“We interrupt this Very Special Larry King Roundtable to bring you this Breaking News. Sources are reporting that former Vice-President Dick Cheney personally instructed the CIA to withhold any and all information from Congress regarding highly-secret programs pertaining to illegally gathering information about, and from, American citizens.”
“We now return you to “Michael Jackson-Is He in Heaven or in Hell?”, featuring Larry’s special guests, Brooke Shields, Rep. Peter King, and Bubbles the Chimp.”
LK: “Now, Bubbles, how did it feel to meet the Mayor of Osaka….”
There are Friday Afternoon News Dumps, and then there are Friday Afternoon News Dumps. This Friday featured perhaps the most disgraceful bold-faced news dump in history. Reports from Inspectors-General from five U. S. intelligence agencies detailing Cheney’s and the Bush Administration’s success in breaching institutional and constitutional barriers to conduct their illegal operations. Released at the optimal time to minimize coverage. For the most part, a successful operation, what with the second- and third-stringers subbing for what passes for America’s journalistic royalty.
So, El Somnambulo will try to (metaphorically) scream over the vitiligo-induced White Noise to let you know what your guv’mint’s been up to. He will deviate from tradition, and simply find the best analysis and information arising out of this news dump, regardless of whether or not the content has appeared in one of today’s papers.
LEAD STORY: NY TIMES-Cheney Concealed CIA Project From Congress and American People
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director,Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.
A report released on Friday by the inspectors general of five agencies about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program makes clear that Mr. Cheney’s legal adviser, David S. Addington, had to approve personally every government official who was told about the program. The report said “the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program” frustrated F.B.I. agents who were assigned to follow up on tips it had turned up.
Frankly, a pretty weak effort from the Times, included to provide the vital context.
Associated Press: “Program Extended Far Beyond Wiretapping”
The News-Journal made this its lead story on Saturday. Kudos to whoever remains there, and whoever had the common news sense to identify the story’s importance.Highlights of the article:
The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program.
(Sunday Update, from the AP’s Pamela Hess: WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.)
President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the “President’s Surveillance Program.”
The IG report said an unnamed White House official inserted a paragraph into the first threat assessment prepared by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks, which was used to justify the extraordinary intelligence measures.
The report also questions the legal advice used by President Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo at the Justice Department.
The report suggests (former WH attorney and current Philadelphia Inquirer ‘contributor’ John) Yoo ignored an explicit provision in the FISA law designed to restrict the government’s authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime. And it said flaws in Yoo’s memos later presented “a serious impediment” to recertifying the program.
Talking Points Memo: Dubya Personally Tried to Force Ashcroft to Sign Off on Illegal Surveillance
Turns out that Alberto Gonzales was telling the truth about President Bush directing his staff to go to then-AG John Ashcroft’s bedside to try to force him to sign off on his electronic surveillance program. From the IG Report:
According to notes from Ashcroft’s FBI security detail, at 6:20 p.m. that evening Card called the hospital and spoke with an agent in Ashcroft’s security detail, advising him that President Bush would be calling shortly to speak with Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s wife told the agent that Ashcroft would not accept the call. Ten minutes later, the agent called Ashcroft’s Chief of Staff David Ayres at DOJ to request that Ayres speak with Card about the President’s intention to call Ashcroft. The agent conveyed to Ayres Mrs. Ashcroft’s desire that no calls be made to Ashcroft for another day or two. However, at 6:45 p.m., Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent’s notes, “insisted on speaking [with Attorney General Ashcroft].” According to the agent’s notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security.
From TPM:
In other words, President Bush, apparently knowing that Ashcroft’s wife did not want him seeing visitors or even speaking on the phone, nonetheless informed her that his staff would be coming to the hospital to get the sign-off they needed.
The passage essentially confirms a report from last year by Murray Waas in The Atlantic that Gonzo had told investigators that it was indeed President Bush who directed him to Ashcroft’s bedside. And the president’s call itself was first reported by Barton Gellman in his 2008 book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.
Of course, in Ashcroft’s finest moment, Card and Gonzales were unsuccessful. But they would soon find ways to get around the problem.
Talking Points Memo: Gonzales to DOJ-Shut Up
More brilliant (pardon the expression, MSM) reporting from the absolutely essential TPM. (Seriously, you need to be reading this site at least once a day.)Before he became AG, Gonzo was a ‘White House Attorney’. Here he lets Justice know just who’s runnin’ the show. The White House Counsel Gonzales to Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who had questioned the legality of the surveillance program, in a 2004 letter:
Your misunderstanding appears to have been based on a misunderstanding of the President’s expectations regarding the conduct of the Department of Justice. While the President was, and remains, interested in any thoughts the Department of Justice may have on alternative ways to achieve effectively the goals of the activities authorized by the Presidential Authorization of March 11. 2004, the President has addressed definitively for the Excutive Branch in the Presidential Authorization the interpretation of the law.
Just read that paragraph slowly a few times through. Orwell, meet Kafka.
Washington Independent: Lotsa Important Stuff Missing from IG’s Reports
There’s really no need to even look at the MSM anymore. The best reportorial digging and analysis is taking place elsewhere. One of the best, Spencer Ackerman, spells out what is missing from the reports, and why what’s missing is every bit as important as what is there. Some great grist for the legalistic mills of the Esq.’s among us. El Somnambulo would love their feedback, translated into English that even the Beast Who Slumbers can understand.
Newsweek: AG Holder Weighs Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture
Weighs? This story broke before the release of the IG reports. If shredding the Constitution, running rogue operations out of the VP’s bunker, and torturing and lying about it, do not warrant a Special Prosecutor, what, other than lying about oral sex to a priggish sex-obsessed partisan, would warrant such an investigation?:
These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.”
It had better not be. ‘Bulo defies anyone to identify any president, including Nixon, whose contempt for the Constitution has risen to this level of criminality. To fail to investigate this is tantamount to endorsing it.
Now, had the MSM been doing their jobs all along, as they were during Watergate, all of this would have been unearthed earlier and the Bush Administration at least would have been held accountable.
In fact, several top reporters, including Seymour Hersh and Murray Waas, did unearth pieces of this, in fact most of the puzzle, but were marginalized by the clueless talking heads and the corporate print media.
El Somnambulo believes, and he believes that the evidence demonstrates, that the Bush Administration has committed crimes that go far beyond even those of Watergate. They have, on their own, made a mockery of the constitutionally-sacrosanct “Separation of Powers”. They have violated both Federal law and international law.
The MSM meme has been to ‘move past this’, that ‘this is old news, people are tired of it.’ It is not old news. Thanks to the MSM, who failed to cover this hijacking of government by all the President’s men, this is NEW news. The media, which has become both complacent and corporatized since the early ’70’s, has unequivocally demonstrated that it is neither willing nor able to practice the timeless art of journalism in cases like this when journalism is vital to maintaining a democracy.
Fortunately, however, they’ve still got Michael Jackson to keep us comfortably numb.
“Larry will be right back after this message from Extenze…”