Addington signed Gonzales’ name to re-authorize warrantless wiretapping program.»

[deminks]

Ruh roh.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/15/addington-gonzales-wiretapping/

In 2004, after top Justice Department lawyers refused to re-certify the legality of President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, the Bush administration re-authorized the program anyway without the Justice Department’s approval. Previous accounts of the program’s re-authorization reported that the “line for the attorney general’s signature remained blank.” But in the Washington Post today, Barton Gellman reports that Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, actually signed then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’s name to the document:

Addington opened the code-word-classified file on his computer. He had a presidential directive to rewrite.

It has been widely reported that Bush executed the March 11 order with a blank space over the attorney general’s signature line. That is not correct <15>. For reasons both symbolic and practical, the vice president’s lawyer could not tolerate an empty spot where a mutinous subordinate should have signed. Addington typed a substitute signature line: “Alberto R. Gonzales.”

Gellman writes that “Only Richard M. Nixon, in an interview after leaving the White House in disgrace, claimed authority so nearly unlimited” as the authority Addington claimed for the president in the document he signed with Gonzales’ name.

WaPo link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091401974_5.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008091302818&s_pos=

[thereismore]

1. Words fail. nt

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

still free..all of them...still free

[dorkulon]

3. No honor among thieves, I guess.

The gall is incredible.

[bleever]

4. Not clear here that he signed Gonzo's name.

It says he added a signature line, but in either case, the story is a blockbuster.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. This sentence says he signed Gonzo's name:

***But in the Washington Post today, Barton Gellman reports that Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, actually signed then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’s name to the document:**

from the above story.

[bleever]

10. Thanks. I see it in the ThinkProgress report, but can't find it in the WaPo

article, after reading it all the way through.

I'm just wondering if this wasn't a hasty error over at Think Progress.

But again: it's a HUGE story, which is why I want to check out the details thoroughly.


edit: I see a couple people in the comments section at Think Progress caught this too.

I just don't want the power of the story diluted by any misstatements, when there is so much here that is historic.

[LiberalHeart]

6. At first I thought you said Addinton signed Gonzales's name....oh, wait.... n/t

[Vickers]

7. OK, that's it:

DETENTION.

[aquart]

15. We really need to waterboard them to see what they know.

It's an important method of interrogation and we just aren't being thorough or patriotic if we don't use it.

That's the ticket.

[aquart]

8. You mean there was something that Gonzales would NOT do for Bush?

Now that's scary.

[BzaDem]

13. No, I think Gonzales was fine with signing it. The problem was that he removed the AG's sig line

because no one from the department of justice (Ashcroft, or his deputy) would sign it. Gonzales was not at the DOJ at the time.

[aquart]

14. So we're back to Ashcroft behaving like a ....

moral, patriotic human being with a backbone? That's ...confusing.

[dorkulon]

17. I know!

Remember when he was a villain? Ah, we were so naive...

[VP505]

9. Unbelievable

that someone would be that arrogant to think they could get away with forgery at that level, OH WAIT, he will get away with it, thank you very much Nancy.

[crickets]

11. ...

Isn't anyone going to prosecute any of these crooks for anything? /rhetorical

Sigh.

[BzaDem]

12. This is not quite as it seems.

The problem was that Ashcroft and Comey, the AG and Deputy AG at the time, refused to sign it. So instead, he got rid of their sig lines for the AG and added one for Gonzalez (at the time, he was the white house counsel) instead. Gonzalez probably would have been fine signing his name; the problem was that the AG and deputy AG would not.

Of course, I think another poster got it right when he said "words fail" about this whole story. Just wanted to clarify that point of fact.

[leveymg]

16. Cheney and Addington are the designated flack-catchers. This is mostly an attempt to protect Bush.

The buck stops at Bush. None of this could have happened without Dubya's okay. Don't forget that, no matter how these "insider" accounts spin things.

Indict Cheney and Bush.

[wryter2000]

18. That one really creeps me out

Watching his testimony with Yoo, I found Yoo significantly more humanoid. I still can't think up words to describe how Addington impressed me. Maybe a combination of arrogant, inhuman, and flesh eater.

:scared: