The Next Hurrah

Taliban Taking Over Pakistan

by emptywheel

Well, that's probably hyperbole. But it does seem like things in Pakistan are getting pretty dire. So says a Pakistani report put together by its Interior Ministry, providing ominous warnings about the increasing power of the Taliban in the country.

The Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was warned this month that Islamic militants and Taliban fighters were rapidly spreading beyond the country’s lawless tribal areas and that without “swift and decisive action,” the growing militancy could engulf the rest of the country. [my emphasis]

The report provides details--including some that pose significant risk to American troops in Afghanistan.

The mention of lesser-known but potent Taliban figures by name shows that the Pakistani government is aware of the far-reaching tentacles of the Taliban and other extremists but cannot do anything about them or chooses not to do anything, the Western diplomat said.

Among the particulars, the document says the Taliban have recently begun bombing oil tank trucks that pass through the Khyber area near the border on their way to Afghanistan for United States and NATO forces.

I'm particularly curious about the politics behind the report. The Interior Ministry, after all, is led by a guy who almost got killed by militants several months ago.

The Silence Surrounding Novak's Testimony

by emptywheel

This post follows on my wildarsed guess that one of the things that appears in the two-page gap is discussion of Libby's and Novak's super-secret July 9 meeting. I'd like to point out--and speculate on--several weird bits in Novak's trial testimony. Full credit: Jeff Lomonaco identified several of these in a conversation with me, but I happen to know he's at an undisclosed location with crappy Toobz access, so I'm going to run with it and he'll just have to call in any comments!! Jeff and I have discussed some of these at some length, but I think they make more sense if, indeed, the Libby-Novak meeting is mentioned in the two-page gap.

To make it up to Jeff, here's a link to his book, from which I'm transcribing these bits.

Fitzgerald Objects

The first weird bit is a successful objection Fitzgerald makes when Wells tries to get Novak to say he testified--before the grand jury--that Libby hadn't told Libby anything about Plame. Ted Wells is trying to establish that Novak testified willingly at all times, including about his conversation with Libby. Novak has just laid out how he agreed to discuss Armitage, Rove, and Harlow in an interview after the prosecutors brought waivers from those three people. Then Wells moves to Rove's grand jury testimony:

Wells: I'll show you a copy of your Grand Jury testimony, dated February 25--

Fitzgerald: We'll stipulate to the date, February 25, 2004.

Walton: Very well.

Now, reading this with some distance, it appears that Fitzgerald is trying to prevent Wells from handing Novak his grand jury testimony. I seem to recall, though, that this exchange was a response to Novak's earlier (in his discussion of the interviews with Fitzgerald) claim to have forgotten dates, so it may be entirely innocuous.

Kontogiannis' Seal

by emptywheel

Laura asks why the government (and Kontogiannis, in a filing submitted yesterday) would fight to continue to seal the transcripts from his four hearings before Judge Larry Burns.

In an unusual step, Kontogiannis' guilty plea was done in a secret, closed hearing. The plea agreement was unsealed earlier this month, and last week Burns ordered that transcripts of four hearings related to the plea also be made public.

Federal prosecutors objected in motions filed under seal last week. Yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ordered the documents to remain secret and scheduled a hearing for the week of Aug. 6.

Now the government is making an argument that these transcripts include classified information--an argument they apparently haven't made before.

At a hearing in federal court in San Diego yesterday, Burns said that the government invoked federal laws dealing with classified information in their papers filed last week.

He said that when the secret hearings took place four months ago, prosecutors knew that the information would become open eventually, and did not object then.

The judge appeared irked that the government was now objecting to the information becoming public and was raising the issue of classified information “for the first time ever.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said government lawyers decided after the hearings that they wanted more information kept secret than they first believed was necessary.

Without going into details, Forge told Burns “the scope of the information the government viewed as non-disclosable turned out to be broader” than they originally thought.

Meanwhile, John Michael's lawyer suggests this is something more than an effort to keep classified information sealed.

The Irresistible Force And The Immovable Object

By Mimikatz

The drama that will play out over the rest of the year is the meeting of the irresistible force of public opinion and the immovable objects Bush and Cheney, as of this moment still surrounded by a circle of steadfast  Republicans, all of them in collective denial about things in Iraq.

But the public is not.  According to the CBS poll,

HOW IS THE WAR GOING?

Well
22%
Badly
77%

Fewer than one in five thinks that the troop increase is helping to improve the situation in Iraq, while about half think the war is actually creating more terrorists.

