Louis Freeh (left), the former FBI director, sat with Michael Mukasey’s family and other supporters yesterday as the nominee answered questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The confirmation hearing is scheduled to continue today. (Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS)
Something in the front row of the spectator’s gallery kept catching my eye as I watched the stock footage of the Mukasey confirmation hearings being played over and over on Friday–I kept thinking isn’t that Louis Freeh in the front row? So, on Saturday Morning I did a little googling and lo and behold! — it WAS Louis!
How curious!
What would Louis Freeh be doing at that hearing? Hmmmm?
As you know I have been lamenting, weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth over the flight of talent away from DOJ and into the private sector and academia. I have long insisted that if someone actually wanted to rebuild and restore DOJ and do something about the horrible morale there, it would take an iconic or charismatic new AG.
Now, Judge Mukasey is very well thought of as a jurist and legal mind back here in the Big Apple, but “charisma guy”???? I don’t think so.
Louis on the other hand IS a bit of an iconic figure. He started out as an FBI agent, later became an AUSA in SDNY, became a federal judge after that, and left the bench and became FBI Director. I remember how jazzed so many rank and file FBI agents were when that appointment was announced. One of them, one of the working stiffs had actually gotten the big job.
Though his management skills may not place him up among the most efficient Bureau Directors, no one accused him of being a lapdog to President Clinton. Janet Reno will vouch for his willingness to cross his higher ups.
Louis’ became a well known figure in law enforcement circles by prosecuting the Pizza Connection case when he was an AUSA in NYC. Every chance I got, I used to hop next door to the courthouse and watch that trial.
Louis put together a first rate team. He got some very fine lawyers to work for him, not just in the courtroom where the glory was, but back at the office where it was all hard work and no recognition. He motivated his agents. Throughout his career he has demonstrated the ability to attract really talented people and get them to work according to his vision.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that Freeh was Director under Bill Clinton, Louis is VERY VERY conservative in both his private and public lives. He is no civil libertarian either. Have you heard of “Carnivore“???
So, you should expect that the sort of people who would be giving up private practice, a general counsel’s office or a teaching job if he asked them to come back to government service and fill in the hollowed out middle management of DOJ will be of similar bent; but I also expect that they will be talented and competent lawyers–not more Monicas, Brads or Tims.
So my guess, and it’s only a guess (but my guess about Mukasey turned out pretty lucky, so I’m encouraged to stick my neck out again) is that maybe Mukasey/Schumer have Freeh in mind for Deputy Attorney General (DAG).
Or, I could be wrong and Louis was just their as a hired gun consultant.
[Ed. note: Do click on the "Big Apple" link above and read Wayne Barret's excellent connect the dots about the incredibly incestuous metro New York legal community.]
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uno?
ono!
not freeh, please no.
so, this might be a good thing?
curiouser and curiouser
LHP — I did wonder about Freeh being there. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to have well-placed sideline cache headliners if you also aren’t planning to put them to use. Although it would be an awful lot of SDNY with Mukasey and Freeh at one and two if, indeed, Mukasey goes through, wouldn’t it?
I think LHP is correect. He’s coming around again, to quote Carly Simon.
OC at 3 — There are goods and bads on all sides of this one, I think. As usual inside the Beltway speculation game.
it would be nice if someone would just have some respect for the rule of law as far as the nitwit in chief is concerned… that is all I ask at this point…
I don’t like Freeh and I don’t like recycling the same old same olds.
Term limits folks. Do your time and get out. There’s plenty of talent around.
I thought as head of the FBI, Freeh’s priorities were all wrong and helped enable 9-11. but that’s a way-outsider’s opinion
OldCoastie @ 3
Not taking a position re: good vs. bad. More like, this is an interesting bit of insight into maybe why Schumer is doing what he is doing.
It’s very frustrating when folks on Capitol hill appear to be acting irrationally. However, I doubt that is often the case.
If you understand the backstory, what is motivating decisons, you are in a better position to influence the outcomes of those decisons.
I THINK I see some backstory here.
The public really is not aware of how many cases are not being brought and how many existing cases are being botched, simply because there are not enough bodies, and the bodies they have lack sufficient experience and training, to do the work.
Law enforcement cannot be allowed to grind to a complete halt.
SanderO @ 9
Ah but Sander, this IS term limits in operation. Freeh is not going back to a job he held previously, he is rotating into a new one. What it sounds like you would prefer is that once someone has held ANY job in the public sector, whether elected or appointed, they can NEVER go into another public sector job of any type. Which would never work.
Rudy is the glue that holds that scum together.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 5
Traditionally SDNY has been more of a policy setter/leader than other USAOs. Also, SDNY recruitment is not suffering the same way other USAO’s are.
SDNY has an scholarship intern porgram (used to be run by a great guy named Dave Denton–may he rest in peace) and I recently spoke to a good friend of mine that is part of the screening committee for that program. The law students don’t seem to be apprehensive at all about SDNY. Its reputation for independance from Main Justice (it’s known as the “sovereign District of New York” may have insulated it from some of ABU’s taint.
Also, Mike Garcia, the current USA has pretty much been an absentee landlord spending most of his time in DC (he’s the former head of ICE, so they may have him working “out of title” so to speak) and SDNY has been enjoying a sort of benign neglect and been mostly run by a wonderful lawyer –and really nice woman– named Cathy Sibell.
She is one of those “the glue that holds it all together” kind of people, so SDNY has not seen the same mass exoduses that, for example, EDNY has suffered.
Does anyone know when the Gonzo investigation
will wrap up or when the Libby appeal will be complete?
Elliott @ 10
Yours is a very popular opinion
Curveball on 60 minutes tonight?
‘Morning, LHP, Christy, Firepups…
Yes, this is very interesting indeed, never would have noticed this save for your observation, LHP.
Could go either way, but I think it’s more important to note whether Freeh is capable of being purely partisan, and if he’d prosecute based only on the law and not on party affiliation.
I also wonder whether Mukasey was providing a secondary signal…would Freeh make a good independent counsel or a special prosecutor?? Could a special prosecutor be offered up as a quid pro quo for Mukasey’s appointment?
Louis Freeh – isn’t he a pretty serious neo-con?
(I thought he was a PNAC signatory – but now that I’ve looked, I don’t see his name). Still, there’s something banging around the back of my head about the guy…that makes me think I’d not like to see the DOJ replenished by Freeh-guys.
Steve-AR @ 13
So you did click on the link and read the Wayne Barret piece? *g*
Barret has been researching and writing about Rudy since the 1980’s..he knows this stuff cold
this is just what i don’t want – smarter more competent people who, at best, don’t care about civil rights….
yesterday i watched mukasey’s second day of testimony before the SJC (twice!) and i’m more pissed off now than i was before.
looseheadprop @ 11
Schumer is supporting the new waterboarder in chief because AI**C told him to or he is getting paid from someone. Schumer has, from my distant view of him, no principles. As for Freeh he is yet one more re-cycled RWNF. Not one good thing is going to come out of this AG business. We need impeachment now to stop all this crap…. nothing else will do
OldCoastie @ 8
I agree. I’m still reeling from Chuck & Di’s betrayal. Refuse to confirm, and let Bush make a recess appointment. That way he will own whatever torture-monger he appoints. If Muckasey is confirmed with the blessing of Chuck’n’Di, the Democrats are complicit, and the media gets that one to throw in their faces for the next year.
“Not taking a position re: good vs. bad. More like, this is an interesting bit of insight in to maybe why Schumer is doing what he is doing.
It’s very frustrating when folks on Capital hill appear to be ating irrationally. However, I doubt that is often te case. “
I respect your point of view, and understand that you are party to a lot more information than I am, but I don’t see anything in the Democrat’s conduct in the last year that suggests to me they are playing some sort of ultra-smart chess game with the administration. It appears to me that they’re either stupid, or complicit.
FYI everyone, Sen. Feingold is going to oppose Mukasey. This just landed in my in-box:
Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
In Opposition to Judge Mukasey as the Next Attorney General
“I will vote against the nomination of Judge Mukasey to be the next Attorney General. This was a difficult decision, as Judge Mukasey has many impressive qualities. He is intelligent and experienced and appears to understand the need to depoliticize the Department of Justice and restore its credibility and reputation.
At this point in our history, however, the country also needs an Attorney General who will tell the President that he cannot ignore the laws passed by Congress. Unfortunately, Judge Mukasey was unwilling to reject the extreme and dangerous theories of executive power that this administration has put forward.
The nation’s top law enforcement officer must be able to stand up to a chief executive who thinks he is above the law. The rule of law is too important to our country’s history and to its future to compromise on that bedrock principle.”
Bay State Librul @ 15
There is not deadline for either of those events. There are deadlines for the parties to file their briefs in the appeal, but the oral arguments are scheduled by the court, based upon the court’s own needs and judgement.
After the arguments are completed the court can take as long as it needs to issue a decision.
The Gonzo investiagtion likewise will take as long as the people doing it think they need.
Rudy, Freeh, Murkasey, Kerik..Murkasey=integrity?; I don’t think so.
