The NY Times has Gonzales dead to rights. It turns out his testimony was exactly accurate, and the Senator’s were either confused or were just pretending the dispute in the hospital room was over the Terrorist Surveillance Program, not the NSA datamining program.
Clearly, we need more investigation until someone commits a process crime.
"A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program. It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate.
But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.
The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.
Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining.If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct."
I think by “technically correct” the NY Times means he told the truth.
It is pretty clear that the Senators’ game is to ask him questions he can only answer candidly by publicly disclosing classified information. He offers to answer in a classified setting, but this is all about the cameras rather than just getting information, so they refuse.
It reminds me of the recent trial of a rape case in which the judge instructed that the word rape and a few other words not be used at trial. The victim raised hell because if she answered according to judges orders she would look evasive. It looks like the judge will be getting his mind right in time for the next trial.
How many of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee are also members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and what was their reaction to Gonzales’ testimony? Keep in mind, if you sit on one of the intelligence committee’s, you know what’s going down in the real world, not the fantasy of the mainstream press.
Edited to add: The more the NSA story is exposed the more it becomes clear that the only people supporting the illegal wiretapping were, Bush, Gonzales and Yoo. Am I missing someone. The Justice department wasn’t on board. Who else?
The funniest one was when he said that some of the US attorneys were fired because of improper conduct and then listed some examples of behaviour that would qualify. When pressed, he admitted that none of them had actually done any of the examples he gave.
Or when he said that he had clarified his position on Monday, then admitted that he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone about it and he would need to check what his spokesperson had said on Monday. Clarity by clairvoyance - I like it!
He’s a pretty easy target - keeps on setting himself up to be hit.
I have no dog in this fight, but it is great entertainment.
The more the NSA story is exposed the more it becomes clear that the only people supporting the illegal wiretapping were, Bush, Gonzales and Yoo. Am I missing someone. The Justice department wasn’t on board. Who else?
Art Franke.
You aren’t forgetting Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jane Harmen and Jay Rockefeller, are you?
In all fairness, you now have to add a majority of Congress since they continue to fund it. Which party controls Congress again?
The Terrorist Surveillance Program is just like the Patriot Act. They all rant against it until it comes time to vote, then they vote for it. That strategy obviously works, since it sure sucks in all the BDS victims participating in this forum.
As usual, now that Gonzales has been vindicated and his accusers shown to be either liars or idiots, Ken and company just move on to the next talking point.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many seem to live on another planet. Gonzales’s answers were precisely correct. If Congress wanted less cryptic and more clear answers they could have asked him questions in a classified setting. They didn’t want clear answers. They wanted unclear answers, so they chose the forum and the questions so as to get precisely that.
Congress sets perjury trap asking questions in an unclassified setting that can only be answered clearly in a classified setting. AG gives precise answers to the questions asked without revealing classified material. Congress whines about unclear answers. Calls for investigation of AG who told precise truth. Enough investigations and maybe he will finally trip up next time for sure.
The game continues. We have yet another fake, but accurate scandal, and the morons swallow the contrived news.
I didn’t say they were incorrect, I said they were intentionally misleading.
Gonzales could have said “I’m sorry I’m not going to answer your questions because the information is classified” and left it at that.
I’m not saying it makes sense to persecute him over this, I’m not saying congress isn’t full of douchebags, I’m just saying Gonzales was intentionally misleading.
Not really admirable behavior on either side here.
I beg you, stop with this ridiculous, nonsensical talking point. There is no such animal. No one is “trapped” into lying. Moreover, if there were such a scenario, you’d have a defense of entrapment. You either answer truthfully or you don’t. Saying he can’t discuss something because it is classified is a perfectly legit answer. Asking about classifed information does not grant permission to lie.
Mclamb, we already know you have bookmarks set to all the left wing Kool ade drinking sites. What a shock. They have hit pieces up. This one is particularly weak.
I don’t know why this is news. Of course, he was lying, he works in government. How you can you tell that a government official is lying? His/her lips are moving.
It’s weak because it points out explicitly that Gonzalez is lying? Weak would be making no specific references to the testimony or past statements.
You keep on thinking that Gonzo is on the up and up.
Here’s another liberal kook:
“I think Gonzales has long, long, long outserved whatever usefulness he might once have had,” wrote Goldberg. “And — hey — maybe he actually did perjure himself.”