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Mueller Turns over Notes on Hospital Visit to Congress
During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last month, FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed that he had kept notes of the infamous encounter between James Comey and Alberto Gonzales over John Ashcroft's hospital bed. Mueller had taken the notes, he said, because the situation was "out of the ordinary."
Well, here they are. They were turned over to the Committee earlier this week and released by Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) today. We'll have analysis of what they tell us in a moment.
Update: Here's Conyers' statement:
“Director Mueller’s notes and recollections concerning the White House visit to the Attorney General’s hospital bed confirm an attempt to goad a sick and heavily medicated Ashcroft to approve the warrantless surveillance program. Particularly disconcerting is the new revelation that the White House sought Mr. Ashcroft’s authorization for the surveillance program, yet refused to let him seek the advice he needed on the program.“Unfortunately, this heavily redacted document raises far more questions than it answers. We intend to fully investigate this incident and the underlying subject matter that evoked such widespread distress within the Department and the FBI. We will be seeking an unredacted copy of Director Mueller’s notes covering meetings before and after the hospital visit and expect to receive information from several of the individuals mentioned in the document.”
Comments (35)
Yohannon wrote on August 16, 2007 3:00 PM:Wow... pretty much redacted to death, really. But maybe someone with some image manipulation expertise can retrieve something from the blacked out portions.
~Y~
Legalize wrote on August 16, 2007 3:02 PM:Well, that certainly clears up all my questions.
Dan wrote on August 16, 2007 3:06 PM:Hmmm, meeting with Dick Cheney at his office at his request....
I wonder what Cheney wanted with the good FBI director...
drational wrote on August 16, 2007 3:06 PM:well hell yeah these brutes are going down.
moondancer wrote on August 16, 2007 3:09 PM:jesus.
One thing, wasnt cheney real foggy about this time period? Looks like a lot of meetings, including ones he called for being forgetful.
M M wrote on August 16, 2007 3:12 PM:Can't Mueller be compelled to testify (in closed session if need be) about the legal justification (or lack thereof) behind the wiretapping program and some of the redacted portion of these notes?
lysias wrote on August 16, 2007 3:14 PM:Looks like a lot was discussed at that meeting in Card's office at 12 noon on Mar. 11.
drational wrote on August 16, 2007 3:17 PM:Lysias, can you diary this at Kos, I burned my daily quota.
PW wrote on August 16, 2007 3:19 PM:This is a significant news item.
Kudos to TPMm. Ya'll have a great source.
Wow. What a revealing read. Thank god we live in an open society and with a government which is accountable to the people. What a difference it makes... Uh huh.
Pearl wrote on August 16, 2007 3:25 PM:One other interesting point worth noting. The President's lengthy meeting with Mueller on the morning of 3/12/2004. When I say meeting, consider the amount of material redacted for that meeting. The details of that conversation may shed a lot of light on (i.e., refute) the President's frequently vague and misleading public comments regarding the "program."
Pearl wrote on August 16, 2007 3:29 PM:Also worth noting(in addition to Cheney's "heart to no-heart") is the lengthy meeting btw Mueller and Bush in a.m. of 3/12 (notice the amount of redacted material). I wonder the extent to which the redacted material sheds light on/refutes the President's often vague and misleading public statements re: the "program." It'd be an interesting read, I'm sure.
Hoppy wrote on August 16, 2007 3:33 PM:Now I understand "clear as mud". If Congress had an cojones they would use their appropriations power to compel a great deal more respect. A year or two on very short rations should do wonders for the administration's respect for Congress. And, then of course there is the power of the subpoena, enforced.
Chris wrote on August 16, 2007 3:35 PM:does anyone know what "RSM Program Log" means at the top of the first page of notes?
Molly Ivans wrote on August 16, 2007 3:38 PM:Raise Hell !!
grinner wrote on August 16, 2007 3:41 PM:Robert S. Mueller program log
Anonymous wrote on August 16, 2007 3:42 PM:Nice to see our government officials are still using WordPerfect.
Anonymous wrote on August 16, 2007 3:53 PM:Something substantive occurred with the VP at the VP's request on 3/23, about two weeks after the hospital incident. Comey has testified that the program had been adjusted to conform to DOJ's requirements for legality about two or three weeks after the hospital meeting. Is there a relationship? Was the VP trying to control or reverse the implementation of the changes directed by the President?
William Ockham wrote on August 16, 2007 3:54 PM:Can you make a link to the original pdf file available?
lysias wrote on August 16, 2007 3:54 PM:drational,
I just diaried this on Daily Kos.
Hope I did it correctly, as I very seldom post a diary there.
Duckman GR wrote on August 16, 2007 3:59 PM:Since the hospital visit was the catalyst to a big chunk of what they're being subpoenead for, leaving us to read the tea leaves doesn't really satisfy anything. A simple calendar would have sufficed, butthen Mueller couldn't indicate that there was something of substance, or not, in his various meetings. Here's hoping that Conyers' staff can pry more info from this travesty of openness.
