Alberto Gonzales

Gonzo: I'm A Casualty Of The War On Terror

Zachary Roth | December 31, 2008, 9:34AM

Looks like Gonzo still doesn't quite get it.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- under whose tenure the Justice Department often appeared to take its orders from the White House political office -- sat down with the Wall Street Journal in an effort to clear his name. But we're guessing he did himself more harm than good.

Gonzo appeared genuinely unable to grapple with why he might be unpopular. "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" he asked.

And he wasn't above wallowing in self-pity, making a comparison that would likely rankle families of 9/11 and Iraq war victims: "[F]or some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

What about that infamous hospital visit, in which Gonzales, at the time the White House counsel, along with White House chief of staff Andy Card, pressed then-AG John Ashcroft to sign off on a secret government program while Ashcroft was hospitalized -- and, by some accounts, going in and out of consciousness -- after gall bladder surgery? Gonzo has no regrets. "I found Ashcroft as lucid as I've seen him at meetings in the White House," he said.

He also took a shot at James Comey, the respected former DOJ official who revealed details of the hospital visit in Congressional testimony: "He didn't have the decency to notify anyone what he was about to testify," Gonzales said of Comey. "That was extremely disappointing."

And Gonzo put the blame for the memos authorizing torture squarely on John Yoo, the then-DOJ lawyer who wrote them -- even though even though there's no evidence that Gonzo, as White House counsel, raised any objection.

Reports the Journal:

John Yoo, the then-Justice official who had been assigned to draft the memos, had strong feelings and no one could have pressured him to write the memos a certain way, Mr. Gonzales said.

Gonzo also told the Journal he's at work on a book about his tenure at DOJ to set the record straight. He doesn't have a publisher, but is writing it "for my sons, so at least they know the story."

And he's not having much success in his post-government career. Says the paper:

The Harvard Law School graduate, onetime corporate lawyer and Texas judge also hasn't been able to land a job. He has delivered a few paid speeches, done some mediation work and plans to do some arbitration, but said law firms have been "skittish" about hiring him.

It's hard being a casualty of the war on terror.

Karl Rove

Rove Protege Griffin Mulling Senate Bid

Zachary Roth | December 15, 2008, 4:48PM

Karl Rove may be relegated to Fox News appearances and hoping to avoid prosecution once President Bush leaves office -- but the political career of one of his proteges, Tim Griffin, may just be getting started.

The Associated Press reports that Griffin, a former White House and RNC staffer, is mulling a run for the US Senate from Arkansas against Democrat Blanche Lincoln in 2010.

"I am certainly thinking about it," Griffin told the AP. "I'm going to spend some time going around the state and talking to folks and getting an idea of the interest level. ... I'm going to try and hit all 75 counties as soon as possible and I know that's a tall order trying to hit all of those in the next few months."

A DOJ report released this fall found that the department improperly fired Bud Cummins as US Attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas in order to make room for Griffin, thanks in part to pressure from the White House political office. Wrote Kyle Sampson, the DOJ point man for the round of politically motivated firings of which Cummins' was a part: "Getting [Griffin] appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc."

Griffin served six months as interim US Attorney but was never confirmed by the Senate.

Griffin has a long trck record as a partisan political knife-fighter. He has been accused of participating in a scheme to cage black voters in Florida in 2004, and was paid by the RNC to dig up dirt on both John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama this year.

After leaving the interim U.S. Attorney job last year, a tearful Griffin said public service was "not worth it" and that he had no plans to return to politics.

He appears to have reconsidered. And as someone who, the evidence suggests, consistently puts partisan advantage over the public interest, Griffin should fit right in with his Senate GOP colleagues if he wins the seat.

Arlen Specter

To Placate GOPers, Leahy Delays Holder Hearings

Zachary Roth | December 15, 2008, 2:10PM

It looks like Republicans on the Senate Judiciary committee have won at least a partial victory in that battle with Judiciary chair Pat Leahy over the timing of confirmation hearings for Eric Holder, Barack Obama's nominee for Attorney General.

In a press release sent moments ago, Leahy wrote the he was delaying the hearings, and made clear he wasn't happy about it:

The Committee has not yet received the names of other designees for high-ranking Department of Justice officials that we had anticipated and more time is now available to the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, to accommodate the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, at their request we are delaying the hearing, again, until January 15.
...

It is disappointing to me that they are insisting that we delay at a time when the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working.

