The Bush Administration somehow keeps losing evidence

Glenn Greenwald:

The New York Times' revelation that "the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody" conclusively demonstrates obstruction of justice which, if Michael Mukasey has an ounce of integrity or independence, will be the subject of a serious and immediate criminal investigation. While the revelation is obviously significant, it is also is part of a long-standing pattern of such obstruction.

In April, I compiled a long list of the numerous court proceedings and other investigations which were impeded by extremely dubious claims from the Bush administration that key evidence was mysteriously "missing." Much of the "missing" evidence involved precisely the type of evidence that the CIA has now been forced here to admit it deliberately destroyed: namely, evidence showing the conduct of its agents during interrogation of detainees.

And here's his list.

Secrecy

TPM Muckraker:

Another year has almost passed under the Bush Administration, and so it's time to review how much less we know.

Last year, we launched the insanely ambitious project of recording every significant instance of this administration stifling government information. As we said then, "they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps." To be sure, the list will continue to grow through January, 2008.

Go read.

Good for MSNBC!

And it's purely market-driven. As it should be. As it hasn't been, with the corporate media.

New York Times:

iding a ratings wave from “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” a program that takes strong issue with the Bush administration, MSNBC is increasingly seeking to showcase its nighttime lineup as a welcome haven for viewers of a similar mind.

Lest there be any doubt that the cable channel believes there is ratings gold in shows that criticize the administration with the same vigor with which Fox News’s hosts often champion it, two NBC executives acknowledged yesterday that they were talking to Rosie O’Donnell about a prime-time show on MSNBC.

The O'Donnell negotiations didn't pan out, but MSNBC clearly understands that there's money to be made bucking the right-wing television hegemony.

But here's the interesting part:

Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape. Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

That the Times would mention this in such an off-hand way is very telling. A free and independent media should not have to worry about the political ramifications of playing to the market, and a government that might punish a corporation for producing profitable news programs that criticize said government is not a democratic government.

There is no such thing as accountability

Associated Press

The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

The Threat of Ethics!

Associated Press:

The Senate sent President Bush a bill Thursday to make lawmakers pay for private plane rides and disclose more about their efforts to fund pet projects and raise money from lobbyists.

Some advocates called it the biggest advance in congressional ethics in decades, but Bush received it coolly. He has "serious concerns" about the measure and has not decided whether to sign it, said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore.

Democrats, however, hailed the 83-14 Senate vote as proof they are fulfilling their 2006 campaign promise to crack down on lobbying abuses, which sent some lawmakers and a prominent lobbyist to prison. Like the House, the Senate passed the bill by a margin that would overcome a presidential veto, assuming no lawmakers switched sides.

Ethics would always be of serious concern to Bush.

Stonewalling

Associated Press:

President Bush is expected to claim executive privilege to prevent two more White House aides from testifying before Congress about the firings of federal prosecutors.

Thursday is the deadline for Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, to provide testimony and documents related to the firings, under a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Also subpoenaed was White House political aide J. Scott Jennings. The Justice Department included both men on e-mails about the firings and the administration's response to the congressional investigation.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has consistently said that top presidential aides -- present and past -- are immune from subpoenas and has declared the documents sought off-limits under executive privilege.

The Divine Right of Kings.

More Fun In Alaska

New York Times:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator’s house, federal law enforcement officials said.

The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency.

More Republican Follies, Alaska Bureau

TPM Muckraker:

The Wall Street Journal reports that 18-term Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is under criminal investigation for his dealings with Alaska oil services company Veco Corp.

While the investigation into Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) ties to Veco, including the remodeling of his Girdwood home, has been widely reported, this is the first time Young has been implicated in the scandal.

The Bush Way: CYA, Let Others Suffer

New York Times:

The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s largest program to help disaster victims rebuild their houses, improperly canceled thousands of loans it had promised homeowners along the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricanes, a government audit has found.

The agency canceled nearly 8,000 loans without calling the borrowers or mailing them a notice, according to the audit by the agency’s inspector general. The homeowners did eventually receive a letter contending that they had voluntarily given up their loans, the report says, even though many told auditors that they actually needed the money.

The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out.

It Begins

Washington Post:

The House Judiciary Committee voted today to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush's most trusted aides, taking its most dramatic step yet towards a constitutional showdown with the White House over the Justice Department's dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

The panel voted 22-17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings were protected by executive privilege.

"If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn't even have to bother to show up . . . then we have already lost," committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said before the vote. "We won't be able to get anybody in front of this committee or any other."

Why do they hate our troops?

Bob Geiger, of the Huffington Post:

We didn't need any further proof that Congressional Republicans really don't give a damn about the troops or their families but we just got it in the United States Senate anyway.