The Village Voice on the Subject.
link
Schumer and Feinstein are in the tank, Feingold is vascillating, Leahy is adamantly opposed to Mucousy Waterboard. Does this mean that Waterboard now has a lock on confirmation? Whats the deal?
nomolos at 23 — I think that’s unsupported by the facts, and an inaccurate characterization on this one. Schumer knows Mukasey from working in the SDNY and from Mukasey’s time on the bench. Way too much stuff gets attributed inaccurately to outside forces that ought to more accurately be spliced by Occam’s Razor to personal relationships and other closer matters. It’s how the Beltway is and always has been run — and the SDNY even more so. (LHP can expand on that much more than I can, I’m certain…)
looseheadprop @ 11
lhp – did you read steve clemons’ post on schumer and john bolton’s nomination. gave me new appreciation for just who schumer is likely to think who is a “good” nomination.
PeteCO @ 24
i don’t think schumer is stupid.
looseheadprop @ 26
Thanks… that’s what drives me mad…
In the meantime, all bad shit happens…
Sometimes you need to light a match or
come up with a reasonable deadline…
Imagine if we didn’t have April 15th?
Rayne @ 19
Do you mean a special prosecutor to go after Gonzo? That’s an intriguing idea. Louis likes to win (more than most people do). He never struck as the kind of Comey/ Fitz kinda guy who lays awake nights (and pesters everybody in the hallways by day) wondering Whether or not he SHOULD do something.
Louis is more the kind of “this is my assignment, how do I get it done?” kinda guy.
Consequently, that might be bad news for Gonzo, cause Louis could go all Ken Starr on him.
The reason I thought they might want him for DAG, is that he has an excellent rolodex of former AUSAs, knows who has experience at what, and many of them would come back if he called them.
Rayne @ 19
Did you see this from TPM?
John Dean; “Since Judge Mukasey’s situation is not unlike that facing Elliot Richardson when he was appointed Attorney General during Watergate, why should not the Senate Judiciary Committee similarly make it a quid pro quo for his confirmation that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes? Richardson was only confirmed when he agreed to appoint a special prosecutor, which, of course, he did. And when Nixon fired that prosecutor, Archibald Cox, it lead to his impeachment.”
One can only hope, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence, do they?
jayt @ 20
Click on the Carnivore link. Maybe that’s why you know he is very conservative.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 25
Boy, is that a day late and a dollar short. It only took him 2 days after Feinstein and Schumer announced their support for Mukasey greatly increasing his chances of confirmation.
It’s like bringing a cup of water a day after the house burned down.
Hugh at 36 – Well, it certainly would have been nice to have it earlier. Just getting it to you when I get it, however.
looseheadprop @ 21
It was a remembered link from Jeralyn’s piece on “Mukasey, Rudy and Burnie”. (Blush) Caught me for sloppy reading.
LHP @11: It’s very frustrating when folks on Capital hill appear to be acting irrationally. However, I doubt that is often the case.
See, this is what worries me. Despite appearances, our elected officals are NOT generally idiots. When they seem like idiots, many times it’s because we don’t know the WHY…and they don’t mind so much looking like idiots as long as we don’t figure WHY out.
Suddenly, a couple of Dems decide that Mukasey’s position on waterboarding is okay and they’ll vote to approve. Feinstein is NOT an idiot, so why? A trip on Air Force 1 and face time with a lame duck hardly seems worth it. Mukasey is not an idiot, so why does he pretend he doesn’t know exactly what waterboarding is? Because he’s going to be the new Abu Gonzo, protecting Bush until the Jan 2009 Pardon season.
BoxTurtle (That’s my guess)
MODS: Please delete my typo post @18. Apologies.
selise @ 31
No, neither do I.
selise @ 22
That’s what I was thinking too. All the Democrats seem to be doing is giving their blessing to guys who will more effectively enforce the Bush unilateral Executive.
I don’t think Schumer is dumb, but I think Leahy isn’t either and he doesn’t want Mukasey.
PeteCO @ 24
Oh, I did not mean to suggest that I think they are playing an ultra smart chess game. I don’t. I think we should impeach these criminals in the West Wing and get back to a reality based way of life.
I am not saying that they are right. I am merely trying to suss out the motivations behind what they do. If we understand the “WHY” we can start anticipating things and acting proactively to influence outcomes.
Knowledge is power. I think I have an insight, though it’s really just a guess.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 37
I just remember he put out a lot murkier statement a few days ago. I don’t get the hesitation. It took Durbin a while too to come out against Mukasey although he did announce his opposition before the Schumer/Feinstein stab in the back. For a liberal, this one seems like a no-brainer to me. Mukasey didn’t back some but all of the aspects of the Bush program. The only sop was some lip service to “depoliticization”. If Mukasey backs all of this other stuff, I don’t think that “depoliticization” will really matter.
jayt @ 19
I could be wrong, but isn’t he a member of Opus Dei, along with other powerful PNACers?
selise @ 31
I don’t think so either. So the question is, what is his benefit? Was he promised a boatload of PAC money? Does he have inside knowledge that once confirmed Mukasey will turn on Bush? *snicker*
One thing I think we ought to be doing is keeping an eye on Dems who roll over for Bush and see what gifts they receive in the future after that rollover is forgotten. Feinstein is gonna get some kind of reward.
Boxturtle(My political contributor will help your contributor and we can both keep our hands clean)
Christy Hardin Smith @ 29
Schumer and AI**C are hand in hand with enough evidence out there to verify it. Sorry. As for the connection with Mukasey it is imperative that this admin be allowed to continue there torture techniques and so need an acquiescent AG. Torture is a common practice in Israel against so -called terrorists (read freedom fighters) so for this administration to come out against torture would be against the interests of AI**C.
Just because Mukasey was a USA is not good enough. I could name many an USA that I would not trust for one minute. I could start from William Weld and go from there. Nope Mukasey is a swine and is being supported by swine.
Somewhat OT…but this is the best description of the most important thing that a Dem. President needs to do, to save this country. IF this can be accomplished, everything else is doable.
Kos
The saga continues…. Will Beerfart ever get that F next to his name? And if so, just how in the hell will he do that? He’s all registered and everything? Why no F ?
Tommorrow: Will Beerfart stop talking in the third person like some overpaid, punk basketball player?
every time Difi supports wacky, no good nominees, I get this overpowering feeling she has been seriously compromised…
Nomolos — On the Mukasey issue, Schumer’s relationship with him dates well before his political involvement. They have a history in the SDNY, which is why Schumer was fronting him out in the first place.
Sorry, but whatever A*PAC connection may or may not exist with Schumer on other issues, with this particular appointment, there is a personal connection at stake which trumps everything for Schumer — that’s what I’m hearing, anyway. And that’s the truth of it, whether you want to accept it or not.
I had just gotten a case which was assigned to Judge Freeh when he was appointed to FBI by Clinton. It got reassigned to Sotomayor. Barf.
Betty @ 45
You have to be RC to be Opus Dei..Most PNAC folks aren’t RC. IIRC Opus members, Freeh, Scalia, Alito, (Roberts?)
OldCoastie @ 50
Isn’t her husband some big-money business dude? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Christy Hardin Smith @ 29
You don’t need me to expand on it, read the Wayne Barret piece (the “Big Apple” link) It is about personal relationships. The metro NYC legal community is much more tight knit, especially the federal practice folks than anyone really understands.
There are essentially 2,000 lawyers who make up the bulk of all federal practice in NY and Conn. of them, maybe 300-500 who kinda know everybody and where all the bodies are buried.
EPU was always a great source for these kinds of insights. He was second generation Foley Square gossip community.
Freeh wasn’t a member of Opus Dei but he was close to it apparently. This came out because FBI agent turned Russian spy Robert Hanssen was a member. The Hanssen case was the proximate cause for Freeh’s leaving as Director of the FBI.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 51
christy – have you read the steve clemons link (above)? on this one, i don’t think nomolos is out of line. none of us really knows what schumer is thinking… but in this case i think occam’s razor could go either way.
YES!!! HE GOT HIS F !!!!
NOW HE CAN DIE IN PEACE!!!!
We need to do a better job of picking our fights.
This fight only adds to narrative that the Left is hapless.
Beerfart — Please don’t yell in all caps in the comments. And keep the death references to a minimum while you are at it. Thanks.
Here we go; From Wikipedia, which I realise can be dodgy wrt political stuff,
“Corruption scandals and accusations
Between 2001 and 2006[25], Diane Feinstein served as the ranking member of the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, also known as the “MILCON” subcommittee. Feinstein also served as chair of the MILCON subcommittee when the Democrats controlled the Senate in 2001 and 2002.
While on the MILCON subcommitte, Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to firms owned by her husband, Richard C. Blum.[5] This included millions of dollars in contracts awarded to Blum’s Perini Corporation to provide goods and services in Iraq and Afghanistan.[26]”
link
I hadn’t put FDL as the Facebook profile location. I think that’s why I wasn’t getting my F .
Betty @ 44
I know next to nothing about Opus Dei – but there is Freeh’s choice of who’s best for America… (hint – his initials are R.G.)
http://www.nydailynews.com/new…..udy-1.html
I don’t really understand why Freeh would be a good thing at all. Of course he was independent from Clinton – he was pretty much ADVERSE to the Democratic party.
Isn’t he backing Giuliani out the wazoo now?
http://www.newsmeat.com/washin….._Freeh.php
I must be slow, but I don’t see how anyone, anyhow, makes “torture virgins” and “kidnap virgins” and “perjury virgins” and “human trafficking virgins” and “war crimes conspirator virgins” etc. out of the whores left in DOJ right now.