The poll has bad news for President Bush, too. His job approval rating slipped to 27 percent, his lowest number ever in a CBS News poll — 3 points less than last month and 1 point below his previous low of 28 percent in January. His disapproval rating is also at an all-time high of 65 percent.

And there is other evidence as well.  From Think Progress:

According to an analysis of public opinion polls by American Progress fellow Ruy Teixeira, 54 percent of Americans believe that the situation in Iraq has gotten worse and only 29 percent believe that the United States is winning the war on terrorism.

And what does the public think we should do about this situation?

U.S. TROOP LEVELS IN IRAQ SHOULD

Increase
11%
Keep the same number
17%
Decrease
26%
Remove all troops
40%

From the CBS Poll. that is 66% who think we should decrease troop levels or withdraw all the troops.  Sure Senator Lugar has backtracked on his earlier statements that things aren't going too well, indicating that he won't do anything to challenge Bush/Cheney.  But he's not up for reelection.  Senator John Sununu, in New Hampshire, is, and he can't he heartened by a poll that has him losing to Jean Shaheen, former governor and as yet undeclared candidate by 57% to 29%.  And with even a Fox Poll showing that Americans trust the Democrats by more than 3 percentage points over the GOP in handling an "all-out war with Muslim radicals," it can't be a happy Fourth for the Bush/Cheney regime and the GOP. 

When Congress returns, the Dems will renew their own offensive against Bush/Cheney in light of the surge in public opinion away from Bush.  What will happen?  Watch it unfold this summer.

Mind the Gap: the Libby-Novak Call

by emptywheel

You wouldn't think that I--after babbling about this for two years and beating up the press for ignoring it--would miss an opportunity to highlight the super-secret Libby-Novak meeting, do you? Only that's what I did yesterday, when I was puzzling through the remaining two-page gap in the Tatel opinion. Duh.

My post yesterday made the argument that, in addition to laying out the background for the Cooper-Rove conversation (and Rove's prevaricating about it) and pointing out the discrepancies between Rove's story and Novak's, the two-page gap must explain why a bunch of seeming extraneous quotes from grand jury testimony appear in the unsealed portion. Those quotes include:

• Two details of Cheney's involvement tied to Libby's leaks without a larger explanation of Cheney's importance in the leaks
• A description of Armitage's somewhat implausible story of learning he was Novak's source
• The following claims from Novak as to the sourcing of his column:

Novak identified Armitage’s comment as an “offhand revelation” from “a senior administration official” who was “no partisan gunslinger.” (II-20.) He referred to Rove simply as “another official” who said, “Oh, you know about it.”

One thing that could very logically tie these loose ends together is a discussion of the Libby-Novak conversation that happened on July 9. After all, it would provide a way to reintroduce (and explain) the Cheney involvement, it would provide a reason to doubt the "Armitage as primary source" story, and it would provide a reason to question Novak's claim that he had two and only two sources.

Actually, TWO DOJ Employees Quit This Week

by emptywheel

It's funny how, now that we're so attuned to BushCo's Friday news dumps, something reported on Friday attracts more notice than something reported on Thursday.

On Friday, we learned that Rachel Brand, one of the last remaining DOJ clique-members (and a tangential one at that) will resign on July 9.

Rachel Brand, the assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, will step down July 9, the department said in a statement. The statement did not give a reason for her departure, but Brand is expecting a baby soon.

I can understand not wanting to expose a near-child to the cesspool that is DOJ right now.

On Thursday, we learned that Scott Schools, technically an employee of EOUSA and currently interim USA for San Francisco, will resign around July 13.

Scott Schools, who became the interim U.S. attorney in San Francisco after Kevin Ryan was fired in February, will leave within weeks to return to South Carolina as a county prosecutor.

Schools, 45, was nominated Wednesday by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to be the solicitor, the equivalent of a district attorney, for Charleston and Berkeley counties. He will succeed Ralph Hoisington, who died of cancer June 9. Schools said Hoisington was an old friend with whom he once shared a law office.

The appointment requires confirmation by the state Senate. Schools said he will remain at his San Francisco post at least through July 13 during the confirmation process. Schools, a Republican, would face election to a new term as solicitor next year if he decided to run. He was noncommittal about a candidacy Wednesday.

I'm actually more intrigued by Schools' resignation than Brand's. From the reporting on Schools, it sounds like Bush might actually be nearing a nomination to serve as USA for San Francisco.

