Reply #12: What Does Comey's Testimony Tell Us about the NSA Program?

[L. Coyote]

What Does Comey's Testimony Tell Us about the NSA Program? (15 comments )
Shayana Kadidal - 05.17.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/what-does-comeys-testimo_b_48686.html

The astonishing story of Alberto Gonzales' March 2004 bedside visit with John Ashcroft ... former Deputy Attorney General James Comey's riveting testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee ....
(The whole video is here http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/51973
and the transcript is here. http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/comey.transcript.pdf
The New York Times' account of the testimony is here, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/politics/01spy.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=cb8221ee6567f18f&ex=1179374400
and Dahlia Lithwick's is here, http://www.slate.com/id/2166213 /

the whole thing is worth watching/reading.) Here's my 10-cent summary: ............Comey --an outstanding career prosecutor, not a "Bushie," who'd joined the AG's staff in 2003-- had serious misgivings about the legality of the NSA program, doubts shared by other non-partisan-hack lawyers who'd come to DOJ.........Comey decided he wouldn't reauthorize it....Afterwards, Card ... orders Comey over to the White House; Comey refuses unless Solicitor General Ted Olsen is present as a witness. Olson is dragged out of a dinner party and heads to the White House with Comey. ...

.....There's been a ton of fascinating speculation (here, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/16/nsa_comey here http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_13-2007_05_19.shtml#1179350507 , and here http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/05/can-you-even-imagine-how-bad-it-must.html ) about what this dispute was about on the merits (Comey, of course, can't speak about that). A number of commentators point out that in late 2003 a new set of DOJ and Office of Legal Council lawyers was replacing the group (Yoo, Bybee, Delahunty) that authored the torture memos and other documents setting forth a theory of uncheckable Presidential power...........

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