CA-36: Winograd Announces By The Beach

Yesterday at the Venice Pier, Marcy Winograd announced her campaign for Congress in front of about 75-80 supporters and friends, and many leaders of the progressive activist community in Los Angeles. The campaign showed their thrift and commitment to recycling by using the old Winograd '06 campaign posters and skillfully pasting a "'10" sticker in the appropriate place. It's going to be that kind of campaign.

After a few speakers (I particularly enjoyed Julian Barger from the Harbor area of the district calling Jane Harman "Congresswoman Helmsley" for her double standard on civil liberties for her vs. civil liberties for all Americans), Marcy gave a short speech where she emphasized her no-holds-barred progressive values and offered a true contrast to her incumbent opponent. She called for a "new New Deal" to put America back to work, announced support for John Conyers' HR 676, questioned the continued bailout of the banks and the use of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan, argued for rapid transit and renewable energy in the Los Angeles area, and said of her primary challenge, "this will reverberate throughout the country."



Winograd spoke to various concerns of families in the district, noting that areas of Torrance are experiencing skyrocketing foreclosure rates, and that business has declined over 20% in the port at San Pedro. This is an area where, with a longer campaign time frame than her quick run in 2006, Winograd can make headway in all areas of the district and throughout the South Bay, speaking to the economic concerns of the area and drawing contrast with Jane Harman's more conservative approach. Obviously, the greater concern about Harman more recently has been her defense of the Bush Administration's the warrantless wiretapping and her generally hawkish stance abroad. But there is an opening for a core economic argument, still the major preoccupation of voters, to be made.

Winograd's announcement got covered in LA Weekly and the CoCo Times. Mainstream news pieces about this primary challenge never fail to emphasize that the 36th is a "moderate" district and that Winograd will have to "broaden her appeal" to win over those voters. This assumes that Democratic primary voters, or virtually anyone, makes election choices based on firm ideological footing. Poll after poll has shown that on the issues, Americans portray a far more progressive belief system than their typical electoral choices. Maybe consultants and Democratic strategists need to "broaden their appeal" to potential candidates that can articulate a progressive agenda.

Who Is Gunning For Nancy Pelosi?

Like Marcy Wheeler, I don't know what the WaPo is trying to get at with this story alleging that a top Pelosi aide knew about waterboarding because he attended a briefing with Jane Harman in early 2003 where that was made known. First of all, the aide in question, Michael Sheehy, worked for Harman at the time. Second, the briefing list does not actually specify that waterboarding was covered in the briefing. Third, the briefing was highly classified, and Sheehy wasn't working for Pelosi, so the idea that he would have at that time or any point in the future (he eventually returned to work for Pelosi) divulge the secrets of the briefing would violate federal law - is that the impression the WaPo wants to give? And fourth, Harman lodged a complaint as a result of this briefing, asking that the CIA tapes not be destroyed, and given that this was basically the end of the line as far as Democratic opposition was concerned, whether or not Pelosi knew is kind of immaterial. Pelosi acknowledged this a long time ago:

"It was my understanding at that time that Congresswoman Harman filed a letter in early 2003 to the CIA to protest the use of such techniques, a protest with which I concurred," Pelosi said in the Dec. 9, 2007, statement.

Marcy also notes that the WaPo stretches the truth in suggesting that Pelosi learned about waterboarding from Harman:

And from discussions dating back to 2007, the WaPo completely misrepresents the plain statement of a Pelosi statement on Harman's stance on torture (but not necessarily specifically waterboarding).

"Pelosi herself acknowledged in a December 2007 statement that she was aware that Harman had learned of the waterboarding and had objected in a letter to the CIA's top counsel."

That's not what Pelosi said: She made no specific reference to waterboarding (as opposed to enhanced techniques) [...]

So to review: WaPo says that the CIA briefing list proves Sheehy learned about torture in February 2003. And WaPo says that Pelosi's statement proves she learned the CIA was waterboarding by around that point. While I don't dispute the underlying facts (that Sheehy learned about waterboarding in February 2003, that Pelosi learned about it around then--I don't know one way or another), neither of these statements prove what the WaPo says it does. If the WaPo knows this for a fact, it knows this from another source.

Which is why I find this tidbit--the only anonymous source in an article based on interviews with Democrats Jane Harman and DiFi and Republicans Crazy Pete Hoekstra and Cryin' John Boehner--so interesting.

"A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy."

In other words, someone's out to get Nancy Pelosi - and it's a Democrat, quite possibly a member of her California delegation. All of this "who knew" timeline stuff, furthermore, is a misdirection when compared with the plain fact that the CIA, under the direction of the highest levels in the White House, violated domestic and international law, twisting the law to make it seem legal; and those same people at the top who authorized this destroyed dissenting opinions to theirs. And this exercise in tautological thinking and the chasing of red herrings gets us approximately nowhere.

Even after the release of the torture memos, Republicans persist in denying that techniques like waterboarding or chaining a prisoner in a standing position for hours constitute torture. The most common defense of waterboarding is that we subjected our own soldiers to it. That's true--as a way of training them to withstand enemy torture. When you reverse engineer a torture-resistance program, you're almost by definition engaging in torture.

We either have a legal system designed to adjudicate lawbreakers or we don't. Obsessing over who knew what at what time in secret briefings misses the point.

CA-36: Harman Primary Is Underway

So I'm quoted in this Politico article about potential primary challenges to Jane Harman. I've said clearly that she'll either face a primary or drop out, and now multiple challengers, including 2006 opponent Marcy Winograd, have stepped up. One thing that people don't totally remember about that 2006 challenge is that Marcy got in the race in February for a June primary. She ended up raising and spending about $380,000, but she did not have time for a national fundraising base or a netroots strategy. She basically just went ahead and ran, and she got 38% of the vote. Starting the primary a year out this time will simply yield better results.

The other part, which Alex Eisenstadt acknowledges, is that Harman was a target long before the recent revelation of wiretapped conservations between her and suspected Israeli agents offering vague quid pro quo deals on getting some AIPAC members out of legal trouble.

It’s true that Harman holds a firm grip on her comfortably Democratic district, having won 69 percent in the 2008 general election.

Still, her left flank remains exposed in large part because of her hawkish, pro-military reputation. After Sept. 11, 2001, Harman was an early advocate for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, and she threw her support behind the American-led invasion of Iraq. She went so far as to criticize the FBI and the CIA for moving too slowly to respond to terrorist threats.

Those stances continue to rankle local progressives, and the recent controversy has only revived the frustrations that seemed to crest in 2006 with Winograd’s challenge. Last week, Winograd organized a protest outside Harman’s district headquarters, with activists calling on the California Democrat to resign. The environmental organization Greenpeace is coordinating a mailing in the district pressuring Harman, who has a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on energy issues.

David Dayen, a California activist who writes for the liberal blog Calitics, said he expects progressive organizations to ramp up their efforts against Harman in the weeks ahead.

“I don’t get the sense that in May, the year before this primary is happening, there is going to be a lot of clamoring over Harman, but I do think you’re starting to see progressive groups get involved,” said Dayen.

I reject the theory later in the piece that CA-36 is a moderate district. The PVI is D+12, and the formerly conservative areas have moderated their views. Torrance, the supposed "Orange County of LA County," just elected two Democrats to its City Council. What's more, Harman votes substantially to the right of the district and has for years.

Winograd will be holding a campaign kickoff on Monday at the Venice Pier around 4:00pm, so she's obviously serious about making this run again. And she'll be taking questions in a liveblog session at Firedoglake today at 11am. John Amato of Crooks and Liars fame may also make a run at this seat.

