Posted on 07/25/2007 4:53:12 PM PDT by mtnwmn
Documents show that eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.
A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.
At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.
Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.
Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality.
"The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I think this is the same report that I just saw disputed on the “Grapevine” with Brit Hume. Nancy Pelosi supported Gonzales account and said that she agreed with Comey.
You can log on to Special Report via the Fox New website and read “The Grapevine”. Sorry.. don’t do html.
Thanks, we had a thunderstorm and lost signal.
NP agreed that the meeting occurred and said that she agreed with comey. The Fox report does not state that she wouldnât support a purgery charge.
Nice to see that little prick Gonzales twist in the wind. Even though this “scandal” is nonsense, I despise him for so many other things I want him gone. And his little Sutton too.
You can watch his presser HERE
We are in violent agreement.
This is freaking confusing. The AG is saying that meeting wasn’t even about the terrorist surveillance program though. The more Gonzales testifies the deeper a hole he continues to dig...
There is NO reason whatsoever for Gonzales to be treated the way he is being treated by Leahy, Schumer and the rest of them. No matter how much you may dislike him, the level of vitriol coming from the left (and some on the right) about a non-issue is pathetic, even beyond. This is exactly what they did to Libby and look what it cost him.
Comey is gone now so Schumer has lost his little birdie in the justice department...but for them to call Gonzales a liar is beyond pathetic.
I’m sick beyond words about the scorched earth policies of the democrats and their poodles in the media. NO ONE deserves to be treated the way the people serving President Bush have been/are being treated.
I totally agree! We might like Gonzales if he weren’t so demonized in the media.
Obtained from who? This piece smells of nothing but a biased political hit job. Here's info I find on the author Lara Jakes Jordan:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32268
It was a set-up. It was what we call in the news business a "hatchet job." Rick Santorum is a young, good-looking, articulate conservative in the Senate's Republican leadership. He was deliberately targeted by a political activist disguised as a reporter Lara Jakes Jordan.
I invite you to read her original story and see for yourself how it is dripping in venom. It's an editorial camouflaged as a news story. And she wrote it for the largest and most powerful news-gathering operation in the world, ensuring it would get maximum play in newspapers throughout the world.
Who is Lara Jakes Jordan?
For starters, she is married to veteran Democratic Party operative Jim Jordan, the former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and manager of Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid.
Not surprisingly, the Massachusetts Democrat was among the first to criticize Santorum's remarks, using it as an opportunity to attack the White House. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Kerry got an advance copy of the article given his connections.
But there's more to the Lara Jakes Jordan story.
In January of this year, Mrs. Jordan was one of the signatories on a letter to her bosses at the AP attacking the news organization for "rolling back diversity" by not extending benefits to domestic partners.
In a symbolic move, the signatories to the letter returned key chains AP management gave them to "celebrate" its corporate diversity. The key chains carried the slogan: "AP Diversity: Many Views, One Vision.
It seems Mrs. Jordan's ideological fervor is not reserved only for her private life and her corporate politicking. This woman clearly ambushed Santorum on an issue near and dear to her bleeding heart.
http://newsbusters.org/node/13220
In this June 4 article, the AP worked hard to leave out something very important but very basic in an article about Democratic US Representative William Jeffersons 16-count bribery indictment. What the AP left out was any identification of Jeffersons party affiliation. In almost 30 paragraphs, no where is there any hint of what party Jefferson belongs to, not even a (D-LA).
-snip
One of the reporters who wrote the article, Lara Jakes Jordan is married to Jim Jordan, long-time Democratic operative. Jordan is a former John Kerry presidential campaign manager, former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a former John Kerry presidential campaign manager and staffer of America Coming Together, a 527 funded by George Soros and labor unions which was a pro-Kerry organization which focused on defeating Bush.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I wish we would hear more slapdowns coming from the right. I know they are gentlemen but how many times do you turn the other cheek and hae to suck it up? Eight years of this yammering crap from the Left with very few snappy comebacks (VP Cheney’s well-deserved comment to Leahy notwithstanding)
God Bless Tony Snow, they are lucky to have hom...and so are we.
Lara Jakes Jordan is married to veteran Democratic Party operative Jim Jordan, the former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and manager of Sen. John Kerry’s presidential bid.
I wouldn’t believe anything she ‘reported’!
I have no respect for that man.
He’s a liar and not an especially good one.
Absolutely pathetic choice as AG.
Can you say “Set up”? I knew you could. Did the dim-witted Gonzales somehow miss the Scooter Libby debacle? No one should EVER give another word of testimony to a Dem committee, because they are simply lying in wait to trap the poor schlep who does.
As has been said many times, the MSM consists almost entirely of Democrats.
Here we go again....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.