Sun don't shine above the ground

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Tomorrow, the Summer Solstice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be delivering a speech on Civil Rights in Oxford, Mississippi. Won't that be special. I wonder if he'll use the phrase "I don't recall" much.

Oxford, of course, is home to the University of Mississippi, where, in the middle of a riot, James Meredith became the first African-American student. Meredith survived after being shot, nearly four years later, as he marched for voting rights.

I've heard that Meredith does not enjoy being considered an important figure in the Civil Rights movement. From the looks of the Voting Rights Section of the Department of Justice, it would seem Gonzales doesn't, either.

Via McClatchy on Monday:

WASHINGTON — A former Justice Department political appointee blocked career lawyers from filing at least three lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities, seven former senior department employees charged Monday.

Hans von Spakovsky also derailed at least two investigations into possible voter discrimination, the former employees of the Voting Rights Section said in interviews and in a letter to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. They urged the panel to reject von Spakovsky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission.

[...]

In the letter to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the panel's chairwoman, the former employees said that von Spakovsky acted as the "de facto voting section chief" from early 2003 until late 2005, spending virtually all of his time on voting matters and promoting "partisan political interests."

"We have never seen a political appointee exercise this level of control over the day-to-day operations of the voting section," they said.

It was the second letter in the last eight days in which former employees of the Voting Rights Section, including [Joseph] Rich and former deputy chief Robert Kengle, urged the Senate panel to reject the nomination. Feinstein told von Spakovsky during the hearing that the criticism from former department officials would make it difficult for him to win confirmation.

Monday's letter included the first allegations that von Spakovsky torpedoed suits and investigations over alleged state, county or local laws that diminish the voting strength of African-Americans, Native Americans or other minorities or prevent them from voting altogether.

I'm sure Gonzales' speech will be riveting.

McClatchy, by the way, has a new website with a new slogan, "Truth to Power." Josh Marshall sings the praises they deserve.

Natural Born Liars (redux)

Last week, DB was awed by the reflexive nature of Andrew Card's lying:

COMEY: I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately.

I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.

He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."

And I said again, "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

Marvelous. Imagine the audacity of delivering a complete lie to a former New York criminal prosecutor, at that moment Acting Attorney General... Imagine calling him in anger over an incident and then denying the incident even occurred... Imagine denying the incident even though Comey himself had personally witnessed it only moments earlier... Imagine handing him this bogus account of their encounter in response to Comey's insistence that an objective third party be present at a future meetings.

Think how naturally one must lie to even try to pull that one off.

Now we learn that it gets even worse. Digby catches this item in Newsweek about the morning after:

Comey didn't tell the Senate panel that the bad feelings were stoked even more the next morning when White House officials explained the hospital visit by saying Gonzales and Card were unaware that Comey was acting A.G. (and therefore the only person authorized to sign off on the surveillance program), according to a former senior DOJ official who requested anonymity talking about internal matters. Top DOJ officials were furious, the source said. Just days earlier, Justice's chief spokesman had publicly said Comey would serve as "head of the Justice Department" while Ashcroft was ill. Justice officials had also faxed over a document to the White House informing officials of this. When a Gonzales aide claimed the counsel's office could find no record of it, DOJ officials dug out a receipt showing the fax had been received. "People were disgusted as much as livid," said the DOJ official. "It was just the dishonesty of it." A Gonzales aide at the time (who asked not to be ID'd talking about internal matters) said there was a "miscommunication" and "genuine confusion" over who was in charge.

Fantastic. The administration is a cadre of congenital liars. They couldn't tell the truth if they tried. And they never do.

Kmiec responds to Lederman

Marty Lederman did a superior job of responding to Doug Kmiec, so DB should probably just sit back and wait for his response to Kmiec's response.

But I'll just chime in with a couple things. First, Kmiec writes with considerably more respect for Lederman and his readers than he does for the readers of the Washington Post (and therefore, the public at large). Had his op-ed been written with a similar tone, it would have elicited a less abrasive response from some bloggers, myself not least.

However, Kmiec is still unpersuasive. In fact, he doesn't really address the substance of Lederman's points. I'll wisely let Marty deal with all that. But I will note that he didn't address the things that bothered me (not that I have any reason to believe he read my post), namely that the comparison of the threat of resignations was compared to the Saturday Night Massacre, not the actual break-in at Watergate.

