Tag: Impeachment

Bush Tried to Kill NYT’s ‘SnoopGate’ Story

Buck Banks

Get me the editor: I tell you, if George Bush isn’t trying to plant news stories in Iraq, he’s trying to kill them here in America.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter reveals in a Web-only commentary that Bush summoned the New York Times’ publisher and executive editor to try to convince them not to run the story about the administration’s illegal domestic spying program.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

All of Bush’s B.S. about national security is just so much hoohah. Alter sums up the truth like this:

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

Dems Looking to Uncover Secret Docs Bush Uses to Justify Spying on Americans

Buck Banks

Show me the memos: My pal Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, sent me an e-mail this afternoon urging me to sign the Dems’ petition to shake loose Justice Dept. memos created to cover George Bush’s lying and spying through the Freedom of Information Act. So I signed it because it just might be the first step down the path to impeachment.

Here’s what Howard wrote:

By now you have probably heard the news that George Bush is using the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on American citizens without the consent of any court. After initially refusing to confirm the story, the President has admitted to personally overseeing this domestic spying program for years and he says he intends to continue the program.

These actions explicitly violate a law designed to protect US citizens. But the administration says that other laws somehow allow for this unprecedented use of a foreign intelligence agency to spy on Americans right here in the United States. According to reports, political appointees in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote still-classified legal opinions laying out the supposed justification for this program.

I have asked our General Counsel to draft a Freedom of Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and memos written by that office. Since the program’s existence is no longer a secret, these memos should be released — Americans deserve to know exactly what authority this administration believes it has.

You can help pressure the administration to release these documents by signing on to our Freedom of Information Act request in the next 48 hours.
[…]

Clinton-Hater Toensing Laughs – Literally – at Idea of Investigating Bush’s Allegedly Illegal Spying on U.S. Citizens

Jon Ponder

New lows in hackery: During the 1990’s, Victoria Toensing and her husband, Joe diGenova, made over 300 appearances on cable television in the service of the Republican agenda – often pimping for their friend Ken Starr and his $35 million investigation into President Clinton’s sex life.

In those days, to hear Toensing and diGenova tell it, there was no infraction on the part of the Clintons that was too small to warrant a thorough proctological examination.

So I was flabbergasted to hear Toensing this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal laughing – literally – at the idea that a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate whether President Bush broke the law when he ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on American citizens.

Toensing was debating James Bamford, an investigative reporter who wrote a book about the NSA titled, “The Puzzle Palace.” At the center of their debate is the 1978 law the president apparently broke – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – which clearly states that the government must get special permission to spy on U.S. citizens from a FISA court.

BAMFORD: This is a president who has [spied on U.S. citizens] constantly since 2001, bypassing [the FISA] law. This isn’t a one-time deal. And, again, he has a lot of options for going to the court and doing this. He didn’t go to the court and there is a legal provision in that statute that says “if you don’t go to the court, it’s five years in jail and a ten thousand dollar fine.” So the solution here is to get a special prosecutor to take a look at whether the law…
TOENSING: (Off camera) Ha!
BAMFORD: …Was violated. And I don’t know what’s funny about that. You know, we had the Republicans go to impeachment over a minor sexual discretion [sic] by a president. And here’s a president violating a law that says [there’s jailtime and a fine] if you manage to violate it.

All Toensing could say in response was to sputter about how members of Congress had been briefed on the domestic spying so they should be investigated too.

Another BS Speech from the Bush – But the BS Appears to Be Working

Jon Ponder

Propaganda by repetition: The campaign by the White House to boost public opinion of President Bush by repeating key words like “victory,” “terrorism” and “9/11” in his speeches over and over – and over – is working. His poll numbers have spiked four points! As usual, Buzzflash speaks for us all:

Frankly, we don’t give a damn if Bush was a little “more candid” in his script Sunday night. It’s all written for him based on polls anyways.

(An academic pollster from Duke has been hired by the White House to conform Bush speeches and Republican message points — that includes FOX GOP News — to polling results the guy has developed. These results show that the American public will put up with increasing U.S. military casualties if Bush promises “Victory” as the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s that simple; it’s all propaganda based on the polling of some “pointy headed” professor. It has nothing to do with reality. How’s that for irony?)

To us, for Bush to be completely candid, he would have to admit to crimes against the nation, the Constitution and humanity — and accept his judgment before the American courts and the World Court.