The delay is only a week, since Leahy had been planning to begin the hearings on January 8. He had argued that, after the politicization of the Bush years, it's particularly important for fresh leadership to be installed quickly.

The committee's GOP minority, led by Arlen Specter, has been arguing that Leahy's schedule doesn't allow enough time to review documents pertaining to Holder's role in the controversial pardon of Marc Rich in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

The dispute had gotten unusually pointed for an intra-committee disagreement. Leahy, in a letter to Specter, implied that the Republican's trip to Europe and the middle east this month was a congressionally sponsored junket. Leahy also dredged up a year-old quote from Republican Jon Kyl, arguing for a speedy confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, which appears to contrast with today's GOP position on Holder. In announcing the delay today, Leahy again brought up Kyl's quote on Mukasey.

The full release follows after the jump...

Read more »

Justice Department

Newsweek Reveals The Story Of The NSA Wiretap Whistle-Blower

Zachary Roth | December 15, 2008, 9:57AM

Newsweek reveals the identity of the previously anonymous source who in 2004 tipped off the New York Times to a secret NSA wiretapping program that was eavesdropping on Americans, and was apparently being concealed from the FISA court which, by law, had to approve such programs.

Thomas Tamm, a veteran prosecutor, learned of the program while working at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies. Here's Newsweek's dramatic description of Tamm's Arlington-parking-garage moment:

For weeks, Tamm couldn't sleep. The idea of lawlessness at the Justice Department angered him. Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near the U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro maps. Tamm had been eyeing the phone booths on his way to work in the morning. Now, as he slipped through the parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone and called The New York Times.

But for Tamm himself, the decision hasn't necessarily worked out well. Reports the magazine:

The FBI has pursued him relentlessly for the past two and a half years. Agents have raided his house, hauled away personal possessions and grilled his wife, a teenage daughter and a grown son. More recently, they've been questioning Tamm's friends and associates about nearly every aspect of his life. Tamm has resisted pressure to plead to a felony for divulging classified information. But he is living under a pall, never sure if or when federal agents might arrest him.

...

Tamm is haunted by the consequences of what he did--and what could yet happen to him. He is no longer employed at Justice and has been struggling to make a living practicing law. He does occasional work for a local public defender's office, handles a few wills and estates--and is more than $30,000 in debt. (To cover legal costs, he recently set up a defense fund.) He says he has suffered from depression.

At the time he made his fateful decision, Tam worked at DOJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), which was charged with asking FISA court for permission for national-security wiretaps. But Tamm learned that some wiretap requests bypassed the court and went straight to the Attorney General. These related to what was referred to only as "the program." Though Tamm didn't know it at the time, president Bush had signed a series of secret orders that authorized the NSA for the first time to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails between the US and a foreign country without approval by the FISA court.

Here's Newsweek's description of how the program worked:

The NSA identified domestic targets based on leads that were often derived from the seizure of Qaeda computers and cell phones overseas. If, for example, a Qaeda cell phone seized in Pakistan had dialed a phone number in the United States, the NSA would target the U.S. phone number--which would then lead agents to look at other numbers in the United States and abroad called by the targeted phone. Other parts of the program were far more sweeping. The NSA, with the secret cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies, had begun collecting vast amounts of information about the phone and e-mail records of American citizens. Separately, the NSA was also able to access, for the first time, massive volumes of personal financial records--such as credit-card transactions, wire transfers and bank withdrawals--that were being reported to the Treasury Department by financial institutions. These included millions of "suspicious-activity reports," or SARS, according to two former Treasury officials who declined to be identified talking about sensitive programs. (It was one such report that tipped FBI agents to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer's use of prostitutes.) These records were fed into NSA supercomputers for the purpose of "data mining"--looking for links or patterns that might (or might not) suggest terrorist activity.

Newsweek editors have framed the story as a question: "Is he a hero or a criminal?" reads the sub-hed. But, at least in Tamm's view, we might not have learned about the program had he not made that phone call. Looked at in that light, the answer to Newsweek's question seems clear.

Don Siegelman

Siegelman Lawyers Make Oral Arguments In Appeal Of Conviction

Zachary Roth | December 9, 2008, 3:37PM

Lawyers for Don Siegelman -- the former Alabama governor who was convicted in 2006 on corruption chrages, despite evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated -- have made their first oral arguments in their appeal.

The Associated Press reports that the the defense lawyers are leading with a different argument, that the conviction should be overturned "partly because jurors communicated with each other during the trial."

