Letters to the Editor
_zack_
Published Letters: 373 Editor's Choice: 5
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I suspect the trail leads back to Karl Rove's "plan"
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We know from the AG-firing scandal that the Dept. of Justice has become nothing less than a tool of Karl Rove’s, no different than his Blackberry.
I suspect that at some point so did the NSA program, a transformation that even Ashcroft and Comey found discomfiting. There was no way for them to tie something that Rove was doing with the program to “terrorist groups” and they knew if it ever became public, there would be criminal charges filed against them. Whatever Karl was doing was somehow shifted to an “entity” no longer under the jurisdiction of the Justice Dept. – some “special operation” run secretly out of the White House.
At this point there is no specific proof that eavesdropping powers were abused, but if they had not been, then there is no reason for Ashcroft and Comey to act the way they did. Even though they did not go along with this program they are still culpable to the extent they were not forthcoming about what was going on, hence their continued silence.
As Glenn pointed out, they were operating from the premise that Gonzalez and Card were thugs not to be trusted; they know something that they cannot divulge without implicating themselves, and they don’t put anything past the criminal thug who heads the Justice Dept.
If the true extent of this scandal is ever uncovered, I expect that this was part of Rove’s plan to make the Republican Party a permanent majority party, and involves crimes against members of both parties, as well as the media. This makes the Watergate scandal look like tea with the Queen.
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Bush's fingerprints
[Read the article: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs.
And part of that premise is that these thugs were doing exactly what the thug-in-chief wanted them to. It’s quite clear that President Bush was personally engaged in willful lawbreaking that was too much even for Ashcroft, Comey and other senior members of his administration. It’s also quite clear that Bush wanted to continue with the program that members of his administration were ready to resign over. My point is that there is no way Bush can blame this scandal on subordinates or say he was out of the loop in some way, there’s too much evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps this is why so many in the media and Congress don’t want to pursue the most important aspects of this story or have the investigation that needs to be done – because the President’s fingerprints are all over this crime scene.
None of them want to come out and say the ugly truth: that The President of United States is a lawless thug. And, sadly, after listening to clips from the last Republican presidential debate, that’s precisely the quality that a lot of Republicans seem to be looking for in a President.
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loyalty and the law
[Read the article: What will be done about James Comey's revelations?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..there is simply no excuse for anything other than the immediate commencement of a criminal investigation by a Special Prosecutor.
But, since this administration operates “completely unmoored from any constraints of law, operating only by the rules of thuggery, intimidation, and pure lawlessness” why would they cooperate with a Special Prosecutor?
Why won’t the just do as they’ve done in the past - “stonewall” the investigation, invoke special privileges to prevent disclosure of evidence, “lose” crucial evidence, ignore subpoenas, and then lie about what they’ve done?
Why would a Special Prosecutor change that behavior?
I think the administration is now operating on the principle that the only thing that can stop them from doing whatever it is they want to do is “impeachment” and since there are not enough votes to impeach, they can continue to operate with impunity.
In short, they are relying on the continued “loyalty” of the Republicans in Congress to put “party above principle” and to put their loyalty to Bush (and the GOP) above their loyalty to the law.
From the administration’s point of view, the only thing that can stop them is the loss of that loyalty.
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What could be that far beyond the pale?
[Read the article: More fallout from the Comey revelations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Factually challenged usually means that someone has been lying, at least to the extent of not supplying all of the facts concerning the program.
It seems clear that for quite a while they were not getting any warrants for the program and that the Telco’s legal counsels felt comfortable turning over info as long as the Attorney General signed off on the program, which covered their asses legally.
What Comey may have discovered was that the program monitored not only calls of “certain” people but who they called as well, or some "loophole" that thus starting a “chain” of new people that were then monitored.
After a while this “chain” could involve some pretty well known people, including the media and politicians. Perhaps what they discovered was that eventually that even Republican Governors and Senators ended up in the chain, and now even their calls were monitored.
As a former Governor and Senator of Missouri, Ashcroft would not feel comfortable with a politically unscrupulous operative like Karl Rove possibly knowing who other Republican politicians were talking to and about what, since he could use that information against them when the White House wanted to apply pressure for certain votes.
It might not be that specifically, but I think Comey probably discovered some people who somehow ended up being monitored that had absolutely no business being monitored.
It would have to be something like that (that far beyond the pale) for them to be willing to all resign over. To fix the “program” wouldn’t then be a little legal nicety, but putting something in place to stop the “chain” from reaching fellow Republicans, friends, and colleagues.