My other complaint, which had nothing to do with the legal aspects that Lederman addressed, was that Kmiec began his piece by stating that Nixon's demise was somehow different, as it the result of playing politics. But then he ended his op-ed by implying that Bush is also playing politics (and to that end, should be doing it better).

My only response to the substance of Kmiec's reply that will likely be addressed by Lederman is in regards to this paragraph:

Instrumentally, were it not a close question for Mr. Comey as well, I do not understand how, after meeting with the President, he could modify the surveillance program to eliminate his stated legal objection. Were the "exclusivity" language in FISA as absolute as Marty's reference to the criminal liability under section 1809 implies, mere tinkering with a program that, until recently, was not operating with a FISA warrant or some other as yet publicly unidentified approval or order of the FISA court, would not be capable of obviating the legitimate statutory concerns.

It still doesn't. This is precisely the point that Lederman and so many other bloggers were making: What on earth could they have been doing that didn't sit well with this DOJ?

The fact that this program was eventually made acceptable to Comey, Ashcroft & Co. does nothing to legitimize the view that some minimal violation of FISA was appropriate. As Bruce Fein has warned, let's not make Comey and Ashcroft into heroes just for demonstrating that they do, indeed, have some limits.

Natural Born Liars

It's going to take DB a while to fully digest James Comey's testimony, but I don't want to ever forget this moment:

SCHUMER: What happened after Mr. Gonzales and Card left? Did you have any contact with them in the next little while?

COMEY: While I was talking to Director Mueller, an agent came up to us and said that I had an urgent call in the command center, which was right next door. They had Attorney General Ashcroft in a hallway by himself and there was an empty room next door that was the command center.

And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me.

COMEY: I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately.

I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.

He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."

And I said again, "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

Stunning. Comey might have added, "After that comment, I will not meet with you without a witness."

It's been obvious for sometime that this is an administration filled with complete liars. But there might not be a better example of somebody lying so reflexively.

I mean, forget about the call to Ashcroft's wife. Forget about her anxious call to Ashcroft's Chief of Staff. Forget about the ensuing call to Comey. Forget about the timing of the visit. Forget about Ashcroft's condition and that he wasn't taking phone calls or visitors. Forget about the fact that they brought the envelope with them and explained what was in it. Forget about the fact that Gonzales and Card walked out of the room immediately following their rejection. Forget about the fact that there were other people in the room watching the entire episode.

Forget all the reasons that story is a blatant lie and just think about the fact that Card was saying this to Comey. Comey witnessed the entire thing. It reminds me of this scene in Repo Man:

OLY: The Rodriguez Brothers are suing us for malicious damage, medical expenses and harassment, for a car they own.

BUD: The Rodriguez Brothers are... You believe the Rodriguez Brothers? They're a couple of scumbags!

OLY: I know, but we need to sit down and get our stories straight.

BUD: You're taking their word over mine!

OLY: I WAS THERE! REMEMBER?

Did Card really think for a second that Comey would buy that insane idea? He couldn't be trying to imply to Comey that it was going to be a "you have your story, we have ours" situation because he was simultaneously trying to shake Comey from the notion that he needed to have a witness present. And to that end, could he have possibly offered a less effective reply?

The first thing out of his mouth was an obvious lie to a person who clearly knew the truth.

As Digby often writes, "they lie as easily as they breathe."

Clarifying Kmiec

After publishing my last post on Doug Kmiec's lacking op-ed, DB called it a night. Waking up, refreshed, it now occurs to me that Kmiec did in fact mean what I thought he meant by this:

Bush administration officials are often portrayed as seeking a revival of diminished executive authority. At this point, it simply would be useful if they understood it and did not engage in futile and ethically dubious maneuvers or contemplate resigning every time there is an honest disagreement over the scope of presidential power or its sub-assignment.

"Seeking a revival of diminished executive authority" reads, of course, like Kmiec is arguing that Bush wants to return to some period in which the president was relatively weak.

I decided last night this was a typo of sorts because it is just so ridiculous. After sleeping, I realize that this is, if not a typo, then just an extrememly poorly-phrased sentence. I think Kmiec means this:

Bush administration officials are often portrayed as seeking [to revive a currently] diminished executive authority.

