Throwing Nukes and Merging Offices

by emptywheel

I had to laugh at the USN&WR citation of a "congressional source's" description of the Comey testimony last week:

For months, congressional Democrats have tried to force embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales out of his job by using what one congressional source called "conventional weapons"-incriminating E-mails, damaging memorandums, and other documents related to the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys. And for months, against the unwavering support of President George W. Bush, they have failed. But last week, the committee investigating the firings detonated what the same source called a "thermonuclear device." [my emphasis]

As some of the people I've talked to directly about this will attest, I referred to the move as Schumer "throwing nukes" almost as soon as I had watched Comey's testimony. Glad to see that those on the committee are thinking along the same lines.

The rest of the article is fairly interesting--you might care that Comey believes that,

"The only thing worse than being vilified by the left," says Comey with a laugh, "is being idolized by the left."

Far and away the most important paragraph of the article, though, is the last one:

His actions at the hospital, he testified, earned him Card's wrath. Soon after Gonzales became attorney general, his then chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Comey that Gonzales's "vision" was to merge the deputy's office with Gonzales's own office. That meant that Comey would have lost some of his autonomy, becoming less of a leader and more of a senior staff member. A source close to Sampson says he merely wanted Gonzales and Comey to operate as a "seamless leadership team," with "harmony rather than conflict," and never meant to "degrade the status or authority" of the deputy. Comey didn't buy it. "You may want to try that with the next deputy attorney general," Comey is said to have responded to Sampson. "But it's not going to work with me." [my emphasis]

First, notice that Comey didn't describe what he meant when he said he "earned Card's wrath"? Since Comey testified he had not been retaliated against, I suggest someone get some more details on this issue.

And then the stuff relevant to the USA purge. Sampson came in and threatened to "merge the deputy's office with Gonzales's own." Let's put this in context. In March 2004, Comey, Jack Goldsmith, Patrick Philbin and (presumably) Ted Olson had forced reforms of the NSA domestic spying program on the Administration. After similarly forcing BushCo to renounce its embrace of torture in June 2004, Goldsmith and Olson left. Someone leaked James Risen and (presumably?) Eric Lichtblau word of the domestic spying program in time for the October 2004 article the NYT spiked. Then, on election day, Ashcroft hand-wrote his resignation letter so the Addington-Cheney-Gonzales faction couldn't spin his departure to their advantage. Gonzales was nominated to replace Ashcroft within hours--they wanted to confirm him before the new Administration, if they could. At this point, in November 2004 to January 2005, Comey and Philbin (then Comey's national security aide) were the two key figures remaining at DOJ who had faced down BushCo on its unconstitutional programs.

So the first thing Kyle Sampson did when Gonzales took over was to attempt to "merge" OAG with DAG, no doubt hoping to neutralize Comey. Comey stood up to Sampson at that point--but he resigned just a few months later and left in August. In the article, Comey explained why he had never told the story of the hospital confrontation before:

Comey told U.S. News he was prepared to testify about the Ashcroft incident for more than three years but never did. Why? "Nobody ever asked," he said. "I've never been in a forum where I was obligated to answer the question. Short of that, it was not something I was going to volunteer."

Say, you think, given the timing, someone maybe ought to obligate Comey to explain why he left just six months after telling Sampson he was unwilling to have the DAG's power gutted?

After Comey left, Robert McCallum, Bush's buddy from Skull and Bones day, served as the interim DAG. And BushCo made a concerted effort to get Tim Flanigan, implicated in both the Abramoff scandal and the justifications for torture, to replace Comey as DAG. But Congress balked and Bush picked Paul McNulty instead.

And in the month before Paul McNulty took his oath as DAG, Alberto Gonzales removed much of the power of DAG--notably hiring and firing. And he gave that power to two flunkies who had no prosecutorial experience but did have a good deal of loyalty to Bush's authoritarian agenda.

It's all coming into focus now.

Comments

[Rayne]

In other words, Sampson tried to take the hiring/firing powers much earlier from DAG's office, while Comey was still there...but we don't know if that was with Gonzo's blessing or the directives of the White House. Somebody must have flinched about this since the Delegation of Authority wasn't signed until early March 2006, a mere couple of weeks before Paul McNulty was sworn in.

Who flinched? Why the long pause to transfer authority between early 2004 and early 2006?

[SaltinWound]

It was shocking to me, in the Senate hearing, that no one asked Comey why he had left. They got why he had threatened to leave at an earlier time and acted as if they had all the information they needed.

[emptywheel]

Ah, but Rayne, remember how they put through the delegation? On the PATRIOT Act. Which was approved by each house in July 2005. But then not actually sent to conference until December 2005. At which point the Risen-Lichtblau bombshell (as well as Dana Priest's bombshell on the black prisons in Europe) had hit. So PATRIOT went to temporary authorization in December, until March 2006.

I'm now curious what took McNulty from November 2005 until March 2006 to get appointed and sworn in. Because it sure seems like the delay is related.

