May 2007: Oh, What A Tangled Web They Weave

Donna Garde/TX Parks & Wildlife Dept. (Giant web; large view here.)

It's no news that a key to Bushco's success is the way deceit is practiced in complicated ways, on so many levels.

And the methodology is the ultimate use of the Reaganite tactic of filling government with operatives who hate everything about government—everything except their own use of it—for power and financial profit, for themselves and their cronies.

Nowhere has this been more evident, or happened on so many fronts, than in Bushco's Department of "Justice." This month, details are coming to light regarding violation of FISA law, political use of US Attorney offices, and much, much more.

James Comey, Deputy Attorney General under Ashcroft, testifies before House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The Senate has sought Ashcroft and Comey's testimony since February 2006, after the NYT reported the administration's violation of FISA by spying on citizens. Glenn Greenwald, who covers FISA extensively, notes the committee especially wanted to question Ashcroft and Comey about a Newsweek report that in 2004 they had refused to certify the legality of an NSA eavesdropping program.

And Greenwald notes that when current AG Alberto Gonzales refused to allow them to testify—claiming the regime's usual excuse of "privilege"—he added, "You have to wonder what could Messrs. Comey and Ashcroft add to the discussion." From this same Greenwald post of May 15, just after Comey's testimony that day—

...it became clear exactly what they could "add to the discussion," and it became equally clear why Gonzales sought to suppress their testimony.

This because Comey had laid out the B-movie melodrama of the Ashcroft hospital room scene—

The White House phone call to Mrs. Ashcroft, who had banned visits to her gravely ill husband.

Comey's urgent call to FBI director Robert Mueller, enlisting Mueller to come to the hospital as backup.

Comey and security detail's race to intercept White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and then-WH Counsel Gonzalez, who were en route to get the incapacitated AG's signature.

And what's really astounding—it's not that the regime used thug tactics on its own AG—but that the illegality of what they wanted rubber-stamped was so blatant, even John "Phantoms of Lost Liberty" Ashcroft opposed it!

The day following Comey's Senate testimony, Greenwald reviews its significance, getting right to the point:

...yesterday's hearing underscores how unresolved the entire NSA matter is -- how little we know (but ought to know) about what actually happened and how little accountability there has been for some of the most severe and blatant acts of presidential lawbreaking in the country's history.
...
Beyond the indisputable crimes that were committed here -- and violating the law and engaging in eavesdropping that the Congress has prohibited are "crimes" in every sense of the word, in this case punishable with five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense -- there is still the completely unanswered question of how the President used these illegal eavesdropping powers.

As Greenwald notes, the only judge to rule on Bush wiretapping found it unconstitutional. And that ruling was in a suit brought by the ACLU on behalf of journalists and organizations presumed to be targets of spying.

And Thom Hartmann reminds us of the Republican history of spying on Dems, from Nixon to the most recently known example: an Orrin Hatch staffer's hacking of Democratic Senate computers and distribution of stolen material to friendly media. It's very likely that Hartmann is correct in inferring that the regime's push to eavesdrop has always been Nixonian "Enemies" territory, writ large—

[Bush's] administration and party have already been busted by the BBC for targeting Democratic voters in Florida and Ohio to strip them of their right to vote; have already been convicted in Federal Court of jamming Democratic phone banks on election day; have already been outed for targeting groups like the Raging Grannies and The League of Women Voters for "terrorist" surveillance.

Who was spied on first? Probably every Democratic politician in America. (We know they got Kennedy and Durban!)

Who was spied on after that? Probably every journalist and liberal author, columnist, and progressive talk show host in America.

Talking Points Memo has been on the trail of the US Attorneys firing story, with a timeline here. These were eight Republicans—appointed in Bush's first term—then fired beginning in 2004, for investigating Republican corruption and/or refusing to investigate baseless "voter fraud" charges pushed by White House/GOP operatives.

I've been accumulating a fat file of material from TPM's posts—there's so much detail to grasp, and it's complicated by how many attorneys and offices were involved. And the posts draw comments from readers in different locales, who suggest much more material to be examined. Which points to the usual problem of how much goes on at local levels that either is not covered, or is misrepresented by national media—even when local events are part of a pattern of national importance.

One of the TPM stories:

Bingo! I think we have our 9th fired US Attorney -- and one replaced in short order by one of the Bush DOJ's prime 'vote fraud' scammers.

...referring to Missouri, and replacement of Todd Graves by Bradley Schlozman. Because, as Greg Gordon reports for McClatchy,
2006 Missouri's election was ground zero for GOP.

Which is largely what the US Attorney firings were about—use of the DOJ to suppress voter rights in order to suppress expected Democratic turnout. The USA offices were one front of the plan; the Civil Rights Division was another.

As sickening as is use of the Civil Rights Division to thwart civil rights, it's also completely predictable under the Reagan Doctrine of installing appointments to steer agencies in the opposite direction of their intended purpose. And to step up the subversion, Gonzales secretly delegated aides Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, to serve as political commissars arranging the placement of loyalists throughout the DOJ.


As for the US Attorneys—like all of the Bushco DOJ, and most importantly those appointees in place for beyond 2009—the USAs who kept their jobs are the real problem now.

In the Alabama office, Leura Canary, wife of a longtime Karl Rove intimate, has years of involvement in the outright political imprisonment of former governor Don Siegelman—prosecuted for the crime of being a popular Democrat running against a Rove crony. Raw Story's coverage of the events–and the Rove fingerprints all over them–includes this timeline. And this summary of events, which includes a photo flowchart of the nexus of Rove-Jack Abramoff-Alabama political/legal system players behind the Siegelman prosecution.

In April 2009—despite Republicans out of the Executive and a Democratic Attorney General—Siegelman's conviction has been upheld—as Scott Horton reports—by an Alabama appeals court

...consisting entirely of Republican judges, and two of the three had an active record of political engagement in G.O.P. causes. They were a distinctly hostile audience for Governor Siegelman, and many passages of the opinion, to my eyes, reflect this.

The judiciary, like the DOJ—and all other agencies—is full of operatives ready and eager to create exactly this "legacy" for Bushco.

But then, the BBC story about the image at top was aptly titled, Texan spiders spin 'monster web'.