I know you see lots of good people still there lhp, but its all been too obscene for too long. It’s like talking about all the “good people” who provided services to the concentration camps, even years into watching the bodies be incinerated.
Having a man who has so very clearly made the deals to allow war crimes and civil crimes to go unprosecuted based on wholly political considerations get the nod is just the death knell.
If you had a DOJ that was standing up and demanding an AG who would prosecute war crimes or taking any kind of bare minimum stand of decency, it would be one thing, but you don’t have that. We haven’t had it through 6 years of revelations and exposures and torture.
Every day, every night, every person in DOJ who has not stood up and objected to the abuse of their department is complicit in the torture being carried out. Whether they signed their name on the dotted line, like Larry Thompson (give the man a Pepsi) or not, they are making choices. They have made their choices.
And their choices are to conspire at, cover up and participate in the worst kinds of depravity or to show up for work every day with the sure and certain and unalloyed knowledge that they are working for torturers, kidnappers, Pinochet-like “disappearers” and the worst kinds of evil men and women.
I’m kind of beyond wanting to see them get a “pep talk” and pom poms.
It’s just like the American people. They are getting a pro-torture toady bc they demand nothing better.
That means they are nothing better.
Nor are any of us.
Beerfart Liberal @ 58
congrats, BL! (but I do think I will miss the self-reference in the 3rd person)
looseheadprop @ 55
So. Schumer, “the Sen. who is not stupid” is supporting a crazy man for AG because he is his bestest buddy? I for one am not buying that
Sorry Christy. I was just so psyched about my F . And if you guys got a quasi-zero tolerance policy on the word “die” and its derivavtives, I can understand. I’ll avoid that.
OT..Surprise!!
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of state of emergency in Pakistan does not affect U.S. military support, a spokesman said.
(snip)
Beerfart Liberal @ 61
Now, like the Constitution and the rest of the general public, you have been F’ed.
Boxturtle @ 38
My point exactly. As much as we can figure out the “why” is as much as we can arm ourselves to actually influence the why
Mary — I don’t think LHP said that Freeh would be a good thing. Especially here:
So, you should expect that the sort of people who would be giving up private practice, a general counsel’s office or a teaching job if he asked them to come back to government service and fill in the hollowed out middle management of DOJ will be of similar bent; but I also expect that they will be talented and competent lawyers–not more Monicas, Brads or Tims.
Which says that although he’d bring in competent lawyers, they wouldn’t exactly be promoting policies that would make us happy.
LHP, I’d love to know what you and other firepups think of Dean’s suggestion of making Mukasey’s confirmation contingent on appointment of a Special Prosecutor. I was getting ready to send letters and make phone calls. Although I think the Special Prosecutor should have a broader scope.
Beerfart — it’s a cascade effect. One person uses it in a semi-benign way, and someone else sees it without really reading the comment, and then goes off on a particular governmental official and then…whammo, I’m spending my Sunday fielding inquiries from the Secret Service or dealing with wingnuts cut and pasting the over-the-top comment into their posts and calling us violent.
So yes, there are sort of reasons we’d prefer people not use it, not the least of which is that the Secret Service takes it very seriously when used in certain contexts.
old gold @ 58
As I wrote yesterday, the Mukasey nomination represents not one but a series of cave-ins. Leahy caved on holding out for documents in exchange for bringing up any AG nomination. Then all the Democrats got really gushy over Mukasey. Next they looked at what he had actually said in his testimony and started having qualms. They sent him the torture question which they seemed to tie their votes to. Then Feinstein and Schumer caved. The full committee will therefore also cave and it looks like when the nomination reaches the Senate floor more Senate Democrats will cave. So by the time they get to the end of the process, Democrats will have caved 4-5 times. It is like they want to go out of their way to emphasize how weak they are.
Beerfart Liberal @ 51
How did it turn out? Did you win?
I’ll settle for someone who is honest. Shouldn’t politics take second place to that?
Mary @ 64
it is this, at the doj, and the actions of the “democratic” congress that have been such a shock to me. if someone had told me 10 years ago that this would happen (and i’m not talking about the bush administration here)…. i never would have believed it.
trying to find my way to what is real has not been easy.
twolf1 @ 67
Yup. Maybe I shouldn’t be so happy about my F .
But back …. how do you abbreviate “on topic”??… guess I gotta write it out…
Back on topic. I think it’d be great if a pro like Freeh gets appointed. Don’t know him other than by reputation which as I heard it was very nice guy. No bullshit.
Steve-AR @ 52
Louis is a Very religious Catholic, but I think the Opus Dei thing is just a smear. With all those kids, he certainly is not leading the celibate life of a supernumerary, and frankly I cannot imagine where a guy like him would find the time for all those damn prayer meetings. It’s a very big time commitment even for the lay members
Mary @ 64
Just don’t say “Little Eichmanns“.
Great, another Opus Dei fundamentalist fanatic who obsesses about other men’s cocks.
Yippee.
-GSD
Beerfart Liberal @ 62
I’m getting my FDL login page when I click on your “F”
OT a bit: According to Senator Feinstein’s 11/3/07 LA Times op-ed:
But, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, and all other Senate-ratified treaties “the supreme law of the land.” And the Detainee Treatment Act makes no exceptions for nonmilitary personnel; per Section 1003:
The DTA does, however, contain an explicit loophole; per Section 1004:
Had Mukasey agreed that waterboarding is torture, the good-faith defense would have become much less convincing, especially so in regard to future waterboardings. So, in voting to confirm Mukasey, senators implicitly endorse and encourage the Bush Administration’s continued use of waterboarding and their delusional trust in the good-faith defense.
OfT – is it just me, or does George Will look more fat, sassy, and relieved whenever Katrina V. is *not* on George Stephy’s Round-Table?
selise @ 56
Good grief. Schumer’s old Congressional district in Brookyn, like the district where I grew in Queens, votes for all offices local and federal based on a single issue–support for Israel.
This is the base for his support in his Senate re-election. He MUST MUST MUST as a matter of political survival pander to that group.
Enough with the conspiracy theories. When I would take my sweet little Irish Catholic face out doing door to doors in Queens (in my younger days) all anybody EVER want to talk about was Support for Israel. I used to joke that I needed to start wearing a star of David charm on the gold chain around my neck instead of a crucifix.
You gotta understand the neighborhood he comes from
nomolos @ 65
Somehow I do. LHP managed to stir up a picture in my mind, lurid for some of us, business as usual for the likes of Chuck. Tight knit communities.
for anyone who wants to protest schumer’s support of mukasey – you can link up with the NY roots project group by joining their google group email list.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 70
I think this understates the problem. It isn’t just bringing in competent conservative lawyers to back conservative policy goals. That is accepted practice and represents business as usual. What we have here is a radical Presiedent with a radical AG promoting a radical and extra-Constitutional agenda.
Murkasey is going to be the AJ..even if “we” could have gotten a no vote in the SJC, Harry would have discharged the nomination. Constantly losing is getting old. CHS’s “Pull Up a Chair”, yesterday, puts it perspective. This is a long fight and burning out in the first rounds is the sure way to loose.
it is getting very strange to watch a bunch of white men in ties sit around a table discussing politics on the Snufflelupolus show…
odd looking, odd seeming…
Demawkrashy in in Pakishtan isn’t as important as a strong leader and friend of Amurka.
-Twitchy McBush
Hugh at 87 — Alas, my snide emoticon didn’t come through on that. Yes, it does understate the problem. But in this crowd, I thought that would be obvious. *g*
1. I have never been impressed by someone who’s resume lists membership in the Federal Bureau of Idiots as an item. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Idiots have a long, long history of incompetence and/or outright corruption. Whether it’s their multi-decade cover-up of their fearless CROSSDRESSER leader, or their cover-up of the unwarranted violence of Wounded Knee, or their willingness to illegally wiretap Americans over the decades, their cowardice towards doing the RIGHT THING, their lies about Waco, their lies about killing the wife of the Special Forces soldier up in the West….their lies are significant.
Whenever I want to know the definition of: Yellow Coward, I’ll just open the dictionary to: Federal Bureau of Idiots.
2. I warned everyone awhile back about the initial “lickfest” over that boy Mukasey. And, I’ll now warn everyone about Freeh. The man is a walking violation of the US Constitution. He drinks the koolade, and asks for more.
Freeh needs to journey back to a land and a place where he’s most attuned and comfy: Nazi Germany. It’s….his kind of place. But, he’ll probably be brought along by Mukasey to rejoin the ranks of the Federal Bureau of Idiots. Quite a shame.
Ghostman
looseheadprop @ 85
whoa. it’s about the lobby that shall not be named. it’s not about support for israel and it’s most certainly not about being jewish. (i do not see the lobby that shall not be named as synonomous for support for israel – although i know that many people do)
and how is it a conspiracy theory to say that he might be pandering in this case as well?
Mary @ 63
Mary, good to see you! It’s been a while.
I’m not backing Louis or Mukasey. I’m trying to give some background.
An important fact that I don’t seem to be making clear is that LAW ENFORCEMENT AIN’T HAPPENIN’ FOLKS!