It continues:

Siegelman attorney Sam Heldman also told the panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that prosecutors did not prove Siegelman had a "quid pro quo" agreement to appoint [HealthSouth CEO Richard] Scrushy to a hospital board in exchange for contributions to a state lottery campaign.

As we've told you before, the US Attorney in the case continued to advise prosecutors even after formally recusing herself becasue her husband is a GOP operative and Karl Rove ally.

Blackwater

Indictments Unsealed In Blackwater Shooting Case

Zachary Roth | December 8, 2008, 12:27PM

Moments ago, officials with the Department of Justice wrapped up a press conference at which they are publicizing the charges -- previously contained in a sealed indictment -- against the five former Blackwater guards charged with manslaughter in the deadly September 2007 shootings of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The case has been assigned to a US District Court in Washingotn DC, but defense lawyers want the case moved to Utah, where one of the former guards lives, and where they would presumably find a more conservative, pro-gun jury, reports the Associated Press.

The ex-guards could face 30-year sentences under an anti-machine gun law designed to target drug offenders.

We're also seeing an interesting emerging defense strategy of suggesting that DOJ is bowing to Iraqi pressure: "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government," Steven McCool, who represents one of the defendants, told the AP.

One ex-Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgewater, has already come to a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Blackwater is the largest security contractor in Iraq.

Late Update: In a lengthy statement emailed to TPMmuckraker, Blackwater responds:

Blackwater does not have access to all of the information gathered by federal investigators. Based on the information available to us, we understand that these individuals acted within the rules set forth for them by the government and that no criminal violations occurred.

...

As noted by the Department of Justice during its press conference, Blackwater as a company has not been charged with any crimes, and neither have any of the hundreds of other Blackwater professionals serving in Iraq.

Late Late Update: Read the court documents:
- Indictment against Blackwater
- Jeremy Ridgewater charges
- Jeremy Ridgewater plea deal

Alberto Gonzales

Gonzo's Lawyer Quits Civil Case. Another Sign That Prosecutor Is Circling?

Zachary Roth | December 5, 2008, 12:35PM

It's looking more and more like prosecutor Nora Dannehy's investigation into the US Attorney firings has Alberto Gonzales in its crosshairs.

Earlier this week we reported that Dannehy had contacted the ex-AG in connection with the probe.

Now, we've been tipped to legal filings showing that Gonzales' lawyer, George Terwilliger Jr. of White & Case, is no longer representing Gonzo in a separate case, a civil suit alleging that law students were denied DOJ jobs thanks to illegal politicization at the department under Gonzales.

The filing, dated November 25, reads:

Please enter the withdrawal of George J. Terwilliger III as counsel in this case for Defendant Alberto R. Gonzales, pursuant to Local Civil Rule 83.6(b).

Beneath that, Gonzales has signed his name, giving his consent to the withdrawal.

The previous day, in a separate filing, Gonzales had officially introduced a new team of attorneys as replacements, it would appear, for Terwilliger.

Please enter the appearance of Vincent H. Cohen, Jr., Peter Taylor, Lisa Fishberg and the law firm of Schertler & Onorato, LLP, on behalf of Defendant Alberto R. Gonzales.

What does this have to do with the Dannehy investigation?

It would appear that the most obvious reason for Terwilliger to withdraw from the civil suit is to be able to devote additional time to Dannehy's more serious investigation into criminal wrong-doing.

That's certainly the opinion of the veteran Washington lawyer bringing the civil suit in question. Dan Metcalfe, a former DOJ official and now the executive director of the Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University Washington College of Law, who brought the suit on behalf of the law students, told TPMmuckraker*: "I think it's quite fair to say that the most plausible explanation for what happened is that [Terwilliger] learned he was going to be otherwise occupied on Gonzales' behalf."

That would jibe with the news earlier this week that Dannehy has issued subpoenas through a grand jury -- it would be common practice at this point for targets in the investigation to receive letters from the prosecutor informing them that they are under investigation. And of course it would be in sync with our report that Dannehy appears to have contacted Gonzales or his lawyer in connection with the probe.

A call to Terwilliger was directed instead to Bob Bork Jr., a spokesman for Gonzales, who told TPMmuckraker: "I have no comment about anything to do with Mr. Gonzales' representation." Asked whether he could comment more broadly on the investigation, Bork repeated: "I have no comment about anything to do with Mr. Gonzales' representation."