CA-36: Harman's Magic Act

By a twist of fate, Jane Harman actually appeared at the AIPAC convention over the weekend, bringing full circle the recent controversy over her comments picked up on a wiretap offering help to get AIPAC staffers out of a Justice Department probe in exchange for help getting the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. She vowed to begin a crusade against illegal wiretapping and overreach from the surveillance state.

Harman has described the wiretap as an abuse of government power. But sources have told The Washington Post that she was not being surveilled; the tapped phone belonged to the suspected Israeli agent, who happened to talk to her.

"I will not quit on this until I am absolutely sure this can never happen to anyone else," Harman told the AIPAC audience, which warmly applauded her. She said the incident was having "a chilling effect" on members of Congress who "care intensely about the U.S.-Israeli security relationship . . . and have every right to talk to advocacy groups."

Later, she called herself a "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power". Which, coming from Harman, is utterly absurd, a magic act where she transforms herself from a vigorous defender of executive prerogatives on wiretapping to a civil liberties zealot who wants to take down the surveillance state.

Jane Harman is a warrior on behalf of the Constitution and against abuse of power -- that's the same Jane Harman who tried to bully The New York Times out of writing about Bush's illegal spying program, who succeeded in pressuring them not to publish their story until after Bush was re-elected, who repeatedly proclaimed the program to be "legal and necessary" once it was revealed, who called the whistle-blowers "despicable", who went on Meet the Press and expressed receptiveness to a criminal investigation of The New York Times for publishing the story, who led the way in supporting the Fourth-Amendment-gutting and safeguard-destroying FISA Amendments Act of 2008, and who demanded that telecoms be retroactively immunized for breaking multiple laws by allowing government spying on their customers without warrants of any kind.

That is who is a self-proclaimed "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power."

As Atrios notes, Jane Harman is primarily concerned about wiretapping of People Named Jane Harman. And her point that this represented a potential abuse of government power, which by the way is
entirely plausible, was the entire point of people like me when we decried an illegal wiretapping program that would be ripe for abuse. You know, the one Jane Harman defended.

Worse, in the "Fact Sheet" Harman is sending around to supporters in the district, she characterizes herself as, among other things, a longtime critic of warrantless wiretapping in the most fantastical way possible:

• Harman has never supported so-called “warrantless wiretaps” on Americans. "We must use all lawful tools to detect and disrupt the plans of our enemies; signals intelligence and the work of the NSA are vital to that mission. But in doing so, it is also vital that we protect the American people's constitutional rights." (Press release of Dec. 21, 2005 -- four days after the President declassified the existence of the Terrorist Surveillance Program).

• Harman introduced the LISTEN Act (H.R. 5371) with House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to add resources to the Justice Department to ensure the issuance of individualized warrants under FISA. (Press release of May 11, 2006).

• Harman, Senator Obama, and Speaker Pelosi supported amendments to FISA to expand protections to US citizens, and give limited court-reviewed immunity to telecommunications firms that prove they relied in good faith on what they believed was a valid order to produce records. (Vote date of June 20, 2008).

She must think we're all idiots. That vote of June 20, 2008, the amendments to FISA to "expand protections to US citizens," in addition to providing retroactive immunity for the telecoms for breaking the law, actually granted sweeping new powers to the federal government, including the ability to "conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing." The fact that this lack of oversight or judicial review could lead to abuses of surveillance power has been confirmed by reports that the NSA overstepped its legal authority to wiretap by intercepting the private emails and phone calls of Americans, problems which grew "out of changes enacted by Congress last July in the law that regulates the government’s wiretapping powers.” The fact that Barack Obama supported that bill, considering that he was massively criticized by progressives for that FISA vote, doesn't exactly help the cause.

Harman's record on wiretapping is well-known and her efforts to wiggle out of it are frankly laughable. And the rest of her record, as demonstrated by Swing State Project today, shows her to be among the top 20 Democrats voting less liberal than what their districts would support. That, more than this hypocrisy on civil liberties, is why she'll draw a primary challenge next year, should she choose to run again.

Obama DoJ Drops The AIPAC Spy Suit

So Jon Stewart's premature speculation that nobody in the Jane Harman/AIPAC case got what they wanted was upended today when the government dropped charges against the two former AIPAC staffers.

Prosecutors said they will ask a judge to dismiss the case against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman because a series of court decisions had made it unlikely they would win convictions. The two are former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, an influential advocacy group.

Rosen and Weissman were charged in 2005 with conspiring to obtain classified information and pass it to journalists and the Israeli government. They were the first non-government civilians charged under the 1917 espionage statute with verbally receiving and transmitting national defense information. Some lawyers and First Amendment advocates have said the case would criminalize the type of information exchange that is common among journalists, lobbyists and think-tank analysts.

Harman had nothing to do with this, and I don't want to speculate on that. I just used it as a news peg to express my support for this dropping of charges. The case was less about Rosen and Weissman and more about the criminalization of journalistic practices that would have a chilling effect on the ability of investigative reporters to do their job. We have an overclassification problem in this country, used by the government to hide embarrassing secrets. So good for Obama in this case.

Goss Harmin' Harman?

Since I've been offering one side of the Jane Harman story as the bits of intrigue trickle out in the media, I thought I'd explore the second option - that Bush-era officials at the CIA are using the Harman story as a warning shot against further investigation of their practices with torture and wiretapping, as well as pushing back against a thorn in the CIA's side:

But the former intelligence official familiar with the matter noted that (ex-CIA Director Porter) Goss has given only one on-the-record interview on these CIA controversies since leaving the CIA director job. In the December 2007 interview, he said that Congressional leaders, including Representatives Pelosi and Goss himself, Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), and later Rep. Harman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), had been briefed on CIA waterboarding back in 2002 and 2003. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Goss told the Washington Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

Who was the lone lawmaker the article identified as objecting to the program?

Jane Harman.

"Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the [House intelligence] committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program," the Post reported. "Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy. ‘When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy,' she said. ‘I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything.'"

There is compelling evidence that Goss approved continuing the wiretap on the Israeli agent after seeing Harman's involvement, and in fact tried to get a wiretap up on Harman herself. The internecine battles between Goss and Harman go back a ways, so it's not impossible. We learned yesterday that the wiretap in question did not come from the NSA, and so CIA may have had some direct control over it, although the proper chain of command would have been the FBI. Why was Goss so involved in this?

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Harman did, as has been confirmed by multiple sources, approach the Washington editor of the New York Times in 2004, before the Bush-Kerry election, to try and get them to spike the warrantless wiretapping story. Nor does it change the fact that Harman, a full-throated supporter of wiretapping, now has become a civil liberties champion when denouncing the surveillance of her. This must be why she's hired Lanny Davis to do spin control (and surely he can do a better job than her disastrous efforts so far).

Finally, Jon Stewart skewers this story as only he could.

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Your Government Not at Work - Jane Harman Scandal
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CA-36: Jane Harman Will Have A Primary Challenge, Or She Will Leave Congress

Here's the latest on the Jane Harman/AIPAC story that I haven't previously discussed here. We know that she discussed the case against two AIPAC lobbyists with a suspected Israeli double agent, possibly Haim Saban, and made at least an implicit arrangement to push for the dropping of the case against the lobbyists in exchange for help getting appointed the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. It is unclear whether this actually represents a violation of the federal bribery statute (doing a favor in exchange for something of value), but according to the story by Jeff Stein at CQ Politics, the Justice Department felt they had Harman in a "completed crime." Nancy Pelosi was briefed that Harman had been picked up on a federal wiretap but was barred from disclosing it to her House colleague, and this could explain why Harman was not appointed to that Committee Chair. The reason that the DoJ failed to charge Harman was because Alberto Gonzales intervened on her behalf, because, among other things, he knew she would be helpful in the forthcoming battle over, amazingly enough, the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

A person who is familiar with Mr. Gonzales’s account of the events said that the former attorney general had acknowledged having raised with Mr. Goss the idea that Ms. Harman was playing a helpful role in dealing with The Times.