Note, of course, that even this correction doesn't lend any aid to his overall argument, since (as I wrote last night) he begins his column by claiming Comey, Ashcroft & Co.'s threats to resign aren't like the Saturday Night Massacre because Nixon's situation involved politics. But then, Kmiec ends his column by conceding that Bush is playing politics (and should be doing a better job, at that).

On a related note, I see that Marty Lederman also wrote about Kmiec (and, naturally, did a much finer job than I). Marty was also confused by this paragraph, including the second, completely ambiguous sentence:

At this point, it simply would be useful if they understood it and did not engage in futile and ethically dubious maneuvers or contemplate resigning every time there is an honest disagreement over the scope of presidential power or its sub-assignment.

Marty, as I did, takes issue with "every time." But he also took this sentence to mean that Kmiec was calling Comey and Ashcroft's actions "futile and ethically dubious maneuvers" and that they didn't understand executive power.

I thought, and still think, he meant that Gonzales and Card were engaging in these futile and ethically dubious maneuvers, while Comey and Ashcroft's contributions were frivolous threats of resignation. I'm not sure whom he was indicting with the charge of lack of understanding. Probably all of them.

In any event, a truly awful op-ed.

UPDATE: I'm not sure why there's no Haloscan comment link for this post. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I saved it briefly before publishing. I've never done that before. In any event, please use this link for any comments.

Kmiec on Comey, pure nonsense

Liz Cheney was apparently not available to obfuscate on behalf of the administration, so the Washington Post today features an op-ed, "Testimony in a Teacup," by Douglas W. Kmiec.

The writer, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, was assistant attorney general and head of the Office of Legal Counsel to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

He's certainly got the credentials, but his case is quite unpersuasive. In his defense, it is easy to be distracted by the spectacular views at Pepperdine.

James Comey's Senate testimony on Tuesday was staggeringly histrionic. It has, as Sen. Arlen Specter suggested, the dramatic flair of the Saturday Night Massacre. Presidential emissaries seeking the signature of a critically ill man only to be headed off at the hospital room door by a Jimmy Stewart-like hero defending the law over the pursuit of power. Frank Capra, call your office.

There are several problems with this scene. First, the comparison to Watergate is wholly inapt. Watergate involved a real crime -- breaking and entering, with a phenomenally stupid coverup that also fit the definition of criminal obstruction. And the underlying motivation for Richard Nixon's demise was raw politics. Comey's tale lacks crime and this venal political intrigue.

Breaking and entering is a "real crime," unlike something that was so egregious even people who were OK with violating FISA couldn't sign off on it. No political intrigue? If this story lacks political intrigue (Why would Kmiec use the word "venal" to describe the Saturday Night Massacre?), I would hate to be around when such a story pops up.

Also, Kmiec is following in Lindsay Graham's footsteps by implying that Nixon was simply trying to cover up the break-in. You may remember Graham trying to impeach the credibility of John Dean at the Censure hearings:

Senator Graham. Did he cover up a crime that he knew to be a crime?

Mr. Dean. He covered it up for--

Chairman Specter. Senator Graham, let him answer the question.

Mr. Dean. He covered it up for national security reasons.

Senator Graham. Give me a break.

Mr. Dean. I am serious.

Senator Graham. He covered it up to save his hide.

Mr. Dean. No, sir. You are showing you don't know that subject very well.

Senator Graham. What is the national security reason to allow a President to break into a political opponent's office?

Mr. Dean. The cover-up didn't really concern itself with--

Senator Graham. What enemy are we fighting when you break into the other side's office?

Mr. Dean. Senator, if you will let me answer, I will give you some information you might be able to use.

Senator Graham. Yes, please.

Mr. Dean. He covered it up not because of what had happened at the Watergate, where I think he would have cut the reelection Committee loose. He kept them covered up because of what had happened while they were at the White House, which was the break-in into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. And that, he believed, was a national security activity."

And nobody resigned over the break-in. It was because of the way Nixon abused the DOJ in order to get the results he wanted, rather than the results he was getting. Sound familiar?

A few paragraphs later, Kmiec writes:

Even if OLC attorneys had been unanimous that the president lacked the legal authority to conduct the kind of military intelligence-gathering that every other wartime president has pursued, that would hardly warrant the conclusion that the president had "broken the law."

