs Harman to give cover to the Administration for its own "completed crime," and he’s got a briefcase full of notes to ensure she will give that cover.
A nice rule of law democracy we’ve got here, don’t you think?
marcy, you are an amazing resource, frigging amazing
thanx for your tireless work
this case begs the question, who else has been blackmailed
it also looks like a legitimate diversion from those crimes of torture, a diversion we cannot afford, we need to continue our outrage on both fronts
there will be more relevations to divert our attention, all these crimes must remain top of the page
The best , period.
I am wondering about the timing of when the Harman wiretap occurred. I see that the first NYTimes reference to the AIPAC spy case was August 29,2004. Surely the wiretap had already occurred before the March 10, 2004 Gang of Eight meeting for Harman to have been “compromised” prior to the meeting?
No, it had to have been later. It had to have been late enough that it was conceivable that we’d win the House.
Okay, got it. I see now from the two penultimate paragraphs that Gonzo spiked the investigation to preserve a vote his side already had in the Gang of Eight, rather than spiking it in return for her original yes vote.
Right. Blackmail is more effective at (a) keeping someone in line with a previously-taken position than (b) getting them to take a position they ordinarily might not take. This, because the former (a) doesn’t raise any eyebrows about the blackmailee’s behavior among people not party to this particular blackmail.
Now, what I’d like to know is, as to the people who went to Gitmo where only one was against torture and the others were all “are you being hard enough?” – who answered what, and what did Gonzo have on them?
I wouldn’t call this a case of blackmail, it looks to me like quid pro quo. And imo this confirms what we have long speculated here, that key Democrats were complicit in BushCo’s illegal wiretapping program, which is why Democrats were the ones to bring us the FISA Amendments Act. Harman got onboard of her own free will, and she conspired with AIPAC so she could get a chairmanship. I don’t see her as a victim here.
(1) I didn’t call Harman a victim of blackmail here. I called her a “blackmailee”. If you look at most state-level and (IIRC) federal-level extortion (i.e., “blackmail”) statutes, one of the ways a person can be found guilty of extortion against someone, is by blackmailing them with the threat of criminal prosecution: like in the movies, “If you don’t pay me $X, I’ll let the police know I saw you kill your spouse.”
In this instance, Gonzo was able to blackmail Harman by the threat of allowing an otherwise-proper prosecution to proceed. This is both a form of extortion in that the threat of prosecution is always there, and one only a prosecutor can carry out. But it is, nonetheless, blackmail.
(2) I never said Harman was innocent of anything. In fact, one can argue that only people guilty of something can be blackmailed. It only looks like a quid pro quo.
scribe, iirc you are a lawyer and I am not, so I am happy to defer to your expertise here. I am curious though, if I read you correctly, something that appears to be a quid pro quo becomes blackmail automatically if one side of the equation involves a prosecutor holding a potential prosecution over the other person’s head — even if the other person had demonstrably cooperated prior to the threat of legal action. Is that right?
blackmail: Gonzales keeps records (perhaps inaccurate records, at that) of the March 10 conversation to protect himself and Bush from any repercussions for wiretapping illegally
quid pro quo: Harman’s totally separate deal with AIPAC
Fair enough, but as drational@18 points out, Harman was already onboard with illegal wiretapping and had quite helpfully assisted in quashing the NYT story for a year prior to any AIPAC related activities, or Gonzo’s potential blackmail. So, it seems Harman might expect some quid pro quo from BushCo based on her own efforts. I can see however, that as the political winds shifted and she might have tried to shift with them, that Gonzo then pursued blackmail to keep her in line, but I don’t see the quid pro quo and blackmail as entirely separate as you suggest.
Is it just my lyin’ eyes, or has that Ghorbanifar Meetings Timeline been growing recently…?
The quid pro quo was to help Harman after the 2006 elections. But she helped suppress the program leak for the 2004 election, and then criticized the Risen/Lichtblau article in 12/2005.
The timeline is strange….
Whoa — early on my coast, I went to TPM, saw the news about Harman and came straight here. More of a ‘morning jolt’ than my cuppa java, that’s for damn sure!
Am just amazed that EW’s already on it! Will catch up on the threads, but wow — my brain is still spinning from the info at TPM. JesusMaryAndJoesph!! And all my paws and whiskers, to boot!
8^0
Isn’t blackmail wonderful? It’s one of those gifts that keeps on giving.
Following up on my earlier comment here, with a little more.
I didn’t answer “why now?”
The facile answer is “because the AIPAC trial is moving to a very active phase.”
I have two more:
(1) because the statute of limitations has run out on the pre-March 10, 2004 wiretapping (which we knew was illegal prior to the statute running); and
(2) 183.