But Mr. Gonzales’s principal motive in delaying a briefing for Congressional leaders, the person said, was to keep Ms. Harman from learning of the investigation before she could be interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A spokesman for Ms. Harman said the congresswoman had never been interviewed by the bureau.

There's also the charge that then-NSA Director Michael Hayden provided talking points for a Harman discussion with NY Times Washington editor Philip Taubman BEFORE THE 2004 election, to get the paper to squash the warrantless wiretapping story. And today, Stein advances the story by noting that a whistleblower informed then-Speaker Dennis Hastert about the Bush Administration suppression of the wiretapped Harman call (it's a violation of standard procedure to withhold information involving national security and a member of Congress from either Democratic and Republican leaders in the House).

Needless to say, this is a tangled web of intrigue, and with more disclosures it's likely to get worse. This has led to speculation that Harman would either not run for another term, or face a primary challenge. I can confirm that Marcy Winograd is likely to run if Harman does seek re-election. Winograd, who took 38% of the vote in 2006, was not planning a run until the AIPAC/wiretap revelations. But she is uncomfortable with Harman not being held to account, and saw no other option on the horizon. She has a federal account and will take the pulse of the district before a formal announcement.

"I think she's clearly in trouble and I think she knows it and is doing whatever she can to turn the tables on the situation," Winograd said. "And now she is the spokesperson for the ACLU or the Bill of Rights Foundation. It would be comical, if the stakes weren't so high." [...]

One of Winograd's first steps is going to be "taking the pulse" of the district on issues like military spending and single-payer health care, among other issues. It's entirely possible that Harman might bow out and try to annoint a successor. Or that another establishment Dem might try to take advantage of her weakened position. Which is why I wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible that there's a really credible progressive alternative. Winograd has already run a primary once in the district. Activists there know who she is, and a lot of them have already worked for her in 2006. This would not be a net-based candidacy, but it will certainly help to have it be net-supported.

In addition, the name of blogger John Amato has surfaced as a possible challenger.

(Howie) Klein said a group of bloggers met earlier this year to discuss challenging Harman in a primary, weeks before the recent revelations. He said many in the blogging community would like a fellow blogger, John Amato, to challenge Harman and that Amato is considering it.

Winograd said that she would step aside for the right candidate, and that she’s taking up the mantle at least for now.

“I don’t know who else will answer the call, if not me,” she said. “People with great name recognition and track records in public office are not going to take her on.”

I think Marcy feels the duty to run. At the same time, she agreed that there needs to be one progressive alternative to Harman. But my sense from people in the district is that Harman is unlikely to try another re-election campaign. Even the above-mentioned NYT article refers to this.

While the two women do not display overt hostility, Ms. Harman seems to have never quite gotten over the slight. Colleagues say that since Ms. Pelosi, 69, thwarted her ambitions for a more prominent role on security issues, Ms. Harman, 63, has grown weary of Congress and has been eyeing a post in the Obama administration, perhaps as an ambassador.

This tracks with everything I've heard from locals. She wanted the Intelligence Committee chair, and failing that she wanted an Administration job, and failing that she wants out.

There would be a whole host of elected officials who would jump in if Harman retired. Ted Lieu, the Assemblyman in this district, could be enticed away from his Attorney General campaign. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn would take a look. And there would be others. But if Harman stays in, none of these electeds would run, avoiding what would be an expensive primary. Harman is the richest member of Congress and has no problem spending her own money to keep her seat.

Either way, there will be a contested race in CA-36 in June 2010. And I do believe that a primary would feature only one major challenger. The question is, who would that be?

CA-36: Harman Should Probably Just Stop With The Talking

Jane Harman is not doing herself any favors with her insistent maintaining of innocence in the AIPAC/wiretapping scandal. First off, her instinct to lash out in anger, saying that she is about secret wiretaps and considering the taps an abuse of power, really comes off badly, considering that she lobbied to spike the NYT story revealing the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. It's darn near impossible to reconcile her past statements with this new image as a civil liberties extremist.

So if I understand this correctly -- and I'm pretty sure I do -- when the U.S. Government eavesdropped for years on American citizens with no warrants and in violation of the law, that was "both legal and necessary" as well as "essential to U.S. national security," and it was the "despicable" whistle-blowers (such as Thomas Tamm) who disclosed that crime and the newspapers which reported it who should have been criminally investigated, but not the lawbreaking government officials. But when the U.S. Government legally and with warrants eavesdrops on Jane Harman, that is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a violent assault on her rights as an American citizen, and full-scale investigations must be commenced immediately to get to the bottom of this abuse of power. Behold Jane Harman's overnight transformation from Very Serious Champion of the Lawless Surveillance State to shrill civil liberties extremist [...]

Besides, if Jane Harman didn't do anything wrong -- as she claims -- then what does she have to hide? Only Terrorists and criminals would mind the Government listening in. We all know that government officials have better things to do than worry about what innocent Americans are saying. If she did nothing wrong -- if all she was doing was talking to her nice constituents and AIPAC supporters about how she could be of service -- then Bush officials obviously weren't interested in what she had to say.

Beyond that, even if there were "illegal" acts committed here, surely we should be rushing to retroactively immunize those responsible, just as Harman eagerly advocated and engineered and then voted for when it came to the telecoms who broke our laws and enabled illegal spying on American citizens. That was when she voted to gut FISA protections and massively expand the Government's power to eavesdrop on Americans with no warrants as part of the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer Surveillance State celebration known as the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008."

This goes double for Steny Hoyer, who's out there whining about wiretapping after pushing the FISA Amendments Act through the House.

Worse, Harman's appearance on NPR went completely off the rails, as she admitted key elements of the conversations unwittingly:

Robert Siegel: First, do you remember the phone call in question? Who is the other party and is that a fair description of what was discussed?

Rep. Jane Harman: We don't know if there was a phone call. These are three unnamed sources, former and present national security officials, who are allegedly selectively leaking information about a phone call or phone calls that may or may not have taken place.

RS: But are you saying that you really don't have any recollection at all of a phone conversation like this?

JH: I'm saying that, No. 1, I don't know that there was a phone conversation. If there was and it was intercepted, let's read exactly what I said to whom. We don't know who that was either.

RS: But, indeed, if what happened was, initially, your phone wasn't tapped [and that] the person you were talking with was being tapped — and if that was an investigation of a foreign agent, is it realistic to think that anybody is going to release a completely unredacted transcript of that conversation?

JH: Well, let's find out. I mean, the person I was talking to was an American citizen. I know something about the law and wiretaps. There are two ways you do it. One is you get a FISA warrant, which has to start with a foreign suspected terrorist, a non-American foreigner. If this was FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that would have had to happen.

RS: But if you know that it was an American citizen —

JH: If it was Article III, FBI wiretap, that's different. But I don't know what this was. And I don't know why this was done. And I don't know who the sources are who are claiming that this happened are and I think —

RS: But you are saying that you know it was an American citizen. So that would suggest that you know that there was a —

JH: Well, I know that anyone I would have talked to about, you know, the AIPAC prosecution would have been an American citizen. I didn't talk to some foreigner about it.