I'm sorry, but every other wartime president has not pursued the ability to collect digital information on limitless amounts of American citizens (if that's even the upper boundary of their scheme). Plus, the majority of wartime presidents served prior to the enactment of FISA. No others have deliberately violated it, as far as we know. And it's hard to imagine any president, past or future, offering as bogus a justification for doing so as Bush's suggestion that the AUMF somehow repealed FISA.

Comey might not have been willing to say that Bush broke the law (despite his alleged "histrionics"), but what conclusion can you draw otherwise? FISA explicitly stated that the president could not wiretap domestically without a warrant. If the DOJ says he also lacked any constitutional authority to get around that, then he broke the law.

Kmiec goes on and on like this. Towards the end he writes that "Comey was equally mistaken to think that withholding his signature had to be the final act -- when that is necessarily the president's call."

How could anybody conclude that Comey's problems with the entire scenario stemmed from an idea that he had the final say? Absurd.

Finally, Kmiec writes this:

Bush administration officials are often portrayed as seeking a revival of diminished executive authority. At this point, it simply would be useful if they understood it and did not engage in futile and ethically dubious maneuvers or contemplate resigning every time there is an honest disagreement over the scope of presidential power or its sub-assignment.

When has this administration ever -- EVER -- been portrayed as seeking to revive diminished authority?? That has to be simply a mistake by Kmiec. Nobody could make that argument outside the Bizzaro Universe.

But assume he was trying to say the opposite, that the Bush administration seeks to restore what they believe is a proper, more expansive authority. Doesn't the fact that this entire episode stems from that objective validate the idea Kmiec is trying to shoot down? The Bush administration could have gone to a completely compliant Congress and asked for more authority at any time. They actually turned down Sen. DeWine 's offer to expand their authority. They chose instead to exercise authority not granted by Congress just because they wanted to prove they had the political muscle to do it.

"And the underlying motivation for Richard Nixon's demise was raw politics," Kmiec wrote up top, differentiating Nixon from Bush. Now he concludes his column by suggesting that the Bush administration does have political aims in all of this? (Again, if you assume he's not writing from Bizzaro Universe.)

And what made the Saturday Night Massacre -- and this episode -- so intriguing is that people don't resign "every time" there is a disagreement. That's the kind of argument a teenager would make. As Glenn Greenwald put it in this excellent radio show yesterday, "the entire top level of the law enforcement apparatus of our country was going to resign in protest" over this.

If that's happening every time there's a disagreement in this administration, we're in even worse shape with Bush at the helm than anybody could even imagine. It's bad enough that it even happened once.

Whitehouse on FISA

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has, so far, been the most pleasant surprise to DB since the November 2006 elections.

First, he had the most impressive moment of the day during the last hearing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, when he pulled out some staggering charts to highlight the connections between the White House and the Department of Justice. (Dahlia Lithwick has the chart here.)

And again yesterday, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Whitehouse laid out the case against expanding Bush's intelligence gathering authority with total clarity. Here are his comments in total:

We'll talk more about this, obviously, in the closed session, but I wanted to make a couple of points. And before I do, Director, let me say that I'm going to be speaking rather generally. As between you and I, I believe you to be an honorable and trustworthy man. I think you are here with a view to be professional. That is your motivation. You are not an ideologue or a partisan and your desire is to repair the intelligence function of the United States and I applaud you for that.

But that said, you are still asking for substantial changes in your authority. As an aside, I think the new technologies that have emerged do suggest some adjustment to FISA. It may be over- or under-inclusive in some areas, but as we look through the lens of the past, in terms of evaluating how much we can trust you with, institutionally. You know, these are tough times. As you said, we had FISA... the reason we have FISA in the first place is because of past abuses.

We've just found out about the litany of national security letter abuses within the Department of Justice.

The Attorney General has thoroughly and utterly lost my confidence. And at this stage, any element of the FISA legislation that depends on the Attorney General will need some other backstop in order to have my confidence.

We are coming out of this Article II regime the TSP program of warrantless wiretapping, and to this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorizations that cleared that program to go, or the Attorney General-Department of Justice opinions that declared it to be lawful.

Now, if this program is truly concluded, the TSP program, and if this is the new day, where everything is to be under FISA, I can't imagine for the life of me why those documents, that pertain to a past and closed program, should not be made available to the Committee and to us.