Then throw in “do you think this has anything to do with that recent meeting of former Bushies about shaping the legacy?” and “Where is Hassan Ghul?”
That would all assume the guys leaking this to Stein, who’s a very good journalist, would have any concerns about either of those issues. I think you’d have to stretch to make that case.
My point is not that Stein would give a hoot about those issues; he probably filed this a while back. His editors, in choosing to run a completed piece based on some exclusive, and choosing to do it now, are the people who are the players here and they’re likely the ones getting the calls on one side or the other.
Just saying – this sure as hell has knocked 183 off the top of the page, hasn’t it?
183’s currently the top story at CNN.com. Well, the 266 variant thereof.
I guess Nancy Pelosi was right when she said we don’t know the half of it.
Dontcha just feel dirty when you read about all these stupid nasty Bushie scandals? I know it makes me want to take them all for a short ride over the ocean. Oh look there are some sharks. Ooops, sorry I bumped you out the door.
I mean really, how can a society such as ours stand to be knocked around by this crap for years after years. It’s just tooo much. After a while we’re all walking around in a daze and we just can’t function.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to let the Spaniards try them Iranian style and render them to a black prison somewhere like Syria or Ukraine?
I’ll bet they could get great health care there.
EW,
How do you think the Rosen lawsuit against AIPAC plays into this?
BTW, with a Harman step down, who is there in her district to step up?
Here’s a link to information on the Rosen lawsuit against AIPAC filed earlier this month. (I linked in the previous post too.)
EW,
OT
In your timeline box, can you add a link (to links) of your OLC posts from Friday forward?
When exactly did the wiretaps happen?
The quid pro quo was for 2006: They did not know it would be a sweep until at least September 2006.
Harman helped as Gang of eight in March 2004 and before.
Gonzales made notes of this on March 10-11/2004.
Harman helped delay Risen/Lichtblau article at Times in October/November 2004.
Gonzalez became AG January 2005
Harman Criticized Risen/Lichtblau in December, 2005.
So all of this early stuff with the program seems to have been done voluntarily by Harman (at least unrelated to the Israeli quid pro quo); Gonzales’s notes seem only give him cover for moving forward with the illegal program. They may make Harman look bad for constituents, but don’t seem so useful as a blackmail tool.
Any Blackmail for the Israeli deal must have been to protect Gonzales further or be used to keep Harman on board down the road (FISA rework), but It does not look like it can be linked to any of her behaviors prior to September 2006.
Right?
No. I’m not suggesting the Israeli deal relates to Harman’s actions in 2004.
But I do think it appropriate to ask whether Gonzales brought his suitcase (or threatened to) to any discussions with Jane Harman before she spoke with the NYT in 2004.
So I guess my point is that the CQ article seems to suggest the wiretap qpq happened before December 2005:
But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.
Was Harman dealing for chairmanship in 2005, a full year before the 2006 elections?
Was Harman dealing for chairmanship in 2005, a full year before the 2006 elections?
Yes. She had bad history with Pelosi, also probably aware if Dems retook House that Congressional Black Caucus would be lobbying for Hastings. They start fundraising for the next election the minute the previous one ends. Jockeying for leadership positions ditto. Congressional campaigns are underway by a year out; relatively safe incumbents are looking to their positions in the next Congress.
I suspect he would not remember. What suitcase?
Why only Harman? She was the minority ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and should therefore have been number four on the list of people who could have provided real help to AIPAC in their hour of need. Shouldn’t the priority for looking for help have gone:
1) Senate Chair
2) House Chair
3) Senate Ranking Member
4) House Ranking Member
The wiretaps were on the AIPAC personnel, so all of their contacts with these targets should have been recorded. Where are the intercepts with Pat Roberts, Porter Goss and Jay Rockefeller (or their replacements as the Gang of Eight continually re-sorted)? Was AIPAC able to assume these three were already on their side, or is Harman considered to be the only one of these four who is disposable?
Would have been Crazy Pete Hoekstra at HPSCI by then, Goss would have been DCI at the time.l
Yeah, I was wondering if it was Pete in terms of this timeline. But your next post explains why Harman and nobody else was caught up: she’s just stoopid!
And how does the Rosen attack on Obama’s past NIC nominee, Charles Freeman, enter in?
From the CQ article on the news about Harman — and wow, Valtin was not kidding that some ‘news’ might show up ’soon’. Wow 8^0
From EW’s Ghorbanifar Meetings Timeline — mostly deleting sections not relevant to “AIPAC”, “Franklin”, “Rosen”, or “Weissman”:
Question for Jane Harman: ‘What part of the word t-r-e-a-s-o-n do you not understand, ma’am?”
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are sure looking a whole lot more patriotic to me this morning. I am gobsmacked.
I am starting to get suspicious of this CQ article.
