Newsweek: White House Says Gonzales Did Not Know Comey Was Acting AG

:eyes:

.

Lots of village idiots vying for that spot in this admin. Different candidates offer their 'best' every other week it seems.

Perhaps a cartoon in the making here, Atman.

Lots of attorneys and a real joke in the making.

"Gonzolies" is the English neologism describing the last man standing after a lying match.
"Gonzo journalism" refers to when an author cannot remove himself from the subject he investigates ....
"Gonzo" is Irish slang describing the last man standing after a drinking marathon.

Will the real "Gonzolies" please stand up ...

MORE: Gonzolies (verb. nov.) English, May 17, 2007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x907626

They are two of the same.

And both totally, completely incapable of performing their jobs.

stay out of jail.

It was HIS JOB to know who the acting AG was, because the acting AG was HIS BOSS!

Gonzo just didn't like the answers Comey was giving him so he decided to do an end run around him to get approval from a man who was flat on his back and doped up to the gills.

Gonzo is not stupid. He's far from it. He's intelligent, amoral and utterly ruthless. These are not qualities any AG should possess in combination. He has to go.

Lying and stupid.

Couldn't he be lying and stupid? Bush manages that nicely.

a gorked Ashcroft and then by the time Comey realized it was signed, Ashcroft would be back on the job. Gonzo is not that stupid.

:spray:

:toast:


:D

almost as good as plausible deniability.

Welcome to DU!

Q: Who knew...

They would use planes to fly into buildings?

That the levees had broken?

That the Niger documents were forgeries?

That Chalabi had been totally discredited by the CIA years ago?

That we wouldn't be greeted as liberators?

There were no WMDs?

A: The WH.

2nd Q: Is anybody still buying this crapola? :shrug:

It must be getting tedious for the poor things to have to keep uttering the same phrase over and over again.
You'd think by now they'd all be issued a flash card inscribed with a simple pictograph meaning "land sakes alive, I just didn't know!"
Something sturdy and laminated that could withstand being held up and waved vigorously several times each day.

Their MO is plain as day, break the law and lie about it. It might work once or twice but their little game has become quite transparent.

Gonzales as legal consul to the president would have known that the A.G. transferred his
power to Comey when he became ill. Also Ashcroft as he was in the I.C.U. and was being
bothered by Gonzales & Andy Card to sign the document giving his O.K. on the N.S.A. spying
told them that he no longer had any power and said that Comey had the power of the A.G.
and pointed him out.

Either give it up with the name or don't mention it. It's a ridiculous assertion because if Comey didn't have the authority they never would have asked him in the first place.

Chimpy wasn't informed that Comey was acting AG? BULLSHIT. Chimpy's fingerprints are ALL over this illegal effort to sign off on the warantless wiretap program by bullying a sick man in a hospital.. Chimp was informed of Comey's AG authority, but tht was an inconvenient truth so he tried to skirt the law. Impeach, goddammit.


George Bush was actively involved. Comey remembered vaguely that Bush called Mrs. Ashcroft to get Andy Card and Gonzales admitted into the hospital. This means Bush took active part in an attempt to use Ashcroft's indisposition to give his spying program legal cover.- http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/05/the_new_details.html#more

And there is always a way to prove a phone call happened.

If he called Mrs. Ashcroft, then he knew about all of it and deliberately sent the goon squad in for the autograph, and B* knew Comey was the acting head.

B* is the one to made that change, regardless of who did or did not "get the memo."

It's a no-brainer.

:kick:

and people actually buy into the lie

Why do you want to keep someone with such a horrible memory?

The idea that the President's top legal consul did not know that
the A.G. had moved his legal authority to his # 2 man in the Dept.
of Justice when he was sick is laughable. Even without talking to the
President that FACT would be on his (Alberto's) desk before it happened.
Hell, it would have been on the front page of the Washington Post.

8/22/07 bush will be gone.

BTW can you do me a little favor? Rev :loveya: Cheese

Anybody who has half a brain ( even bush ) inside the beltway
would have known that Ashcroft transferred power when he
took sick.

Look up the date(s) and do a google search .... it would have
been front page on the Washington Post or @ least on the page
2 news summery section.

Those who forget the past are doomed to ...

...

... errr....

What were we talking about?

that whether its criminal incompetence or a conspiracy, he's got to go. He's either too stupid to do the job right, or he's seriously messing up the whole coverup of it all. The "I do not recall" defense is about as flimsy as it gets.

program approved??? They don't deny the facts of the meeting, just that Gonzo didn't know Comey was acting AG - I don't recall, I can't remember Gonzo needs to resign and have some scans of his brain done, memory loss like that at his age isn't right.

but given Ashcroft's had a Congressionally confirmed position (not sure if is/was cabinet level) wouldn't Bush have had to authorized/approve the temporary change of authority?

