“WHITEHOUSE: Would that be reflected in any document?

GONZALES: Yes, it would.

WHITEHOUSE: We’ll pursue the document later. When you went into the attorney general’s room at the hospital that night, what document did you have in your hand?

GONZALES: I had in my possession a document to reauthorize the program.

WHITEHOUSE: Where is it now?

GONZALES: I’m assuming the document is at the White House. It was a White House document.

WHITEHOUSE: And it would be covered by presidential records laws?

GONZALES: It is a White House document.”

excerpted from http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..003759.php

it contains a video link of the exchange too….

Every one of the contacts between the division I was in under the former & political animals was structured to maintain a proper record on both sides, reflecting an almost stiff feeling of concern at both ends. I have to concede that my new & junior status & the fact I had only a few cases capable of attracting interest outside those directly involved might have had something to do with the impression; but the impression I received from those above me was that the lack of intimate contact was itself a bit of problem in creating communications problems- political apprehensions outside the department, some degree of career anxieties among the bosses, particularly those nurturing hopes of judical appointment.

From sometime before my second stint I gathered there were efforts to break down that structure, and there was a notable amount of resistance from the department’s career professionals, who to that point still wielded enough influence over the administration of the department that one could tell the political contacts were testing where the resistance was coming from – & in time all of those senior careerists solved the problem by attrition- mostly retirements & deaths, but quite a bit of leaving to practice private or corporate or in house, and a very few internal judicial appointments. But instead of the stiff self-consciousness of political-careerist contacts I saw earlier, now there were incidents of direct insurrection, most on principle but all said to be so.

By the end of Reagan’s second term, that entire generation of resistance to political inquiry was pretty much gone [as was I]. Those who moved up nearer the top had something like the same principles, acquired from the old guard, but unlike my own experience, they’d also spent most if not all their careers used to political contacts, and I felt their antennae just never was developed to react the same way. Where in my earlier experience careers were made or not on a combination of hard work, merit & sponsorship within the bureaucratic structure, by the end of my second one there was still value in work, & merit had its rewards, but a new dimension of sponsorship had been added by the easing of political ‘dialogue’. Indeed, there were lots of occasions on which it felt like political inquiries over specific matters would turn into mini-quizzes, lightyears from being Goodling’d of course, but in principle not that different, and maybe even more effective in terms of ensuring some competence went all with the felicitous ideology [As to the latter, I think the point has been made before, perhaps by bmaz- except for Civil Rights division, and even then those days are long gone, the DOJ really has never been a great place for finding those inclined political left. It’s quite amazing how one can work alongside authoritarians for years and never have to address it. Again, days long gone.]

My point is that, for the most part, Wainstein’s career, and certainly its upward arc, has been after that ‘diaglogue’ with all political creatures started to be …relaxed. That same period coincides with Phase III of Boss Dick’s career, mostly spent as a House Rep for Wyoming. Cheney was a frequent friendly face & demonstrated a remarkable degree of support for bread & butter issues with the up & comers in a number of agencies, including the DOJ, and particularly the FBI side of it. Quite apart from his voting record & public speeches, I can’t remember a single mention of him ever asking anyone to do anything untoward or suspect. It all felt like respectful old-fashioned courtship.

Mind you, I don’t think I ever gave off the vibe of being interested in anything kinkier. Those who did seemed to have done well since.

Algae was a complete outside to all this. If you want to see how little regard Wainstein had for him, this is from Algae’s farewell tribute:

MR. WAINSTEIN: Thanks, Craig. And good afternoon, everybody. It is a true honor and a pleasure to be here to help celebrate the tenure of our leader
and our friend, Judge Gonzales.

As Craig said, I am in the National Security Division, and I came on board when the division got stood up just about a year ago, last fall. And in this past year, Judge Gonzales and I have worked closely on a variety of different issues, and I have had the chance to see the Judge from a number of different perspectives. I would like to discuss two of those perspectives here today.