Late Update: There's additional evidence that Terwilliger is feeling jumpy about the twin cases, and is anxious to draw a distinction between the civil suit and the possible criminal investigation. Within hours of a story being posted by the legal publication AM Law Daily incorrectly stating that DOJ was paying Gonzales' lawyers for their work on the Dannehy investigation, Terwilliger had posted the following comment on the site:

Please correct your story as it is plainly in error to report that the Justice Department is paying Judge Gonzales' legal fees in connection with the Inspector General inquiries. Those fees are a private responsibility. DOJ is reportedly paying fees at governement [sic] rates to another law firm in connection with a civil law suit in which Judge Gonzales has been sued in his individual capacity in connection with events in which he was involved, if at all, in his offical [sic] capacity.

The site quickly posted a correction.

* This sentence has been corrected from an earlier version.

Don Siegelman

Justice Reopened Probe Of Siegelman Trial

Zachary Roth | December 4, 2008, 5:08PM

The Department of Justice has reopened an investigation into crucial allegations made by a whistleblower in the Don Siegelman trial, according to documents submitted last week by prosecutors in the case.

Siegelman, the Democratic former governor of Alabama, was convicted in 2006 on corruption charges. (He is appealing the conviction). The whistleblower, who works in the US Attorney's office in Alabama, has claimed that, during his trial, there were inappropriate contacts between members of the jury and the prosecution, including messages passed by jurors revealing that some jury members had developed a romantic interest in an FBI agent attached to the prosecution team.

A DOJ investigation of the claims, launched after the whistleblower came forward and carried out by two US Attorneys, concluded that no such contacts had occurred. But in a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey last month, Rep. John Conyers, whose judiciary committee has been looking into the issue, questioned the thoroughness of that probe, noting that investigators had not contacted the jurors themselves, or the federal marshals who allegedly passed notes between the jurors and the prosecution team.

In the recent court filing -- which responds to a filing made previously by Siegelman's defense lawyers in connection with his appeal -- prosecutors referred to that DOJ investigation, then added in a footnote:

Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Justice recently reopened the investigation into this matter in response to concerns raised about the completeness of the investigation ... It remains the case that we are not aware of any improper contacts.

In other words, DOJ appears to agree that Conyers' concerns have merit, and has reopened the investigation into whether inappropriate contacts between jurors and the prosecution team did indeed occur. That could be good news for Siegelman as his lawyers seek to have his conviction thrown out on appeal.

Almost from the start, there has been evidence that the prosecution of Siegelman was politically motivated. Among other things, documents recently surfaced showing that the US Attorney on the case, Leura Canary -- who had recused herself because her husband is a GOP operative and Karl Rove associate who ran the campaign of Siegelman's opponent for governor -- continued to advise prosecutors on the case. DOJ has been notably unwilling to aggressively look into this and other evidence of politicization.

In a recent interview with TPMmuckraker, Siegelman accused Canary of "outrageous criminal conduct."

Alberto Gonzales

DOJ Won't Say Whether Prosecutor Has Submitted US Attorneys Report

Zachary Roth | December 4, 2008, 3:32PM

Is the Department of Justice going back on its word about a report on its investigation into whether crimes were committed in the U.S. Attorney firings scandal?

When prosecutor Nora Dannehy was appointed to run the probe, in the wake of another investigation by the department's Inspector General, it was reported that Dannehy was expected to provide Attorney General Michael Mukasey with a status report on her findings within around 60 days.

That timeline was confirmed by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine in testimony before Congress at the time:

REP. NADLER: Mr. Fine, it's been reported that Ms. Dannehy was appointed to special counsel, will make a preliminary report to the attorney general within the next two months. Do you know when this report will be made public?

MR. FINE: I think what it is is the status of the investigation at that point to the deputy attorney general or the attorney general to see where she is in the process.

...

I don't think it's sort of a formal report; I think it's more of a status report.

And it was reiterated a few weeks later in a letter from Mukasey to House Judiciary Chair John Conyers. Mukasey wrote:

As the Inspector General testified, Ms. Dannehy is expected to report on the status of the investigation to the Attorney General approximately 60 days after her appointment.

Now that 60-day deadline has come and gone. And DOJ won't confirm that any such report has been provided, instead referring us to a spokesman for Dannehy who wouldn't comment on the issue.

In other words, at first DOJ had been clear that it wanted a report submitted within 60 days. But now it won't even confirm that such a report has been submitted, or give any further information.

So is the department now going back on its requirement that Dannehy submit a report within 60 days? Is it exerting pressure to reduce the likelihood that details about Dannehy's progress -- like the fact that she's contacted Gonzales -- will slip out? What's going on?

