Justice Department

Only Yoo: Report Details Bush White House Use Of Hand-Picked DOJ Lawyer To Justify Warrantless Wiretapping

Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 4:03PM

The fact that John Yoo was the only Justice Department OLC official who was "read into" the surveillance program -- even though he wasn't the head of OLC at the time -- has already been noted by others looking through the inspectors general report on the program released last week.

But one excerpt from the report is worth paying particular attention to, since it underlines the special role that Yoo came to play on the White House's behalf.

Read more »

George Bush

Bush Personally Sent Card And Gonzo To Ashcroft's Hospital Bed

Zachary Roth | July 10, 2009, 5:47PM

This great catch by Marcy Wheeler might be the most shocking nugget of all from the IGs report on surveillance.

The report goes into some detail about that famous visit made by Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales to then-AG John Ashcroft, when Ashcroft was in the hospital, and essentially incapacitated, after gall bladder surgery. The White House needed the Attorney General's sign-off to continue its warrantless wiretapping program.

Read more »

Alberto Gonzales

WH Counsel Gonzo To DOJ: When We Said We Cared About Your Legal Opinions On Surveillance, We Didn't Really Mean It

Zachary Roth | July 10, 2009, 5:17PM

Another great nugget from that just-released inspector generals' report on surveillance...

Check out the amazing 2004 letter from Alberto Gonzales, at the time the White House counsel, to then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who had raised "serious issues" about the legal basis of the surveillance program, and particularly the lack of congressional notification.

Read more »

George Bush

Was Bush Kept In The Dark On DOJ Concerns About Surveillance?

Zachary Roth | July 10, 2009, 4:49PM

One passage on the IGs report on surveillance suggests something that perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise -- that President Bush was kept in the dark by members of the White House staff about about serious objections to the surveillance program raised by others in the administration.

To wit:

Read more »

CIA

White House Slipped In Key Passage To CIA Threat Assessment, Justifiying Surveillance

Zachary Roth | July 10, 2009, 4:06PM

Perhaps the key passage -- or at least the most interesting one -- from the just released inspectors general report on warrantless wiretapping is this one:

Read more »

Barack Obama

CIA Stance On Torture Tape Docs Suggests Obama's New Open Government Era Won't Materialize

Zachary Roth | June 9, 2009, 1:49PM

It's looking more and more like Barack Obama's pledge to usher in a new era of openness in government may well go unfulfilled.

Yesterday, administration lawyers cited national security concerns to argue that Bush-era documents detailing the videotaped interrogations of detainees should not be released. And in the wake of that news, open-government advocates are reluctantly acknowledging that, despite Obama's campaign promises, his approach to secrecy on issues of national security will likely not depart significantly from that of George Bush.

Read more »

CIA

Panetta: Too Dangerous To Release Torture Tape Docs

Zachary Roth | June 9, 2009, 9:58AM

Do we have yet another case of the Obama administration mimicking its predecessor's notorious penchant for government secrecy?

The CIA argued yesterday that Bush-era documents detailing the videotaped interrogations of detainees should not be released, citing national security concerns, reports the Washington Post.

Read more »

Pete Hoekstra

Hoekstra: Leaking Classified Info Is Terrible -- Except When GOP Does It

Zachary Roth | June 5, 2009, 12:59PM

Now this is some chutzpah....

You might remember that a few years ago, Washington's Republicans were all up in arms over the fact that classified information about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program had been leaked to the New York Times. The Justice Department began an investigation into the leak, and congressional GOPers gravely declared what a serious crime this was.

Read more »

Barack Obama

Nadler To Hold Hearing On State Secrets

Zachary Roth | June 1, 2009, 6:47PM

We've told you about one way in which President Obama has so far continued his predecessor's tactics: by invoking the state secrets privilege to argue for the dismissal of lawsuits in the war on terror.

And now Congress will consider reforming the State Secrets Act, in an effort to make it more difficult to invoke it when national security concerns are not truly at take.

Read more »

Curt Weldon

CORRECTED: Weldon Probe Winding Down Without Charges?

Zachary Roth | May 7, 2009, 2:03PM

Could the long-running FBI corruption probe into former Pennsylvania GOP congressman Curt Weldon be winding down, without charges?

That's what the Philadephia Daily News suggests, noting the fact that the Justice Department recently sent letters to people whose conversations were intercepted as part of the investigation, including the paper's own reporter, William Bender.*

Read more »

AIPAC

Parsing Goss's Role In The Harman Story

Zachary Roth | May 5, 2009, 12:37PM

It's worth trying to clear up some of the confusion on a key point that came out of yesterday's post.

We wrote that, after reading the transcript of Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with the suspected Israeli agent, then-CIA director Porter Goss signed off on the Justice Department's application for a FISA warrant to wiretap Harman herself.