And so to me, it is very concerning, as we take these next steps, for you to be saying impliedly "Trust us. We need the authority. We'll use it well," when we're coming off the record of the national security letters. We're coming off terrible damage done to the Department of Justice by this Attorney General. We're coming off a continuing stonewall from the White House on documents that I cannot, for the life of me, imagine merit confidentiality at this stage.

And in the context of all of that... You've got some uphill sledding with me.

And I want to work with you and I want to do this, but it would be a big step in the right direction in terms of building the trust

Mr. Potenza, I heard you just talk about how important it was, to the extent we've been disclosed... these opinions... that there was that transparency... We've been talking a lot about transparency and all that kind of stuff.

Where's the transparency as to the presidential authorizations for this closed program. Where's the transparency as to the Attorney General's opinion as to this closed program? That's a pretty big "We're not going to tell you" in this new atmosphere of trust we're trying to build.

Gonzales has failed us all

DB didn't get a chance to do any blogging yesterday, but my two Gonzales Haiku submissions at FDL seem to have been pretty much spot on.

I don’t remember
I’m not prepared to answer
I cannot recall

That one pretty much speaks for itself. My other haiku requires maybe a little more background:

You covered his ass,
Spared him from jury duty
He’s not your “client”

When Gonzales' nomination was being considered by the Senate, he stated that he understood his job would be to represent the American people, and no longer would Bush be his client.

During his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee at their February 2006 hearing on the president's ability to wiretap without a warrant, Sen. Schumer asked Gonzales if the administration was preventing people like former Attorney General John Ashcroft from volunteering to testify:

SCHUMER: I'm asking you what the administration would think in terms of exercising any claim of privilege.

You're not going to have -- I'm sorry, here -- you're not going to have different rules for yourself, an administration advocate, then for these people who might be administration dissenters in one way or another, are you?

GONZALES: Sir, I don't know if you're asking what are they going to say...

SCHUMER: I'm not asking you that.

Would the rules be same? I think you answer that yes or no.

GONZALES: If they came to testify?

SCHUMER: Correct.

GONZALES: Well, sir, the client here is the president of the United States. I'm not sure it's in my place to offer...

SCHUMER: Or his chief...

GONZALES: ... up a position or my recommendation to you about what I might recommend to the president of the United States would not be appropriate here.

In November, as he failed to recall any mistakes he might have made, Gonzales referred to his "client" again. He still hadn't embraced the idea that he works for the American people.

And so it was easy to predict that Gonzales would again cover the president's sorry butt instead of helping the American people get to the bottom of what is an ugly, ugly mess at his department. Glenn Greenwald really hits this point home with eloquence:

[W]hat Alberto Gonzales did today -- and what he has done in this scandal since its inception -- is what he has been doing for the last six years, and particularly, during the last two years during his tenure as Attorney General. He has repeatedly lied to Congress, evaded their questions, concealed wrongdoing, expressed contempt for oversight and checks, particularly when it comes to the actions of the Leader, whom -- even as Attorney General -- he still plainly sees as his client and whose interests are his paramount, really his only, priority.

That is what Alberto Gonzales is -- he is a supremely loyal servant of George Bush and he was installed as the nation's chief law enforcement officer precisely because of that attribute. There really is very little he would not do, if there is anything, in service to the White House. And that has been evident for quite some time.

Nor is there anything unique about Gonzales himself. His conduct is the conduct of this administration, and his mindset is its mindset. The U.S. Attorneys scandal is merely illustrative, not unique in any way -- except that Bush's weakened state and subpoena power in the hands of Democrats have combined to produce slightly more oversight and scrutiny than before.

For DB, the whole spectacle could really be summed up with this exchange. That clip doesn't show the question Gonzales was asked, but essentially, Sen. Cardin asked why the Department of Justice has investigated voter fraud issues, but they have not investigated voter intimidation cases. This, despite the fact that there are scant examples of actual voter fraud and the examples of disenfranchisement are legion.

Gonzales first claimed he can relate to poor minorities and then explained, falsely, that the department follows guidelines to prevent anybody from being intimidated from voting by the DOJ investigations into voter fraud, themselves. Nothing about why he doesn't take voter intimidation and suppression cases seriously enough to investigate.

That was the day in a nutshell... try to seem sympathetic, evade answering the question by talking about something else, and say whatever sounds like a legitimate reason for keeping the job. It was pathetic.