[orionATL]

yes, indeed.

and this has been quite a tricky little jigsaw puzzle.

thanks.

p.s.

if it's any comfort to him, comey has my assurance he is no hero of mine. he was a major manager in a major government department whose primary concern was to protect his agency's standing in policy disputes with the bush white house, which disputes, because it was doj, centered on "rule of law" notions.

[bmaz]

Rayne - Just a thought, because I really have no idea what motivates these guys. Perhaps there was no flinching; there was just no longer the need for the manipulation of organizational authority with Comey gone, McCallum pinch hitting and Flannigan on the way. However, when Flanigan is ruled out and McNulty is soon to be installed, the power shift is pulled back out of the closet.

[earlofhuntingdon]

This is reminiscent of Stalin's purges, but without the niceties. One of those was that Stalin would occasionally relax, and encourage dissenters - eg, the reality-based community - to offer suggestions to help the party "renew" itself.

Inevitably, some of the most courageous and dedicated would surface inside this ministry or that, come to the attention of managers and their shadow political commisars, and gently urge corrections and changes. Smack! comes the hammer and sickle, no renewal, no more dissenters, lots more bones in Siberia. People forget or are no longer there to remember, and Stalin repeats his winnowing. Pour encourager les autres.

"Now tell me, Mr. Comey," say 'Fredo and commissar Kyle, "just how would you like to improve the Justice Department?"

[*xyz]

TPM is reporting that Senator Schumer announced that he is sending letters to the president, to Vice President Cheney, and to Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, asking if they were the ones who ordered the hospital visit to Ashcroft, and if not, if they know who did order it.

[Mary]

The day Maher Arar's children look at Comey and call him a hero I'll consider changing my mind. Probably won't do it, but I'll consider it.

Anyway - I stopped by to drop this link. I don't know anything about rugby and I've got to believe it's likely that someone who does already has all the links and info they want, but this was getting a splash from TimesOnLine so I thought of lhp & you

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/related_reports/upfront_rugby/

[emptywheel]

*xyz

That's why this is about throwing Nukes. This gets Schumer a door right into the heart of the corrupt endeavor. I'm sure they're going to want to close it, quickly.

[Rayne]

EW -- the delegation was in sync with the PatAct, yes, but not embedded in it, was it? As soon as the ink dried on the PatAct they signed the delegation. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm likely to have missed something here.

So...did Comey tell Sampson to piss up a rope in 1Q2005, or did he point to regs that said "No Can Do"? Obviously if Sampson approached Comey about the shift in responsibilities in 1Q2005, they had all along intended to pull off the purge of the USA's, and the initiation was not Gonzo in any way but Sampson's Maxi-Me in the White House. (We already know this intuitively, but now we have more data to solidify this point, getting us closer to Rove and Miers.) We also move the PatAct change closer to the White House, too.

And McNulty was intended to be firewalled off and used as a scapegoat before he was even sworn in, making Gonzo's blamecasting even more egregious.

[ExcuseMeExcuseMe]

"Idolized"? He would have had to smash that Pinata a long time ago to get near the Idol category. That statement makes me furious in so many ways I can hardly list them all with the subsequent migraine.

Note to Mr. Comey: You don't get raises and kudos just for showing up at work. You don't get gold stars for doing the right thing. In fact, you deserve a few demerits, so not to worry about that wacky left putting you on any type of pedestal. You're usefulness is limited to getting us farther down the track.

Sorry. It just bothered me a little.

[emptywheel]

Rayne

It was not embedded in the PATRIOT Act in July 2005 (though I wonder what was, and if that's related to Comey's decision to leave). With Flanigan, who had been one of the brains behind the torture policies, they wouldn't have needed it. But it was in PATRIOT by December 2005. So for the period between December through March, it was on hold along with the larger PATRIOT Act because of the emerging stink about the illegal spying program.

[*xyz]

"That's why this is about throwing Nukes. This gets Schumer a door right into the heart of the corrupt endeavor. I'm sure they're going to want to close it, quickly."

EW - Thanks. How are they going to try to close the door? And what can Schumer, and we the people, do to stop it?

[emptywheel]

Well, for starters, Schumer's going to have a pretty big job getting Bush, Cheney, or ADD to respond to a subpoena. But IIRC, Congress is still withholding funding for DOJ this year, as well as any nominations on DOJ positions. If they can find a way to let the USAs and FBI continue to operate while depriving some of DOJ funding, he might be able to get some answers.

Dunno. Schumer seems to be playing for keeps this time. Let's hope he has thought this all through.

[Rayne]

EW 12:07 -- then my guess is that somewhere in regs is a requirement that stipulates hiring/firing belongs only to one of two offices, USAG or DAG, and they either had to override it with a delegation or rewrite it. I wonder if they tried the latter and had to go with the former, or if they moved the responsibilities back from DAG to USAG and then did the delegation. Seems like there would be foot- and fingerprints all over.

Should probably revisit timeline, match up McCallum and Flanagan with different events. Were either of them in the loop on changes being made, part of developing the strategy on how to pull this off -- and worth the time to subpoena?

[emptywheel]

Rayne

I must be missing your point.