A staffer for the House judiciary committee told TPMmuckraker that they haven't been able to get anythign out of DOJ either on whether Dannehy has submitted a report. A call to the Senate judiciary committee was not immediately returned.

We'll keep you posted as we learn more...

Alberto Gonzales

Gonzo Contacted By Prosecutor On US Attorneys Firings

Zachary Roth | December 3, 2008, 3:46PM

This morning, as we noted, the Washington Post reported that the prosecutor Nora Dannehy has met with defense lawyers and issued subpoenas, through a grand jury, in her investigation into criminal wrongdoing in connection with the US Attorney firings.

And it looks like Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General on whose watch the firings occurred, is among the people she's contacted.

In an interview with TPMmuckraker, Bob Bork Jr., who serves as a spokesman for the ex-AG, initially said that although Gonzales' lawyer, George Terwilliger III, had reached out to Dannehy at the start of her investigation, he didn't believe that Dannehy had formally contacted Gonzales or Terwilliger in connection with the probe.

But Bork Jr. called back an hour later to say that he had been mistaken about that. "We won't be able to talk about any interactions with DOJ," he now said.

In other words, it would appear, Dannehy has contacted Gonzo and/or his lawyer.

Since DOJ released a report in July into politicized hiring at the department, there has been intense speculation that Gonzales could face perjury charges in connection to his 2007 testimony to Congress.

Tom Carson, a spokesman for Dannehy declined to comment on the progress of the investigation.

Alberto Gonzales

Prosecutor On US Attorneys Case Seems To Be Going All Out

Zachary Roth | December 3, 2008, 10:05AM

A report in the Washington Post suggests that Nora Dannehy, the prosecutor assigned by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to look into the U.S. attorney firings, is taking an aggressive approach to the job.

The Post says Dannehy "has been meeting with defense lawyers, dispatching subpoenas and seeking information about the events, according to legal sources familiar with the case."

It adds: "A grand jury in the District has issued subpoenas, the sources said."

And there's another interesting nugget:

D. Kyle Sampson, who served as the chief of staff to Gonzales until his March 2007 resignation, recently took a leave from his job as a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams while the investigation proceeds. A spokeswoman for the law firm said he is on leave "pending admission to the D.C. bar."

DOJ's Inspector General report, released in late September, found that Sampson's testimony was "not credible" and "unpersuasive."

Dannehy was appointed September 29 to determine whether crimes had been committed in the affair. She was given 60 days to submit a preliminary report on her findings. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPMmuckraker about the report's status.

More on this soon...

Barack Obama

Holder: I'm No Gonzo -- And I'll Go After Corporate Crime

Zachary Roth | December 1, 2008, 4:26PM

Earlier we noted that, in speaking this morning about Eric Holder, his pick for Attorney General, Barack Obama seemed to go out of his way to suggest that Holder would reverse the politicization of DOJ that we saw under President Bush and Alberto Gonzales.

Holder's own remarks backed up that notion. He said:

It is incumbent upon those of us who lead the Department to ensure not only that the nation is safe but also that our laws and traditions are respected. There is not a tension between those two. We can and we must ensure that the American people remain secure and that the great constitutional guarantees that define us as a nation are truly valued. For example, working with Republicans and Democrats in Congress, should I be confirmed, we look forward to actually structuring policies that are both protective and consistent with who we are as a nation.

And Holder included an interesting hint suggesting that he may be more aggressive than his predecessors under Bush in going after corporate malfeasance -- specifically, one would assume, in regard to the current financial crisis:

National security concerns are not defined only by the challenges created by terrorists abroad, but also by criminals in our midst, whether they be criminals located on the street or in a boardroom.

Holder's full remarks follow after the jump...

Read more »

Alberto Gonzales

Obama: Holder Won't Be Another Gonzo

Zachary Roth | December 1, 2008, 2:33PM

Given our coverage of the unprecedented politicization of the Department of Justice under President Bush, we thought this passage from Barack Obama's prepared remarks this morning -- at which he announced Eric Holder as his pick for Attorney General, among other selections -- was worth noting:

Eric also has the combination of toughness and independence that we need at the Justice Department. Let me be clear: the Attorney General serves the American people. And I have every expectation that Eric will protect our people, uphold the public trust, and adhere to our Constitution.

In other words, Obama is sending a message that Holder won't see his role as being the president's personal lawyer -- which was how Alberto Gonzales, who had been Bush's lawyer both in the White House and in Texas, seemed to view the job.