Read more »

AIPAC

Secrecy Expert: Harman Leakers Likely Committed Felony

Zachary Roth | May 4, 2009, 6:08PM

Did the people -- whoever they may be -- who leaked details about Rep. Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israeli agent, break the law?

The law quite clearly prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of classified information "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government." And Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy, confirmed to TPMmuckraker: "It seems crystal clear that if this was a FISA wiretap," as appears to be the case, "then whoever disclosed it committed a felony."

Read more »

AIPAC

Harman To AIPAC: I'm A "Warrior On Behalf Of Our Constitution"

Zachary Roth | May 4, 2009, 9:20AM

Jane Harman isn't backing off her call to have information about her wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israeli agent released publicly.

In fact, in a speech to AIPAC's annual policy convention, Harman doubled down on that demand. "I want it all out there. I want it in public. I want everyone to understand, including me, what has happened," she said, according to the Washington Post.

Read more »

AIPAC

Who Are The Gosslings?

Zachary Roth | May 1, 2009, 3:50PM

In recent days, speculation about who leaked to CQ the news about Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israel agent has seemed to focus on former CIA director Porter Goss -- or, more precisely, the group of Goss aides known as the Gosslings.

So we thought it was worth taking a closer look at this crew. And it looks like they have quite a reputation...

Read more »

AIPAC

Report: AIPAC Case Dropped

Zachary Roth | May 1, 2009, 9:51AM

The AIPAC case -- which provided the backdrop for the current flap over Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation -- has been dropped, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A source with intimate knowledge of the case against two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information says the case has been dropped.

Keith Weissman, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former Iran analyst, and Steve Rosen, its former foreign policy chief, were charged under a rarely used section of the 1917 Espionage Act that makes it a crime for civilians to receive and distribute closely held defense information. Both men were later dismissed by AIPAC, with the organization claiming the two had violated its rules; Rosen, in turn has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against AIPAC.

Federal prosecutors reportedly had been considering dropping the criminal case in the wake of a number of recent judicial decisions that make the prosecution more difficult. Among these was an appeals court rejection of a prosecution request to review the trial judge's order that prosecutors make the case that the defendants harmed the United States and not merely benefited Israel. Some Democrats see the case as a piece with Bush-era efforts to expand government secrecy powers, but the Post quoted its sources as saying that the review would have occurred whether or not Barack Obama had won election as president.

More on this and its significance in a little while...

AIPAC

Harman And Goss: "Not ... Good Friends"

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2009, 5:10PM

Building off our post from yesterday -- in which we noted the interesting timing of the original 2006 report about the investigation into Jane Harman's AIPAC ties -- Foreign Policy's Laura Rozen has put together, on her personal blog, what amounts to a complete theory of the case. And it's a theory that implicates the Porter Goss camp right from the start.

So we thought we'd follow that road a bit further. It's not news that Harman and Goss haven't exactly been best buds, either while Goss chaired the House intelligence committee and Harman was its ranking Democrat, or later when Goss led the CIA from 2004 to 2006.* One former intel committee staffer explained the relationship to TPMmuckraker this way: "Jane is an assertive person. And Porter struck me as someone who wanted to avoid conflict. I would not say they were good friends."

Read more »

AIPAC

Harman Releases Media Statement On Media Advisor

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2009, 9:58AM

We wondered yesterday whether Lanny Davis, who was just hired by Jane Harman as a "media advisor" to deal with the AIPAC flap, was behind her very aggressive effort to show that her sense of humor is intact.

And it looks like we weren't the only people with questions about Lanny's role.

Read more »

AIPAC

Evidence Growing That Goss Camp Is Behind Harman Leak?

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 5:18PM

There seems to be an emerging consensus among smart people covering the Jane-Harman/AIPAC case that the sources for CQ's original report -- which revealed that Rep. Harman had been heard on a wiretap discussing a quid pro quo with a suspected Israeli agent -- were aligned with Porter Goss, the former CIA director.

And here's some more evidence pointing in that direction:

Read more »

AIPAC

Harman: In Case You Missed It The First Time, My Sense Of Humor Is Still Intact

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 2:44PM

I think we get the message ...

Following up on yesterday's rib-splitting news that Jane Harman's team for the Capital Challenge Road Race has been named "Tapped Out", Harman's office is now looking to make more headlines on the subject. Earlier this afternoon, it sent a press release reading:

Read more »

Jane Harman

Harman Hires Lanny Davis As Spin-Meister

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 11:27AM

Jane Harman has hired Lanny Davis as a "media adviser" to help her deal with the fallout from the AIPAC story, reports Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy.