You know, the regular stuff we expect from our prosecutors like bank robbery cases, narcotics cases, regular public corruption cases, child pornography cases, insider trading cases, etc.
There is nobody left with experise to do that work or to train and supervise the newbies.
Christy:
I appreciate that. I hadn’t thought of that ’til you told me to keep it to a minimum. It was just an old expression from when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994 for the first time in 54 years. But I completely understand what with knuckleheads lurking and do apologize.
LHP:
How did it turn out? It was… how many years ago was that…. 1993 or so? You can count on one hand the cases I’ve handled in SDNY and that might have been my first. I was pretty, but not totally green. I was representing some labor union defendants in a bogus RICO case. I made a motion to dismiss. I think it’s still pending. But seriously, Sonya did take a long, long time to rule on that motion and then we just did tons of depositions and I went to another firm. And Sonya went on to bigger things. Bottom line. I don’t know how that case turned out. But I guess Sotomayor had just been appointed to replace Freeh and she was new and really wasn’t moving her docket and was alienating all the lawyers in my case. I wish I had a dollar for every time one of the lawyers in my case (or just even my boss) said “I wish this was still Freeh’s case.” I don’t think he was a judge that long but everybody wanted him back. I only had a few cases (count ‘em on one hand) in SDNY, but it did strike me how much all the older lawyers wanted Freeh back. Maybe they just hated Sotomayor. I dunno. But that’s how I came to know Freeh. Sounds like a good choice.
Hey – anyone in the NYC area who would like to join some NY Net Rooters on Monday from 11am to 1pm at Schumer’s office is welcome. We’ll be in front of his office here in Manhattan for a vigil with the NY War Resisters League.
We’re bringing signs and literature to distribute -and I’m bringing my camera.
757 Third Avenue (near 47th St)
We’re hoping Shumer’s aide will meet with us after 1pm. They didn’t have a problem meeting with us before, as you can see in our last video.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..in-action/
I wonder if they’ll want to meet with us now?
Feel free to download this graphic, and make your own sign.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2…..849370044/
And please join the discussion in google group stateproject-newyork.
nomolos @ 65
Who said Mukasey is crazy?
Between day 1 of his confirmation and day 2, they WH flipped him to the dark side and he gave up any hope of being independant and became a bootlicker, but that’s craven not crazy
looseheadprop @ 79
With a little research, you are right..it is a “smear”…I wouldn’t think of membership as a “smear”..to me “Federalist Society” membership has a much more sinister meaning.
dakine01 @ 80
So I guess this is still a work-in-progress? God. Can somebody just come down here and do this for me? The trop storm went by and we’re having best weather of the year in Central FL. Come on down.
I’ll keep playing with it.
RagingGurrl @ 97
RagingGurrl – thank you for the info!
and here’s the link to google group stateproject-newyork.
lhp at 94
Ok, that is truly frightening.
rxbusa @ 71
I thought it was a great idea. Unfortunately no one picked up on it and now it seems too late
Mukasey, by his inability to articulate that waterboarding is a crime, was a crime and should forever be a crime has proven himself to be a compromised, weak-kneed hack, lackey, dupish stooge.
A man who is setting the table for more war crimes and more abrogation of treaties is not honorable in the least.
Fuck Chuck and Judgie Mukasey too.
-GSD
selise @ 93
Selise didn’t Comey sign a letter in support of telcom immunity?
Louis Freeh is an Opus Dei participant who used to attend mass (along with Scalia and Thomas) in Woodbridge Va. Another regular? Convicted FBI double agent Robert Hansen. Same competence level as the early Bushies.
Clusterfuck is going to have a fascist enabling asshole in the AG office- either the one he’s got right now or one that the senate approves. As a practical matter- it’s a question of which is the worst fascist enabler.
Beyond that it’s all politics.
Given Scott Horton’s work so far on matters relating to the DOJ, this piece is interesting…think Mukasey needs a third trip in front of the SJC to answer a few pointed questions:
– With which groups did you meet and discuss the USDOJ and the USAG position?
– With which individuals have you discussed torture, apart from your appearances with the SJC or the media?
– Has anyone asked for a quid pro quo, asked you to handle any investigations or prosecutions in a particular manner in exchange for their support?
– Has anyone apart from the SJC asked in private meetings not open to the public or the media how you would handle certain cases or hypothetical situations? What cases and/or hypotheticals were topics of these conversations?
And then let the chips fall where they may.
I mean this: Four Amigos for Telcom immunity. LHP is our Comey expert. That’s not snark. I just wonder what the heck is going on here?
Beerfart Liberal @ 100
Have you been following the instruction I posted for you yesterday? I wrote them step by step a while back and I’m pretty sure they’re detailed enough that others have used them successfully…
LHP, um, sounds to me like some of the locals aren’t as impressed by Louie Freeh as you or the people I knew. Oh well. He’d be good because I’d be confident that the political types would be put in their place.
“Federalist Society” membership has a much more sinister meaning.
I was looking for info on that – couldn’t find any re Freeh – but I agree.
I do know that the acting A.G. Keisler is a Fed Soc member, as was the guy he replaced (forget his name)(Scott Jennings?).
But if I had to bet, my money is on Freeh bein’ a member..
great discussion lhp ….
GSD @ 80
I have never heard so much as whisper or hint about Louis (pronounce Looey BTW) having any interest in other men. Zippo. And I cannot imagine where he would find the time to actually go to all the prayer meetings Opus Dei expects of its memebers.
Louis had a very good work ethic (among a group of people that saw working till 10 pm most week nights as normal) and when not at the office, seemed to spend his time going to his kids sports events
dakine01 @ 109
Lemme go back & check. I had to get off and do a birthday party for the boys yesterday. I appreciate the help.
mui @ 105
yes. with John Ashcroft, Jeff Goldsmith and Phil Philbin.
Beerfart Liberal @ 114
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Freeh absolutely hates the Clintons.
Quoth(?) Leahy.
So, is Musharraf surrounding himself with his military…or is he actually surrounded by his military?? I don’t think this situation will be a good outcome for him.
Wigwam @82
Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful.
Had Mukasey agreed that waterboarding is torture, the good-faith defense would have become much less convincing, especially so in regard to future waterboardings. So, in voting to confirm Mukasey, senators implicitly endorse and encourage the Bush Administration’s continued use of waterboarding and their delusional trust in the good-faith defense.
I think this is based on a riff of the analysis in Bivens . A supreme court case involving qualified immunity for government agents acting in a good faith belief that they were authorized to do what they were doing coupled with the activity falling within their job description.
Before you all jump down my throat that breaking the law can never be within a gov’t employees job description–I hate Bivens. I think it is a really dumb, hard to apply, badly written decison that ends up meaning whatever the district judge feels like it means on any given day.
Nonetheless it is controlling law
nomolos @ 65
So. Schumer, “the Sen. who is not stupid” is supporting a crazy man for AG because he is his bestest buddy? I for one am not buying that
Mukasey is NOT crazy. Don’t underestimate the man: If he get’s in and decides to protect Bush & Co that’s the end of the story until Pardon Season starts.
Schumer knows this. I think he’s made the strategic decision that Mukasey is the best he’s going to get out of Bush and at least with Mukasey he’s got an “in”. If Mukasey goes down, we’ll see an interim appointment whose ONLY interest will be in protecting Bush. Can the DoJ take that?
BoxTurtle (Don’t like crawling into politicians minds, it’s dark and dirty)
From Time Magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/magaz…..-3,00.html
Freeh was not a member but he does have connections to Opus Dei.
looseheadprop @ 112
The point I was making was that Freeh is another in a long list of moral wags who hated Clinton because of his lust. He’s a carbon copy of all of the other icky creeps like Dan Burton and Kenneth Starr. No not gay, just creepily interested in what other men are doing with their naughty bits.
The notion that Freeh is too busy to be an Opus Dei member is just plain silly.
-GSD
LS @ 118
It seems he’s quoting War on Terra and Abraham Lincoln. I have to say I am skeptical.
lhp – it must be frustrating beyond belief to see an institution and the good people in it so corrupted.
Beerfart Liberal @ 95
I think lawyers liked practicing in front of him (I couldn’t he would have had to recuse himself) because he was very pragmatic about the nuts and bolts of stuff like scheduling.
An old boss of mine, who maintained pretty close ties with Louis when he went to DC to be FBI director, kinda kept track of this stuff and told me that Louis got reversed on appeal more than was typical.
I don’t recall him having much of a rep for brief writng, so I guess the opinion writing did not come easily for him
Freeh was an incompetent Director of the FBI who was more interested in abetting the Republican agenda to get Clinton than in actually, say, pursuing terrorism.
Which is to say, he’d be perfect for this administration.
New thread from Christy:
Needs A Rewrite
That’s a title, not an editorial comment.
If the justice department is dangerously fucked up and if this guy is the best shot at fixing it a little- then I can see an argument for approving him- NO CANDIDATE is going to say that Clusterfuck broke the law and approved torture- it just ain’t a gonna happen!
I don’t think that Freeh or anyone else is going to be able to “makeover” the DOJ at this late stage in Bush’s term. No one will want to come in when they don’t have enough time to actually undertake cases or do more than act as caretakers to staff that are already in place. They may jettison the really flawed cases. And boot out those that they find really incompetant. But that’s only if they really want to.
