i am willing to give comey (tenatively) the benefit of the doubt wrt to the nsa story because of LHP’s intervention.

but i also can’t see any way to excuse his actions (especially his later actions) in the padilla case and, as mary rightly points out, the arar case.

there’s something else i want to add, that hasn’t been discussed so much…..

i’m a middled aged white women who has spent all her life (so far) in the middle class (it is much worse if you’re poor and black)…. and yet, my experience with law enforcement in this country has been, on balance, bad.

and i’m not a life long activist – the first time i ever participated in any kind of protest was 2002 when i attended a silent peace vigil… at which i was photographed by the police (they went down the line doing head shots for identification purposes) while marchers went by yelling and taunting us. the marchers were ignored by the police.

later, during a city council meeting, the chief of police said it was necessary to identify us and keep records of us because we were a potential threat to society… and it was inferred that we were potential terrorists. this was in MA – not some red state. it was the aclu that stood up for us – not any government entity.

in 2003, i went to miami for the ftaa meeting and protests. while volunteering as a legal observer for the national lawyers guild (ianal) i was tear gassed, pepper sprayed and saw young people beaten bloody and hundreds of rounds of rubber bullets fired indiscriminately into a crowd. for a time, i was detained and threatened with arrest if i tried to leave – although i had done nothing wrong (we were told it was for our own “protection”). union reps were able to negotiate our release.

when i returned to where i was staying – i watched the miami police chief on tv tell the most outrageous lies (and i knew they were lies from my own first hand experience) to the citizens of miami (mostly about the dangerous anarchists).

i could go on and on… (like the time the fbi called a nationwide terror alert because the room mates of a friend of mine were showing a movie)

the point i want to make, is that i have had reason to fear my own government – and many, many people have experiences far, far worse than the small ones i’ve had.

i depend on people like comey to protect me from out of control “law enforcement”. i don’t have the financial resources to pay legal fees, i don’t have social or political power to protect me. it could be that some day, all that stands between me and a very bad experience is someone like comey who’s not supposed to detain or prosecute someone unjustly – just because his boss told him too. comey’s actions in the padilla and arar cases undermine my ability to “trust the system” (and it doesn’t help when his actions in these cases are defended in ways i don’t understand by other lawyers).

i grew up being taught that the police, and the courts were where i should look to find justice. but, these last few years i learned (belatedly) that frequently isn’t so. (black friends have welcomed me to their world).

this is sad. i don’t want to feel this way. i want to go back to “trusting the system”.

to me, people like Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz and Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift and organizations like the aclu, nlg, and ccr are the heros – not Jim Comey.

Zubaydah was being tortured while they were getting Padilla and in connection with his attempts to get the torture to stop, Z came up with one plan after another that was on the cusp of supposedly taking place. Suskind’s book describes how we took a crazy guy (which Z was) who was known almost immediately after they captured him to not be the important operative cog we had hoped he (Z) would be, and proceeded to torture him bc the President had made statements publically about what an important capture Z was and Tenet swore he wouldn’t let the PResident down or let his statements look foolish – so they would just torture Z until they did get something important.

Again, Comey may or may not have known what was going on. Certainly the FBI agents involved initially do not seem to have been that shy in expressing their disgust over what took place and how their non-abusive interrogations were disrupted and how clear it was that Z was a nutcase. Those guys pretty much all had NYC counterterrorism ties, so I would wonder that Comey didn’t hear any rumors – but whatever.

When the President showed up to take Padilla I don’t think Comey had that many choices. I do think he had a choice in how his office responded to Padilla’s lawyers and that wasn’t very pretty. He could have done several things, including resign, that wouldn’t really have changed things too much for Padilla. He did also have the Higazy coverup which I thought painted a not very flattering portrait. While I think he would have been a better lawyer and better person do something, that’s not the same as saying he was awful.

BUT

Then he became DAG and that’s when he really did do, imo, things that were just flat abhorrent. The Padilla presser was one. It was abhorrent at the time and even with the uncontradicted spin that was being put out then that what Comey was saying, factually, was true and not biased. Now that we know how many of his statements were false and misleading – and how he would have had to be literally hiding under his desk to not know that he was misleading the country – it is just plain shocking.

Read Suskind or any of Mayer’s articles or Risen or … heck, anything. Then go back and re-read that Presser. Then read Fitzgerald’s invocations of candor and truth in his most recent Libby filings and try not to choke. No, Comey wasn’t under oath when he stood and gave that press conference. But he was making a case to the country based on lies. That’s not good behaviour.

He was also stage managing for the S. Ct. which was close to making its rulings on Padilla. It as a blatant effort to influence the court and to propagandize and use the full weight, power and authority of his office and his positive press relations and the backing of all the trapping of the United State government to insure the continued abuse without trial of a man against whom they had almost no evidence. He took a clear stand that not only could the President start torture for a “ticking time bomb” scenario, but that the DOJ was there to make sure that, once started, the country had to accept being degraded by continued torture, day after day, at the will and whim of President Bush. Over whom COmey absolutely enthused.

It was seriously bad.

In its own way, I think the Arar intervention was equally bad. But that’s another long story.

