Did Harman Approve of the Illegal Domestic Wiretap Program?

by emptywheel

Well, that was quick work. Yesterday I suggested that the Gang of Eight who purportedly attended the March 10, 2004 meeting at which Alberto Gonzales claims to have developed consensus that they should ignore James Comey's concerns and continue to tap American citizens anyway might have some enlightenment to offer about what went on at the meeting. So far, Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, and Tom Daschle argue that Gonzales is full of shit. Jane Harman, however, engages in a little shiny-objecting.

Representative Jane Harman of California, who in 2004 was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, insisted that there was only one N.S.A. program, making Mr. Gonzales’s assertions inaccurate.

“The program had different parts, but there was only one program,” Ms. Harman said, adding that Mr. Gonzales was “selectively declassifying information to defend his own conduct,” which she called improper.

Before I go on, let's lay out the math. Speaker Pelosi reveals that a majority did agree the country should ignore little issues like legality and continue the program.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who attended the 2004 White House meeting as House Democratic minority leader, said through a spokesman that she did not dispute that the majority of those present supported continuing the intelligence activity. But Ms. Pelosi said she dissented and supported Mr. Comey’s objections at the meeting, said the spokesman, Brendan Daly.

If I'm not mistaken, a majority of eight is, um, five. Which means at least one Democrat voted against the law and in favor of illegal wiretapping. Given the clear messages of the other three Democrats among the Gang, that leaves Jane Harman as the fifth vote for illegal wiretapping.

Look, I'm well aware that Gonzales is playing semantic games by claiming there is one program that is actually two or more programs (and semantic games about the meaning of "consensus"). But if that's the way Harman wants to get out of responsibility for her vote, I'm not having it. Gonzales is lying and was violating the law--but Harman's dissembling responses don't make her apparent position correct, either. If she did, in fact, cast that fifth vote for illegal wiretapping, then that vote put the lipstick of "consensus" on the pig of illegality.

Comments

[*]

I wouldn't trust any member of either congressional intelligence committee. The alphabet agencies have asserted for decades that they are under no obligation to follow US law, or to report on their activities, or to accede to any oversight whatsoever if they don't want to. The intelligence committees have always been enablers of this poke in the eye of democracy.

[P J Evans]

I wonder if that's why Harman didn't get to be chair of the intelligence committee - Pelosi would certainly be aware of her support for Shrub and Cheney, and might very well want someone who was less willing to be accomodating.

[emptywheel]

PJ

But Reyes has apparently bought Gonzales' bogus explanation for his hospital visit.

But Reyes said he was satisfied with Gonzales' explanation and cautioned against drawing conclusions.

"When there are issues of national security at stake, I think certainly one should not question the motivation of individuals," Reyes told reporters. "I'm willing to accept the rationale behind it."

Apparently without double checking with his colleagues who were at that meeting, no less.

It's called O-V-E-R-S-I-G-H-T.

[darclay]

Lipstick all over it!!

[Jodi]

So,

Mr Gonzales is in the clear again.

[looseheadprop]

OK, I am confused. If I understand the plain meaning of Daschle's statement, either there was no such meeting at all or Daschle wasn't invited:

I have no recollection of such a meeting and believe that it didn't occur. I am quite certain that at no time did we encourage the AG or anyone else to take such actions

Further the rockefeller quote also says that Gonzales is "making things up"

So, is it possible that Gonzo only invited the members he thought would vote his way?

The Pelosi statement makes is sound almost as if she was the single dissenter.

Were Daschle and Rockefeller frozen out of the meeting?
Also, if as HArmoan contends, Gonzales is selctively de-classifying parts of thsi information, was he the original classifier with the reslutant de-classification authority?

Or has someone else authorized the selective de-classification, and if so, who? And does that person, if fact, have the authority to do so?

Shades of the NIE insta-declassification?

[Mimikatz]

I'm with PJ--so that's why Pelosi was so adamant that Harman not get the chairmanship even if she had to put in an obvious hack in Silvestre Reyes (rather than the other ranking hack Alcee Hastings) instead.

Harman really is not to be trusted. Good thing she got priamried. It helped push her a little more to the center on these issues. Does she even realize how she'd been used?

[bmaz]

If not the definitive one, this still had to be one of the bigger bugs in Pelosi's butt in not wanting Harman to be Intel chair. As a corollary, it sure doesn't appear we did much better with Reyes. Quite frankly, I was appalled, and said so at the time, with some of the things he said and the apparent shallowness of his thought process when they in the process of naming Reyes. As to Harman's conduct in this instance, I don't ultimately give a rat's ass about the fact that it gave cover to the Administration, or later it turns out Gonzales, what I care is that it was patently illegal and unconstitutional. It was just wrong. Period.

[looseheadprop]

Nit to pick from the Pelosi quote:

she did not dispute that the majority of those present supported continuing the intelligence activity. But Ms. Pelosi said she dissented and supported Mr. Comey’s objections at the meeting

The majority may not be 5 Marcy. What is the entire Gang of 8 was not present? What if there was not whatever quorum is necessary for it to act as a body?

That would explain why Daschle would say no Gang of 8 meeting took place.

[Jodi]

I hope this will give all pause about saying Mr Gonzales is perjuring himself.

Obviously he isn't and all the Congressional Committees despite a little camera posturing know it.

[bmaz]

LHP - Excellent question. And NO, I don't see how AGAG could have been the classifying authority; but then I doubt you see any chance of that either.

[Kagro X]

I think PJ's got it right, too. Reyes may have bought Gonzales' garbage, too. But he bought it six months after getting the job.

[P J Evans]

We can get rid of both of them in the next election - I'm assuming that there will be one. It was dim to put in someone who was worse than the original; maybe Reyes talks more independence than he has, or maybe he just has a better line of BS.