It is ridiculous to suggest Dem were “heavily favored to win” in October 2005, when this conversation took place. This is therefore not a quid pro quo, because the Israelis would be helping her contingent upon a Dem Victory over a year away. If there was no Dem victory, Harman gets nothing.
I do not like Harman, but this may be a hit job.
I certainly wouldn’t take issue with the inference that the CQ piece is a hit job, but it is possible for it to be a hit job and true (or mostly true). I’d have to go back into pols from ‘05, but my quite possibly faulty memory suggests that there was substantial confidence that the Dems would take the House early on — and even if there wasn’t, Nell’s point that congresscritters are always scheming ahead still holds true.
The bottom line is that if the NSA or (more likely) DOJ sources for this story are telling the truth, what was captured on the intercepts is incredibly damning (including evidence of consciousness of wrongdoing) regardless of whether the chair of Armed Services was at the time a contingent pipe dream. It could be that folks within DOJ or the “intelligence community” who know how deeply implicated many Dems are in all manner of skullduggery have decided to fire a warning shot to try to discourage any further disclosures along the lines of Thursday’s memos.
I do believe that one of the chief reasons that Obama and his folks are reluctant to even dig into the illegality of the Bush regime is the the fact that a number of influential Dems are highly complicit.
This is the nodal point of so many things:
“impeachment off the table” Pelosi, for one?
“No
justiceretribution” Obama?You know, part of the quid pro quo could well have been Harman supporting, not just “the program” but also Gonzales’ self serving notes. If they thought things were going to get hot on the revelation of the program and Gonzales had some post-briefing created “notes” that the members of Congress never got a chance to see, he could pretty much say whatever he wanted in them as long as he thought he could get the right support from enough of those at the briefing. If not only all the Republicans, but also Harman, supported his version of what was in the notes, it would make it hard for the remaining Dems to dispute them.
31 – that’s a good point to drational. And there’s no love lost between Pelosi and Harman and it sure seems like there is likely to start being some backlash against some of the Dem leadership who led the party through the Bush and now Obama embrace of unconstitutional wiretapping and torture. Plus there’s a case on the ropes – lots of vested interests to pick through and dig through, but imo CQ would have a good finger on the pulse of the reasons for someone to want a hit job on Harman and would be careful in their vetting.
I’m not sympathetic to Obama’s notion that we need to overlook past transgressions and just move forward, but he does have a point– the shitpile of corruption and misdeeds is so high that if we confront it all, nothing else will be accomplished for years….
here’s something;
isn’t jane commiting treason if that “completed crime” is proven?
isn’t abu torture commiting treason leaving a traitor in government office whence she enjoys a security rating?
how safe is Harman’s seat? Isn’t it in a very progressive corner of the LA metro area.. at lesat more progressive than one would assume fits well for a Dem who actually describes herself as a Republican?
a real progressive would be nice, there are very few in office
Harman needs to resign right now or be expelled by the whole House.
she really really does
Everyone knows that Gonzalez is scummy – what I want to know – and I guess I missed it somehow – what crime did Harman commit? Was it large enough for her to sell out her own gov’t to get out of? I can’t stand her and want to know why she is assisting another country to get away with crimes.
…acting like a republican? voting for republican uber alles policies? /s
;]
What else don’t we know?
Your imagination is not rich enough.
the limit being any and all tactics featured on Fox-network show 24, since we know that the fictional actions portrayed on that program represent the limit of rethug imagination.
Did they do insects?
This is an excellent article.
The CQ story is spreading. The best diaries on this subject so far today, are emptywheel’s here, and at Mondoweiss. Phil Weiss, the proprietor there, put up a post on this yesterday, and six already today. He’s on his second essay on how the press is trying to minimize and/or bury this story.
We’ll see how Laura Rozen deals with this….
This is indeed both espionage and blackmail.
This story was out last night(Sunday). As of 3PM EST no mention of this from MSNBC,CNN, or CBS which would lead me to believe this is not coming from ‘the lobby’.
MSNBC, CNN, and CBS are not covering it becauase Drudge is not covering it. Drudge is missing a chance to bash a Dem Congressperson? Something’s up.
lol. maybe it’s too nuanced for them?
my wag is none of the villagers wish to remind their viewers/readers that BFF Bush/Cheney illegally spied on americans – and the villagers generated specious ‘debates’ on it’s, um, merits
I suppose this would be news, if you had any chance of finding justice. Harmon was in on all the hard core torture and forfeiture of rights of Americans meetings with the Bush people, but, since some still believe the Democratic Party is an alternative to the Republican Party, not a damn thing will happen. The Dems wanted women, and in California we have Boxer, Feinstein and Harmon at the top of the heap. The only problem is that Feinstein, Boxer (whom I worked for) and Harmon are agents of Israel. They are agents of Israel just as Schumer, Frank, the Clintons, all of PBS and now Obama are agents of Israel. As agents of Israel, they are in violation of our Constitution and they are all traitors. Now, just what in the hell do you think we ought to do about it??
