Sessions: the anti-war groups always find something to complain about.

So true, isn’t it? We are such narks.

Poor DiFi. It’s hard work, listening to Sessions talk about torture.

Sessions: Living in the age of security timidity

Truth: We have captured and killed more terrorists at a higher rate, and been far more effective, than Bush/Cheney ever were.

This drawling dick is insipid.

DC Bar Rules IMPOSED on lawyers?!?! Sessions is shocked.

Thank god for that courageous and correct mob consigliere David Margolis!!!

Did you realize that the DoJ is now filled with left-wingers and anti-war activists?

I’m watching the hearing.

Off topic: In case you missed it, the House passed the Senate’s PATRIOT Act reauthorization yesterday. It’s titled “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act” so don’t let that throw you off.

Link to the roll call vote: http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2010&rollnumber=67
Link to the bill text: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.03961:
Dkos diary on the topic: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/25/225044/888

Durbin and Leahy aren’t going to go anywhere with their outrage without tying all of this to things like the al-Libi lies that gave us the Iraq war as our torture birthright and the innocent people tortured.

If they don’t quit letting people like Sessions say this is all about torturing terrorists, they gain no traction. Tossing out McCain is fine, but it doesn’t challenge Sessions on his conclusory “terrorist” desigination, they lose.

He needs to point out that almost everyone abused at Abu Ghraib and other US detention camps were innocent; that the CIA told President Bush that a large chunk of the people being abused at GITMO were completely innocent and that CIA analysis has been supported by judicial review in the habeas petitions; that Maher Arar and Khalid el-Masri were abused without ever being shown to have any ties to terrorism and Arar was picked up as a result of misinformation given under torture.

Stats on trials are fine, but they aren’t a traction point.

Very scrappy transcript of Sessions statement:

Sen Sessions:
pres bush said he’d use – every power I have to defend this country
he meant that and the amer people said yes we agree with that

these lawyers job was serious pressures were enormous.. where legal lines could be drawn.. think that’s what the amer people wanted

terror presidency – jack goldsmith book – discussed nat sec lawyers dilemma.. conflicting demands and pressures upon them

times have changed.. i fear we’re now in a cycle of timidity.. obama admin has taken a dangerous turn away from 911 lessons learned
in favor of far more limited army field manual.. terrorist tried to blow up airplane on christmas day..
admin insists on giving miranda warnings to terrorist trying to blow up plane during wartime
these policies are troubling and in my view dangerous.. maybe because of some of the chief critics and antiwar activists who now populate the doj

john yoo and jay bybee crafted 2 legal mem on subject of enh inter tech.. after 5 1/2 years .. OPR concluded appar .. that bybee and yoo should be referred…. to STATE BAR AUTH.. I think there’s a danger there.. dropped their first vers of report on mukasey.. first report filled with gaping holes, shoddy analysis.. later versions of opr rpt attempted to change legal stds.. someone by press accts repeated leaked the draft reports to media and gained public support for their conclusions.. are they investig those leaks?

Prevailed..Margolis.. very respected.. rejected OPRs efforts… WaPo calls his opinion courageous and correct and I agree.. how can we undo the damage that misguided investigations …

I know a lot of my colleagues feel this govt went too far and that’s all been made clear and all been made public.. time to move past this.. troubled that pres is not using the powers that he clearly has

OT but definitely related. Last night The Hill reported a provision put in the upcoming intel authorization bill was pulled. The Democrats were trying to do the right thing, but I’m not savvy enough to know if a good attempt failed, or if it was a message being sent to the GOP:

A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening.

House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations….

The provision, previously not vetted in committee, applied to “any officer or employee of the intelligence community” who during interrogations engages in beatings, infliction of pain or forced sexual acts. The bill said the acts covered by the provision would include inducing hypothermia, conducting mock executions or “depriving the [detainee] of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care.”

The amendment was apparently the brainchild of Jim McDermott, and Reyes put it in. The article doesn’t report exactly how or why it was pulled, except for the GOP outcry. Certainly makes the latter look like torture enablers (which they are).

Also, thanks for covering the hearing (such as it will be). Gotta go to work this AM. I could record, but then, I know I’ll get the kernel from coming back here and reading the reporting and comments.