And I’m not that impressed by the NSA story bc I’m a cynic and I can think of a reason for everything that is much less stirring. For example, I think it could well be that the program was not changed at all – all the references to bringing it “within the law” etc. IMO likely dealt more with the uses being made of the information than the gathering of the information. You had what seems to have been a contemporaneous meltdown by the FISA court about illegally obtained information being given to the court and threats by the court to pursue perjury charges against “high ranking” doj officials (and Mueller would definitely have been interested in that since he and Ashcroft were likely on the hook for the signatures on the FISA applications that had the court so angry).

the spying program itself, per se. I don’t thi

An excellent place to start would be the abuse and overuse of classification authority, I completely agree with lhp and Mary and Lew and Christy. That abuse of secrecy is really the underpinning of the threat to Constitutional liberties from our modern “national security state” and it has caused enormously damaging unintended consequences. Fixing that with adequate guaranteed safeguards for federal whistleblowers would also go a long way toward removing any alleged need for a federal ‘reporter shield law’ exemption from providing testimony to grand juries. Comey could contribute very powerfully to an effort to get Congress to do its homework in this area, by highlighting how the state secrets excuse robbed him of his ability as a United States Attorney and Deputy Attorney General to safeguard Constitutional rights in the case of at least one American.

I do want to reiterate here that Comey testified to Congress that he in fact prepared his resignation letter the same day he learned that the spying “program” was continuing without DOJ certification as to its legality. It was as a result of those pending resignations that the President relented, and allowed DOJ to work to change the spying program so as to enable them to certify as to its legality. Lew does have that sequence confused in the main post (as a review of the transcript will make clear).

After the hospital showdown and the subsequent discussions with Bush, a delay of several weeks ensued during which the spying program was modified, so that the DOJ (the OLCounsel and not just Comey) was then able to certify as to its legality, and the program has presumably been running ever since in that changed manner, in line with the DOJ’s guidance. So I can’t see that Comey deserves anything but praise for what we’ve learned to date about his courageous actions under (and with) Ashcroft in relation to the NSA spying program in 2004.

Comey had just been made acting Attorney General, and perhaps feeling his oats, and makes a decision– perhaps a good one. Then he comes to find out, that his brief moment of awesome power and authority is being usurped by Gonzo & Card.

I can’t help but wonder if that slap in the face wasn’t somehow taken personally, and played some role in his willingness to come forward on this issue.

It would be nice to think that his only motivation was defense of the constitution, but I am troubled by his reliance on Ted Olsen as his witness, and I’m troubled that he eventually agreed that with a few minor tweaks the domestic spying program could continue.

Because his scene at the hospital and subsequent “I quit” antics at the hospital made sure he wouldn’t be the one going to jail should they get caught. Poor Gitmo Gonzo, he isn’t even any good at picking a patsy.

thanks for the response, lhp, very much appreciated.

two things…

first – i guess maybe where we disagree is that i can’t see any reason to blow off the constitution and habeas corpus at the president’s say so.

any president. this is not about bush.

to me, these are fundamental rights – not something that we follow when convenient.

that doesn’t mean i don’t have sympathy for the inital decision – that is pretty understandable (even if i really hate it).

second – if the apology you are refering to was before he became DAG…. then what justifies his later june 2004 press conference (after his apology)?

that press conference really was obscene. i just don’t see any way it can be defended.

that doesn’t mean he can’t make amends for it – i just haven’t seen him do or say anything to indicate he even regrets giving it.

again – my condemnation of his actions in the padilla case does (especially the press conference), in no way, take away from my admiration for the good things he’s done. the two are not mutually exclusive.

i really look forward to watching how he works out all the contradictions… if, as you say, he is an honorable and conflicted man, then we have hope that he will eventually work to right the wrongs he has done. i wish him wisdom and courage… he’s going to need it.

looseheadprop @ 109

Yes, he did [ublicly in tat same cerimonial courtroom I was sitting in earlier this week. I front a room that held 200 of his peers.

Not such an easy thing to do.

Oh, and he asked that anyone in that room who had an idea of how he could fix it should call him direct and he gave out is direct dial phone #.

I spent a week pondering it and could not think up a solution.

So, blame me too.

was the apology for padilla or for something else?

thanks, LHP!

He didn’t do it last week. It was just the same romm as the event I was in last week. He did it before he left SDNY to become DAG.

He was asked about Padilla, and he was so hamstrung in his response because a) he was not at liberty to disclose the info at the time (his presser in response to the Hatch letter makes it clear it took alot of work to get the info de-classified. Mary is so right about the abuse of the classification authority being at the heart of many of these problems and why whistleblowing is not happening they some would wish)

b) he said outright that he did not have all the information he needed to prove that the President was wrong. That as a lawyer you act on things that you can prove and you hestitate to act otherwise.

He got rather emotional and said he did not become a lawyer to destroy the Constitution and that he was afraid that he had done it some damage. He then asked if anyone in the room had a soultion to offer.

There was a long silence. Then he said if no one wanted to speak it publicly, or if someone had a goood idea later, here was his direct dial number and please please call him.

He got a diect order from the President, he had two choices: do as he was bid, or resign. The preferred choice, build a case that the order was unlawful was not availbale to him because he did not have enough evidence and the Pesident was claiming to have secret evidence that Comey did not know. so, what the hell did you expect him to do? Be insubordiante so he could be fired for cause? How would that have helped Padilla or solved anything?