My point is that they didn't need the reg until McNulty went in. THey knew they loved McCAllum, and knew they loved Flanigan. The change was in to insulate against a lesser known candidate.

As to Flanigan--he never got confirmed--he was in limbo during the whole summer 2005, and withdrew his nomination in October 2005. He does know about the initial justifications for torture, etc., but that's secondary at this point.

As to McCollum, he may have had some input on the lists--though he was sent to Australia in mid-2006. His big black mark, though, was his intervention in the tobacco case. He's the one who forced DOJ's own lawyers to lower the settlement.

[Sparkles the Iguana]

So Comey, devoted Republican, would presumably have been happy to see the Republicans retain Congress in 2006, which would have meant the full details of the hospital bed drama would not have come to light. Without a Congress bent on oversight, these details Comey found sooooo disturbing would have remained inside his own head.

As much as I have enjoyed Comey's testimony, and these details seeing the light of day, I continue to recall an article about Comey I read a couple years ago in which the reporter heard Mrs. Comey cheering at the Bush election results (can't recall if it was 2000 or 2004).

[Mauimom]

. . .incriminating E-mails, damaging memorandums,

Jeeze, can't these guys get 8th grade grammar right? It's "memoranda," nimrods.

On another topic, has the "hole" in the Patriot Act re "appoint without confirmation" been fixed? I seem to recall there was some talk about that.

[Rayne]

EW -- I think they needed the delegation for some other reason, regardless of whether McCallum or Flanagan made it in, or they wouldn't have had to sync with the PatAct. It wouldn't otherwise have had to be confidential and not recorded in the Federal Register. Maybe I've been in the corporate world too long, but if a COS told a staffer subordinate to their boss (the top banana) that they wanted to shift responsibilities AND it had the top banana's approval, it would be a fait accompli. Unless there were other structural reasons like bylaws or regulations that dictated otherwise. Why even have the delegation in 2006 at all? Why not just have Gonzo execute the delegation in 2005 and sign off on it while kiss-up McCallum was there, so that everything was read to roll when PatAct provision was done, ostensibly in time for the election had the PatAct gone more smoothly?

Or did even McCallum have his limits, refuse to be the fall-guy, making what looked like sheer stupidity of nominating proven-loyalist Flanagan absolutely necessary?

Something about this still doesn't make sense; there's a hunt-and-peck feel to the narrative, like they were casting about. I'll just have to dig some more.

[*xyz]

No confidence resolution introduced in the House:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/No_confidence_resolution_introduced_in_House_0521.html

[TiredFed]

Mauimom - hole has not been patched in Patriot Act (28 USC 546). Bills are pending in Senate.

[Rayne]

EW -- Okay, I missed this article by Waas dd. 30-APR-07 about the Delegation; he's on it, and I think he's got most of my concerns addressed (although not all of them). They clearly knew they were doing something unConstitutional and they weaseled with the Delegation as best they could around this, hence the hunt-and-peck. However the efforts they took were in bad faith, making the Delegation questionable at best. I think that's part of what has been stuck in my craw since I first read the Delegation, that OLC had given an opinion on this. If it was such a straight-forward done-deal, why didn't it happen earlier and why would it have needed an OLC opinion?

I'd like to know how this went to and from OLC; I'd like any and all communications about this Delegation, because they are as important to this mess as the communications related to selection and dismissal of the USA's.

[emptywheel]

Rayne

I don't understand your point.

Through the entire time when McCallum and Flanigan were Acting or nominee DAG, they did not move to do EITHER the PATRIOT appoint OR the Sampson and Delilah personnal delegation. The latter is almost certainly tied to McNulty coming in--both the removal of power from DAG and the delegation of that removal came in teh month before McNulty was sworn in.

As to the PATRIOT move--it clearly is still about centralizing authority and had a lot to do with votes and criminality and so on.

Though--here's a question. COmey may have been the sign-off for the raid of Cunningham's house, which occurred before Comey left. Add that to his treatment of Plame, and you've got USAs run amok under Comey. So maybe that, too, was a response to Comey.

In any case, one of my points is simply that the Risen Lichtblau sources (and I'd bet some change Goldsmith was among them) managed to postpone the measure pushing for further consolidation of the justice system with the scoop about the program.

[Sally]

I'll not idolize Comey, either. Once a Republic, always a Republic, and I'm disgusted with the whole lot of them for enabling the wrecking crew, Comey included.

[Jane S.]

I have to take a moment to defend Comey--while understanding full well that he may be not be a true friend to civil liberties. You do get kudos in my book for doing the right thing. He stood up against them on the spy program and he stood up to Ashcroft on appointing Fitzgerald. And in the Bush administration, doing the right thing has been an anomaly, albeit this is setting the bar pretty low.

Comey was also pretty smart in his dissonance--surrounding himself with witnesses. Karl hasn't been able to ratchet up his swiftboat machine against Comey unless you count Douglas Kmiec's piece in the Post which was kind of a joke.

So I give Comey credit where credit is due--for standing up for the rule of law and for being smart in the way he did it.