The Two Redacted Pages

by emptywheel

As I said earlier, the most interesting part of the Tatel opinion is the two-page section that remains redacted (thanks again to Jeralyn for making the opinion available), explaining why Fitzgerald suspects Rove perjured himself in his testimony about Novak and Cooper. I believe that section includes:

• An assertion that Rove lied when he testified that he responded to Novak's story about Plame by saying, "you heard that too?"
• A description of some way that Rove's testimony contradicts Novak's description that Rove promised to declassify the CIA report on Wilson's trip
• A description of Rove's presumably changing testimony about Cooper--and possibly a description about the magically rediscovered Rove-Hadley email
• A description of one more piece of involvement on the part of Cheney

The passage comes after the long passage explaining the Miller subpoena. That Miller passage follows this logic:

• Describes the two Miller calls
• Asserts that, given the other reasons to distrust Libby's testimony, he may have lied about the Miller conversations, too
• Describes the Russert/Libby discrepancies--including the quotes from both men's grand jury testimony that lays out those discrepancies
• Describes proof Libby knew of Plame on July 8 using the Fleischer conversation
• Describes the potential discussion of Plame on Air Force Two and Cheney's other involvement
• Shows that Miller may provide the final piece of evidence for a perjury charge

One important point here is that the quotes from Libby's, Russert's, Ari's, and Cooper's Libby grand jury testimony are all used to support Tatel's argument that there is evidence of perjury. They're very narrowly selected quotes that pertain directly to the case on perjury. Therefore, it's safe to assume that the grand jury testimony that was unsealed today (including quotes from Novak, Armitage, and evidence pertaining to Cheney) also support an argument of evidence of perjury.

Which brings us to the passage on Rove that has just been unsealed. It starts by setting up that, according to both Armitage and Novak, Rove was involved in the Novak leak, all the while admitting that Armitage was also involved.

Although uncontradicted testimony indicates that Novak first learned Wilson’s wife’s place of employment during a meeting on July 8 with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see 8/27/04 Aff. at 18), Novak said in grand jury testimony that he confirmed Plame’s employment with Rove (II-153-54), a longstanding source for his columns (II-121-22). According to Novak, when he “brought up” Wilson’s wife, “Mr. Rove said, oh, you know about that too” (II-154) and promised to seek declassification of portions of a CIA report regarding the Niger trip, which Rove said “wasn’t an impressive piece of work or a very definitive piece of work” (II-158). In an October 2003 column describing his sources, Novak identified Armitage’s comment as an “offhand revelation” from “a senior administration official” who was “no partisan gunslinger.” (II-20.) He referred to Rove simply as “another official” who said, “Oh, you know about it.” (II-20, 209-11.)

Upon reading Novak’s October column, Armitage recognized himself as Novak’s source and, as he told the grand jury, “went ballistic.” (II-859-60.) He contacted Secretary of State Colin Powell to offer his resignation (II-862-64) and spoke the next day with FBI and Justice Department officials investigating the leak (II-878-79). “I was very unhappy at myself,” Armitage testified, “because I had let the President down, I’d let the Secretary down, and frankly, I’d let Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson down. In my view inadvertently, but that’s for others to judge.” (II-860.) [my emphasis]

Now this passage does two things. It lays out all the details thus far presented to the grand jury by Armitage and Novak, though not Rove. And it provides some explanation for why Armitage was not charged with an IIPA violation, but it does not say as much. Alternately, it could lay the groundwork for an argument that Novak was lying when he said Armitage was his first source (which would explain why Tatel included so much detail about Novak's sourcing)--but I'll assume for now it doesn't since the passage says that uncontradicted testimony says that Novak first learned of Plame from Armitage.

The following two pages are redacted, and the paragraph following the long redaction reads:

This Is How It's Done

by emptywheel

Tim Walberg is a really awful wingnutty Congressman whose district begins just spitting distance (emphasis on spitting) from my house. One of the local reporters, Susan Demas, had the balls to report that he refused to fire a campaign worker who pled guilty to child abuse, so the Congressman has basically frozen the newspaper out since then. Via the watchblog Walberg Watch, here is what Demas has to say about Walberg now.

U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg doesn't like me and I don't give a damn.

Neither should you.

Journalists and politicians often enjoy a testy, if not combative relationship; that's nothing new.

They're in the business of making themselves look good, raising cash and getting re-elected.