RS: You never spoke to an Israeli? You never spoke to an Israeli about this.

JH: Well, I speak to Israelis from time to time. I just came back from a second trip to Israel in this calendar year. I've been to the Middle East region as a member of Congress 22 times and was in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Israel and Turkey just a week ago.

I'm writing this blind, because my head just exploded.

Lucas O'Connor has a bit more. Let's be clear - the AIPAC spying case has always been dodgy, the principals may not even be tried, and the release of this story now is a bit curious. But Harman's hypocrisy on this issue is clear, her efforts at spin control insulting to anyone's intelligence, and her efforts to spike the warrantless wiretapping story during the 2004 Bush/Kerry election unconscionable.

Incidentally, Nancy Pelosi came out today saying she had been briefed by the Justice Department about the Harman wiretap several years ago, but she "wasn’t at liberty at the time of the briefing to let Ms. Harman know." She also said that the disclosure had no bearing on Harman losing out on the top position at the House Intelligence Commitee.

CA-36: Wherein Jane Harman Tries To Throw The 2004 Election

This Jane Harman/AIPAC scandal continues to grow. It jumped from the inside the Beltway rag CQ Politics to The New York Times.

One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage, current and former government officials say.

The lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman of California, became the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee after the 2002 election and had ambitions to be its chairwoman when the party gained control of the House in 2006. One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post.

But that's not what advances the story today. Harman has denied contacting DoJ abut the AIPAC case, though she left out contacting the White House, and she did not deny that the phone call existed. Remember that a key part of the story concerned the idea that Harman was saved from prosecution on this by Alberto Gonzales, who "needed Jane" to help front for the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. In today's article, the Times drops this bombshell:

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004. Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman — apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director — and urged that The Times not publish the article.

“She did not speak to me,” Mr. Keller said, “and I don’t remember her being a significant factor in my decision.”
Shortly before the article was published more than a year later, in December 2005, Mr. Taubman met with a group of Congressional leaders familiar with the eavesdropping program, including Ms. Harman. They all argued that The Times should not publish.

Ultimately, it's on Bill Keller whether or not to publish, so I don't want to give Harman too much credit here. But as Greg Sargent notes, this is a startling turn of events. A Democratic Congresswoman acted on behalf of a Republican President's NSA director to spike a story about illegal activity in the executive branch before a close Presidential election. The ramifications are enormous.

This discussion between Harman and Taubman apparently happened before the wiretapped phone call between Harman and the Israeli agent, according to the TPM Muckraker timeline. So Gonzales knew that Harman could be counted on to support the warrantless wiretapping program, because she had years of experience doing so at that point.

This gets uglier and uglier. Small wonder that Harman was passed over for a position in the Obama Administration.

...Harman has released a letter calling on the Attorney General to release all transcripts and investigative material related to her collected by the Justice Department in 2005 and 2006. This is a bit of misdirection, since by all accounts these were legal wiretaps of foreign agents. But given the revelations about continued illegal wiretapping at the NSA, I understand Harman's strategy.

Like A Really Bad Spy Movie

I'm sitting here in Jane Harman's Congressional district right now. I could probably go out on the street and informally poll a dozen people about AIPAC, and I'm pretty certain nobody would know what I'm talking about. But inside the Beltway, AIPAC is sacrosanct and Israel practically the 51st state. So this blockbuster story is a perfect depiction of, as Attaturk says, the way Washington works. He simplifies it so I don't have to:

1. Congressman Jane Harman (D - CA) told a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

2. This was known because of an NSA Wiretap.

3. The suspected Israeli agent then promised to lobby Nancy Pelosi to make Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections (she wasn't).

4. There were some reports of this influence peddling in 2006, but it was dropped for a “lack of evidence” by Alberto R. Gonzales, who intervened to stop the investigation.

5. Gonzales intervened because he wanted Harman to defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times.

6. And she promptly went out and defended it.

This looks just terrible for Jane Harman. There's a trail of reporting on this going back to 2006, but the new material concerns Abu Gonzales stepping in to squash the investigation so Harman could parrot the Bush Administration line on warrantless wiretapping. And there's an even larger trail of reporting on Harman's fronting for Bush. The point is that the pieces all fit together.

Indeed, as I've noted many times, Jane Harman, in the wake of the NSA scandal, became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, using her status as "the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee" to repeatedly praise the NSA program as "essential to U.S. national security" and "both necessary and legal." She even went on Meet the Press to defend the program along with GOP Sen. Pat Roberts and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, and she even strongly suggested that the whistleblowers who exposed the lawbreaking and perhaps even the New York Times (but not Bush officials) should be criminally investigated, saying she "deplored the leak," that "it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers," and that the whistleblowers were "despicable." And Eric Lichtblau himself described how Harman, in 2004, attempted very aggressively to convince him not to write about the NSA program.

It's a classic espionage story, right down to the part where Harman hangs up the phone with the Israeli agent after saying "This conversation doesn't exist." For her part, Harman is denying the story, but Stein has several sources who read the transcripts from the NSA wiretaps (apparently gathered legally, but who the hell knows). And he's right, at the end, about the utter futility of this exercise, on all counts:

Ironically, however, nothing much was gained by it.

The Justice Department did not back away from charging Rosen and fellow AIPAC official Keith Weissman with espionage (for allegedly giving classified Pentagon documents to Israeli officials).

Gonzales was engulfed by the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal. (and the US Attorneys probe -ed.)

And Jane Harman was relegated to chairing a House Homeland Security subcommittee.

Josh Marshall asks a lot of the key questions, including whether Harman was being blackmailed by the Bush Administration to be their front person on wiretapping, having been wiretapped herself. And Ron Kampeas has a somewhat different take, suggesting that this is only coming out because the case against AIPAC officials Rosen and Weissman is faltering. There's one way to know for sure: a full-blown investigation, which Harman ought to welcome to clear her name.

They're Baaaack...

You didn't think Bill Kristol and the PNAC crowd would just go away, did you?

What do you do if your previous organization — and the ideology behind it — has become inextricably bound in the public’s imagination to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history? Obviously, shut it down, and start a new organization with a new name.

The Foreign Policy Initiative lists Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Dan Senor on its board of directors, so no prizes for guessing what they’re about (more power, less appeasement, stronger wills.) Kagan and Kristol need no introduction, they’re the Tick and Arthur of disastrously counterproductive military adventurism. Given the staggering costs in American blood, treasure, security, and reputation incurred by their boundless enthusiasm for blowing stuff up, you might think they’d have had the decency to retreat to a Tibetan monastery by now, but sadly no. The way it works in Washington is, if you’re willing to argue for more defense spending, you’ll always find someone willing to fund your think tank.

Dan Senor is less known to the general public, but familiar to those who’ve followed the Iraq debacle closely. From 2003 to 2004, Senor served as a Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman under Paul Bremer. After that smashing success, Senor returned to Washington, where, among other things, in September 2004 he helped write speeches for Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi’s U.S. visit, and then apparently went on television to praise those speeches as evidence of Bush’s accomplishments in Iraq.

Senor is also Campbell Brown's husband, so I'm sure this will be covered extensively on her show, which as you know is both no bias and no bull.

Spencer Ackerman and Ari Rabin-Havt have more. Interestingly, this little group's first public event is a half-day conference on how to succeed in Afghanistan, featuring some of the same cheerleaders who blundered us into war in Iraq.

FPI, whose founders and principals include Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Dan Senor, will host a summit next Tuesday titled "Afghanistan: Planning for Success." Billed as a "half-day conference" to "discuss how the United States and our allies can succeed in Afghanistan," the event will feature appearances and discussion from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. John M. McHugh (R-N.Y.) -- ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee -- and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who chairs of the House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee.