Hiring Davis suggests Harman -- who embarked on a media blitz last week, without perfect success, in response to the affair -- isn't so worried about the perception that she's too close to the Israel lobby. Davis -- who was special counsel to President Clinton during the Lewinsky saga, and an indefatigable spinner for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- has long been a supporter of AIPAC, and serves as an adviser and spokesman for the Israel Project, a hawkish, pro-Israel group. He also, for good measure, appears regularly on Fox News.

Read more »

AIPAC

Daily Show On Harman-AIPAC

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 10:45AM

Jon Stewart had a good segment last night on the convoluted Jane-Harman/AIPAC affair, which brought out both the byzantine nature of the saga, and the ultimate fact that nothing much came of any of the scheming: Harman didn't get the intel job, the AIPAC guys didn't get off, and Haim Saban didn't withhold money from Democrats.

As Stewart put it: "Your government, not at work."

Watch:

Jane Harman

Harman: Despite AIPAC Flap, I Can Still Make Lame Puns

Zachary Roth | April 28, 2009, 4:23PM

It's all in good fun -- but is an alleged quid pro quo with a suspected Israeli agent really a laughing matter?

CQ reports that Jane Harman's office plans to compete in a road race tomorrow, sponsored by the American Council of Life Insurers. The Harman team's name: "Tapped Out."

Read more »

Barack Obama

Court Rejects Obama Admin's State Secrets Claim

Zachary Roth | April 28, 2009, 2:29PM

A court has rejected the Obama administration's claim of the state secret privilege.

Via the blog Legal Pad: A three-member panel of the 9th circuit Court of Appeals ruled this morning on a request from the government that it dismiss the Jeppesen case, which focuses on the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

Read more »

AIPAC

Did Goss Target Harman?

Zachary Roth | April 27, 2009, 5:33PM

In our last post on the Jane-Harman/AIPAC story, we noted growing evidence that Bush administration officials worked aggressively to prevent Congress from learning about Harman's wiretapped conversation with that suspected Israeli agent. But Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency had an (unfortunately titled) post late last week that took things in a very different, but equally interesting, direction.

Kampeas conducts a close reading of a New York Times report on the affair from last week to make a strong case that it was Porter Goss, then the CIA director, who took the initiative in going after Harman after hearing her on the wiretap, by trying to have authorized a separate wiretap of the lawmaker herself.

Read more »

AIPAC

Hastert: Source Said Negroponte Blocked Me From Getting Briefed On Harman Wiretap

Zachary Roth | April 27, 2009, 12:29PM

The Jane-Harman/AIPAC story is only getting more interesting.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has gone on the record with information that suggests a broader effort than we'd yet been aware of by the Bush administration to keep secret the fact that it had wiretapped a member of Congress.

Read more »

Alberto Gonzales

Did Harman Break The Law?

Zachary Roth | April 23, 2009, 4:03PM

We've been wondering about something on this whole Jane-Harman/AIPAC story. (For the background, go here.)

When the Justice Department heard Harman on the wiretap, and as a result started to investigate her (a probe later reportedly shut down by Alberto Gonzales), what was the underlying crime she was suspected of, and how strong does the case against her appear to have been?

Read more »

Alberto Gonzales

Report: Angry Intel Officers Tipped Pelosi To Harman Wiretap

Zachary Roth | April 23, 2009, 11:18AM

Another day, another advance by CQ's Jeff Stein on his Harman-AIPAC story...

Late last night, Stein reported that, after Alberto Gonzales quashed the FBI probe into Rep. Harman for political reasons, intelligence officials, angry about Gonzo's move, told Nancy Pelosi about the wiretap that had picked up Harman talking to a suspected Israeli agent -- defying the AG's order that Pelosi not be informed.

Read more »

AIPAC

Harman-AIPAC: The Latest Developments

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 3:48PM

Some recent developments in the fast-moving Harman-AIPAC story to update you on...

- Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she was briefed "a few years ago" by the NSA that they had wiretapped Harman, but wasn't told what was found, and never alerted Harman.

Read more »

Jane Harman

Blitzer v. Harman

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 9:00AM

We didn't get to this yesterday, but as part of her media blitz to beat back CQ's report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) went on CNN to again deny that she intervened with anyone on the AIPAC case.

And Wolf Blitzer actually did a pretty good job of pressing her...

Watch:

Jane Harman

CORRECTED: CQ's Stein On Countdown

Zachary Roth | April 21, 2009, 1:35PM

We didn't have the chance to get to this earlier but CQ's Jeff Stein went on MSNBC's Countdown last night to talk about his now-famous report on Jane Harman and AIPAC*.

Among other things, Stein said that there are "several people who have known this for some time."

And interestingly, he adds that, according to his sources,the investigation into Harman that Time first reported on back in 2006 "never got started" because it was quashed by then-AG Alberto Gonzales.

The whole segment is worth watching...

* This sentence has been corrected from an earlier version that wrongly said Stein had appeared on Hardball.

