More Evidence of Gonzales Perjury Revealed in FBI Director’s Notes

Documents provided Thursday to House Democrats by FBI Director Robert Mueller reinforced the sense among Democrats and critics of the Bush Administration that Alberto Gonzales perjured himself before the Senate Judiciary committee about the physical condition of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, as the White House attempted to seek his reauthorization of a controversial warrantless wiretapping program.

“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,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who requested Mueller’s notes last month.

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Did Gonzales Lie to the Senate?

At a House hearing Thursday, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller provided information that added to a growing body of evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have perjured himself before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the FBI’s role in a number of controversial issues, including its use of National Security Letters. During questioning by committee Democrats, Mueller provided revealing testimony about the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which is at the center of the renewed scrutiny of Gonzales’ recent congressional testimony.
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Subpoena Showdown

In the past week, Democratic aides have suggested that Congress and the Bush administration could be heading toward a courtroom showdown over the White House’s refusal to honor subpoenas through its claims of “executive privilege.”

The fight hit a crescendo last week when former White House Counsel Harriet Miers failed to show at a House Judiciary Committee hearing at which she had been subpoenaed to testify about her involvement in the Justice Department’s firing of nine U.S. Attorneys. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) chairs the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, which is responsible for recommending and issuing subpoenas in Congressional oversight matters. She called the administration’s claim of executive privilege, and the absence of his adviser,“out of order.” “Those claims are not legally valid,” Sanchez said. “Mrs. Miers is required pursuant to the subpoena to be here now.”

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Congress Pushes Ahead on Detainee Rights

Democrats and civil libertarians have been understandably livid over the administration’s demolition of the writ of habeas corpus. But remedying the problem isn’t quite as simple as it should be.

For starters, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), signed by President Bush last October, didn’t end habeas in a straightforward, easily reversible way. It ended habeas by inference—first, by denying the writ to “unlawful enemy combatants,” and then by defining that term broadly enough that it could, in some cases, include American citizens. Today, an enemy combatant is anybody “engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” It was through that legal two- step that the government held, tortured, and denied trial to Jose Padilla, an American citizen arrested in Chicago in 2002 for engaging in terrorist activities.

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Whitman: EPA Knew 9/11 Contamination Put Workers, Residents at Risk

The “rules of the House of Representatives” prohibit audience members from hoisting signs and from disrupting proceedings with applause, anger, or any other kind of outburst. To judge from his admonition to the crowd at the end of his opening statement, it seems clear that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties, suspected that Monday’s proceedings might inflame emotions.He was correct.

The hall was filled to capacity, largely with those people—firefighters, police officers, and others—whose efforts atop the rubble of the World Trade Center ultimately devastated their health. Four attendees sitting near the back of the room tried to hold up pictures of relatives who had succumbed to their illnesses, but the rules prohibited even that small gesture.

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SiCKO in the House

It’s ironic, but outside of hospitals and day care centers, perhaps the best place to acquire some kind of illness on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., was at Michael Moore’s press conference on Capitol Hill. The long lines and the sweaty, claustrophobic committee room were emblematic of the enthusiasm that Moore’s appearance and SiCKO his new film on the decrepit state of U.S. healthcare, have generated both in Washington and around the country.

Behind the podium from which Moore and influential House Democrats spoke and answered questions, an array of sign-wielding activists stood along the back wall. Facing them from the other side of the room, women from the group Code Pink lofted a large, painted sign reading, “Healthcare now, for all.” At one point, a security officer approached them about lowering the banner. His face, though, showed a reluctance to scold a group of people who were exercised about a worthy cause. He gave them a thumbs up.

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Bush to Congress: Drop Dead

Well, it’s official: President Bush doesn’t much respect the laws Congress passes. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report—commissioned by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and released today—confirms that Bush’s use of presidential signing statements are, in fact, utterly without precedent.Though they’ve been used by American presidents for about 200 years, signing statements—edicts issued by the president to declare his intent to construe a provision within a law differently than Congress does—are Constitutionally questionable. But George W. Bush’s use of them far exceeds his predecessors’, both in number and in severity, and he has consistently used them to flout the will of the legislative branch.

Though the GAO report makes no claims about the legitimacy of Bush’s statements or of the use of statements in general, it indicates that, in practice, the statements have the effect of nullifying the law in question in about 30 percent of cases. The issues are important: They include accounting for Iraq war funding and security measures for the border patrol.

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Honoring Emmett Till

Who says bipartisanship is dead?

Well, actually, a lot of people do. And they’re mainly correct. But every now and then, some animating force—a just cause, a moving story, an unexpected event—will, for better or worse, bring warring political parties into alignment. This week, for the better, that force was Emmett Till.

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