"I know these people and recognize where they're coming from," the Congresswoman said of her appearance at the event. "I'm coming from a different place and want to be sure that point of view is heard. My point of view will be extremely sympathetic to the Obama Administration position on Af/Pak."

Maybe Harman could go ahead and not show up to give a point of view that none of the magical thinkers and armchair generals who make up this outfit would possibly care about. But I am intrigued by the focus on Afghanistan. As Matt Duss notes, the better title for the conference would be "Afghanistan: Dealing With The Huge Problems Created By Many Of The People On This Very Stage." The relentless focus on Iraq drew attention and resources from Afghanistan and helped to put us in this predicament. But the current dynamic shows Republicans both praising Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan plan and calling it "the new surge." Here's John Cornyn.

I commend President Obama on his plan for a surge in Afghanistan, which is our front line in the Global War On Terror. Victory there is imperative, and President Obama and our troops on the ground in Afghanistan have my full support. I will do everything in my power to ensure that Congress provides any and all resources required to accomplish the mission [...]

It is my hope that President Obama's surge in Afghanistan achieves results similar to the surge in Iraq, enabling victory and bringing our fighting men and women home as soon as possible.

You can see an outline of the foreign policy critique here. First of all, the neocons are trying to redeem the Bush strategy in Iraq by casting it as a success (I have hundreds of thousands of reasons why this is not the case). Then there is the support of Afghanistan, which will quickly turn into "there needs to be a greater commitment" as it falters. Neoconservatism cannot fail, of course, it can only be failed. And so the argument will be that Green Lantern's will just needs to be stronger and we can exterminate the brutes and claim victory. Which is actually not Obama's Af/Pak plan (a plan I don't fully support), so the space on the right can be easily carved.

It would be easy to say "Forget about these idiots who wrecked the world, they have been totally discredited," but the country's politics have never worked that way. The same discredited group one year returns to power the next. And so it's crucial to keep tabs on these knaves and see what most excellent adventure they have planned for the country when they claw their way back.

Cheney Taunts, Democrats Can Disclose

Over the weekend, Fourthbranch Cheney tried to make it sound like he was very worried about needing Congressional authorization for the illegal wiretapping program, but top Congressional leaders, Republicans and Democrats, talked him down.

CHENEY: We briefed them on the program and what we’d achieved and how it worked and asked them should we continue the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike. All agreed: Absolutely essential to continue the program. I then said, Do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislating authorization to continue what we’re doing? They said absolutely not. Don’t do it.

This just doesn't make a lot of sense, just purely in terms of Congress giving up its own power. But that's happened before, of course. What really calls this into question is that it came out of the mouth of Dick Cheney. In fact, Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Jane Harman and Bob Graham have all denied this, claiming in fairly common language that the Administration gave only the barest outlines of the plan and not the details that these wiretaps would be used against Americans.

Nevertheless, it's pretty clear that Democrats Congressional leaders have been less than forthcoming about what they heard from the Administration on this issue. I agree with Spackerman - there's one way to clear up all the confusion, and that's with a full investigation by a commission outside of politics.

If there’s ever a solid argument for an independent commission into the illegal surveillance and torture programs, here it is: the public is owed a thorough accounting of what the administration did; what it told Congress; and what Congress approved.

But still still. Cheney might not be acting in good faith, but he’s nevertheless pointing to something barometrically significant. In Washington, the phrase “bipartisan” is supposed to cash out to something like “legal” or “wise” or “no longer controversial” or “kosher.” The Germans probably have a word that’s a more acceptable translation. In any event, that’s self-evidently foolish: lots of people can make mistakes and lots of people can make venal decisions, and it’s not a function of belonging to one political party or the other. Cheney doesn’t get off the hook if Nancy Pelosi is on it with him. Naturally, what I imagine Cheney’s doing is warning the Democrats off creating an independent commission into the abuses of the administration, lest it go after them too, but that’s all the more reason one should be created.

Absolutely. What we know right now is troubling enough - Rockefeller, Harman and the rest offered extremely weak resistance to the Administration, and didn't want the extent of the program to be disclosed. As Glenn Greenwald notes, the best way not to be seen as complicit in this and other perversions of justice pulled off by Cheney and company is to allow for full disclosure of all the activities. I'm not particularly concerned about the results - the chips can fall where they may.

The reason the law requires that Congressional leaders be briefed on intelligence programs is not because it's nice in the abstract for someone to know. It's because Congressional leaders have the right and the obligation to take action to stop illegal intelligence programs -- something all briefed Democrats clearly failed to do. Cheney, on his way out the door, is answering questions about what he knew and approved. It's way past time for Pelosi, Harman and Rockefeller, at the very least, to do the same.

Let's get an independent prosecutor.

Post-Election Comings And Goings For LA-Area Lawmakers

A couple weeks ago I wrote about three looming battles that we had to think about after the election. Two of them have already fizzled. The open primary ballot initiative filed with the state has been withdrawn. That's probably because the Governor wanted to present it himself, so we'll see where that goes, and a lot of it might have to do with whether or not Prop. 11 actually passes. Second, Bush Republican and rich developer Rick Caruso decided against running for Mayor of Los Angeles against Antonio Villaraigosa. There is now no credible candidate running against the incumbent. Caruso may figure that Villaraigosa is primed for bigger and better things (he's in Washington today with President-Elect Obama's council of economic advisers), and if Villaraigosa vacates the seat he'd have a better shot of capturing it.

However, there are a couple other looming battles that are out there. First, Jane Harman, Congresswoman from the 36th Congressional District, is in line for a top intelligence post with the Obama Administration, and the odds are extremely likely that she'd take it. Laura Rozen has a profile here. After a tough primary against Marcy Winograd in 2006, Harman has been a moderately better vote in Congress, but this represents a real opportunity to put a progressive in that seat. Winograd has recently moved into the district, and would certainly be my first choice if it comes open (or if it doesn't - Harman voted for the FISA bill this year).

The other major news is that Henry Waxman, my Congressman, is looking to oust John Dingell from his post atop the Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a long time coming, and I don't think Waxman would go for it without the support of the Speaker. The Dingellsaurus, while a decent liberal on most issues (and also a former representative of mine in Ann Arbor, MI), has blocked progress on climate change and modernizing the auto industry for years. We were finally able to get a modest increase in CAFE standards last year, but Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act of 1990, would obviously be a major step up. And with the auto industry on life support and asking for handouts as a result of the old ways of doing business, it's clearly time for a Democratic committee chair who isn't protecting their interests at the expense of the planet. Waxman's "Safe Climate Act" introduced last year would mandate a cut in greenhouse gases of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. That's exactly the right attitude from the committee chair, and with energy issues obviously so crucial in an Obama Administration, we need someone in that post who recognizes the scope of the problem. It should also be clear that the committee has likely jurisdiction over health care reform.

Grist has a lot more on this story.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Elite)

It is well-known that, shortly after elements of President Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping program was divulged by the New York Times in December 2005, Rep. Jane Harman wasn't happy. She went on Meet The Press shortly thereafter and blasted the paper for leaking the details. But we did not know that she actively sought to cover up contents of the program PRIOR to the Pulitzer Prize-winning story.

Eric Lichtblau, who along with James Risen broke the story, has a new book coming out which details the wrangling between the NYT and the Administration which caused a one-year delay in the revelation of the warrantless wiretapping program in the press. During that time, Lichtblau ran into Jane Harman in the Capitol.

