More details about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and Alberto Gonzales’ role in it from Senate testimony this week: Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and former chief of staff Andrew Card pressured former Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the wiretapping while Ashcroft was in intensive care at the hospital. Ashcroft refused because he questioned its legality. President Bush then authorized the spying without the Justice Department’s certification that it was legal.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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Warrantless wiretaps, illegal searches, arrest without a warrant, torture, no rights to a lawyer…well, after all Bush and his Texas cronies like Gonzales don’t need to follow silly little rules. They have God and the Republican party on their side. besides, the bad guys STILL have those WMD. Don’t they? We haven’t found them yet. Right?
Yawn…. Reruns again.
Well ya know, AG AG doesnt think about habeus corpus…
He only thinks about torture and more ways to invade the privacy of citizens.
Oh yeah. And he thinks about voter fraud. Not how to stop it, but how to use it for political advantage.
Little did we know that when little monica goodling covered up statues at DOJ, she was also removing the blindfold from lady justice at the same time she was putting her thumb on the scale of justice.
’cause justice in THIS country sure isnt blind or balanced. Just like everything else under the BFEE, it is corrupt and only useful for political purposes.
Time to bring Gonzo up on perjury charges.
U.S. Justice Dept weighed firing 26 prosecutors: paper Thu May 17, 2:29 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department considered dismissing more than a quarter of the 93 federal prosecutors in 2005 and 2006, far more than previously acknowledged, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, considered firing at least 26 U.S. attorneys during the period, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with documents withheld from the public.
Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June.
Other officials in President George W. Bush’s administration have said that only a few other prosecutors were suggested for removal, the Post said.
Critics accuse the White House of ousting the prosecutors to make room for its allies or because they were seen to be too tough on Republicans and too easy on Democrats. The Bush administration contends the dismissals were justified, based largely on performance or policy differences.
The Post said sources who have examined or been briefed on records withheld from public release identified at least 26 names, including the prosecutors fired last year and another, Karl Warner, who was dismissed in August 2005.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told the paper the department would not confirm which prosecutors were included on the lists, which he said “reflect Kyle Sampson’s thoughts for discussion during the consultation process.”
Sampson and at least two other members of Gonzales’s team have resigned this year. The deputy attorney general, Paul McNulty, is due to leave at some point this summer.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska on Wednesday became the latest Republican to join bipartisan calls for Gonzales to resign after months of congressional investigations into the attorney general’s role in the firing of the federal prosecutors.
“The American people deserve an attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of our country, whose honesty and capability are beyond question,” Hagel said. “Attorney General Gonzales can no longer meet this standard.”
Hagel’s statement came a day after testimony about an effort by Gonzales while he was White House counsel in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration’s embattled domestic spying program.
James Comey, a former deputy attorney general, said Gonzales made a late-night visit to the hospital bed of then Attorney General John Ashcroft in a failed attempt to get Ashcroft to reauthorize the spying program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.
About a dozen of Bush’s fellow Republicans in Congress have voiced a lack of confidence in Gonzales, with many saying he should be replaced. The White House reiterated on Wednesday that Bush still supports him.
What you America haters don’t realize is if we don’t spy on ourselves here then we’ll have to spy on American citizens in Iraq. You don’t want that, do you?
Another thing you terrorist sympathizers don’t get is that Bin Laden hates us for our freedoms. So if we take our freedoms away then there is no reason for him to attack us. If you ignore the terrorist attacks after 9/11 then we’ve had no terrorist attacks after 9/11 thanks to Bush removing our freedoms. Mission accomplished.
Freedoms are a small price to pay in this war on terra.
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” – Ben Franklin
“Freedom’s just another word, for nothing left to lose” Janice Joplin.
Actually, Steve, Kris Kristofferson wrote the song and recorded it first. We who are old enough recall Janis Joplin’s version with great fondness.
She sang it soo much better than Kris ever could of, so she kind of owns it.
Congress to give Gonzo a no confidence vote soon, should give Bush one too.
I truly hope they don’t try to listen to my phone calls or read my e-mail. I’d end up responsible for some poor NSA analyst losing his mind!