Just moments ago, Senate Republicans succeeded in a filibuster in which they refused to end debate on Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's S. 2012, which would have placed strict limits on National Guard and reserve deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as mandating more downtime at home before active-duty combat troops are returned to battle.

The vote was 56-41 to end debate, with 60 votes needed to move to a full, up-or-down vote on the Webb measure. Once again, the GOP has been successful at destroying another Democratic attempt at helping service members and their families caught in the buzzsaw of the Bush administration's lies and incompetence.

And from the Washington Post:

The Pentagon inspector general's office has found that a program to deliver special armored vehicles to protect military personnel in Iraq from roadside bombs has been marred by delays and questionable contracting practices that may have endangered troops.

The office examined $2.2 billion worth of contracts for armored vehicles and kits to upgrade them, according to a report made available to The Washington Post yesterday. Investigators found, among other things, that the Marine Corps issued $416.7 million in sole-source contracts to Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., for armored vehicles. A sole-source contract is a deal awarded without competitive bidding, usually because the Pentagon determines the firm is the only one able to deliver a service or because it needs an item quickly. Yet the report found that Marine officials knew of other potential bidders and that some advocates of competition were overruled.

The contracts continued even though Force Protection "did not perform as a responsible contractor and repeatedly failed to meet contractual delivery schedules for getting vehicles to the theater," the report said. Under one contract issued in 2005, Force Protection failed to deliver 98 percent of 122 mine-resistant vehicles on time despite getting $6.7 million from the Marines to upgrade its production facilities.

Long Overdue

The Hill:

House Judiciary Committee Democrats warned yesterday they would pursue a contempt of Congress motion if the White House fails respond to subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

The deadline for a response is Thursday, June 28. If the White House does not comply, it opens the possibility of a constitutional showdown between the two branches. In an ironic twist, the Department of Justice (DoJ) would be called on to enforce the contempt motion.

During yesterday’s testimony by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, panel Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) asked McNulty whether he would enforce such a motion. McNulty responded that he would recuse himself from handling such matters because of an internal DoJ investigation into the U.S. attorneys matter.

The FBI Is Watching

Two new reports ought to make us all feel more secure. Or something. The FBI is watching. It's really watching.

The first report is from ABC News:

A terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

Half a million names? Here's a clue: if they need to watch a half a million people, they're probably not doing a very good job of figuring out who to watch. Either that, or we're pretty much all suspect; and if that's the case, someone's probably just a little too mentally unstable to be running a national security agency. And they say Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theorists are nuts!

The second report is from the Washington Post:

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.

Several thousand mistakes? And I'm assuming those don't include the monitoring of those half a million people that the FBI seems to think should be monitored. So, it's probably not a stretch to presume that that half a million figure should be revised. Upward.

Just as interesting, is this part of the Post article:

The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.

Isn't that reassuring? While the FBI is out of control, spying on more than a half a million people, breaking laws and their own rules, telephone conpanies and internet providers are handing over private data that no one even asked for! Might this not be worth a Congressional investigation? Wouldn't it be nice to know if your phone company or internet provider is so blithely dismissive of your privacy rights?

Meanwhile, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III knows how to spend your tax dollars. As the Washington Post reported on Tuesday:

When the FBI asked Congress this spring to provide $3.6 million in the war spending bill for its Gulfstream V jet, it said the money was needed to ensure that the aircraft, packed with state-of-the-art security and communications gear, could continue to fly counterterrorism agents on "crucial missions" into Iraq.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the bureau has made similar annual requests to maintain and fuel the $40 million jet on grounds that it had a "tremendous impact" on combating terrorism by rapidly deploying FBI agents to "fast-moving investigations and crisis situations" in places such as Afghanistan.

But the jet that the FBI originally sold to lawmakers in the late 1990s as an essential tool for battling terrorism is now routinely used to ferry FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to speeches, public appearances and field office visits.

Not that anyone in the Bush Administration would ever politicize federal agencies of intelligence or justice.

Time for yet another in a seemingly endless series of rhetorical questions: what do the words "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" mean?

Glenn Greenwald in Salon

Salon:

Having now carefully reviewed the Al-Marri decision (.pdf), as well as ample commentary from those defending and criticizing the opinion, there are several points worth making. But the overarching point is how extraordinary it is -- specifically, how extraordinarily disturbing it is -- that we are even debating these issues at all.

Although its ultimate resolution is complicated, the question raised by Al-Marri is a clear and simple one: Does the President have the power -- and/or should he have it -- to arrest individuals on U.S. soil and keep them imprisoned for years and years, indefinitely, without charging them with a crime, allowing them access to lawyers or the outside world, and/or providing a meaningful opportunity to contest the validity of the charges?

How can that question not answer itself? Who would possibly believe that an American President has such powers, and more to the point, what kind of a person would want a President to have such powers? That is one of a handful of powers which this country was founded to prevent.