In his book, Lichtblau tells how a few months after the story was held, he happened to be covering a House hearing where he heard Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) argue passionately for stronger civil liberties safeguards in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

Lichtblau saw this as an opportunity to question Harman about the warrantless wiretapping program, since Harman, as a member of the "gang of eight," was one of the four Democrats who'd been briefed on it. He writes:

I approached Harman with notepad in hand and told her that I’d been involved in our reporting the year before on the NSA eavesdropping program. “I’m trying to square what I heard in there,” I said, “with what we know about that program.” Harman’s golden California tan turned a brighter shade of red. She knew exactly what I was talking about. Shooing away her aides, she grabbed me by the arm and drew me a few feet away to a more remote section of the Capitol corridor.
“You should not be talking about that here,” she scolded me in a whisper. “They don’t even know about that,” she said, gesturing to her aides, who were now looking on at the conversation with obvious befuddlement. “The Times did the right thing by not publishing that story,” she continued. I wanted to understand her position. What intelligence capabilities would be lost by informing the public about something the terrorists already knew – namely, that the government was listening to them? I asked her. Harman wouldn’t bite. “This is a valuable program, and it would be compromised,” she said. I tried to get into some of the details of the program and get a better understanding of why the administration asserted that it couldn’t be operated within the confines of the courts. Harman wouldn’t go there either. “This is a valuable program,” she repeated. This was clearly as far as she was willing to take the conversation, and we didn’t speak again until months later, after the NSA story had already run. By then, Harman’s position had undergone a dramatic transformation. When the story broke publicly, she was among the first in line on Capitol Hill to denounce the administration’s handling of the wiretapping program, declaring that what the NSA was doing could have been done under the existing FISA law.

What comes through in this exchange is that the elites in Washington have far more fealty to each other than the public. Harman has come around; she argued strongly against the program and was one of the leaders in the House fight to amend FISA responsibly last week. Now we're seeing a likely stalemate on that issue, and George Bush is almost certain not to get what he desperately wants, amnesty for the telecom companies and a rejection of the lawsuits against them which could reveal even more about the program.

Still, we have this portrait of Harman, eager to cover up, convinced that what she is told must stay secret has to stay secret, untrained in the Constitution enough to see that warrantless wiretapping is unnecessary under FISA and in defiance of the Fourth Amendment. It's relieving a bit that the past few years, with the help of the blogosphere, have given many in the Congress an education on the document they swear to uphold and defend. It's also completely sad.

FEAR Unit: After The Fear Goes Away

For those joining us late, I often discuss FEAR Unit, the Federal Election-year Anti-terror Response Unit, which exists to promote seemingly bogus terror attacks just to keep everybody afraid. One of their greatest hits was the "Liberty City 7," the group in Miami that was plotting to blow up the Sears Tower - even though they didn't have enough money to buy their own shoes. Well, that trial finally wound up this week, and, um...

A jury in Miami has cleared one man of trying to blow up America's tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago, as part of a holy war.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on six other defendants, and the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors say they plan to try them again next year.

This was a group of nuts who had no operational ability to pull off anything approaching a terror attack. The only person they managed to contact to help them on this "quest" was an FBI informant, and it looked suspiciously that the informant pushed them into whatever it is they were supposed to be doing. Yet it looks good in the papers for there to be "successes" in thwarting terror plots (that the FBI creates and nurtures). Meanwhile, actual domestic terror plots go unnoticed.

Rameau says that the Liberty City Seven coverage has upstaged other important news. In a conversation with RAW STORY earlier this week, he said that on the day of the Liberty City arrests, “a former director of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) admitted to planning terrorist acts against Cuba.”

Yet this “failed either to draw national attention or merit ‘above the fold’ coverage on the front page of the Miami Herald,” said Rameau.

The CANF conspirators were charged and acquitted by a Puerto Rican jury in 1997, after a federal judge threw out one of the defendants' self-incriminating statements. No charges have ever been brought against the individuals on the U.S. mainland.

Rameau notes that while the government has taken action against "men with little to no demonstrable capacity to advance their plans beyond the discussion stage,” it has refused to extradite – or prosecute – Luis Posada, suspected mastermind of the bombing of a Cuban airliner “full of human beings” in 1976.

And in this environment, where counter-terrorism has been totally politicized, Jane Harman wants to bring up something as stupid like her thought police counter-terrorism bill. Crazy.

Jane Harman's H.R. "1984"

I have to admit that I was initially a smidge skeptical about the progressive outcry over Jane Harman's bill, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" which passed the House by a 404-6 count back in October. While I believe staunchly in the protection of civil liberties, I guess I took "homegrown terrorism" to mean groups like right-wing militia, terror groups who bomb abortion clinics, purveyors of racist hate speech, and the like. As David Neiwert said, it appeared to be an attempt to make counter-terrorism more comprehensive and complete. But when you look under the hood, there's a great deal to be scared about with this bill.

One of the findings of the bill is that, “the Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

And the remedy to that is... closing off the Internet? Reading everyone's blog posts for "extremist" rhetoric?

The bill calls for heightened scrutiny of people who believe, or might come to believe, in a violent ideology. (ACLU policy counsel Mike) German wants the government to focus on people who are actually committing crimes, rather than those who are merely entertaining violent ideas, something perfectly legal.

Harman’s bill would convene a 10-member national commission to study “violent radicalization” (defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change”) and “homegrown terrorism” (defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States […] to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”).

Now I'm getting nervous.

It's clear that any organization studying "violent radicalization" could head down some blind alleys pretty quickly. The FBI's domestic terrorism unit cites as among its greatest threats to the homeland... the Earth Liberation Front, the group that blows up Hummers. Animal rights groups also frequently show up on these domestic terror lists. And this national commission that would be created would be insular and potentially susceptible to politicization.

“The bill replicates what already exists without peer review and safeguards,” says Chip Berlet, a senior policy analyst for Political Research Associates, an independent non-profit research organization that studies political violence, authoritarianism, and homegrown terrorism [...]

The broad wording of the bill leaves open many questions. If homegrown terrorism is defined to include “intimidation” of the United States government or any segment of its population—could the Commission or the Center of Excellence task itself with investigating groups advocating boycotts, general strikes, or other forms of non-violent “intimidation”?

“While we wholeheartedly support efforts to curtail terrorism, primarily coming from white supremacists, we would also like to see legislation that more vigorously defends civil rights,” says Devin Burghart, an expert on domestic terrorism at the Center for New Communities, a national civil and human rights organization based in Chicago.

My friend Marcy Winograd, who challenged Rep. Harman to a primary in 2006, is alarmed about this bill and thinks it needs to be blocked in the Senate.

Senator Boxer, one of our more courageous lawmakers, needs to put a hold on this bill before we see a return of the McCarthy hearings, with committees interrogating conscientious Americans who have spoken out against the war and globalization. This legislation ostensibly targets those who promote violence and extremist ideology, but if that were really the case the lawmakers supporting this legislation would be impeaching and indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes.

During my congressional challenge, Boxer campaigned for Harman so I can only assume, since their political views often differ, that she felt a personal loyalty to the former ranking minority leader on the House Intelligence Committee. Now, however, it is time for Boxer to set aside personal loyalties and consider one's allegiance to the future of our democracy. Harman's bill, though seemingly benign, would actually give the green light to multiple simultaneous cross-country hearings aimed at intimidating those who question the government. Even if the bill were benignly conceived, its effect will be to silence debate and foster a climate of suspicion.