But I can’t see them embarking on extensive new programs with new staff.
The NY State Roots Group is organizing a series of questions
which will FAXED to Senator Schumer’s Office in NYC along with a
request that they be addressed in a meeting with the group tomorrow at the conclusion of the vigil outside Senator Schumer’s New York office.
The vigil is being organized by the War Resisters League
11 am – 1 pm, Monday November 5th
757 Third Avenue (near 47th St)
The State Roots Group is joining the vigil in support of their efforts. A representative of the New York Roots Group will be
telephoning the Senator’s Office tomorrow morning to confirm a
meeting time. All are encouraged to join with us. A theme poster has
been created and will be copied for attendees to carry during the
vigil. In addition a video of the action will be created by a NY
Roots member. Other members of our group are in the process of
creating a montage of Senator Schumer & Mukasey confirmation hearings which will be posted later today.
I guess I did misread a bit lhp. I understood you weren’t endorsing Mukasey but it seemed to me that you were thinking that Freeh would be the kind of invigorating figure who would attract more talent to, or to not leave, DOJ.
I understand your point about law enforcement ain’t happening – but with the focus being on stupid nonsense like the Holy Land case and the Padilla case and the Oscar Wyatt prosecution and prevention of voting by minorities and drafting telecom immunity and military/cia immunity statutes and covert memos to solicit and cover up other crimes and …
… golly, sometimes you’d rather they were doing nothing than something.
And what you are mentioning doesn’t seem likely to change with more “war on terra” drum majors there to lead the parades of the absurd.
OTOH – hey, I’m sure, what with rampant abuse of NSL, coerced testimony, torture, lies about translations, fibs to the court, misrepresentations or middle fingers to the FISC, etc that Freeh can help them get their numbers back into the “winning team” category.
But how do you care anyomre, knowing that the pursuit of “crime” and “justice” is in the hands of those who lie, cheat, conspire, torture, violate, disappear and engage in rampant “our team” cronyism, with the law simply a tool to accomplishing coverups and printing get out of jail free cards to pals and partisans?
Of course the pursuit of real crime is stymied and circumvented, but I don’t see how that changes now, no matter who you put in at the head of things, because you have crime being pursued by criminals. The people who are still there or who would come to work for a “drown ‘em again, drown ‘em again, harder harder” set of cheerleaders like Freeh and Mukasey are willing to be, aren’t going to be people who are any more competent or “cleaner.”
If you only have people there who are ok working with and for such insitutional evil, I don’t see how you change the institution by appointing someone to lead them who is a more charismatic purveyor of that evil.
DOJ is the Agean Stables now and no one is even asking for the Herculean option – they just want to allow the manure to accumulate and rename it. IIRC, apparently Schumer has said that the proper term for a pro-torture, political disappearances and protection racket for child kidnappers is “integrity.”
Given the newly defined term, I’ll have to correct myself. DOJ has plenty of integrity.
I just have a really hard time wanting to preserve and protect that integrity. Even if it means that I’m not properly supportive of using unConstitutionally obtained NSL information, coupled with masked torturers testifying and egregious press conferences and “story time” hours of testimony about things having nothing to do with the charges, all to showcase an acual criminal proceeding so someone can point to their conviction as proof of how much we need to be able to torture.
States often do a pretty good job on real crime and criminals without having to rely on the Feds to come in and selectively terrorize on whims.
I don’t see how you change DOJ from being a criminal coverup organization now, when those who have stayed have made their peace with it.
So here’s hoping I’m just very wrongheaded.
I don’t think that Freeh or anyone else is going to be able to “makeover” the DOJ at this late stage in Bush’s term. No one will want to come in when they don’t have enough time to actually undertake cases or do more than act as caretakers to staff that are already in place. They may jettison the really flawed cases. And boot out those hat they find really incompetant. But that’s only if they really want to.
But I can’t see them embarking on extensive new programs with new staff.
For some strange reason I am having craptacular headache. Time to get my head out of the vise.
Seems like the main things that need to be fixed at justice include:
Changing the perception that prosecutions are decided politically.
Convincing the career people that they can stay on through the next year without compromising their principles.
Getting back to work- at least a little- and doing the day to day blocking and tackling of sound management.
Judges aren’t necessarily good managers- so it will be an exception if this guy can manage his way out of a gooper trash bag.
Steve-AR @ 98
Are you kidding! Being called Opus Dei is my idea of smear. They are nuts. Married people told to live together but celibate? Being “rewarded” by wearing a gloried piece of barbed wire (the Cilice) around your thigh for 2 hours a day? They are batshit crazy!
If Mukasey gets passed out of the SJC, when is it likely the vote of the full Senate would be?
With gratitude,
Heather
egregious @ 101
Which explains why some folks in the Senate would consider holding their noses and voting for a couple of guys who (though they don’t appear to hold any hope for us about a return to concern for civil liberties and the Constitution) can actually get the prosecutorial trains to run on time.
I’m not taking a position here in defense of this, I’m simply trying to work out the “why”
GSD @ 103
The thing that really gets me, it only took them one night–between his first day of testimony and his second–to flip him to the dark side.
I really want the backstory behind that!!!
Bush and his rightwing minions are finishing off the foundations of the nation with a sledgehammer.
Fools like Schumer are handing them the rags to wipe off their foreheads as they sweat.
As a friend told me recently, his brother, a lifelong military man and veteran of two wars is resigned to the death of America.
He feels he fought in two wars only to have it handed over to the depraved moral perverts like Cheney, Bush, Addington and yes Mukasey to finish off.
America is the bad guy. We’ve been slipping into darkness for a long time, but the ride is over and so is this country.
What person in their right minds wants to be a kapo for this band of war criminals?
-GSD
Chacounne @ 136
Mukasey will easily pass.
-GSD
Boxturtle @ 38
Hmm! But that would mean Schumer and Feinstein are stupid, no?
The other possibility is that Schumer knows more about Mukasey (or that he thinks he knows about him) than he is letting on. He doesn’t want to reveal that Mukasey will announce that, after he has been briefed on the program, that it definitely is torture and illegal.
If Mukasey said this publicly then he would definitely be withdrawn by Bush. So perhaps he kept silent. Maybe that’s what Schumer is thinking. But, then again, Mukasey also made statements about Bush’s powers during “wartime” that would suggest that he can overrule both Congress and the Courts.
I can’t figure out WHAT is in this for Schumer? Why would he abandon any ethical standing he had for a nominee that would continue Abu’s legacy? Is he in the pocket of some A*P*C lobbyists?
LHP, I did look into the Freeh/Opus Dei story and it appears to be untrue.
Yet, he’s cozy enough to send his child to a school run by those fanatics, so he’s far from off the hook.
Sorry about the poor facts.
-GSD
mui @ 108
I certainly have not spoken to him and don’t know the answer. But my guess is this:
The telcos were asked to go out on a limb and do something that was supposed to be to “protect the country”. Personal appeals may have even been made in the early days after 9-11 be some of these signatories–don’t forget, amost everybody who has ever worked on a case involving a wiretap warrant has professional friendships with on the telcos becasue you work so closely together when you have a wire tap.
Most of the telcos did as requested. I am sure there were a lot of “don’t leave me holding the bag” conversations and maybe even private assurances at the time.
Now the telcos are being prohibited by they very same government from offering ANY evidence in their own defense to these suits. The President has invoked “state secrets”, so even if it turns out that the telcos did not particiapte in activities with respect to the specific plaintiffs who are suing–and would then be entitled to have the case dismissed–they are prohibited by the WH from offering whatever evidence they have.
This is genuinely unfair to the telcos. I would not be surprised if Comey would rather take a hit to his own reputation, than leave companies who acted in detrimental reliance on the promises by the government, twisting in the wind.
I, too, think the telcos are getting unfairly shafted, but the way to deal with it has more to do with the fraudulent invocation of the “states secrets” designation.
For long time firepups, you may recall Mary’s incredible body of work on the illegal misuse of the classification authority–someday I hope she will gather all those comments up and turn them into a law review article.
Beerfart Liberal @ 110
The thing about Louis is, he wasn’t always the smartest lawyer in the room, but he had gift for getting the smartest lawyers on the floor to come to work on his cases.
Boxturtle @ 38
Hmm! But that would mean Schumer and Feinstein are stupid, no?
The other possibility is that Schumer knows more about Mukasey (or that he thinks he knows about him) than he is letting on. He doesn’t want to reveal that Mukasey will annnce that, after he has been briefed on the program, that it definitely is torture and illegal.
If Mukasey said this publicly then he would definitely be withdrawn by Bush. So perhaps he kept silent. Maybe that’s what Schumer is thinking. But, then again, Mukasey also made statements about Bush’s powers during “wartime” that would suggest that he can overrule both Congress and the Courts.
I can’t figure out WHAT is in this for Schumer? Why would he abandon any ethical standing he had for a nominee that would continue Abu’s legacy? Is he in the pocket of some A*P*C lobbyists?
LS @ 116
Yes he does. You should see his face change if you even mention them in passing. He is nuts when it comes to them
selise @ 124
It just breaks my heart. You have no idea. When Comey was testifying and he said “where does the Department go to get its reputation back?” The catch in voice…. It was how I felt too
Here’s a bit, unrelated to much else, that would make it a bit depressing to think, even from a strictly “real law” and “real crime” standpoint, of Freeh having a lot of input.