You know, I can understand when the CIA is talking abouttheir operations, or the military talking about their operations, or the FBI talking about their operations. But the rest of the Government?
Just so they aren't held accountable, that's it in its entirety. If advice, placed in its actual context, can't stand the light of day, it's advice not worth having. All of Nixon's ravings, if the public had heard about them at the time, wouldn't really have changed the way people looked at Tricky Dick, nor changed his fate or his legacy. It's like when you have to tell somebody the truth about who screwed up the order to China. In the end, nobody really cares, they just want to know so that steps can be taken to ensure it doesn't happen agian.
my too sense wrote on August 16, 2007 3:59 PM:Yeah and using wordperfect for a document created March 12 2004 @4.08 pm...That was Friday and occurred after a long discussion with the preznit in the morning, and a meeting/call to Comey but just prior to a call with "Judge" Gonzales.
Otherwise I got nothing, but interesting detail in names ...even Tenet's name shows up here a few days after the hospital visit.
Tim wrote on August 16, 2007 3:59 PM:AMERRRICAAAAAA!!! F*redacted*K YEAH!!!
William Ockham wrote on August 16, 2007 4:01 PM:Never mind. The pdf is available here:
lysias wrote on August 16, 2007 4:03 PM:http://www.speaker.gov/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/mueller_notes.pdf
The name of Gen. Hayden (then Director of the NSA, DIRNSA) also appears.
lysias wrote on August 16, 2007 4:10 PM:Lawyers like to use WordPerfect. Mueller is a lawyer.
robbo wrote on August 16, 2007 4:12 PM:waitaminute!
The AG was barred from obtaining advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the WH.
So, the AG can't make a proper call on the program because he's also denied access to the program information? WTF? Something stinks.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on August 16, 2007 4:22 PM:How many of the blacked out portions correspond with Gone-lawless' memory black-outs from drinking or huffing?
c-b wrote on August 16, 2007 4:27 PM:The most informative thing to me is that the FBI Director still uses WordPerfect? Huh.
Austin Cooper wrote on August 16, 2007 5:02 PM:The notation at the lower left of the document:
"H:\RSM_Docs\Miscellaneous\Program.wpd
March 12, 2004 (4:06PM)"
This identifies it as a file residing on Mueller's network "share" drive (a portion of a server's hard drive reserved for use by a specific network user), which IT departments generally assign as the letter "H:\".
On Mueller's share drive is a folder, named "RSM_Docs" (For Robert S Mueller), within which is a subfolder, "Miscellaneous".
On March 12th at 4:06PM, Mueller first saved the MS Wordpad document, "Program.wpd" (which the images show) to the 'Miscellaneous' folder.
One thing of note: The timeline and events which Mueller details begins on March 1, 2004. The events in Ashcroft's hospital room occurred on the evening of March 11th.
Mueller did not write this document until 4:06PM on March 12th -- over twenty hours *after* the hospital room event, after his March 12th morning briefing and private meeting with Bush at the White House, and a later meeting with (still acting AG) Comey and unnamed others at the DoJ.
I don't suggest anything sinister; it's just a piece of information.
Code = screw, as in, What do you think's being done to us?
Austin Cooper wrote on August 16, 2007 5:03 PM:Whoops -- it's WordPerfect, not WordPad; my bad.
.
danger wrote on August 16, 2007 5:07 PM:I know there's nothing to connect the dots here, but remember, the Madrid Bombings occurred six hours after Mueller left the hospital. Common sense tells me references to the Madrid Bombings have to be present in the redacted information, simply because as head of the FBI this is what was on his plate at the given time, which should have been of massive concern to any of the people mentioned in the document (Hayden, Tenet, Cheney, etc.)
Just a hunch.
drational wrote on August 16, 2007 5:08 PM:More commentary at DailyKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/16/154345/268
Thanks lysias!
And Thanks Paul!!!!!
tamiasmin wrote on August 16, 2007 5:20 PM:You beat the NYTimes by an hour.
It appears that Mueller makes copious notes about the meetings he attends and the phone calls he makes and receives. People do that either because they don't trust their memory or because they see a need to have a clear written record of what went on, in case there is some question about it later. It is interesting in this case that Mueller began his log not immediately after the amazing hospital incident, but the afternoon of the day he had a tete-a-tete with Bush in his private office just off the Oval Office. It suggests that something momentous is concealed behind the blackout covering that meeting.
theswan wrote on August 16, 2007 7:51 PM:Mueller need to give up his Freedom Metal.
Comey needs a real one.
Anonymous wrote on August 16, 2007 11:14 PM:I think Comey would speak up behind doors. Any thoughts? He is a straight shooter... or so it appears anyway.