The Republicans, that's what kind.

Finallly, It Begins!

AP:

The chairmen of two congressional committees issued subpoenas Monday for testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor on their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

Democrats probing whether the White House improperly dictated which prosecutors the Justice Department should fire also are subpoenaing the White House for all relevant documents.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont issued Taylor's subpoena for her testimony July 11. His counterpart in the House, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan, issued a subpoena for Miers' testimony the next day.

Nice Way To Use Our Money

Washington Post:

When the FBI asked Congress this spring to provide $3.6 million in the war spending bill for its Gulfstream V jet, it said the money was needed to ensure that the aircraft, packed with state-of-the-art security and communications gear, could continue to fly counterterrorism agents on "crucial missions" into Iraq.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the bureau has made similar annual requests to maintain and fuel the $40 million jet on grounds that it had a "tremendous impact" on combating terrorism by rapidly deploying FBI agents to "fast-moving investigations and crisis situations" in places such as Afghanistan.

But the jet that the FBI originally sold to lawmakers in the late 1990s as an essential tool for battling terrorism is now routinely used to ferry FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to speeches, public appearances and field office visits.

More Evidence Gonzales Is A Criminal

The Washington Post has conducted an extensive analysis of Bush Administration immigration judge appointees, and concludes that the Administration has politicized these judicial selections, despite laws specifically forbidding such a practice. In the wake of the U.S. Attorneys scandal, which inspired the investigation, this blatantly illegal behavior should come as no surprise; but it is yet another example of the Administration's monomaniacal obsession with politicizing absolutely every aspect of government, to the detriment of the government's ability to function.

As the Post explains:

The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law, Justice Department, immigration court and other records show.

Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

Also appointed were a Republican election law specialist from New Jersey, a former treasurer of the Republican Party in Louisiana, a White House staffer, and an anti-pornography advocate. None had any apparent qualification to be involved in immigration issues; and one El Paso appointee was later ruled to lack even the minimum qualification.

According to sworn testimony before Congressional investigators, the Department of Justice abandoned the traditional civil service process for selecting judges in 2004. Our friends Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling reportedly explained that they thought the practice was legal, but DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd says it was not. These appointments are made by the Attorney General, and this politicization took place under both Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales.

According to news reports, the no-confidence resolution against Gonzales will be voted on today. Given this latest report, it's time for Congress to realize that no-confidence just doesn't cut it. The man breaks laws. He is a criminal. He is the nation's chief law enforcement officer. It's time to get serious about dealing with him.

Cheney Placed At Center Of Domestic Spying Scandal!

Yesterday's Washington Post reports:

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

So, the Vice President was personally involved in authorizing Domestic Spying; and if you don't recall the macabre story about White House efforts to force ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft to override DOJ objections, and also sign off on this baltantly illegal program, the Washington Post's editorial board had this to say:

JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.

Yesterday's Post article states that this disclosure places Cheney more at the center of this scandal than had been known. For the first time, Cheney is shown to have been personally involved in attempting to override the Department of Justice's own ruling that Domestic Spying was illegal; and it indicates that the urgency of the White House's attempt to bully Ashcroft into authorizing the spying was directly linked.

It's now very clear: the White House knew they were breaking the law. The Vice President knew he was breaking the law. They wanted to use Ashcroft to provide political cover for their knowingly breaking the law. They were so desperate to use Ashcroft as political coverage for their knowingly breaking the law, that they attempted to storm into his hospital room and force him to sign something he might not have even been coherent enough to know he was signing!

And, as all Bush Administration scandals do, it gets even worse. Also from today's Post article:

Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

In other words, a career professional whose professional opinion didn't accord with the White House's desire to break the law was punished for wanting the White House to do so.

Alberto Gonzales, Andrew Card, and Dick Cheney are criminals. They know it. We know it. It's time for Congress to act like they know it!

Alaska Republican Senator Is In Deep Trouble

Remember Ted Stevens, the man who called the internet a series of tubes, is responsible for the 223 million dollar bridge to nowhere, and threw a juvenile hissy fit on the Senate floor, when other Senators tried to defund his pet pork projects? Well, already under ivestigation by the FBI for having had his house remodeled, for free, by a contractor, he's now pushing for a federal earmark for his son's employer.

TPM Muckraker has the story:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) wants to make sure an earmark left over from 2005 gets to the right oil company – the one that employs his son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens.

Roll Call (sub. req.) has the story today on the $2 million that is supposed to help a subsidiary of SEMCO Energy to study the feasibility of a pipeline in Alaska.

Another Senate seat the Democrats might be looking at winning, in 2008...

A Quick Guide To Repug Scandals

Courtesy of Slate.