I mentioned it briefly in my post yesterday, but yesterday's testimony from former deputy attorney general James Comey really deserves a second extended look. Everyone seems to be focusing on the theatrics of the story - as acting Attorney General, Comey had to rush in a sirens blaring motorcade to John Ashcroft's hospital bedside to prevent Gonzales and other White House aides from getting a heavily sedated Ashcroft to sign off on a wiretapping program numerous departments within the DOJ had already declared illegal - but the theatrics are really only a side story.
According to Comey, senior leadership throughout the DOJ were prepared to resign rather than allow the program to go forward. Two years after 9/11, the administration was running a program so illegal that even John Ashcroft couldn't stomach it. So as one of TPM's readers points out, what matters is the substance of their disagreement, not the style. The president wanted his program. He had been told by the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, and others, however, that it was so illegal that they would rather resign than give him legal cover. Even a heavily sedated John Ashcroft knew better than to give him the green light. We know the details of the style of the argument, but we still no nothing about its substance. It is well beyond time for that to change.
In related news, Gonzales and his Dept. of Justice continue to stonewall congressional investigations into the politicization of the department. Put these two stories together and it becomes abundantly clear why Bush will never allow Gonzales to resign. As White House Council, Gonzales helped create the programs that he is now actively working to cover up. The problem for these people, of course, is that eventually they will leave office, meaning that some time in their lifetime the truth will be known.
UPDATE: For a much more detailed analysis of Comey's testimony, see Glenn Greenwald. The NSA Wiretapping story is really what broke Greenwald into the big leagues, so if ever there was a time to read his blog, this is it.
Here's the nut:
Yet even once Ashcroft and Comey made clear that the program had no legal basis (i.e., was against the law), the President ordered it to continue anyway. As Comey said: "The program was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality."
Amazingly, the President's own political appointees -- the two top Justice Department officials, including one (Ashcroft) who was known for his "aggressive" use of law enforcement powers in the name of fighting terrorism and at the expense of civil liberties -- were so convinced of its illegality that they refused to certify it and were preparing, along with numerous other top DOJ officials, to resign en masse once they learned that the program would continue notwithstanding the President's knowledge that it was illegal.The overarching point here, as always, is that it is simply crystal clear that the President consciously and deliberately violated the law and committed multiple felonies by eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law....The President engaged in extremely serious conduct that the law expressly criminalizes and which his own DOJ made clear was illegal....
[C]onsider what it says about this administration. Not only did Comey think that he had to rush to the hospital room to protect Ashcroft from having a conniving Card and Gonzales manipulate his severe illness and confusion by coercing his signature on a document -- behavior that is seen only in the worst cases of deceitful, conniving relatives coercing a sick and confused person to sign a new will -- but the administration's own FBI Director thought it was necessary to instruct his FBI agents not to allow Comey to be removed from the room.
Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs. Indeed, Comey said that when Card ordred him to the White House, Comey refused to meet with Card without a witness being present, and that Card refused to allow Comey's summoned witness (Solicitor General Ted Olson) even to enter Card's office. These are the most trusted intimates of the White House -- the ones who are politically sympathetic to them and know them best -- and they prepared for, defended themselves against, the most extreme acts of corruption and thuggery from the President's Chief of Staff and his then-legal counsel (and current Attorney General of the United States)
Remember too that some of the laws the president has broken were created as a direct result of president Nixon's most egregious actions. They were designed explicitly to constrain the actions of the President of the United States.
If are truly a nation of laws, this must be investigated. It shouldn't matter what side of the political aisle you are seated on. Allow explicit violations of the law like this to occur once and you have opened a door through which all future presidents - ones from both sides of the aisle - will walk. The president has violated both federal law and the constitution itself. If our system of government was even moderately functional, this would be a scandal of epic proportion.
Like I said, despite my current leftward tilt, there are still parts of the libertarian philosophy that very much appeal to me. No warrant? No wiretap. And if the president feels that an emergency is so dire as to necessitate breaking the law, let him do so, but then let him submit himself to the full measure of the law. He is our president, not our king.
UPDATE II: One other important implication of Comey's testimony. We now have evidence of yet another instance in which our current Attorney General lied under oath.
Remember when lying under oath was supposed to be a constitutional crisis?
UPDATE III: For those who want an integrated summary of both facts and analysis, Marty Lederman has everything you need.
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