I think that's slightly extreme, but it certainly COULD go that way, and the value of yet another "blue ribbon panel" is certainly outweighed by the potential loss of civil liberties and monitoring of groups who are Constitutionally engaging in their right to dissent. So if you are concerned about this legislation, you ought to call Senator Boxer and urge a hold on it. The bill number in the Senate is S.B. 1959.

Complicity

Yesterday the Washington Post revealed a secret meeting in 2002 between the CIA and top Intelligence Committee officials on Capitol Hill, including Democrats, about the secret detention policies the agency was about to put into effect.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

There can be no doubt that this was a partisan leak designed to discredit Democratic anger over torture techniques, and to muddy the waters over the current outrage from the destruction of the torture tapes.

After studying this for a day or so, I have to say that it's too bad. I agree that speaking out over torture policy in 2002 would have been the end of any politician's career, not because I think Americans were somehow bloodthirsty at that time but because the Republican attack machine was so powerful then that they would have steamrolled any objectors. That doesn't mean you get to throw up your hands and say nothing. There are too many methods that leading Democrats could have employed to make known this debasement of American values.

The Intelligence Committees were created as a response to the discovery in the 1970s of illegal conduct by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The core function is to monitor what the intelligence community does and to "assure that such activities" are legal. It is a complete travesty for the senior Democrats on those Committees (and their apologists) to claim that they are powerless to act when learning of lawbreaking. Anyone who thinks that way should not be on the Committee. The idea that they can't do anything once learning of lawbreaking is the very opposite of the Committee's core purpose. But, of course, they were not and are not powerless to act. They simply chose not to act.

In addition to the other mechanisms for action identified here and elsewhere thus far that are available to Senators who learn of patently illegal behavior in a classified setting, key members of the Intelligence Committee could also refuse to cooperate in the enactment of legislation, block nominees, and otherwise thwart the administration's needs until there is some resolution. Such Senators could hold closed door hearings or announce publicly that they have learned of serious lawbreaking by the CIA (without specifying what the lawbreaking is) and demand that the administration agree to a classified setting to resolve those concerns (such as appointing a special counsel with security clearances or empowering a court able to investigate and adjudicate highly classified matters).

But they did none of that. They did the opposite: they continued to cooperate meekly with the administration, pass all of their demanded legislation, and keep quiet.

Pelosi is claiming that she knew very little about the actual techniques, and anyway Jane Harman knew more than she did. Harman said that she did note her opposition to the destruction to the torture tapes, but that was completely in private and seemingly classified by Harman herself. If they wanted the information out there, there were ample ways to do so.

Now the only thing that gives me pause about this is the fact that Bob Graham is saying he has no recollection of these meetings. Now, Bob Graham is legendary for writing everything down in these little binders obsessively. He's out of government and doesn't have much of a reason to lie. So that gives me a little pause.

But clearly, a lot of Democrats knew that the Bush Administration was about to torture terror suspects, and they did nothing. This is a bright line. Further, they sat out the debate when Congress attempted to actually do something about this humiliation, preferring to have the Axis of McCain fight it out. This is how we ended up with the Military Commissions Act, perhaps the worst legislation coming out of the Congress in decades.

I have to come to the conclusion that Democrats enabled these efforts, and when given the chance to force some change, sanctioned them. Which means that this line is completely accurate.

Well, I guess now I know why impeachment was “off the table.”

UPDATE: Pelosi continues to say that she wasn't informed of exactly what the techniques were, and found it hard to object to the possibility of certain techniques. And Bob Graham says he didn't know what the CIA was up to. It's very important to keep in mind that the WaPo story was almost certainly put out by Republicans.

The 18-Minute Torture Gap: Dems Complicit?

As more information spills out about the CIA's destruction of torture tapes sometime in 2005, it is becoming clear that many people, in Congress, in the executive branch, and in the Justice Department had knowledge of the tapes, and urged the Agency not to destroy them, advice they never took.

White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said [...]

Top C.I.A. officials had decided in 2003 to preserve the tapes in response to warnings from White House lawyers and lawmakers that destroying the tapes would be unwise, in part because it could carry legal risks, the government officials said.

But the government officials said that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations, had reversed that decision in November 2005, at a time when Congress and the courts were inquiring deeply into the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program. Mr. Rodriguez could not be reached Friday for comment.

As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2003, Porter J. Goss, then a Republican congressman from Florida, was among Congressional leaders who warned the C.I.A. against destroying the tapes, the former intelligence officials said. Mr. Goss became C.I.A. director in 2004 and was serving in the post when the tapes were destroyed, but was not informed in advance about Mr. Rodriguez’s decision, the former officials said.

Who the hell is running the CIA when physical evidence can be destroyed without the Director's knowledge?

But this not only is a dark stain on the CIA, and the Administration for authorizing the techniques that are now being covered up. It is a stain on those Democrats who were informed about the existence of these tapes and said nothing in public, meekly sending letters asking for their preservation. This is a persistent pattern among squishes like Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman.

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity -- but reveals nothing. Really, isn't it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the CIA program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence? ...

Jane Harman also knew of the intention to destroy the tapes, and she at least "urged" the CIA in writing not to do it. (Where were her colleagues?) But when she found out the CIA had destroyed the tapes, where was Harman's press conference? Where were the congressional hearings?

Rockefeller, indeed, is trying to change his story and claim that he didn't know about the tapes until a couple days ago. Of course, Intelligence Committee members are in a tough spot, forbidden from revealing state secrets while charged with official oversight. However, they are not powerless:

There are countless mechanisms available to a U.S. Senator or Representative to do something about illegal behavior they discover. Anyone -- not just someone in such a position -- has mechanisms available to them under whistleblower laws to intiate proceedings to investigate illegal government conduct. Why couldn't they have done that?

They could have also communicated much more aggressively within the government that unless the illegal behavior stopped, they would invoke those mechanisms. Why couldn't they have done that?

They could also commence closed door investigations to exert oversight over these illegal intelligence activities. The whole point of the SECRET SELECT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEES is to enable Congress to exercise oversight even over the most secretive governmental conduct, precisely in order to prevent illegal behavior of this sort.

After the fact, Democrats are calling for an inquiry into the tapes' destruction. But they should have been adjudicating this all year long, on a bipartisan basis, inside the government, to provide a check on this potential obstruction of justice. That they didn't reflects the fact that they are disinterested in rocking the boat and doing their jobs.

"Fully Briefed" and more from Rep. Harman

My post about Jane Harman's remarks at a town hall meeting yesterday about the secret "torture memos" revealed this week by the New York Times is up at Think Progress, submitted through their Blog Fellows Program, which I can't recommend enough. Let me contextualize those remarks a bit more, and add some of the other interesting things Rep. Harman had to say.

I asked the question to Harman about the secret memos. Earlier this week, the White House claimed that all relevant members of Congress had been fully briefed on the classified program sanctioning harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA. At the time of the memos, Harman was a member of the "Gang Of Eight" routinely briefed on intelligence matters. Harman was shaking her head as I asked the question if she was fully briefed, chuckling almost in disbelief. Her answer:

We were not fully briefed. We were told about operational details but not these memos. Jay Rockefeller said the same thing, and I associate myself with his remarks. And we want to see these memos.

Harman is now the third member of the Gang of Eight, joining Jay Rockefeller and Nancy Pelosi, to reject the White House's claim that they were fully briefed about these memos. The Administration is lying, again, and it is now incumbent upon Congress to make every effort to obtain those memos and to enshrine into law a full repudiation of the arguments therein described. The follow-up question I wanted to ask Rep. Harman, but could not, was how she would go about pressuring the White House to get those documents. Obviously the vehicle for this is through the confirmation of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. Considering that these memos came out of the Justice Department, there should simply be no movement on his confirmation without an exchange of the memos.