From Lawrence Wright’s, The Looming Tower:
p 237
Something that hasn’t changed radically under Mueller.
And he’s got that great gift of loving the Saudis. Discussing the bombing in Dharan, still from Wright’s book:
p. 238
rwcole @ 128
Which is where I think some Dem members of the Senate may be. It explains a lot.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 72
Wow. Just wow.
I had no idea, Christy. We all know you do much more behind-the-scenes work than we ever see, but this is incredible. I for one will certainly avoid using anything remotely related to that word/concept. USSS reading blogs…(further comment kept to myself)
cinnamonape @ 129
No, but I do see some people who are currently shopping their resumes around because they didn’t think they could hold out until the next admin, maybe staying after all.
I do see him as being able to call in some favors and staff a couple of key vacancies. I do see him being able to organize some forward momentum on bread and butter law enforcement.
Which is a whole lot more than we have right now.
This is a great time to be a criminal in America.
looseheadprop @ 143
are you saying you don’t think the telcos broke the law and violated our 4th amendment rights?
wigwam @ 82
Wigwam…you’ve hit this problem precisely on the head. If Congress says that they need to EXPLICITLY ban waterboarding, it means that the procedure WASN’T banned before. Why would you now need to ban it, after all.
So despite the fact that it was previously banned…Congress seems to appear to make it seems that “it is indeed reasonable that “a person of ordinary sense and understanding would [NOT] have known the practices to be unlawful.”
That is they are saying that any actions before the law is ratified anyone who uses waterboarding are protected by ex post facto protections. They are providing amnesty for torture.
If Congress fails to pass such a law these cases will go before judges and juries and THEY would have acted as the determinants of whether waterboarding, under the Geneva Conventions and the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Constitution was torture. But if Congress passes this law its very likely that any defense lawyer would simply state…”Congress thought it was too vague, the President didn’t think it was illegal, and the AG didn’t think it was either! We have these opinions from the WH Counsel as well as the best lawyers of the DOJ. There was doubt!”
mary @ 131
I think Schumer at al are just hoping for someone to shovel out a path from the front door to the stalls, so the horses can get out to the fields to work.
I really do think this a very diminished expectation kind of thing
Chacounne @ 136
My guess, unless somebody mounts a BIG pushback, he will pass. Just not with the 90 votes Schumer originally had lined up for him.
looseheadprop @ 144
That’s the thing. Seems like some of the people here are opposed to him for all kinds of reasons that miss the point, in my view. The DAG obviously isn’t going to change administration policy that we hate. But, as you’ve said better than I, he (or she) needs to do 2 things (in no order of importance): restore morale in the rank and file AUSA’s and investigators. If you’ve ever worked in a government job where morale sucks, this is so important. I have and the people want to be there, know they can make more $$ other places but they need to feel good about their work-that it’s important enough for them to stay. Second, I forget. Oh yeah. Prosecute people who should be prosecuted regardless of party affiliation. What a shame that even needs to be said and we have to bring in someone to do it 6 years into an administration. And related to that- don’t waste resources on voter and (terrorism cases) that are losers. (Which is not to say they should be afraid to take a chance on a case they might lose.)
I’m simply trying to work out the “why”
I think the why is that there were deals made early on. Who knows what they were, or whether they were good or bad. But they were made. The DiFis and Schumers were involved in the dealmaking. The Whitehouses were not. So the Jr. Senator from RI screwed up the purtifying of the done deal that was the only point of the hearings.
In the end, though, it really gives them all the result they actually wanted. Torturers and criminals go free, not just because of a Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzales coverup cartel; and not even just because of that plus another AG taking the job based on the same deals made to coverup for Presidential thuggery; but because a wide bipartisan swath of the US Congress is going to send a message to what they have together put in the Sup Ct that they like the Musharef approach to goverance, and the only way to go is to be on the side of the thugs and make it a tripartite government decision to be evil.
Smile and say cheese – that’s the picture of the poseurs.
GSD @ 142
Like I said, Louis is a very conservative Catholic. It’s just that Opus Dei expects a really huge time commitment. And Louis’s always had the kind of job that would make it really hard for him to do that.
I guess it’s about plugin the holes, bailing out water and getting the ship standing upright for the next AG – whever and of whatever party that may be – ’cause the career people are gonna be there – hopefully – no matter what.
NO CANDIDATE is going to say that Clusterfuck broke the law and approved torture- it just ain’t a gonna happen!
Right. So you let Bush own what his appointee does. Recess appointment or Keisler carryover. You don’t join in the savagery and you don’t appeasingly support it.
selise @ 152
Of course not! I’m saying that it was not at the instigation of the telcos that this happened.
I’m saying, if you know the famous speech Comey gave to the national security lawyers about how hard it is to say “no” when the other people in the room (Addington anayone?) are saying that if you say “no” the blood of thousands of innocent Americans will be on your hands–you can understand how these telcos came to make such a dumb judgement and go along with this shit.
Mary @ 160
amen to this one. at least let it be seen as contested and contraversial. bipartisan approval is the worst possible outcome.
Mary @ 160
I actually like the purity of mary’s position. It is SOOO apealling to me. But i can also see why other people could think the more responsible thing to do is to plug the holes, bail out the water and keep the ship afloat until a new president.
A functional DOJ is kind of an important priority. You folks don’t seem to appreciate that.
looseheadprop @ 149
The difference is that an interim (as opposed to a recess) appointee is limited to a period of, I believe, 155 days before they receive a confirmation hearing. If they are not confirmed then the President must make a new nominee. This would at least give Congress some oversight AFTER turning down a permanent nominee. The interim would certainly want to preserve his/her position.
A series of weak acting AG’s would be preferable to one that has been APPROVED and can claim that “they knew who I was before they confirmed my nomination. Why are they calling me into hearings?”
Acutally, on telecoms, I’d be more impressed with this:
If
a) the telecoms had made any filings whatsoever objecting to the invocation by gov of state secrets – iirc, they have not and instead are just using that as a shield for their criminal activities – gov isn’t “preventing” them bc they are actively benefitting from the invocation;
b) this was 6 weeks and not 6 years into an ongoing criminal enterprise;
c) Dems were not accepting both that Mukasey can’t give a hypothetical opinion on waterboarding bc he hasn’t been fully and completely briefed on interrogation procedures, yet Congress should pass non-hypothetical legislation immunizing from criminal penalties criminals based on a criminal program which should never, under the existing Exec Order and state of law, have been classified if it was criminal and which they haven’t been briefed on except to be told that it isn’t criminal (and as such, wouldn’t need immunity); and
d) this were not just one more example of DOJ being a club to protect and promote pals and cronies with no regard to the Constitution, the people of the nation or its laws.
I do understand the loyalty aspect of not wanting your buddies to take a fall – - but that’s the worst of reasons to allow perpetrators to walk free; bc they have a friend in the prosecutors office.
Supposedly a few people in Congress have asked for tidbits of information, but I’ve yet to see anyone ask for the legal opions that telecoms received from their OWN counsel. IIRC, reasonable reliance defenses usually demand that, and plea bargains usually require that someone allocute to the crimes.
How better do you strike a blow in the nations heart than to have Congress agree that anyone who has friend in DOJ shouldn’t have to worry about being prosecuted?
All the accomodations everyone has been willing to make for so long have changed what this country is and have even changed what it can be again.
It’s very hard not to hate.
looseheadprop @ 161
tried to fix the blockquotes.
point one – looks very like this all started before 911, in which case the “blood on the hands” argument doesn’t work.
point two – it wasn’t just after 911 (even i have sympathy for that one)…. 6 years later i don’t buy the excuse
point three – the telcos tried to cover up what they did and are doing.
point four – there is reason to think there was a qud-pro-quo involved… that it wasn’t about “blood on the hands” it was about getting gov. contracts.
point five – why should rich ceos get a different break than the rest of us? what happens when the poor black kid goes along for the ride and get’s pressured into an armed robbery – even if he’s just in car?
that isn’t any kind of legitimate impartial justice. from my perspective it justs looks like a different standard of “justice” for the well connected. while my fourth amendment rights matter not one wit.
seriously – if you care about justice in this country being seen as something legitimate and fair to us peons… please rethink this one… or give me a reason to see it differently.
Mary @ 166 says:
IANAL but I think this would fall under the lawyer-client privilege which means it cannot be asked for by the gov’t. At best, it can only be volunteered by the TelCos. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening.
tejanarusa @ 150
It’s easy to think about what’s in your own head and totally forget that there are other ways to read a comment. The other night I recommended waterboarding for a few people — in my head, it was to help them understand what it is. The mods quite appropriately deleted the comments as advocating violence. I didn’t, and wouldn’t, do that, but fortunately our mods are on the ball and didn’t let my comment out of the corral. I appreciate it!
163 – how does Mukasey plug holes, if he’s going to plug them, differently as a recess appointment?
IMO, the only difference is that DiFi or Schumer may lose some of their pork deals if they don’t vote for him, but that’s based more on incite than insight.
Looseheadprop @ 155
I intend to mount that charge. I had a trip to Washington for Wednesday all arranged, then discovered that my brain had misremembered the day for the vote. I thought it was Thursday, not Tuesday.