Alberto Gonzales

Harman: "If There Are Tapes Out There, Bring It On!"

Zachary Roth | April 21, 2009, 1:19PM

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) just appeared on MSNBC to give a guns blazing denial of the allegations in CQ's explosive report from yesterday.

The congresswoman, speaking to Andrea Mitchell, reiterated her claim that she didn't intervene with anyone -- not the Justice Department, or the White House -- in the AIPAC case. And she renewed her call for DOJ to disclose all the material associated with the investigation into her that, according to CQ's report, Alberto Gonzales helped stymie.

Read more »

Jane Harman

Harman Calls For Release Of Wiretapping Materials

Zachary Roth | April 21, 2009, 11:56AM

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) has just released a letter she sent to Attorney General Eric Holder. Harman calls on Holder to give her all materials related to the government wiretapping of her, and to the investigation into her, so that she can release them publicly.

Harman also, crucially, takes her denial further than yesterday, saying she never contacted either DOJ or the White House or anyone else to seek favorable treatment for anyone.

Read more »

Jane Harman

NYT: Harman Said She'd Have More Pull With White House

Zachary Roth | April 21, 2009, 9:20AM

The New York Times adds some details to yesterday's blockbuster CQ report about Rep. Jane Harman and AIPAC.

Here are the key nuggets from the Times story:

* The report confirms that the call on which Harman agreed to take action in the AIPAC case in return for helping her get the House intel chair job was indeed picked up by the NSA, as Stein reported, rather than the FBI or other agencies, as some reports yesterday had suggested.

Read more »

Justice Department

The Harman-AIPAC Story: A Timeline

Zachary Roth | April 20, 2009, 5:29PM

CQ's blockbuster story, about a wiretap that picked up Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) discussing the AIPAC spying case with a "suspected Israeli agent", picks up on a sequence of complex events from several years ago, and involves several moving pieces.

So we thought it would be worthwhile to put together a timeline of events laying out the major reported developments in this sprawling story.

Without further ado:

Read more »

Wiretapping

Harman: I Never Contacted DOJ On AIPAC Case

Zachary Roth | April 20, 2009, 2:51PM

Rep. Jane Harman's office has released a statement in response to CQ's report that the congresswoman was heard on an NSA wiretap telling an "Israeli agent" that she would press the Justice Department to ease up on the AIPAC spy case in return for political help.

The CQ Politics story simply recycles three year-old discredited reporting of largely unsourced material to manufacture a 'scoop' out of widely known and unremarkable facts - that Congresswoman Jane Harman is and has long been a supporter of AIPAC, and that some members of AIPAC regarded her as well-qualified to chair the House Intelligence Committee following the 2006 elections. Congresswoman Harman has never contacted the Justice Department about its prosecution of present or former AIPAC employees and the Department has never informed her that she was or is the subject of or involved in an investigation. If there is anything about this story that should arouse concern, it is that the Bush Administration may have been engaged in electronic surveillance of members of the congressional Intelligence Committees.

Wiretapping

Bush Intel Chiefs: Wiretapping Was Legal

Zachary Roth | April 16, 2009, 3:22PM

Earlier today, two former Bush intelligence chiefs -- John Negroponte, who was director of national intelligence, and Michael Hayden, who was CIA director -- went on MSNBC to push back against that New York Times report about wiretapping by the NSA.

Negroponte said "I have no question about the legality" of the program. Hayden used a different formulation: "National Security Agency follows the law." For whatever it's worth, those claims contradict the Times' report.

Watch:

Russ Feingold

Feingold: NYT Report Shows We Need To Fix Wiretapping Laws

Zachary Roth | April 16, 2009, 11:06AM

Prompted by that New York Times report that the NSA "went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress" in intercepting Americans' communications in recent months, Russ Feingold -- who has been the point man in the Senate for efforts to rein in warrantless wiretapping -- has released a statement :

Since 2001, I have spent a lot of time in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and on the floor of the Senate bringing attention to both the possible and actual effects of legislation that has dangerously expanded the power of the executive branch to spy on innocent Americans. Despite these efforts, Congress insisted on enacting several measures including the USA PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, and the FISA Amendments Act, embarking on a tragic retreat from the principles that had governed the sensitive area of government surveillance for the previous three decades. Congress must get to work fixing these laws that have eroded the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. In addition, the administration should declassify certain aspects of how these authorities have been used so that the American people can better understand their scope and impact.

Wiretapping

Report: NSA Tried To Wiretap Member of Congress

Zachary Roth | April 16, 2009, 10:07AM

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact -- as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 -- with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman's conversations, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.

Who was this mystery congressman? Which "extremist" was he in contact with? And how does he feel about almost having been spied on by his own government?

Seems worth finding out...