Let me add some additional information about the town hall. I wrote in my Think Progress post this tidbit:

Harman later revealed that she was speaking with an unidentified Republican in her office, who told her that if President Bush were to attack Iran, then even he would vote for impeachment.

You have to understand the environment of this town hall meeting. The audience included the hardcore progressives that made up the core of the Marcy Winograd primary challenge to Harman in 2006; in fact, Winograd was on a panel right before Harman's arrival. These people were SCREAMING for impeachment; the first two questions were about this issue. And Harman could do nothing but reiterate that Nancy Pelosi, not her, had taken impeachment off the table. She went on to describe her no votes against the Clinton impeachment and how MoveOn.org was born out of the impeachment debate (odd of her to approvingly cite MoveOn, considering she voted to condemn their remarks in the "General Betrayus" ad). But when she brought up Iran, she said "this little anecdote should make you smile," and mentioned the above exchange.

Here are some of the other notable tidbits in Harman's meeting.

• She recommended Jack Goldsmith's "The Terror Presidency" as the best source for understanding how the Bush Administration attempted to expand executive power through neutering the Office of Legal Counsel. She had the book with her.

• She reiterated that "intelligence was politicized again" on the FISA bill, referring to the fake terror attack hyped by the White House designed to get wavering Democrats to sanction warrantless surveillance. It was a cold-blooded tactic, and it should be heavily publicized. I thanked Rep. Harman for speaking out on this, and I hope that she'll continue as well as encourage other members to corroborate her allegations. Harman said she is working to change the new FISA bill, which will "probably be introduced this week." The goals are that any surveillance must be done through the FISA court, with a warrant, and with minimization protocols if a US national is involved.

• Harman spoke about her legislation to close Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus, and end the use of national security letters outside their initial purpose. She spoke glowingly about the vote this week to put Blackwater contractors under the auspices of US law, and thanked both Rep. Waxman and Rick Jacobs, who produced Iraq for Sale, with their efforts to get the word out about Blackwater's numerous abuses and how they fell into the "legal black hole" regarding their activities.

• She recommended the Seymour Hersh article about developments with respect to Iran, and said that she has invited him to speak to the Congress. Harman was adamant in saying that "targeted sanctions are working" with Iran, and that the government should "stop the saber rattling" that could lead us to another catastrophic war.

• She trumpeted her contribution to the House energy bill, a measure to retire the incandescent light bulb by 2012.

• On trade, she made a disappointing statement. Despite voting against NAFTA and CAFTA and claiming that she was proven right on those votes, she said that some trade deals are admissable with proper labor and environmental standards as well as trade adjustment assistance, and referring to the current Peruvian Free Trade Agreement that will come up for vote in a couple weeks, she said that "It was approved by Charlie Rangel." Uh-oh. We know that this bill, crafted in the dead of night to appease corporate interests, does not go nearly far enough to ensure labor and environmental standards, and would be nothing more than NAFTA-light.

• Someone asked Rep. Harman about the Walt-Mearshimer book "The Israel Lobby" and AIPAC's support for endless war, including war with Iran. Harman, who has been linked in the past to lobbies like AIPAC, said "I'm not a member of AIPAC... I support a two-state solution where Palestine can thrive economically with borders that are defensible to Israel." She pretty much dodged the question.

• On the still-unresolved EPA waiver that would allow California to make their own rules on tailpipe emissions that contribute to global warming, Harman said that she signed on to a letter protesting the slow-rolling from the EPA and the Department of Transportation, and she added that Gov. Schwarzenegger should work harder to get DoT to "back off" (they've been accused of lobbying lawmakers to pressure the EPA to block the California law).

• Finally, Harman asked for education activists to call her office and tell her about the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. While she said that Rep. Miller has claimed to her it has been improved, she said "I am prepared to oppose it" if the changes are not satisfactory.

FEAR Unit Returns

I've written a bit over the years about FEAR Unit, the Federal Even-yeared Antiterror Response. It seemed like every time an election came up we'd be bombarded with terror alerts and lurid attack plans. Since the Presidential approval ratings hit the toilet, FEAR Unit has been deployed in non-election years as well, to improve Republican standing and, in one case, to get legislation passed. Jane Harman has blown the whistle on the behind-the-scenes work to get the odious FISA bill through the Congress. It turns out that the Bushies did what they do best - they started a whisper campaign, this one about a major terrorist attack on the US Capitol that turned the Fear Caucus of the Democratic Party to jelly, and allowed the Administration to get the massive surveillance powers they sought.

Republicans and the Bush administration used a 'bogus' terror threat that raised specific fears of an attack on the Capitol to scare lawmakers into adopting a dramatic temporary expansion of the government's spy powers last month, a former top intelligence committee Democrat said Wednesday.

Congress agreed to give President Bush and the nation's intelligence agencies extra authority to spy on Americans just hours before lawmakers left for a month-long recess in August. In the legislative session's final week, news emerged of an impending plot by foreign terrorists to attack the US Capitol, and Republicans pointed to the reports as justification to expand the administration's powers.

"That specific intelligence claim, it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that," Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said at a forum on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act organized by the Center for American Progress in Washington. However, lawmakers did not learn of the claim's unreliability until "the day" they approved the FISA expansion, she said.

This is unconscionable and clearly should be the biggest news story of the day, if not the year. Let's go through this again: the Bush Administration used talk of a FAKE TERRORIST ATTACK to scare legislators into passing the FISA bill. There can be nothing more disgraceful than to play on those fears.

And honestly, considering that lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have had six years' worth of dealing with this guy and knowing how he operates, it's almost as disgraceful that they fell for it.

After this revelation, if any Democrat votes for re-authorization, they should be drummed right out of the party. Memo to the Democrats: the President is lying to you to get extraordinarily radical new powers. And he's manipulating the intelligence services to frighten you into doing so. And he's continuing to use his minions to do it. Michael McConnell testified the other day that the FISA court got so restrictive that NSA had to get warrants to spy on insurgents in Iraq. Not true:

That sounded dubious to us. Would the FISA Court have really issued such a patently absurd ruling? And it turns out we're not the only ones. FISA expert Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies also finds McConnell's statement dubious.

"It's totally implausible, like the claim about the arrests in Germany. Doesn't NSA have collection capabilities in Iraq? If so, they are totally outside FISA," Martin says. "Even if they're taking the Iraqi insurgent calls off the wire in the U.S. talking to each other, they don't need a court order and no court is going to bar them. Or is it that the NSA is so incompetent that it doesn't know they are Iraqi insurgents talking to each other and they were just blindly searching all traffic, which the court said they weren't allowed to do?"

We asked Ross Feinstein, McConnell's spokesman, to elaborate on his testimony. Feinstein declined, but indicated that McConnell stands by it.

The larger point here is that, if we know that they're lying to obtain the powers, can there be any doubt that they'd also lie about how they'd use them?

Appearing alongside Harman at Wednesday's forum was Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official, who has emerged as a harsh critic of President Bush. Fein noted that FISA grew out of concerns over Nixon administration scandals and revelations that foreign intelligence resources were being abused.

"Unchecked spying invariably leads to abuses in collection for political purposes, not national security purposes," Fein said. The danger inherent in giving Bush -- or any president -- authority to spy on Americans without oversight is that "it will be hijacked to advance a political agenda."

Spread this far and wide. Make sure every Congressperson in America knows about it. Lying about terror is the tactic to serve the prime agenda of this President.