Jack Goldsmith was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Marty Lederman summarizes some of the extreme measures the Bush/Cheney White House took to keep the Department of Justice out of the loop here.
Think about that for a second. Numerous telecommunications executives and technicians were informed about this top-secret program, and (presumably) were given some account of why their participation would be legal notwtihstanding FISA. But the Administration continues to refuse to inform Congress about that legal justification (even though it is now asking Congress to immunize the telecoms for having relied on the legal advice that Congress itself cannot see!); and moreover, the White House would not allow the Deputy Attorney General or the General Counsel of the NSA itself to be let in on the secret!
Obviously, the reason these officials were not "read into" the program until Goldsmith and Ashcroft insisted upon it was not fear that they would leak vital information to Al Qaeda, but instead that the legal justification was so transparently flawed that it could not withstand any independent review at all -- a judgment that turned out to be true, of course: As soon as anyone outside the Cheney/Gonzales/Yoo circle saw the legal analysis, they realized it was so extreme and untenable that they would have to resign if the President continued to act in reliance upon it. Goldsmith testified today that the NSA program was "the biggest legal mess I encountered [at OLC]." In light of the August 2002 Torture opinion, that's really saying something!
You don't need to be an expert on decision making to know that that's a terrible way to run a government.
Posted by armand at October 3, 2007 01:07 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Corruption | Politics | Shine the Light on It