Sorry if the Hill story was already covered.

It wouldn’t hurt to point out that Yoo has continued to say that he was right even in light of Supreme Court decisions that have negated his opinions. Yoo may be “sincere” when he says that the Supreme Court is wrong and he is right, but as a lawyer he is NOT acting in good faith when he makes such continued assertions. A neo-Nazi may have a sincere belief that they should be allowed to rid the world of non-Arayan blood, but so freakin what

Someone needs to ask these guys about turning someone over to have their penis razored and what part of the opinions they think authorized that – they need to point out that the CIA IG report describes a non-al qaeda young adult being frozen to death under what is authorized in these memos, the IG report talks about threats to the life and health of members of a family and if Sessions and Cornyn support that.

Mention at least that the UK government is facing serious issues because of US handling of torture – Leahy et al won’t play any hardball in their questioning – you can already tell from the statements.

I can’t watch.

Cornyn: error. “The interrogators did not simply start using these techniques.” Sorry, Charlie Brown, but they did.

I can’t even transcribe Cornyn’s statement because it makes me so ill, talking about how Yoo and Bybee deserve the thanks of their nation, how they were harrassed, and how these people from the DoJ and CIA sacrificed more than we can imagine.

This man thinks that the people who crafted these policies, twisted the law to make it legal, and the people who actually carried out the torture “have sacrificed more than we can imagine.”

These right wing nuts are sadists who care not a twit about any human being not in the circles they travel.

Wow, we are guests allowed to watch government work! Thanks.

Well, this is simply fucking brilliant. Both sides have, in true bi-partisan fashion, turned Margolis into a saint and now Grindler has come to tell us he indeed doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground about the deep facts and conclusions of the report and will not comment on that, but that it is all perfect and the DOJ stands firmly behind it.

What a steaming pile of shit.

Is this guy a bush buddy ?

Grindler wants time to talk to the IT people about the emails. What the hell have they been doing for the last five years?

Glendower:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

Glendower:
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command
The devil

Hotspur:
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil—
By telling the truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.

– Henry IV I, III.i.52–58

I wasn’t going to listen anymore, but given the military commissions issues, Leahy ought to at least be asking if the Bybee memo that recommended transfer of Padilla to military detention has been withdrawn or not.

Not talking about the e-mails.

Here is a wee bit of encouragement, though:

[The New York] Times was joined by the good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder pointing out that “the knowing failure to preserve and restore email records violates the Federal Records Act (FRA) and may be subject to criminal sanctions.” CREW called for an investigation to determine not only whether Yoo and Philbin violated the FRA, “but also whether they obstructed justice and violated other criminal laws.”

LINK.

Huh? Soldiers captured on the battlefield don’t have the right to remain silent? What happened to name, rank, and serial number, and then silent?

only commie pinkos say things like “no one is above the law” why no Margols testifying? Guess he is above the law

Holder, Obama, Leahy, Whitehouse etc damn commies.

Sessions reminds me so much of one of the seven dwarfs. I think dopey

No no, those are soldiers; these are enemy combatants.

But Sessions said that — he said that even soldiers captured on the battlefield don’t have the right to remain silent. I’m sure he said that.

Leahy “current interpretation?”

there is a sizeable number of old fart democrats that, for the benefit of this country’s future, need to be seperated from their senate seats – permanently.

at this point i think the best hope for accomplishing this is the republican party (“rightt/wing republican party” is redundant).

perhaps in three to five more election cycles (six to ten more years) enough of the ofd’s can be got rid of to give true democrats a chance in primaries and general elections to win back a real democratic senate seat.

Grinder “consistent with the army field manual”

Put a long white wig and beard on Leahy, add the white robe, put some thunderbolts in his hands and he looks like the god of justice many of us were taught lived up in the clouds somewhere. Leahy has fire in his eyes. Would really like to see him cut the justice juices totally loose.

[Therein lies the problem, huh? If OLC lawyers can't be held to ANY standard of ethics, then w/o stated law, nothing prevents President from going back to waterboarding.]

Heck, they do it WITH stated law. Impunity and immunity; they do what they want.