If he does pass SJC, I will go and fight. My husband did not give his physical and health so that torture could become the law, policy and practice of the United States. While I have breath, I must fight.
So my question is: When would the full Senate vote be held?
For Dan,
Heather
168 – yes they are atty client privilege, but the case law that I know is that IF someone wants to claim that yes, they broke the law but they should not be held to account bc they REASONABLY relied on advice of counsel, they have to proffer that advice and waive the privilege.
They don’t have to waive privilege to defend that they didn’t break the law, but if they want to use the privileged communication as an excuse for their behavior, they have to ante it up. It comes up usually in corporate settings vis a vis corporate crime and efforts to get penalties etc. reduced.
Beerfart Liberal @ 156
How many people will come into the DOJ for an Administration that has about 420 days left? Give up high paying jobs, and go into a position where there is chaos, a bunch of insubordinate Regent University grads, and an Administration that has policies that one really doesn’t think are legal or pragmatic to enforce. Plus one has to sort through a backlog of cases to sort out those that are filled with errors that one may have to pull…after working on them for awhile.
Would you give up a six or seven figure job for THAT? Freeh himself is making big money in the private realm. In September 2001, Freeh was appointed to the board of directors of MBNA; he is also the MBNA’s general counsel, corporate secretary and ethics officer. In other words, he is judge, jury, executioner and sheriff (Another Unitary Executive). He was also made a Director of pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb. In Spring of this year, Freeh was named to the board of directors of Fannie Mae.
I can’t see any NEW people taking on new cases with the limited amount of time they have left. The clock is now about 420 days…by the time of appointment it will be far less than that. There is no guarantee that they will be retained by a new Administration to complete their cases, which will also be vigorously reviewed by any Democratic Administration. Perhaps Rudy would allow these people to stay on…but only with the proviso that they “serve at his will”.
A quickie piece (not best suited but quickest found) on need to produce the opinions to rely on the advice of counsel defense
http://www.bakerbotts.com/file…..liamsE.htm
p.s. just to expand a bit further on my comment above.
i’m a middle aged, over educated, middle class white woman.
and in the last few years i’ve been pepper sprayed and tear gassed, seen kids beaten bloody, police fire hundreds of rounds of rubber bullets into a crowed of legal protesters, seen protesters arrested by the hundreds and much more (all while volunteering with the national lawyers’ guild).
i started out thinking the police were the good guys and that our justice system was about trying to be fair. if someone like me (yeah, this is racist and classist) can become so disallusioned we are in serious trouble.
think what it means for the country if a large portion of the middleclass comes to see our justice system as something thoroughly corrupted and protection racket for the well connected.
does it really serve justice if the telcos get a deal none of the rest of us could ever get?
p.p.s. just gotta say thank you to lhp and mary… especially for sticking around and answering questions. if i have any hope left in our legal system it is because there are people like you in it.
And Freeh is such a friend of the Clintons. He becomes DAG. She becomes Democratic candidate for POTUS. He gets to keep investigating his favorite couple, during another election year no less.
Griffin @ 130
Bravo! In CA, but would love to know how it goes tomorrow.
“The thing about Louis is, he wasn’t always the smartest lawyer in the room, but he had gift for getting the smartest lawyers on the floor to come to work on his cases.” LHP
Yes, but intelligence in the service of a fatally flawed, criminal cover-up operation is worse than nothing. I think someone has also made this point. And Mary has too, eloquently.
Lieberstein!
Yeah, I remember Freeh from the Clinton era. And I NEVER thought he was a Democrat. And yes, I knew he was conservative. But the Bush Years have changed things. I am sick to death of those who used to be one way, and then turned out to change.
I have no doubt this latest clown will appoint him to some high office. I also have no doubt that he will either show his true “very conservative” (I call it right-wing) colors, or will completely cave when Bush tells him to. I’m too old to think any (and I do mean any) right-winger is an adult. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Heckuva Job Judge Mukasey and Heckuva Job Louis Freeh–Moving Lockstep towards an Incompetent Fascist America
The two qualities that unites Mukasey and Freeh, and Rudy 911 are their overriding ability to be self-righteous and sanctimonious, united in moving this country completely into the landscape of a police state.
Louis Freeh’s F.B.I. had their pants completely down and tied in Boa and Constrictor knots around their ankles with resepect to the facillitation of 911.
The Xgboys tried unsuccessfully to defrey criticism of Freeh’s cascade of incompetencies as it mounted.
Xgboys
Freeh did nothing to stop the fiasco where Tenet enabled Cheney and Addington and their staffs to distort accurate intelligence on both 911 terrorists and WMD in Iraq.
Judge Freeh who knew well the precedents, case law, and code section on discovery intentionally violated them by witholding 3000 pages of documents in the Oklahoma bombing case. This was clearly exculpable material and Freeh intentionally ordered it witheld and DOJ complied. It was also the case that the completely muddled and outdated computer system of the F.B.I. that had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade during Freeh’s lack of a watch, couldn’t have found all the documents on point anyway.
There is a compelling argument to be made that Louis Freeh was the worst F.B.I. director in history wasting much of his energy on undermining Bill Clinton, supressing and delaying translations crucial to stopping 911, and flying their computer modernization into the ground repeatedly while creating a wall between intelligence gathering by F.B.I. and intelligence agencies in government like C.I.A. and D.I.A. N.G.I.A., and N.S.A.
There is a good chance that Freeh, Senior Vice Chairman and member of the Executive Group of credit card giant, M.B.N.A., was there both as consultant absolutely and will play a prominent role in the inevitable Mukasey DOJ. Freeh left the F.B.I. in June, 2001 just three months before 911.
After all, Mukasey pushed some of his Fascist ideals from the trial bench of the S.D.N.Y. when he could become the whip of the D.O.J. to impose abusive material witness distortions that picked up hundreds of people and held them without access to their families or attorneys, renditioning some of them and holding some of them incommunicado today.
This is a DOJ which will carve out new territory pushing toward the grim landscape that firewalls Americans from any information and keeps track of every molecule of their personal lives solely for the purpose of seizing them and burying them.
Naomi Wolf’s 10th step to cement a Facist America becoming a reality, and the other nine were achieved efficiently in the last seven years by the Bush Administration and their Republican rubberstamps and the Democratic (in name only but never in vote) lapdogs who are but compliant appendages now to the Republican will.
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
While the 911 Commission left several key questions unexplored or white washed them, they correctly nailed Freeh’s incompetent leadership.
Freeh and the clown Thomas J. Pickard and Ashcroft share the blame of bungling prevention of 911. There was plenty of blame to go around, and possibly someone who was more a contemporary of LHP in DOJ, (I have no idea), Jamie Gorelic, DAG to Reno, was instrumental in walling off DOJ and CIA and authored a memo to do it.
Of course Jamie Gorelic, true to form, weasled out of commenting on her role in failure, hiding disingenously behind her role on the 911 Commission. And of course, Gorelic deliberately never mentioned the memo or her many phone calls and conferences to execute the lack of communication, to the very naive 911 Commission.
The Freeh FBI were keystone cops when it came to terrorism, but Freeh pushed Magic Lantern and Carnivore to put keystroke tracking Trojans on your pc from your friendly ISP, and put all of your email into a matrix where it continues to go this minute.
Freeh gave the usual excuse of resources, and he also pointed the finger at impediments, many engineered by Gorelic herself.
Freeh, who has long been a patsy of the Saudi Kingdom, like the Bushies was a willing partner in what Christy Smith has referred to as “patty cake with Bandar in linking Laura Rozen’s article here:
Bandar; No More Pattycake
Freeh was deep asleep at the switch in allowing the Saudis to become as unaccountable as they are at protecting an epicenter of flourishing terrorism in “The Kingdom” that thrives today.
From Eric Lichtblaugh in The Times in April, 2004:
“While Mr. Freeh has maintained that his counterterrorism operation was hamstrung by inadequate financing, a study from the Congressional Research Service released Monday [April 9] found that F.B.I. financing rose 132 percent from 1993 to 2003, to $4.6 billion from almost $2 billion, though the pace of the increase quickened after the Sept. 11 attacks. It also determined that the money approved by Congress was nearly equal to or greater than what the Clinton and Bush administrations requested in 9 of 11 years. Money for counterterrorism and related areas rose 365 percent to $475 million from $102 million from 1997 to 2003, the study said.”
The direction of computer capability at the F.B.I. under Freeh and the current incompetent, Mueller who can’t even account for thousands of laptops and expensive firearms that have been stolen largely by F.B.I. personnel, and some handed off to D.O.J. staffers to steal, have presided over a huge hemmorhage of hundreds of millions of dollars in failed computer and IT modernization projects that have been started and repeatedly scrapped. This has caused severe systemic harm to intelligence integration, as has the emphasis and wasted energy on wiretapping and seizing the emails and bank account data of the entire American population advocated by both Freeh and Mueller.
Mark Minasi, the author of many Windows server and other books, and a frequent consultant to many law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies in government, has pointed out at meetings that backup servers were stored directly on top of primary servers at F.B.I. and other agencies instead of off site.
Freeh alleged, and I have a hard time believing this, that he did not use a computer in his office. Contrastingly, Mueller is an amatuer geek whose wife has to drag him away from his P.C. at home. Both have succeeded admirably in running the F.B.I’s computer system completely into the ground and wasting hundreds of millions of dollars purporting to, and failing to upgrade it.