The press is in the business of reporting the truth about officials' voting records, platforms, finances and campaign ads.

Naturally, these goals often clash. As a result, Walberg and his staff refuse to answer my questions, provide information on his votes and inform me of his public events.

As an editor, I can't even assign a reporter to cover something as simple as the Tipton Republican's earmarks in the federal budget - as was the case last week - because I'm not privy to his press releases.

In short, I can't do my job to inform the public - and you lose.

What you should care about is that the congressman doesn't much care for you, either, because he is actively squelching your right to know.

[snip]

Yes, people of all political persuasions pile on the press, but it's also true that the shrillest voices in the last decades have come from the far right.

It's a surefire way for pols to play to the base - which is how Walberg squeaked into his seat in the first place. And it's something journalists often shy away from saying, lest we prompt conservatives to belt out another chorus against us.

Well, bring it on.

With all the time Walberg spends stonewalling the press, you have to wonder what he's doing to earn $165,200 of your money each year and why he's so tight-lipped about it.

But we journalists will keep asking questions, because we owe it to you, the public. As your employee, Rep. Walberg owes you answers. Which is something he might want to consider, since he's up for a big job evaluation next fall.

Exactly. When politicians--including the President--freeze out journalists as punishment for critical coverage, the correct response is to turn around and turn it into a political liability. The Gang of 400 hasn't learned that lesson, apparently. They ought to take a lesson from Ms. Demas.

WSJ and the AP Finally Get Their Windmill!

by emptywheel

Pow wow is right. One of the best parts of today's Appeals Court order releasing more of the grand jury material from the Plame investigation is this paragraph:

Even if the Armitage revelation created a compelling public interest in them—and it
is unclear to us why, as Dow Jones asserts, the Special Counsel’s knowledge that one individual leaked Plame’s identity calls into question the validity of his continuing investigation into others who may have unlawfully leaked this same information—this is irrelevant given that there is no First Amendment right of access to secret grand jury matters.

The Appeals Court judges are basically telling the AP and WSJ the same thing I said months ago--they're being dumb when they claim that Armitage's involvement in the leak touches on Libby and Rove's guilt at all.

Fred Fielding Lied to the Press Yesterday

by emptywheel

The White House had a super-secret briefing yesterday in which they trotted out Fred Fielding, but then insisted he be referred to solely as a Senior Administration Official. Perhaps they insisted on the absurd background rules because they wanted to make Fred feel free to lie. And lie he did.

In the briefing, a journalist asked Fielding whether Bush's invocation of privilege meant that he was protecting deliberations he, personally, was involved in.

Q    For any of you, I have a question about -- as a non-legal scholar. My understanding is the evolution of the law, the executive privilege, that there are basically two forms of privilege that a president can claim. And I wanted to clarify: Is the President saying, by doing this, that he himself personally was in receipt of advice about the U.S. Attorney firings, and that's why he's invoking the privilege? The documents went to him; that his staff provided him with advice, and that's what he's protecting.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Oh no, no, that would be a misconstruction of the breadth of the executive privilege. What is related -- deliberations, formulation of advice, performance of executive branch duties consistent with the President's constitutional obligations.

Q    So he is still maintaining that he had nothing to do with the actual discussions between White House staff, meaning Ms. Miers and Sara Taylor and the Justice Department related to the Attorney firings; that he had no direct involvement.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  No, there's no change in our prior position at all.

Q    But that is -- the way I've stated it is correct?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Well, state it again. I'm going to make sure -- I don't have a transcript.

Q    Maybe you should get one. That would help. No -- in this case, the President is saying that he had nothing to do, directly himself, with receiving advice about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys and approving the list or adjusting the list. Just because Ms. Miers or Ms. Taylor or Scott Jennings appeared in emails with DOJ discussing that, he is asserting that there is no involvement; his personal involvement did not engage in those discussions.

Well, the question wasn't asked all that artfully, but Fielding offered a blanket denial of any involvement on the part of Bush.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  He has no personal involvement.  Our position has never been any different than that. [my emphasis]

No personal involvement. Except that we know Gonzales would only fire Iglesias if ordered personally by Bush. And we know that Senator Domenici spoke to Bush personally and asked him to fire the Attorney.

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.

As I pointed out yesterday, Paul Clement went out of his way to suggest that Bush's personal involvement would be doubly protected. I'm increasingly convinced he had something very specific in mind.