Bush Blocked Justice Department InvestigationBy Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Updated at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today that President Bush personally halted an internal Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales and other senior department officials acted within the law in approving and overseeing the administration's domestic surveillance program.-snip-
When Hinchey and other Democratic House members inquired of Jarrett as to why he was not able to obtain the necessary clearances, Jarrett wrote them back on June 8 that he could not answer their questions because to do so "would require me to disclose client confidences and internal Justice Department deliberations, which I am precluded from doing."
In a phone interview today, Hinchey said that he was "not terribly surprised by the news" that it was President Bush who stymied the Justice probe by denying the clearances. He questioned whether Bush took the action to protect his own attorney general from the inquiry.
"It was the president of the United States himself who prevented this investigation from going forward. In obstructing the investigation, he was protecting the people around him, and not protecting the Constitution," Hinchey said.Hinchey also asserted that "Congress has been complicit" with the administration in "disregarding the Constitution by not conducting its own inquiry into the matter: This has been a rubber-stamp Congress that has not stood up to the administration and for the separation of powers provisions in the Constitution," he said.
Much more at............
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0718nj1.htm----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senior Justice Officials "Stunned" Prez Ordered NSA Probe Blocked
By Justin Rood - July 18, 2006, 6:26 PMThe news today that President Bush acted to block an internal Justice Department probe relating to the NSA's domestic spying operations is both a bigger and more complicated a story than one would think, given the space it will probably be given in tomorrow's papers. In sum, it's an example of how even arcane tools of oversight can be subverted by the Executive Office of the President.
As we know, for at least three years, the NSA's domestic spying efforts have evaded scrutiny by Congress, the secret FISA review process, and the judicial branch.
-snip-
Which explains why the news today that Bush himself had ordered the review blocked was shocking -- not only to everyday Americans, but to Justice Department officials themselves. As Murray Waas (who's responsible for this arriving in the public eye) reports today:
The statement by Gonzales stunned some senior Justice Department officials, who were led to believe that Gonzales himself had made the decision to deny the clearances after consulting with intelligence agencies whose activities would be scrutinized, a senior federal law enforcement official said in an interview. . . .
A senior Justice official said that the refusal to grant the clearances was "unprecedented" and questioned whether the clearances were denied because investigators might find "misconduct by those who were attempting to defeat" the probe from being conducted. The official made the comments without knowing that Bush had made the decision to refuse the clearances.
In effect, this means that the President himself -- not the Vice President, not David Addington, not senior advisers -- believes he has the right to insulate any program he chooses from any type of review, from congressional oversight to an arcane internal audit.
More at.........
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001158.php
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