Ashcroft Hospitalized With Pancreatitis
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, March 5, 2004
WASHINGTON – Attorney General John Ashcroft was in a hospital intensive care unit Friday after suffering a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis, a serious and painful abdominal illness.
Ashcroft, a 61-year-old former U.S. senator and governor of Missouri, was being treated with antibiotics. The ailment often clears up after a week or so of treatment but sometimes requires surgery. In extreme cases, it can cause death.

Doctors at George Washington University Hospital said they needed more time to evaluate Ashcroft and make a prognosis. It's possible he could remain hospitalized for a month or more.

Under Justice Department rules, Deputy Attorney General James Comey is authorized to exercise "all power and authority" of the attorney general. No transfer of power is necessary.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/3/5/165100.shtml

"No one could have predicted that terrorist would hijack planes and fly them into buildings." - Condeleeza Rice


What is amazing to me is how these assholes continually trot out defenses that make them look like a bunch of numbskulls. What is disappointing to me is that the "hardcore conservatives" still buy this bullshit. When reality conflicts with your ideology, clearly something must be wrong with reality.

that he just forgot about that little detail.

Our attorney general cannot remember what he has for lunch on any given day, and of course has NO recollection of who attended an important meeting HE called. He cannot remember doing anything wrong..in fact he's pretty sure if he DID anything, it was probably OK.

He does not know who he hired, who he fired, but thinks he might had had someone else do it, but he cannot really ask them, since they either pleaded the fifth, resigned or were fired by someone else.

He strings words together like loose pearls, yet has no idea what he's saying.

When he was the president's lawyer, he had no idea who was acting attorney general,even though the rest of the nation knew that Comey was acting-attorney general..

Even now that he is apparently attorney general himself, he still thinks "he works for the "president"...not the people.

he has managed to make John Ashcroft look like a good guy..

and Gonzo probably cannot even sing..

The only thing he has going for him is that he's not afraid of bronze statuary boobies:)

:thumbsup:

neatly folding her underwear:)

:)

Need to get out of military service and have your records fudged?

Call the Law Firm of Gonzales and Miers.

assume it's a LIE. That's what I do. If they're talking, they're lying. Period.The sooner the Dems in Congress figure that out, the better off they'll be.

are they REALLY gonna buy that? Haha... Lord help us all.

The Sgt. Schultz defense isn't going over so well. Time for Plan B, plain old stonewalling and 'in your face' tactics. This will go over even better, huh ?

is that when they took office no one reminded them that one lie makes many. Now all the lies are caught up in one hell of a tangled weave. Any attempt to escape from one lie throws them directly into another trap.

It's fugging funny watching the Dems unravel this jumble of deception, criminality and war crimes.
Sadly my fear is that they and their robber barons will stop at nothing to maintain power, although I think the system is strong enough to devour them.

fire bullets.

At some point, Congress is going to have to recognize that Mr. Gonzalez is simply a very corrupt man and impeach him. I would think that, if they can agree on a no confidence vote, they could agree that a man like Gonzalez cannot be allowed to head the DoJ. Impeach him.

The same choice this disgusting administration has given America and the world since Day 1: EVIL and/or stupid. It's demoralizing to the troops. :sarcasm:

Let's assume that Gonzo's head is so far up his ass all he sees are his tonsils & his sphincter is choking him. Wouldn't any remotely sane professional think, "Gee, the boss is in ICU, seriously ill. Surely there must be a temporary replacement - I don't know who that is! Let me call one of my butt-boys, I mean lackeys over at DOJ".

No, Al & Andy rush over & sneak in to stick one more knife in that quaint old Constitution. Bush cuts brush, they shovel shit.

Anyway, that's my theory as to why establishment lawmen like Comey and Mueller were so pissed off. It wasn't so much the illegal spying as WHO they were spying on.

Newsweek has ever been the compliant Cheney toady, to promulgate the planted story line. I noticed this way back in 2001 during the Gary Condit scandal. (Condit met with Cheney on the day one his mistresses disappeared, and during the very hours of her disappearance. The timing, length and attendees of that meeting were very important, in part because Cheney was Condit's only alibi during that time. But no one--not the FBI, or the DC police, or any news organization--asked Cheney or anyone in his office about that meeting, throughout the months of May, June and July. Then came a story in Newsweek, quoting Cheney aides--that the meeting was short, routine and attended by two aides. I pretty much wrote off DC media at that time--and particularly Newsweek. They gave Cheney three months to cock up his version of the meeting, then floated it in the pages of Newsweek.)

