Newsweek: Bush appointees revolted over executive branch 'overreach'

[kpete]

Newsweek: Bush appointees revolted over executive branch 'overreach'

Goldsmith and other Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.

In December 2003, Goldsmith was steering the White House Official of Legal counsel. He informed the Defense Department that their March 2003 torture memo was "under review" and could no longer be relied upon. It is almost unheard-of for an administration to overturn its own OLC opinions. Cheney's chief of staff was beside himself. But his problems with Goldsmith were just beginning. In the jittery aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration had pushed the top-secret National Security Agency to do a better and more expansive job of electronically eavesdropping on Al Qaeda's global communications. Under existing law—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, adopted in 1978 as a post-Watergate reform—the NSA needed (in the opinion of most legal experts) to get a warrant to eavesdrop on communications coming into or going out of the United States. Reasoning that there was no time to obtain warrants from a secret court set up under FISA (a sometimes cumbersome process), the Bush administration justified going around the law by invoking a post-9/11 congressional resolution authorizing use of force against global terror.


There was one catch: the secret program had to be reapproved by the attorney general every 45 days. It was Goldsmith's job to advise the A.G. on the legality of the program. In March 2004, John Ashcroft was in the hospital with a serious pancreatic condition. At Justice, Comey, Ashcroft's No. 2, was acting as attorney general. The grandson of an Irish cop and a former U.S. attorney from Manhattan, Comey, 45, is a straight arrow. (It was Comey who appointed his friend—the equally straitlaced and dogged Patrick Fitzgerald—to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak-investigation case.) Goldsmith raised with Comey serious questions about the secret eavesdropping program, according to two sources familiar with the episode. The White House was told: no reauthorization.

Ultimately, a compromise was worked out. But Goldsmith would eventually be sidelined and leave for Harvard, taking a post in academia.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Newsweek_Bush_appointees_revolted_over_executive_0129.html

[HereSince1628]

1. I hope these people get invited to Specters Feb 6 party.

I have an awful feeling that is just gonna be another bloody Liars Ball.

[NewJeffCT]

2. I'm tempted to say

drip drip drip... but with the RW control of the media, will this story even make the big time?

[sundancekid]

3. more background and contact data for Goldsmith at Harvard - link

http://ksgfaculty.harvard.edu/stephen_goldsmith

[Kagemusha]

4. Well their work is in vain...

Now that AG Gonzales is there claiming powers that would fulfill the essence of "dictatorial" in normal places

[Gman]

6. Gonzales' problem is that

he was WH Counsel telling Bush it was OK to do this. He has no choice but to write a 40 page "opinion" (just like something everyone has) in an attempt to stay out of prison.

[CAG]

5. Why did * appoint all these 'murka-hating hippie libruls into his

administration in the first place????

These people are just obviously traitors to God's choice for the US administration.

:sarcasm:

[PA Democrat]

7. Wow! You know things are FUBAR when Ashcroft looks like a "good" guy

compared to some of the other people involved in authorizing torture and warrantless spying. David Addington, formerly counsel, now chief of staff to Cheney sounds particularly evil, and Ashcroft actually stood up to him and Bush and Cheney not once, but twice to support his people who were saying that Bush did not have the authority to torture and to conduct domestic wiretaps without a warrant.

[kpete]

8. more plus Newsweek Link

"Like his boss, Addington has long believed that the executive branch was pitifully weakened by the backlash from Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Fearful of investigative reporters and congressional subpoenas, soldiers and spies had become timid—"risk averse" in bureaucratic jargon. To Addington and Cheney, the 9/11 attacks—and the threat of more and worse to come—were perfect justification for unleashing the CIA and other long-blunted weapons in the national-security arsenal. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who disdains lawyers, was ready to go. So, too, was CIA Director George Tenet—but only if his spooks had legal cover, so they wouldn't be left holding the bag if things went wrong."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/

[LizW]

9. This is an important story.

This story illiminates what is happening to our country and how unelected men we have never heard of are changing our world, and not in a good way. The back room power struggles and infighting and going around behind the scenes to change longstanding U.S. policy and even ignore the laws and Constitution are frightening.

I'm printing this one out for my files.

[KoKo]

10. So...the tact seems to be it was all Addington and Cheney's fault that

the Chimp was given Imperial powers. Newsweek article seems to be saying that it's now up to the Specter hearings to decide whether Bush's Imperial powers should be "curbed."

Yet we see that Addington and his allies with Cheney and Bush worked to defy the Constitution, pushing for powers the President should not have and it will probably boil down to them getting a pass while the lawyers work out another compromise and Bush promises to do better.

The lawyers who violated the Constitution should be disbarred and Cheney and Bush should be impeached. But it will never happen. Just a "gentlemanly compromise."

We need to go after this. It was illegal and against the Constitution what they did...it shouldn't be painted as a "disagreement between lawyers."

[C_U_L8R]

11. anyone with a half a brain

would be bailing out by now....
forget about ethics... this is just political survival.
the SS Chimp is turning turtle and going down to the bottom

[Pirate Smile]

12. It makes me proud of the Irish lads.

"There was one catch: the secret program had to be reapproved by the attorney general every 45 days. It was Goldsmith's job to advise the A.G. on the legality of the program. In March 2004, John Ashcroft was in the hospital with a serious pancreatic condition. At Justice, Comey, Ashcroft's No. 2, was acting as attorney general. The grandson of an Irish cop and a former U.S. attorney from Manhattan, Comey, 45, is a straight arrow. (It was Comey who appointed his friend—the equally straitlaced and dogged Patrick Fitzgerald—to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak-investigation case.) Goldsmith raised with Comey serious questions about the secret eavesdropping program, according to two sources familiar with the episode. He was joined by a former OLC lawyer, Patrick Philbin, who had become national-security aide to the deputy attorney general. Comey backed them up. The White House was told: no reauthorization."