AGAG Says "Good Job"--but about What?
Al Kamen chronicles the latest joy-ridden interaction between Alberto Gonzales and Patrick Fitzgerald.
In the Justice Department's Great Hall (the very room where giant, blue drapes covered the underdressed statuary during John Ashcroft's tenure as attorney general), an array of prosecutors, securities regulators and FBI honchos gathered yesterday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force.
Chicago U.S.
The Resignation of CIFA's Top Management
I'm still reading the November 2005 affidavit on Cunningham's bribery. It has a previously unknown level of detail on the CIFA-related pork Cunningham made possible. I think some of those details provide new insight into why the Director and Deputy Director of CIFA resigned (speaking of "trepidation") in August 2006, when the Cunningham investigation was focusing closely on CIFA.
The affidavit provides details of the involvement of the top management of CIFA
MZM's Republican AND DEMOCRATIC Congressmen
I'm working my way through this November 2005 affidavit relating to the Cunningham scandal (hat tip Kentucky Jelly). But this paragraph and footnote jumped out at me, especially in light of Democratic refusal to declassify the complete report on Cunningham's House Intelligence Committee contracting.
On a page entitled "Election Impact on Congressional Mandates," Wade listed a number of politicians, starting with Cunningham, all of whom won reelection in November 2002.
Desperation at the DOJ
The DOJ's refusal to let John Tanner testify before the House Judiciary Committee reeks of desperation. After all, Brad Schlozman and Hans Von Spakovsky have already testified before Congress. Alberto Gonzales has testified repeatedly. What possible excuse can DOJ make not to allow Tanner to testify, ostensibly a career employee?
The absence of any good reason to refuse the request for his testimony suggests DOJ--and the Administration--is particularly worried about what he
Useful Details about Armitage Might Be In There
As predicted, Tom Maguire links to the two affidavits I made available yesterday without pointing out what those affidavits say: that in Fall 2004, Fitzgerald was still actively investigating Armitage and Novak and Rove and Libby on the Novak leak--because their stories all contradicted what the others were saying. Let me help you out, Tom, by quoting the entire passage on Armitage and the Novak column:
A brief discussion is in order
Where is Mary McCarthy Now?
Reuters reports that the EU report on secret prisons got much of its information from anonymous US intelligence officers.
Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former DefenseSecretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details ofsecret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.
SwissSenator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails,said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld's methods in huntingdown terrorist suspects,
The DOD/State Talking Point, Two
This is a follow-up to my post speculating that Cheney got his talking point about DOD and State being interested in the Iraq intell from the documents Valerie Wilson wrote before Joe Wilson's trip to Niger. This post will do something very simple: show where that talking point shows up, and where it doesn't.
What Fitzgerald Didn't Know Yet
In an effort to make these affidavits available as soon as possible so the wingnuts can start admitting they were wrong about Fitzgerald being a runaway prosecutor, I thought I'd catalog some of the things Fitzgerald didn't appear to know by August 27, 2004 and September 27, 2004.
As of August 2004, Fitzgerald did not yet know that:Rove may have talked to Novak on July 8, not July 9There was a second
The DOD/State Talking Point
This is the post I've been promising for weeks, in which I will speculate wildly as to the source of Cheney's knowledge about Plame's role at CPD and in her husband's trip. Here's the argument, in brief:Cheney learns during the week of June 9 that "Defense and State expressed a strong interestin the Niger intelligence"At a time when Cheney presumably already knew that information, he tried to get CIA to repeat
House Intelligence Committee Stonewalling
During the book salon chat on The Wrong Stuff yesterday, we discussed the House Intelligence Committee report on how Duke Cunningham managed to scam so much money for his friends. Lo and behold, the LAT has a long article on it today (hat tip Kentucky Jelly). The report, though, is pretty disappointing.
A Field Position Game
Mark Kleiman argues that the Democrats should see BushCo's refusal to turn over proof that they buried details about Pat Tillman's death as a godsend. This is the scandal, he argues, over which the Democrats should choose to confront Bush.
This is a Godsend for the Democrats in Congress. The committeesshouldn't compromise at all; this is the case we want to go to warover, in the courts and the court of
A Second Strategic Failure
I'm more and more convinced this is Dick Cheney's design. Failure in Afghanistan, which might lead to the collapse of Pakistan's western-friendly government, which might lead to a regional war between Sunni and Shiite.
Ashdown told The Observer that Afghanistan presented a graver threat than Iraq.
'Theconsequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,'he said.
Is It Ken Starr's Fault?
I found this story on the National Review cruise over at Susie's place. It's the perfect comedy to accompany the Sunday shows--stories about what nuts Republicans when they presume they're alone. There's a lot that worth reading, not least the portrayal of the Podhoretz-Buckley feud (with Buckley almost--but not quite--disowning his conservative offspring).
No Oversight
Remember when I pointed out that the real story of those civil liberties violations that Gonzales didn't admit to was the role of the Intelligence Oversight Board? Well, I was right:
An independent oversight board created to identify intelligence abuses after the CIAscandals of the 1970s did not send any reports to the attorney generalof legal violations during the first 5 1/2 years of the Bushadministration's counterterrorism effort, the Justice Department has
Why Harriet??
We all know that Harriet was a no-show for her date with HJC on Thursday. We all know that Harriet refused to testify based on some new opinions issued by DOJ. But I've seen almost no discussion that explores why BushCo decided to take such an inflammatory approach with Harriet's testimony.
It seems there are two likely answers to that question--or rather, questions that need to be answered:Why did Bush choose to
Rove and Nixon and Anne Armstrong and the Work Yet to Be Done
I did a post last year, not long after Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face, tracing the ties between the Armstrong family and Republican corruption. I showed how Anne Armstrong has been present at all the big-name Republican scandals going back to Watergate.Anne Armstrong Event
Associated Republican Scandal
1971-1973
RNC Co-Chair
Watergate
1973-1974
Cabinet-level Counselor to Nixon and Ford
Watergate
1976-1977
Ambassador to the UK
Sara Taylor Refuses to Agree Tim Griffin Had "Substantial" Experience
I'm just now catching up on the Sara Taylor non-testimony (the webcast is still available here). And I find her to be interestingly sharp--in that she backs off of some points that the Republicans would like to put in her mouth.
There's an exchange with Arlen Specter, for example, in which he prods her to say that Tim Griffin was very qualified to replace Bud Cummins (this happens just before and
The "Embarrassment Privilege"
We've got to start calling these refusals to testify what they are--because they surely aren't executive privilege. With Sara Taylor's plea to avoid testifying because she admires--and apparently took a vow to--Bush it's not executive privilege because she didn't speak to him about the USA firings. But we might call her refusal to testify the "I love me my Prezident privilege"--because that's about as serious as the legal discussion behind it
The False First Amendment of the Dow Jones and AP
Back when Dow Jones and the AP renewed their bid to unseal the materials relating to Judy's and Cooper's subpoenas, they asserted--apparently based on self-serving public comments by Novak, Rove, and Armitage and on Victoria Toensing's self-declared omniscience in all things Plame--that Fitzgerald's pursuit of the journalists' testimony was unnecessary.
Recently, the public learned that the Special Counsel's pursuit of those reporters was entirely unnecessary for him to determine who had leaked
Fitzgerald: Not a Runaway Prosecutor, Explained Simply
I wanted to elaborate on the Armitage post I did earlier, showing that (contrary to the wails of the Libby Lobby), Fitzgerald did not pursue Libby while ignoring the Novak leak. In addition to the inconsistencies in Armitage's Novak story, in fall 2004, there remained inconsistencies in the Rove Novak story and--I would submit--the Libby Novak story.