For us, if the president would just resign – and take Cheney with him – we would advocate letting them both off the hook, with the proviso that, like Nixon in exile, they must both stay off the political stage. With Bush in exile working on his abs in Crawford, and Cheney in exile in a nondisclosed location, the world would be a safer place.

(And yes, we’d have President Hastert to deal with, but the GOP would be chastened and it would find it harder to win congressional seats than the last time they disgraced themselves, with Nixon in 1974 – or the time before that, with McCarthy in the 1950’s – or the time before that, with Hoover at the dawn of the Great Depression.)

More Trouble on the Right for Bush – Bob ‘Impeachment’ Barr Says Domestic Spying Is a ‘Violation of Federal Laws’

Jon Ponder

Complete Transcript: Barr Debates Rohrabacher – here.

Thunder on the right – again: I happened to catch former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) duking it out with current Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on CNN yesterday over news that President Bush has been spying on U.S. citizens, which Barr said has been done “apparently in violation of federal laws.”

“Well, gee, I guess then the president should be able to ignore whatever provision in the Constitution as long as there’s something after the fact that justifies it.”
— Bob Barr

The president’s poll numbers are just now starting to inch up as conservatives who lost faith with him over Iraq and Katrina – and because he nominated his secretary to the Supreme Court – are starting to “come home.”

The last thing the White House needs now is another big internecine row. And they cannot want a fight with a pit bull like Barr – who as a Congressman filed charges against President Clinton long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. ( During the actual impeachment, he was one of the House Managers who tried the case against the president. )

Thrice divorced, Barr drafted the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 which bans federal recognition of same sex marriages. A strong opponent of abortion, his second wife says that Barr footed the bill when she terminated a pregnancy. A vocal advocate of “family values,” he was once photographed licking whipped cream off a woman’s naked chest.

All this hypocritical extremity aside, Barr is a strident conservative well to the right of the Big Government neocons who are running the government. So it is significant that he has come out so strongly against the charges of domestic spying – which, if proven to be illegal, are impeachable:

[…]

For Bush, Iraq War Has Always Been About GOP Politics

Jon Ponder

Bush’s war: From the outset of the Bush team’s “marketing campaign” (their words) promoting the war in Iraq in 2002, cynical types such as yours truly have suspected that going to war in Iraq on the timetable they rammed through the Congress and the Pentagon had everything to do with electing Republicans – including themselves in 2004 – and nothing whatsoever to do with WMD, democracy in the Middle East, fighting terrorism “over there” and the dozens of other reasons they have tested on us for sending American youths to die in Iraq.

I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.’ “

Now – at long last, and way too late – the former Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate confirms this suspicion:

Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator from South Dakota, remembers the exchange vividly.

The time was September 2002. The place was the White House, at a meeting in which President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney pressed congressional leaders for a quick vote on a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq.

But Daschle, who as Senate majority leader controlled the chamber’s schedule, recalled recently that he asked Bush to delay the vote until after the impending midterm election.

“I asked directly if we could delay this so we could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.'”

Daschle’s account, which White House officials said they could not confirm or deny, highlights a crucial factor that has drawn little attention amid rising controversy over the congressional vote that authorized the war in Iraq. The recent partisan dispute has focused almost entirely on the intelligence information legislators had as they cast their votes. But the debate may have been shaped as much by when Congress voted as by what it knew.

It was obvious in 2002, and it is crystal clear now, that the Bush team – led by their political director, Karl Rove – carefully scheduled the war so that the timetable would work with the schedule of the next two election cycles.

[…]

Must Listen: If Bush was Joking, Why is Blair Panicking?

Trish

Stop what you’re doing and listen to this NPR report on the British cover-up of Tony Blair holding Bush back from bombing the headquarters of Arab satellite station Al Jazeera.

Blair putting a restraining hand on George Bush casts Bush as somehow trigger happy…with Blair constantly reaching for the cold flannel to mop his forehead and calm him down

Day to Day’s Madeleine Brand interviewed the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, who reported the questions being asked in England are: If that good-natured, wacky cut-up George Bush was just joshing, then a) why was his proposition – and Blair’s attempts to talk him out of it – included in an official memo; and b) why is the British government going to such great lengths – invoking a gag order and threats of criminalization against anyone who might leak the memo’s contents – to squash it?