[P J Evans]

lhp - I had that thought too. It would explain a lot. Doesn't let Gonzo off the hook though (sorry, troll), since he's been tapdancing on other stuff as well.

[Mimikatz]

In CA there are "open meeting" rules requiring public notice prior to meetings of more than two members of various public bodies. There sometimes used to be "serial briefings" of members, two at a time, until the courts stopped that. So maybe AGAG had serial meetings until he got his 5 votes, and then didn't need to brief Daschle or Rockefeller. Pelosi would have been in with someone else, at which point she made her objection.

AQnything is possibloe with these clowns--anything. If they don't at the very least vote their contempt of Gonzales for his contempt of them, they really do have battered wife syndrome.

Gonzales is a star performer. The only punishment Bush can't pardon is impeachment, which would also rob him of his pension. He is really just daring them to touch him, isn't he? For anyone who say it live, was he on Prozac or something? He seems goofy to me from the clips.

Being willing to be a laughingstock and an obvious perjurer is really some kind of loyalty.

[emptywheel]

Yeah, I thought about that, LHP (and remind me to tell you about the selective declassification from yesterday's press briefing). Also thought that maybe Daschle is prevaricating so as not to fess up.

[SaltinWound]

I beleive Daschle saying he has no recollection of such a meeting is his way of saying Gonzales is grossly mischaracterizing the meeting, not that Daschle wasn't there. They're all skating on the edge of what they're allowed to say about this.

[SaltinWound]

I hate looking at my typo and wish I could edit it in the worst way. Other than that, I stand strongly by my statement.

[bmaz]

SaltinWound - That may have been true before yesterday, but assuming Gonzales was authorized to make the statements he did, that door has now been opened.

[Sojourner]

BMAZ, since the door is opened, could we call upon Mr. Comey to clarify any of this? I suspect that he has better recollection since he would not approve the program and people were shooting at him. Obviously, as EW stated previously, someone somewhere is not telling the truth.

Regardless, this whole thing is smelling like dead oysters (you have to have grown up in South Louisiana where they used oyster shells to pave roads). The fact that the Big Dick has been playing in the DoJ stuff answers a lot, though. Not that it resolves anything...

[AZ Matt]

Waxman is after the WH and DOJ on the info on Prez Records Act violations again.

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1431

[Gary]

EW, great work. I didn't have an email to send this to you, but here's an article arguing for inherent contempt proceedings by one of my old law profs in last Saturdays WP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001802.html

[bmaz]

Sojourner - Within parameters, sure. But it doesn't appear that Comey was a participant in any alleged Gang of 8 meeting, so he would be unlikely to have much direct knowledge of that. It probably does expand at least marginally the areas he could discuss though. This may already have happened in executive session or whatever they call the non-public meetings where secure information can be discussed.

[Mimikatz]

Glenn Greenwald parses this to mean something closer to what Jane Harman said, that there was one program, but before Comey et al threatened to resign it contained other aspects, and those were cancelled, leaving "the program that the President approved" or the program minus the parts that were objectionable to Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller. (You make the same point, Marcy.)

As to the program left after the amputation, the program as approved met with no objections from DOJ, and so, likely, not from a majority of the gang of 8. But it sure doesn't seem that a majority of the gang approved of what Comey et al didn't. Or if they did it was without knowledge of those objections. But of course it would be objectionable to us.

There may or may not be other programs not related to the TSP that are clearly objectionable to anyone who0 doesn't care about civil liberties.

And it says nothing about AGAG's lies about other things, like the US Attorney firings and who wrote the memos that came out over his name.

[J. Thomason]

The whole GO8 thing is a ruse isn't it? Gonzales went to the hospital with illegal authorizations in his hand. Ashcroft was not the acting attorney general. Gonzales says he went on the behalf of the president. The color of an attempted undue influence continues.

I understand picking the matter apart to see if there were a perjury but the connection with the GO8 is not the only flaw. There is the perceived perjury around saying no controversy in the DOJ existed around the program and there should be no doubt that Gonzales has not offered the whole truth about what "the program" is. The creation of the ambiguity is indeed intentional.

The problem at this point is the lack of a bill of particulars against which to test Gonzales testimony. The same kind of procedural problem existed in pressing AGAG on who sent him to the hospital, he relied upon a claim of a possible executive privilege and no one pushed him to answer the question or actually assert a privilege.

The problem is the typical problem in dealing with the statements of this administration. There are always half truths, self serving charaterizations (remember the Goodling meeting), intentionally distracting accounts (G08, the program), and incomplete answers. Its all a bait and switch game like the documents that took down Dan Rather. But these games to not amount to truth telling.

The only procedural consistency that we have seen in these SJC hearings are the Specter concern troll antics and we still don't no who drew up the list of the USAs who were fired.

These are not matters of political theater, they pertain to testimony. That a defense to charges of wrongdoing is asserted should not suprise anybody. The GO8 existed in the first place because of the efforts of the WH to take Congress out the intelligence loop over concerns of security. Let us hope that we make it to exposing the illegal intelligence shop established for domestic spying to political ends including the influencing elections under Cheney's auspices. A reasonable inference that this is the bottom line is emerging. Remember the comtempt of Miers and Bolton, unauthorized email accounts, Sampson's exprssion of the problem with Lam and his strategy to gum the intention of the actions to death before congress,the admission of Goodling to Hatch act violations, the contemptous disrespect and obfuscation of Sarah Taylor and what we already know about how Cheney operates. Now we have the spectre of the obstruction of justice emerging from the VP's office not only with respect to the Libby pardon but also with respect to the MZM investigation.

Where does the SJC go from here?