Finally, DB's two favorite summaries of the day. Dahlia Lithwick (of course) encapsulated the day quite well and even included a picture of Sen. Whitehouse's amazing chart (on Page 2). And this NY Times editorial is just perfect.

Gonzales Haiku

Here's DB's FDL Alberto Gonzales Haiku:

I don’t remember
I’m not prepared to answer
I cannot recall

Looks like he might as well send it to the Hill.

(corrected spelling in post title)

No line-item veto

DB went to bed last night thinking that the last post wasn't clear enough, so here is the point in a nutshell:

In the case of the signing statement regarding the opening of Americans' mail, Attorney General Gonzales claimed no Constitutional conflict. Not only did he claim the department never did an "analysis" of the president's Constitutional authority in this realm (a dubious claim, indeed), but he defended the statement by embracing other limits on the president's authority ("to preserve the authority we believe exists under FISA, under other statutes.")

So where does he get off claiming the power to accept certain grants of authority from Congress, but not further definitions of that same authority? Bush's only legitimate course of action would be to veto the entire bill. Instead, he's pretending that he has a line-item veto and instructing his subordinates to violate the law by ignoring specific parts of it.

Gonzales -- what a witness

DB continues to be slammed with work, but managed to catch some of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today. It wasn't easy, though. Right from the get-go, the Attorney General was making a mockery of our legal traditions.

Other bloggers have captured the essence of the hearings, particularly the egregiousness of Gonzales' claim that the Constitution doesn't guarantee all citizens the right of Habeas Corpus. I never thought I would live to see the day when an Attorney General would say such a thing.

The highlights for this blogger were when Leahy let loose on Gonzales for shipping Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria to be tortured, and Sen. Feingold's entire dialog today.

But here's the first exchange between Leahy and Gonzales. This is the first of the hearing and it tells you all you need to know about the obfuscation that the Bush Administration embraces:

SEN. LEAHY: Does the president believe he has the inherent Constitutional authority to open Americans' mail without a warrant?

AG GONZALES: Sir, that... Now, you're asking me to get to an analysis, quite frankly, that the department has not done and what I would point you to is the Justice Jackson's analysis under Youngstown in terms of looking at the inherent authority of the president, looking at the inherent authority of Congress...

SEN LEAHY: But if you take...

AG GONZALES: ...and weighing those.

SEN LEAHY: If you take Youngstown, we laid out pretty clearly what the authority is following the Church Committee and FISA and everything else. Do you think the president has the authority under the AUMF, notwithstanding the requirements of the FISA Statute?

AG GONZALES: Sir, I'm not prepared to answer that question. I think for purposes of today's hearing, I think it's important for everyone to note that the pres... as far as I know... there is no ongoing physical searches of mail under the authorization...

SEN. LEAHY: So there hasn't been?

AG GONZALES: And there... to my knowledge, there hasn't been any kind of authorization to...

SEN. LEAHY: Would you know if there was?

AG GONZALES: I suspect that I would know, sir. Yes, sir.

SEN. LEAHY: Then why in heaven's name did the president feel he needed to issue this signing statement?

AG GONZALES: Sir, he issued that signing statement to preserve the authority we believe exists under FISA, under other statutes. So, when you've got the president signing a statute saying this is the only way you can engage in physical searches, the president wanted to preserve the authority you gave to him under the other statutes. That's the purpose of the signing statement.

Are we to believe that the Justice Department -- the same department that claimed the president had Constitutional and AUMF authority to tap phones -- looked at this statute, determined that it narrowed the authority Congress previously granted the president with regards to opening mail and recommended a signing statement without undertaking any analysis at all with regards to other sources of authority for the president?

And where did Gonzales get the idea that the president could "preserve" authority granted by Congress? How could he claim the president has the power to prevent a statute that says "this is the only way you can engage in physical searches" from superseding previous Congressional statutes? Unless he doesn't recognize Congress' authority to place those limits on the president. But they never did an analysis about that, right?

These signing statements are bullshit, anyway. But this tortured logic and evasiveness is just too much. And this is how the day got started.

It will take a lifetime to clean up the mess Bush has created in this country.

The Client

Will somebody please explain to Alberto Gonzales that he is working for the American people now and his days of getting George Bush out of jury duty are over?