First, I have gotten to see exactly where it is that Judge Gonzales stands on matters involving our national security. And where he stands is right next to the men and women who are on the front lines in our battle against international terrorism. At every step of the way, Attorney General Gonzales has pushed to make sure that our personnel, our officers, our agents, our prosecutors, our analysts, that we all have the resources we need and what we need to protect our country.

Whether it has been his efforts to stand up the National Security Division you have heard about, the first new division in the Department of Justice in 40 years, I think, or his efforts to make sure that Congress reauthorized the vital tools and authorities that we received back in the Patriot Act, or the countless times that he personally stepped up to help us on matters small or large when he heard about some sort of bureaucratic obstacle that was making it hard for us to do our jobs, the Judge has always been a steady force in support of our national security operations.

At the same time, he has been a steady force for making sure not only that we conduct our operations effectively, but that we do so responsibly. He understands that our authority to enforce the law and defend the nation depends on the public’s confidence that we would use that authority appropriately and judiciously.

And that is why earlier this year he directed the National Security Division to establish a new structure and a new component devoted to compliance oversight. And that is why he gave us the authority to conduct comprehensive oversight on all aspects of national security investigations.

The decision to give us that authority was historic, as it is the first time that Main Justice has been given such a broad oversight mandate. It is a decision that will well-serve the Department, the FBI, and the nation for generations to come.

Besides having the chance to see Judge Gonzales as a national security leader over this past year, I have also been able to take a measure of the Judge just as a person. And over this past year, people have often asked me, what is the Attorney General like? What is he really like? What kind of guy is he?

And I have realized over time that I have come to use one particular answer to that question, which is that the Attorney General is a good man. Simply that: He’s a good man. And I think those are the words that Mike Sullivan used a few moments ago.

And it is kind of difficult to come up with a specific definition of what a good man or a good woman is, but I think we all understand it. It means someone who has a big heart and has all the qualities that you would look for in a friend. And Attorney General Gonzales is a person who has those qualities. He has them in full measure. And in particular, Judge Gonzales has a kind and a compassionate way about him that is evident and has been evident in everything he has done as Attorney General.

It was evident in the way that he made a habit of making the rounds and dropping in on DOJ employees of every rank and every station just to say hello and to say thank you for your service. It is evident in the way that he has always cared so much for the victims of crime and of terrorism, a concern that was evidenced one particular night when I remember he stayed up well into the night to personally talk to the family of a terrorist’s victim because he wanted to make sure they knew that certain disclosures were going to be made the next day.

It was evident the time that a number of us traveled to Europe, and Judge Gonzales insisted on changing plans so that he could visit a concentration camp and pay his respects to the victims of the Holocaust. And it was evident the day that I lost a loved one and he was the very first person to give me a note of sympathy, a small gesture but one that my family and I will always appreciate.

Those are the types of moments in which you truly get the measure of a person, and those are the things that I am thinking of when I tell people that Judge Gonzales is a good man. And they are also some of the reasons why I am proud to speak at his farewell ceremony here today, and to say on behalf of all my colleagues, my friends at the National Security Division, thank you, Judge. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your service. And thank you for your friendship”

http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/a…..70917.html

Shorter Wainstein: Okay, we all know he wasn’t exactly the brightest AG we’ve ever had- & yes he’s kind of making us all look like clowns- & even now we’re not sure how he got through law school- but I can assure you: he did pretty much everything we asked him to do [bearing in mind his obvious limitations], he was always available to run errands, never whined or complained, he was mostly quiet, and he had a nice warm smile.

IMO there’s an element of superiority in Wainstein’s send off that suggests he knows his back is completely covered.

Will read fully later, but at the halfway point I had an odd thought — what if Gonzo was just as afraid of the OVP, Addington, Chertoff, Fisher, etc as Comey and some of the other people in DoJ?

It would certainly be interesting to know whether, or how much, that would have been a motive. I’m not excusing Gonzo; just wondering how fear factored in — IF it was a factor.

Well, his nickname was Fredo, and we all know what happened to Fredo in the movie.