The answers to those questions include the possibility that there are other things in other memos, both about Bush’s idiocy and Blair’s restraining hand. And maybe, just maybe, the actual bombings of Al Jazeera in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the one at the Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, which killed one Al Jazeera journalist and critically wounded two more, were not the pure accidents the Bush administration claimed.

Nabil Khoury, a U.S. State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike on the Arab satellite TV network’s office was a mistake, and he called upon al-Jazeera not to jump to conclusions. “My personal view is that it is a mistake, a grave mistake. It is something we all regret,” Khoury said. “I personally cannot imagine that a country which respects general freedoms can target media establishments.”

Time to get a more vivid imagination, Nabil.

Some Al-Jazeera employees felt the bombing might have been deliberate, for the station has been reporting extensively on the plight of Iraqi civilians and the number of casualties from U.S. bomb attacks…

Chief editor Ibrahim Hilal, speaking from the station’s headquarters in Doha, said witnesses “saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location.”

Meanwhile, Freedland paints an even more nauseating picture.

The idea of Blair putting a restraining hand on George Bush casts Bush as somehow trigger happy…with Blair constantly reaching for the cold flannel to mop his forehead and calm him down. That’s not a flattering image, really, for either of them.”

“Potted Plant” Rumsfeld Cautions Against Speaking Out

Trish

Sec. Of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was so adept at bobbing and weaving to avoid responsibility on ABC’s This Week that Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria later said he made it sound as if his role in Iraq up to now is like that of a “potted plant.”

Indeed, listening to Rumsfeld, he had nothing to do with anything, ever. Unless it was good, and then it’s probably attributable to him and/or the Bush administration. If it was bad it’s because of Congress, impatient or disloyal Americans, and/or terrorists-insurgents. He’s only the secretary of defense, for crying out loud, what can he do?

Would he have still advocated invading had he known there were no weapons of mass distruction, Stephanopoulos asked. I didn’t advocate it, Rumsfeld answered, because the president never asked me. So was he not in favor of it? The president knew his feelings on the matter.

Did we have too few troops going in and do we still? That decision was always up to military leaders. So if they wanted more, as they have publicly stated, they could have them? A formal request from one of the three commanders of the Iraq war has never been formally turned down.

And on, and on. Rumsfeld played both sides of the net so exhaustively he was able to change the direction of the ball in midair, without it even touching the racket.

Rumsfeld just wants the questions to go away, even if it means making veiled threats, or as lapdog Jean Schmidt demonstrated, performing character assassination.

“We have to all have the willingness to have a free debate, but we also all have to have the willingness to understand what the effects of our words are,” he said.

He should know. The lies and distortions of the Bush administration have reaped horrific effects. Mere words can do that. And the unwillingness to debate first, then act with restraint and certainty later, is deadly.

Bush Knew Curveball’s Intelligence on WMD Was Wrong

Jon Ponder

Powell knew too: The man who was the principal source for President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was so emotionally and mentally disturbed that he was considered unreliable.

The Bush Conundrum:
When they cited the faulty intelligence, were they merely being incompetent or was it treason?

Now the Los Angeles Times reports that U.S. government officials, including the president, knew that the source, code named “Curveball,” was unbalanced and yet repeatedly cited his unreliable intelligence in the run-up to war.

Curveball was captured by the Germans and is under their control. A German official who supervised the suspect’s interrogation described his mental state this way:

“He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy… He is not a completely normal person.”

Furthermore, “the White House … ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball’s account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq’s biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.”

The president knowingly cited Curveball’s phony intelligence in his January 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had “mobile biological weapons labs” designed to produce “germ warfare agents.” Bush cited the mobile germ factories in at least four prewar speeches and statements, and other world leaders repeated the charge.

In a presentation before the U.N. a month later, Sec. of State Colin Powell also referred to Curveball’s intelligence as providing an “eyewitness account” that Iraq had sufficient germ stockpiles to kill “thousands and thousands” of people.

How is it possible that the president and the secretary of state did not know that Curveball was a flake and that information sourced to him was inoperative? Or did they know and choose to use it anyway because it supported their campaign to market the war?

These question brings us once again to the Bush conundrum: When the president and the secretary of state cited the faulty intelligence, were they merely being incompetent or was it treason?