David G. Binney, a former deputy FBI director under Freeh who became chief of security for IBM, repeatedly warned him specifically that the F.B.I. computer system was antiquated and in shambles. Bob E. Dies a 30 year I.B.M. vet finally asked to evaluate the F.B.I.’s computers towards the time Freeh was leaving, said he had never seen such antiquated system in a large organization, and that the Automated Case Support System was using 1980’s technology in 2001.
The Bureau had far less than one p.c. per employee, unless you want to count the subset of approximately 1500 laptops that F.B.I. employees stole outright that Mueller has not lifted a finger to recover. Most of their computers didn’t have browsers that connected to the web, and were woven together over extremely slow phone lines that couldn’t handle graphics –and often pics of suspects were mailed to agents’ home pcs, an additional security breach.
Paradoxically this was presided over by Freeh, the King of Magic Lantern, the keystroke logging Trojan Freeh wanted installed on your home pc by your ISP, and Carnivore to wiretap your emails championed and implemented by Freeh who couldn’t connect F.B.I. computers to the web and barely could find the Start button himself.
9th Circuit Ruling Endangers Privacy in Email and IP Addresses
Carnivore and Magic Lantern
Freeh also led in supressing translator Sibel Edmonds, and ignoring Coleen Rowley completely. He wasted time and resources in investigating a brothel in New Orleans, an initiative of the incompetent Ashcroft that Freeh executed, that could have been directed towards stopping 911.
This was typical of Louie Freeh’s incompetence and how he insured the success of 911, and the handlnig of Edmonds and Jan Dickerson who Edmonds claimed left crucial information out of Dickerson’s translation under Freeh was an eggregious failure.
The 911 Commission failed miserably in not giving any attention to Edmonds whatsoever.
“Because she is fluent in Turkish and other Middle Eastern languages, Edmonds, a Turkish-American, was hired by the FBI soon after Sept. 11 and given top-secret security clearance to translate some of the reams of documents seized by FBI agents who have been rounding up suspected terrorists across the United States and abroad.
Edmonds says that to her amazement, from the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency,- that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed. That way, it would receive a larger budget for the next year.”
Sibel Edmonds Vindicated
Lost In Translation [By Louis Freeh Intentionally]
Last month, the FBI took the highly unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress two years ago about the Sibel Edmonds case.
This will dovetail nicely with a takeover of FBI by a Mukasey-Freeh regime, insuring that the F.B.I. remains largely incompetent with its energies spent on gutting the constitutional rights of Americans rather than effectively investigating terror.
Freeh will absolutely help Mukasey move the United States towards a Fascist state, and your feckless Democratic Senators like Jello Jay and
Feckless Feinstein and Schmendrik Schumer who are reduced to being a wholly compliant appendage of Bush and Cheney are happily on the roarin’ train.
[mod note; Quoting this comment will land your comment in moderation.]
I can’t believe that this piece completely ignores that Freeh made a career of wholeheartedly joining in the Monica “freeh for all” attack on Clinton.
In his tenure was the horrible meltdown of of the FBI technical capability. I have read that the agency paid hundreds of millions of dollars for a computer system that never worked, and that they still do not have “Google” capability.
There was also extensive reporting on the meltdown of their once admired technical crime labs, which became a scandal.
And the FBI leadership he put in place was widely reported to have stopped the efforts of agents on the ground to arrest suspects who then were part of the 9/11 attacks.
How on earth, you came out of all that with a favorable view of Freeh is beyond me.
You must have slept through all of his tenure, and suddenly awoken to remember the reputation he had before he was appointed at head of the FBI.
I thought he disappointed everyone, and let the agency completely self-destruct, while he turned into an right-wing attack-Clinton zealot.
sandra @ 183
You’re on the money Saundra. Freeh and his Manhatten homeboys Guilliani and Material Witness Mukasey have the magic amalgam of complete incompetence and failure and bombastic distortion of facts and outright lying. They are all dedicated to strip you of every one of the Bill of Rights, particularly the Fourth Amendment which is a pale shell of itself if not now D.O.A.
Guilliani was told repeatedly to get the radio frequencies meshed for NYPD, NYFD, and the choppers. He failed and hundreds of firemen were given incorrect information about the status of the building and burned to death and died of smoke inhallation.
Following this, Guilliani ignored warnings to protect workers, and now hundreds of them have irreversible, severe granulomatous pulmonary disease much like moderate or severe Sarcoidosis. This has been followed by a number of hospital staffs, and is discussed in the May 2007 issue of CHEST by David Prezant, M.D.
I call it Guilliani’s Granulomatosis Syndrome or GGS in honor of the lying imbecile who participated in its etiology.
Freeh’s computer stupidity shared by many in the F.B.I. and D.O.J. is widely and accurately chronicled as well as the hemorrhaging of hundreds of millions of dollars by Reno, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Freeh, and Mueller.
Freeh and Mueller’s Folly: The FBI’s Upgrade That Wasn’t: $170 Million Bought an Unusable Computer System
F.B.I. Ends a Faltering Effort to Overhaul Computer Software
What the F.B.I. and D.O.J. are admirably successful at is forging a Fascist Police State as every day passes. Their willing dupes are your US Senators and Congressmen who merrily and stupidly rubber stamp Bush’s handlers, Addington, Cheney, and Fielding and a cast of hundreds of other attorneys that work at D.O.J. and the West Wing and on Congressional staffs.
Schmendrik Schumer has merrily hopped on the bandwagon now along with Ferragamo Feinstein, Jello Jay, Anything Bush Wants Arlen, Loosley Lenient Let it All Hang Out for Bush Leahy, and Rubber Stamp Bush Appendage Democrats too numerous to name– a list that grows every day.
I would simply say if any mod or LHP wants to dispute facts about Gilliani, Mukasey, or Freeh or anything I’ve said I couldn’t welcome them more.
If anynoe can give me an explanation for the contrast between the high hopes of the 110th Congress and the massive failure, I’m all ears.
They abandoned you long ago and are supporting Addington, Cheney, and Fielding’s staff as well as the current OLC at DOJ, or as they call it in intelligence circles, Bush’s handlers.
Boxturtle @ 38
Is it possible Mukasey didn’t want to state his view on waterboarding, because he wants to get in, meaning, if he said, “Yes, waterboarding is torture”, he knows the republicans in the Senate (and the White House) won’t vote to confirm him, but if he said absolutely nothing, he has a good chance of becoming AG and can then say that waterboarding is torture and will be banned once he is in?
Could be. We don’t know. Liberals originally embraced this guy, so that tells me he’s a much better choice for AG than Gonzales could ever dream of being! Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the Senate when this is all said and done.
KayinMaine@186 I know that you realize and have noticed that at every Bush candidate’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, most notably the confirmations of Alito, Roberts and countless trial and appellate judges, and D.O.J. senior staff, that they have been strictly coached by White House and DOJ lawyers to give minimalist testimony that is ambiguous or non-revealing beyond belief.
There is a key idea here. It’s no accident. That idea is to insure that the American people have as little information about how their secret government operates or what it is doing to them until it is much too late.
It is a synthesis of the paradigm seen in bananna republics and totalitarian regimes alike. We now have a heavy infusion of both in the D.N.A. of our Executive Branch, the D.O.J. and West Wing.
In other words, to answer no questions and if you read the transcripts of Alito and Roberts, the feeble Senate Judiciary committee allowed this. Even Sheldon Whitehouse, a bright analytical former U.S. Attorney is tolerating this waymore than I expected.
Now we have a Supreme Court that is very damaged goods for the next 30-40 years. I don’t know how long you can expect Ruth Ginsburg who has resigned herself to making points as she said in a recent speech with oral dissents from the Bench and John Paul Stevens who may have more courtroom litigation experience than any Supreme Court Justice in history to stay there.
If Bush or any Republican gets another shot at the Supreme Court, the results will be truly horrific. I don’t know any other way to describe it. You are going to see some opinions this term that will show the full panoply of the Alito and Roberts tilt that forecloses the rights of the individual and champions the causes of multimillion dollar corporations and a unitary executive government.
Thanks so much Pete Pierce for your insightful and thoughtful comment to me. I truly appreciate it. I guess what is standing out to me is Robert Gates saying last week that waterboarding is not good. He seemed to be saying that he’s embarrassed by the actions of what Gonzales and others allowed and did not police for the sake of our nation. Even George H.W. Bush was seen on Fox News recently (it’s linked over on Crooks & Liar) crying because his son is torturing Iraqi prisoners and years ago Bush Sr. was so proud of his soldiers WHO DID NOT DO THIS and treated our prisoners with respect. I kind of felt that Mukasey was holding back…not to tow the neocon line…but to help himself get in and then tackle this horrible abomination and wart on America’s reputation as a country!
Though, I could be completely wrong too. LOL ;-)
It’s really hard to say. I honestly don’t know what to think anymore.
Also Pete, if I’m not mistaken, Robert Gates is a friend of George H.W. Bush. A connection to all of this? Could be. Again, I don’t know.
When Louis Freeh was nominated for FBI, he feigned ignorance about COINTELPRO.
Said he’d never heard of it.
This, from a former federal judge.
Disqualified him right there.