Lastly, the White House attorneys’ notes state that Gonzales gave his original notes to Bradbury after Bradbury told him that the White House Counsel’s Office would be calling Bradbury about them, and because the Office of Legal Counsel already had in its possession many documents related to the NSA surveillance program.

And the obvious questions are:

Why hide keep this stuff over at the OLC?

Why not in the National Security Division (NSD) of the DOJ?

And why are “many documents related to the NSA surveillance program” being hidden kept at the OLC instead of the NSD (Note for all interested that the NSD is the primary DOJ department for FISA activities)?

Since the documents required SCIF storage, why not in the Justice Command Center?

Since most, if not all, of these TS/SCI documents were acquired by Fredo duing his tenure as White House Chief Stooge Counsel, again, why are they being hidden kept over at the DOJ, and in particular, at the OLC?

And no one seems to mention anything from Bush to confirm Gonzales story of the notes being made at the Prez direction and there seems to be a theme that, despite telling Gonzo to write them up (what, Bush looking down the line for possible future needs???) Bush never actually read the notes.

So my reaction was, “what if” Gonzales felt like he needed ammo, then went and wrote up what he wanted and took it to Fielding as a big “ta da” Fielding thought it a bit suspicious and, more importantly, thought others would be suspicious, so he starts asking for the provenance on the notes. And there Gonzales starts digging a hole. Bc he can’t say he kept the docs in the DOJ safe, bc others had access to the safe and they might say the notes hadn’t been there. So then where would they have been and even if they were there, should they have been there?

So then the story of an “innocuous” mistake where Gonzales took the docs home and kept them in the safe there came up, but golly, there’s that problem of documented calls to various and sundry, all trying to get Gonzales’ home safe open and no one could do it. So the hole keeps getting deeper and deeper – maybe he did use the safe at DOJ after all, but then there’s the problem of him not having access to the safe code when he was sworn in, so the docs would have had to be with him – in his briefcase. And then at his house. In the safe he couldn’t open. …

yowser

I guess it’s equally feasible that Bush really did have this flash of insight where he told Gonzales: hey buddy, why don’t you write up your recollections from the Congressional meeting to have them on hand for later reference when the members start calling you a liar for your under oath testimony and Gonzales says: hey Presidentbuddy, good call, I can see why you’re the President and I’m just WHCounsel, let me make those notes that neither you nor anyone else will see for the next few years, bc golly, who knows when you’ll need to refresh your recollection about things or just want to make sure that successor administrations knows exactly what happened in the Gang of 8 briefing.

In any event, I think the Presidential records nomenclature should get a challenge, with the argument that they are “personal records” as defined by the statutes instead. After all, if the notes were just for Gonzales personal recollection use, even if the President told him to prepare them, then I think it would be interesting to hear how the WH fleshes out that the notes were “prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business” rather than them being, “diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business.”

What would be the government business (or advice to the Executive to end run that too) of making a note that was not for distribution about how Pelosi and Rockefeller and Daschle and Harman et al reacted to being briefed? There are arguments the other way too, but I think it would be interesting if the Presidential Records concept for the unclassified portions of the notes got a challenge.

I guess the Intel committees have already seen the notes? Or not? Or don’t really want to see them?

Because last I heard, that was SOP for investigation and debriefing in an unauthorized possession and transportation of classified material case.

There weren’t any wiretaps, see? Just data mining.

And we had “roving documentation” in Gonzo’s briefcase, which trumps warrants/court orders for “roving wiretaps.”

EW — I suspect that it was not for insulation or tracking alone that Gonzo kept both a draft and final. If he has both, he has EVERYTHING. The whole enchilada. There can’t be any rebuttal by anybody else using an early draft against a final to suggest that the original intent was different, or any counter to the draft because nobody else has the final. Whatever is documented in that final and draft is whatever Gonzo (or whomever is using him like a meat puppet) says it is as long as he has the whole enchilada.

– President Bush, April 19, 2004, remarks on USA Patriot Act

”(T)here are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

– President Bush, April 20, 2004, remarks on USA Patriot Act

”First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can’t move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.”

– President Bush, July 14, 2004, remarks on USA Patriot Act