I noticed Comey's phrasing early in his testimony. He was describing his meeting with Ashcroft about the spying program, and he said they were "reviewing what they had learned." This sounds more like information, details, than like a discussion of legal theory. "...what they had learned" about the spying program. WHAT had they "learned"? It wasn't a new program. They only RECENTLY figured out that it was illegal? I don't think so. I think what they "had learned" was what it was being used FOR. And we can make educated guesses from there: spying on their own people, and their own agencies, spying on the domestic political opposition.

:sarcasm:

BTW, excerpts from one Newsweek (02/06/06 issue) article, Palace Revolt, seem to belie any talking point that Gonzales and Card were unaware the acting-AG, decision-making role Comey had assumed by the time of their "well-wishing" hospital visit to Ashcroft. According the the article (emphasis mine), after an "angry reaction" to the non-re-authorization reached the Oval Office, Bush "had begun referring [specifically] to Comey as "Cuomey" or "Cuomo"...and "a high-level delegation — White House Counsel Gonzales and chief of staff Andy Card — visited Ashcroft in the hospital to appeal Comey's refusal..."

--the guy whose job he's about to be appointed to take over? He probably never even heard of the dude before. He probably didn't know there was a Department of Justice to be acting head of.
Why would the President's Chief of Staff know who's running DOJ? Probably if they are good Americans like I know they are, the Chief of Staff and White House Counsel kick back on the sofa to watch WWF, NASCAR, or American Idol when they aren't cracking heads for the President, so they'd have no reason to know more stuff than the average American knows about who runs things. But of course, smarty pants elitist liberals think they should know everything about the way gummint works and who runs things. A good American only needs to know that the President runs things, period!

in front of Mrs. Ashcroft?

I wish I could be able to do my job as badly as these folks and still hold on to it!

Without having to view Comey's testimony again, didn't he say he wouldn't renew the spying program? If that's true, then it would mean Bushco did know Comey was in charge, they just didn't like his answer.

Whoever contacted whom, first, the non-re-authorization was apparently attributed as "Comey's refusal" at the White House, according to the article. Comey had to be seen as the decision-maker on the matter, i.e. as acting-AG.

And the delegation of WH Counsel and Chief of Staff to the hospital was after Bush "had begun referring to Comey as "Cuomey" or "Cuomo"...

They had to know the role Comey had assumed.

SCHUMER: OK. Anything else of significance relevant to this line of questioning occur on Thursday the 11th, that you can recall?
COMEY: No, not that I recall.
SCHUMER: Thank you. Now, let's go to the next day, which was March 12. Can you tell us what happened then?
COMEY: I went to the Oval Office -- as I did every morning as acting attorney general -- with Director Mueller to brief the president and the vice president on what was going on on Justice Department's counterterrorism work. We had the briefing. And as I was leaving, the president asked to speak to me, took me in his study and we had a one-on-one meeting for about 15 minutes -- again, which I will not go into the substance of. It was a very full exchange. And at the end of that meeting, at my urging, he met with Director Mueller, who was waiting for me downstairs. He met with Director Mueller again privately, just the two of them. And then after those two sessions, we had his direction to do the right thing, to do what we...

angered with Comey, who had backed up the analysis of Goldsmith, Ashcroft and Philbin of the illegality of the NSA program (as it was then conditioned).

After the March 12 meeting with Bush:


Comey, as acting-AG never signed the document certifying legality, after researching it was only customary to do so but not required by law. So, in lieu of certifying by signature an ILLEGAL program, as acting-AG for DOJ he "impose(d) tougher legal standards before permitting eavesdropping on communications into the United States." This allowed Comey's ass-to-be-covered and the White House a loophole: 1) no signature certifying the WH's NSA spying program (deemed illegal by DOJ as then-presently constituted); instead, imposition of additional, tougher standards for execution of the program, and 2) shared legal research with the WH that no statute actually required a DOJ signature certifying legality prior to execution of the WH spying program (if it opted to do so).

(If the White House lawyers were really sharp, shouldn't they have been able to discover the same information that Comey did: No statutory requirement for DOJ signature certification of legality?)

