The Noose Tightens on Abu G

As if more documentary evidence is necessary, FBI Director Robert Mueller took notes about the March 2004 bedside "Enzo the Baker" meeting between Andy Card, Abu G and John Ashcroft, notes which will almost certainly reveal that the program in question was the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," in contradiction to what Abu G claimed to Congress under oath.

John Conyers wants the notes.

We already know that Mueller believes that James Comey was talking about "the much discussed surveillance program" when he testified to Congress about the meeting. He also confirms that he had reservations about the program, contrary to Gonzales' testimony:

Watt: Can you confirm that you had some serious reservations about the warrantless wiretapping program that kind of led up to this?

Mueller: Yes.

Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel try to put their arms around what Abu G is up to, which appears to be a technicality designed to conceal just how horrible the initial warrantless wiretapping program was:

Alberto Gonzales' testimony that there was "no serious disagreement" within the Bush Administration about the NSA warrantless surveillance program has left senators sputtering and fulminating about the attorney general's apparent prevarications. But a closer examination of Gonzales' testimony and other public statements from the Administration suggest that there may be a method to the madness.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Gonzales's careful, repeated phrasing to the Senate that he will only discuss the program that "the president described" was deliberate, part of a concerted administration-wide strategy to conceal from the public the very broad scope of that initial program. When, for the first time, Program X (as we'll call it, for convenience's sake) became known to senior Justice Department officials who were not its original architects, those officials -- James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, principally -- balked at its continuation. They did not back down until the program had undergone as-yet-unspecified but apparently significant revisions. But when President Bush announced what he would call the "Terrorist Surveillance Program' in December 2005, he left the clear impression that the program had always functioned the same way since its 2001 inception.

The administration's consistent refusal to discuss any aspect of the program -- current or former -- aside from what President Bush disclosed in December 2005 appears to be intended, specifically, to gloss over Comey and Goldsmith's objections. If that's the case, it could mean that the public has been presented with an inaccurate picture of the origins and scope of Program X. The Bush administration is currently contesting a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documentation establishing Program X's history -- in essence, trying to ensure that the public never learns more about the program and the internal deliberations over it than what President Bush chooses to reveal.

I actually discussed this the other night at Drinking Liberally with Digby. She consulted a couple lawyers and came to the conclusion that Gonzales is saying that there are two separate programs: what the Administration was doing since 2001, and what was revised after this showdown. He's saying that the program in the showdown, the SAME PROGRAM with revisions, is somehow different. This is designed to conceal what was really so objectionable with the initial program that Comey and others threatened to quit the Justice Department.

What we don't know about this Administration's recklessness between September 11 and the second term could fill several novels. We just learned in the infamous Abu G hearing that Fourthbranch "had been granted authority parallel with the President on intervening in pending matters at the Justice Department." The predations of this Administration are absolutely unbelievable. They have thrown out the Constitution and made up the rules as they went along.

Abu G may go down for this one. But Democrats must see that as a beginning and not an end. If we allow some of these things to congeal into precedent, this will be an utterly different country, and for the worse.