Conflict Over Spying Led White House to Brink

Washington Post ^ | September 14, 2008 | Barton Gellman

[An American!]

This is the first of two stories adapted from "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency," to be published Tuesday by Penguin Press. EXCERPT: "The United States was at war with al-Qaeda, intelligence-gathering is inherent in war, and the Constitution appoints the president commander in chief.
But they had not been asked to give their own written assessments of the legality of domestic espionage. They based their answer in part on the attorney general's certification of the "form and legality" of the president's orders. Yet neither man had been allowed to see the program's codeword-classified legal analyses [5], which were prepared by John C. Yoo, Addington's close ally in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Now they wanted to read Yoo's opinions for themselves [6]."
The more questions they asked, the less Goldsmith and Philbin liked the answers. Parts of the program fell easily within the constitutional powers of the commander in chief. Others looked dicier.
The two lawyers worked at the intersection of three complex systems: telecommunications, spy technology, and the statutory regimes that governed surveillance. After a few weeks, Goldsmith said, he decided the program "was the biggest legal mess I'd seen in my life."
He asked for permission to read in Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's new deputy, James B. Comey [14]. As always, he found Addington waiting with Gonzales in the White House counsel's corner office, one floor up from the chief of staff. They sat in parallel wing chairs, much as Bush and Cheney did in the Oval Office.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

OVP seems to have waged a war within the key players of the Administration

Oh my goodness, not everyone in the Executive Branch agreed with everyone else in the Executive branch and there was infighting between them to advance their particular positions. Shocker!

And on one side there was one of two men elected to national office, and on the other there were a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. Shame on the elected official for DARING to oppose the bureaucrats.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Darn straight. The other side of the coin: the Gorelick Wall. And while we’re speaking about Gorelick, what about that Freddie Mac / Fanny May [sic] mess? Didn’t Gorelick get 25 million out of that pig troth?

Gorelick is corrupt, she allowed the 9-11 terror attack through weakening our intelligence — and she’s a member of the Clintonista.

To top it off, Gorelick WAS ON THE 9-11 OVERSIGHT PANEL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[piasa]

I agree with you. The man is either a moron or a snake.