Can you share any first-hand information on why you think Boxer (your former boss) is an agent of Israel?
You have there your hollow cost deniers, back in the thirties that was the thing, and then you have today, the deniers of genocide of the Palestinian people, deniers of the march to war against all Arabs and Muslims, brought to you by a heavily inspired group of U.S. Jews who have decided that the U.S. has been annexed by Israel, and have bought and paid for the likes of Boxer, Feinstein, Harmon, Shumer yadda, yadda, yadda, and anyone who is watching and awake can see that this “special” relationship is against our Constitution. Keep funding them hollow costers and you too will get free yarmulkers for life.
You also have the deliberate sinking of the U.S.S. Liberty, by Israel, the cold blooded murder of Rachel Corrie, oh, and the spying thing, where even though we keep catching guys like Pollard, nothing happens? We keep sending the billions to them and you won’t hear a word from the turds here in Cali-land. But you knew all this. I’m sure you knew all this.
Oh, hmmm, did I mention the cluster bombs sold by our despicable Congress? Did I mention the phospherous showering down on the children of Gaza? But you knew that too, didn’t you? I don’t say that the Jewish members of Congress are the only ones who I consider agents of Israel. I consider pretty much the entire Congress. In fact, I can’t think of anyone from Obama down who isn’t, IMHO, an agent of Israel. Are you one?
Wow, from zero to ad hominem in 3 un-responded-to comments. Even for the web, that’s impressive.
Pass health care reform legislation into law!
Fix people’s mortgages, so they can stay in their homes.
Fix the overall economy, so people can keep their jobs.
Get out of Iraq.
Find some kind of solution to the Al Qaeda problem (Afghan-Pakistan).
Reveal enough of whatever information there is on ’spying on Americans’ so the American public know which way the winds blow.
Begin to end our dependence on foreign oil and oil in general by building other energy sources.
You know, the Obama agenda he talked about throughout the campaign, with a couple of other things now pushing in on us.
I know people have been saying it for some time, but I finally realized today we, the people, are totally screwed. We don’t have anybody on our side. Some kind of way, we have to get a third party up and running. The Republicans are crazy and crooks and Democrats are spineless and crooks. You have a Democratic president covering up the crimes for a Republican president, somebody is blackmailing everybody, and we, the people have no representation. It’s sickening.
There are plenty of options, like Nader, too smart? He and Chomsky (one of many Jews who know the score and aren’t willing to be intimidated) having been telling people the truth, but maybe it’s the people who are wrong? Maybe it’s us who are the problem? The Jews have won it all just by their little Hollow Cost memorabilia. They have guilted most of us into believing any criticism of their genocidal campaign is racist, meanwhile, they continue to force seemingly smart, honest folk, like BO, into going along with their atrocities. Go on with your Dems who will tell you how putting women into power and diversity is all you need to do and all will be swell.
Meat for brains is what they think of us.
The government crumbles and we drink tea…er kool-Aid. Next we need a ‘Kool-Aid Party’.
EW! You’re a bloody miracle!
Harman is the tip of the iceberg, of course. She and her ilk are the reason President Emmanual (sorry–scratch that) Obama don’t want to go after torturers, or let the NSA spying cat out of the bag in the legal system. There are (intuition speaking here) too many compromised democrats who would no doubt lose their jobs, their licenses to practice law, and their freedom (’cause ya don’t have any in jail), and the Congress would be lighter by a substantial number of Democrats.
Smoking gun? Try, smoking tinderbox.
Congressperson..great cover for Harman, Republican like mole and Israel spy.
I imagine her office staff are learning the real meaning of “duck and cover” today.
obstruction of justice?
Jane has a post upstairs about Digg and FDL discontinuing its use on FDL. It has one digg, lol.
comments are turned off, but I’ll comment here that I was not a digger cuz they asked this crone for her birth date. But I DO recommend diaries! :]
Not born yesterday, are you!
Marcy, I hope the bookers from Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are ringing your phone off the hook.
Marcy…you are one AMAZING WOMAN! One million thumbs up for a helluva job!
As far as Jane Harman goes, she always has and always will be a SELLOUT, SCUMBAG, PIECE OF SHIT extroidinare! She makes me sick! I say investigate and indict this “worthless pig” right along with rest of the BUSH/Cheney cartel of criminals. She deserves the worst of everything!
Amen to Mauimom. Hope you will be on Rachel Maddow’s show and/or Keith Olbermann’s in the very near future exploring this story with them.