Below is an editorial by the Washington Post that should get all
Americans thinking how best we can put our government back together
again as originally designed. If the American people allow blatant
violations of Constitution rights, then perhaps the American people are
no long deserving of their rights, and if the American people are not
willing to stand up for their Constitutional rights to freedom, due
process, and privacy, they will surely loss the gifts, so freely given
and paid for in blood by the founding fathers, as enshrined in the
Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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EDITORIAL
The Gonzales Coverup
Congress must find out what the administration was doing that its
own lawyers wouldn't approve.
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A16
WHY IS IT only now that the disturbing story of the Bush
administration's willingness to override the legal advice of its own
Justice Department is emerging? The chief reason is that the
administration, in the person of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales,
stonewalled congressional inquiries and did its best to ensure that the
shameful episode never came to light.
In February 2006, the Senate Judiciary Committee was inquiring into the
warrantless wiretapping program whose existence had been revealed just
two months before. Sketchy details had also begun to emerge of the March
2004 hospital room ambush, in which Mr. Gonzales, then the White House
counsel, and then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. tried to
browbeat the gravely ill Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who had
temporarily yielded his office to his deputy, into approving the
warrantless surveillance program.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who was then chairing the Judiciary
Committee, got Mr. Gonzales to agree to have Mr. Ashcroft testify. But
when Mr. Specter followed up with a letter asking as well that the
department approve the appearance of former deputy attorney general
James B. Comey, Mr. Gonzales balked.
If called to testify, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey wouldn't be allowed to
reveal "confidential Executive Branch information," William E.
Moschella, an assistant attorney general, wrote to Mr. Specter. "In
light of their inability to discuss such confidential information . . .
we do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position
to provide any new information to the committee."
If you were Mr. Gonzales, you'd certainly want to make sure they stayed
quiet. Consider: Mr. Gonzales, as the president's lawyer, went to the
hospital room of a man so ill he had temporarily relinquished his
authority. There, Mr. Gonzales tried to persuade Mr. Ashcroft to
override the views of the attorney general's own legal counsel. When the
attorney general refused, Mr. Gonzales apparently took part in a plan to
go forward with a program that the Justice Department had refused to
certify as legal.
Then, when part of the story became public, Mr. Gonzales resorted to
word-parsing. "[W]ith respect to what the president has confirmed, I
believe -- I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you're
identifying had concerns about this program," he said.
Mr. Gonzales's lack of candor is no longer surprising. What's critical
here is that lawmakers get a full picture of what happened, obtaining
whatever documents -- Office of Legal Counsel opinions -- and testimony
are necessary, behind closed doors if need be. "Jim Comey gave his side
of what transpired that day," White House press secretary Tony Snow said
yesterday. If there's another side to the story, we'd like to hear it.
What was the administration doing, and what was it willing to continue
to do, that its lawyers concluded was without a legal basis? Without an
answer to that fundamental question, the coverup will have succeeded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602489.html?referrer=email
or
http://tinyurl.com/2rvs5v
#----------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
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