I'm merely pointing out Comey testified he went to the WH every day as acting attorney general. How could that possibly slip by Gonzales or Card if Comey & Mueller met with Bush every morning? And of course there's that question again...who from the WH called Mrs. Ashcroft?

immediately upon first opportunity and his temporary role as acting-AG. This could have been as early as the morning of Friday, March 5 (going by the fact Ashcroft was taken to the hospital the afternoon of the day "one week before the March 11 deadline."). Presumably Comey also appeared at the WH on Monday, March 8. "And over the next week -- particularly the following week, on Tuesday [March 9] -- we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality..."

Transcript, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on U.S. Attorney Firings


Schumer should call on David Ayers and, if necessary, Mrs. Ashcroft to learn who it was from the White House that called the evening of March 10. (Conspiracy to defraud the U.S.? see Comey’s Evidence Of A Crime Michael Collins)

;-)

"Adults in charge" indeed.

"Gonzales and Card were unaware that Comey was acting A.G."

ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, and incongruous excuse!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Apparently it's not much. He's either a nitwit or a liar. Or both.

... or being so clueless as to think a drug-stupored decision by a critically-ill man would have any legal standing?

he's either lying or incompetent.

Lame!

From the article on Ashcroft's gallbladder surgery, Mar. 10th, 2004:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F06E6D9143EF933A25750C0A9629C8B63



Bolding mine.

X-posted from marmar's thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x282621

Shayana Kadidal
05.20.2007
Comey and the Phone Companies' Role in the NSA Program (2 comments )

On Friday, professional administration apologist Douglas Kmiec published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he criticizes former Deputy AG James Comey's testimony as "staggeringly histrionic," claims the media's analogies between the threatened mass resignations (of Comey, Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller) to Watergate's Friday Night Massacre are absurd, and then (correctly) notes that the president, not the Attorney General or anyone else in DOJ, has the last word on exactly which interpretation of federal laws the rest of the executive branch will follow.

Over at the Balkinization blog, Marty Lederman of Georgetown Law School breaks down Professor Kmiec's op-ed, and zeros in on one of the most interesting issues that Kmiec (perhaps inadvertently) highlights: "Why did the president seek the AG's signature, anyway, if it wasn't required by statute and the president could have the final word?"

For my money, the most intriguing answer Professor Lederman provides is that "the signature might have been necessary to induce the requisite private actors -- telecom companies in particular -- to continue to go along with the program." (Orin Kerr, a more conservative expert on surveillance issues, concurs.)

Here's how that would work: the Wiretap Act contains a section, 18 USC 2511(2)(a)(ii), that allows telecom providers and other private parties (e.g. your landlord) to help the government carry out electronic surveillance if those private parties have been "provided with ... a court order" or "a certification in writing by ... the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the specified assistance is required."

...(snip)...

Let's just be clear what this means. Congress can pass all the privacy legislation it wants to keep your phone calling records, banking records, stored emails, etc. private. But if some private telecom company decides that terrorist attacks are "expected" and that turning over all this statutorily-protected information to the executive "may" be helpful to law enforcement, the telephone company's First Amendment rights to do that trump Congress' power to preserve your privacy. No matter what privacy laws Congress tries to pass, the First Amendment voids them all if the phone company decides it wants to ignore them.

Imagine this: an out-of-control, lawless executive starts a rampage of privacy violations by getting information on innocent citizens' phone calls, emails, and internet searches from private telecom companies. Congress overwhelmingly passes a bill to curtail the abuses by regulating those private parties, overriding the president's veto in the process. Isn't this a normal use of the political process? According to Verizon, no. Your elected officials don't get to decide. Your telecom company gets to decide. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/comey-and-the-phone-compa_b_48928.html

It's proof he's just too stupid to be commanding our armed forces. But my bet is he's a liar as usual.

I do not recall
I do not remember

Gonzo is either the stupidest person ever, or the most corrupt

:dunce: :dunce: :dunce:

No shit!
I've been asking that myself for the last 6 years!!

The Bush administration is in a pretty tight spot and they did it all by themselves, like big boys!

Think about it, Bush just plain cannot afford to let Gonzo go. He would lose both his enforcer and his protector. He would have to nominate a new AG and there's no way that nominee will bypass the scrutiny of a Democratically controlled Senate. If Gonzo stays, he has to keep playing the stupid card. They can't win whatever they do. They've painted themselves in their own corner and it's delightful to watch. :)

We're in desperate excuse time. What a lame one that is.

I suppose the next thing he'll say is "The dog ate my homework!"

Why do republicons lie all the time to the American people?

Republicons = no integrity, no honor.

It's like they don't even care anymore if anyone believes them. That's about as credible as "the dog ate my homework." Gonzales should stick with "I don't recall."