Posted on 01/06/2006 9:03:53 AM PST by the Real fifi
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
Twice in recent days we have seen published evidence of unethical conduct warranting disciplinary action on the part of FISA judges. Since they have hidden their conduct under a cloak of anonymity, the normal process of filing complaints with the Clerk of the FISA Court is unavailing. Therefore, I ask that you immediately institute an investigation to find out which Judges are involved and seek appropriate measures to remove or discipline the judges involved.
Let’s review that evidence briefly:
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
"Evidence"? Really? How about some names and dates?
Yes, the democrats with access to top secret information all came out with their anti-bush thing in a coordinated way. They need to be stopped or else we won't be able to trust Democrats with secret info or national security anymore.
You can't publish things like this. It disturbs the Dimmycraps' strategy in an election year. Surely that must be a violation of McVain-Stinkhole.
"... we won't be able to trust Democrats with secret info or national security anymore." We passed that moment even before the Kerry run for the White House, as proven with the Rockefeller, Clinton, Durbin, and Leahy shinanigans. The democrap party has only their power in focus, regardless of exposing Americans to greater terrorist activities or exposing our courageous military people to greater attacks. The democrap party is a festering pile of decaying liars hellbent on regaining control over America at ANY COST in treasure and American lives. Trusting such lying traitors is too dangerous.
Since they spoke anonymously, we do not have evidence of which judges spoke (though some are named in an earlier 12/22/05 Wash Post article). What we do have evidence of is unethical conduct, unless the reporters just made up the conversations.
The author is an idiot. He linked to the code, yet did not read it. He wants these judges removed because they have an opinion that would put his side at a disadvantage in cases, yet the code explicitly says it is not to be used for that.
According to the criteria in the Code on whether action should be taken, these judges seem to be in the clear. They have good stated intent (protecting FISA from abuse), no prior pattern of such activity, and a negative effect of their actions on the judicial system is unlikely (in fact, their goal is to protect the integrity of the system).
The only thing I can see here is if the judges don't like Bush and are saying these things purely for political reasons, but that's probably impossible to prove.
Furthermore, and to really cement his ignorance, the AG has no business in this. They are not accused of leaking information, only of talking vaguely about cases they've handled. If that is an impropriety possibly worthy of discipline, then there are proper venues for complaints, starting with the courts, up through Congress. They do not include the AG. By constitutional mandate, Congress runs the courts, not the executive.
Pretend one party was not the government, but a private litigant and the judges were discussing how they would rule, and you will see that McCarthy is obviously right and you are wrong.
If the judges names had been given in the article, the way to proceed with this would be to file complaints with the Court. As they hid their identities, the only way to deal with this unethical conduct is through an investigation by DoJ.
All I've heard from the judges so far is them saying they think past warrants may have been obtained using extralegal information, and may therefore be legally suspect. They also want to know whether future warrant requests will be may be tainted, possibly making them hesitant to grant them until the issue is resolved. For cases that are ongoing, a judge definitely has a right to require law enforcement to show that a warrant was obtained legally. The judges also have not publicly commented on specific cases, merely questions of law that could apply to any number of cases, and since the warrants were already issued, they are not pending actions anyway.
That sounds perfectly legitimate to me.
As they hid their identities, the only way to deal with this unethical conduct is through an investigation by DoJ.
The AG has no jurisdiction on internal court matters of conduct. A complaint has to go through the courts and Congress. The only possible investigation is by the courts or Congress. See separation of powers in the Constitution.
Areyou suggesting, that the AG lacks power to investigate judicial leaks? Because if you are, I think you are mistaken. The courts do not seem to have a mechanism to do that.
As to the breaches of Code of Conduct, the AG can refer it to the Clerk of the FISA court for investigation.
You're thinking a criminal leak of classified material. This is a question of judicial ethics in commenting about how to handle cases after the material was already leaked.
Besides, how could the judges have leaked anything? They seemed to be the most surprised of anyone at Bush's wiretapping program.
Ethics violations are supposed to go to the clerk of the appeals court and read by the chief of that court, who will make an initial determination. But FISA might be an exception to the rule. In any case, if the author thinks there were ethics violations then he should have submitted this to the clerk himself, not in an open letter to the powerless AG.
The December 16 Risen piece indicates some of his information came from judicial sources.
You're right, looks like a judge did know. But also notice the judge didn't leak anything to the paper. The preceding paragraph -- conveniently omitted by the author -- shows that the paper's actual sources said a (most likely FISA) judge had expressed reservations about the spying.
So, we have a judge who expresses his legal reservations about the program to someone already in the program, no leak there. Where exactly is the judge wrong in this?
From the author, "This suggests that a judge on the FISA court was one of Risen’s sources."
No, it suggests that the judge at some point in the past talked to one of the Risen's sources. You've gotten me to read more, and the more I read, the more stupid and illiterate the author looks.
We can't tell. Remember Judy Miller's testimony about shading her description of her source to make it harder to find out who her anonymous source was?
A simple reading of the article shows the judge didn't talk to the paper. Anything else is making stuff up, like the author did. And why even mention a judge (one of only a few people in the country to fit that description, easy to find) if he's trying to shield him?
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