Let me guess. Margolis wouldn’t show because he would have to perjure himself.

The now re**populated** DoJ*s new look: everyone going in and out the door is antiwar activist. Senator Sessions must be engaging in hyperbole. Maybe he means simply the new appearance of DoJ*s workforce is less like the Brooks Brothers rebellion in Y2K.

Leahy isn’t doing diddly shit; this is a sham and as head of the committee he is responsible for having one asswipe that was not involved in the OPR process be the sole witness. And now they appear to be wrapping it up. What a pathetic joke.

No Whitehouse, either. (Apparently personal reasons back home.) Even with only Grindler as witness, it would have been good to hear from Whitehouse.

Leahy” I want to make sure no future admin makes such mistakes”

The peasants are watching, listening, trickle down this no respect for the rule of law.

Wars based on lies, torture, out Plame, undermine the DOJ and NO ONE IS REALLY HELD ACCOUNTABLE. What do they think the message is? Addington, Cheney, Feith, Wolfowitz etc are CLEARLY ABOVE THE LAW. That is the message and the whole world along with American peasants get it

Seriously I have heard old labor union coal mining families who supported their kids going off to that war based on a pack of lies express hatred for those who lied to them before that invasion. I have heard them say “no one will be held accountable”

I have heard college kids say “we have friends who have done more time in jail for getting caught with marijuana than those who lied us into a war and then tortured.” There is a great deal of direspect out their for our alleged “rule of law” and there is no need to wonder why.

Leahy, Holder, Whitehouse, Obama “no one is above the law” Another big big lie

Agree, that was a pathetic waste of time. Grindler repeatedly avoided admitting the obvious: that to reel in presidential power, you have to pass laws. He managed to keep entire discussion away from OTHER areas of abuse of power, notable spying on Americans, bc Obama ahs been as bad there as Bush. And at the end of all that, Leahy said, “you’re great, mr. Grindler.”

Just a fart on the old elephants ass… lingers for hours and no one can understand the smell.

This hearing was a cruel joke on those of us who still believe in the rule of law.

Thanks for all you do, Marcy, bmaz, mary and others too numerous to mention.

I would be in much deeper despair for my country but for all of you.

Will they do this again? Call in Margolis?

Conyers claims he is having a hearing. However, who knows when that will happen. His office still hasn’t figured it out nor do they have any idea whether they will try and get the key players to testify. I can’t believe how ridiculous today’s hearing was.

To give Leahy some due, at least it may mean some headline stealing on the missing emails versus the “found not guilty” bizarro stuff coming from Cornyn that has also been the tenor of the headlines to date.

That part may not have been bad posturing and it may light a fire, but not only has there been years now for the emails to have been found, one of those years has been during Obama’s admin – Holder has known from the reports for forever now that the emails weren’t made available and were supposedly “missing” and never started any recovery efforts?

I think maybe this was all just a way for Leahy to put out the messaging on the emails in a way that would maybe get more press than by just sending over a letter asking for them.

Not that I think this is how things should go (and just like the praising of Margolis biting later as EW has mentioned, all the time they let the Republicans prattle on about how only terrorists have been tortured – even with all the habeas case rulings and revelation – they get so much butt chewed off that they cant fix it later with implants) but it is a way to move some of the headlines/discussion to loads of missing emails v exoneration of the boo boo boys.

Leahy needs to differentiate between mistakes and crimes, dithering and criminal cover up.

Right now Holder’s DOJ has a year of being complicit in the records violtions (if not conspiracy to obstruct) that stems from the destruction, without any attempt to restore of the emails.

Excellent points, Mary, as usual.

Leahy:

Unfortunately Obama Admin attempts to repair office hamstrung by those who continue to delay appointment of Dawn Johnsen.

Isn’t Leahy himself one of those miscreants?

Bob in AZ

The missing emails of July and August 2002 from Yoo and Philbin is just like the emails missing from Cheney’s office during September 30 and October 6, 2003. Could Addington have been behind both? While Grindler said the OPR report didn’t say there was anything “nefarious” about the missing emails, it’s pretty obvious that there was a purge of documents taking place. But like I said last week in the working thread, Yoo is so self-righteous in his beliefs that I would guess he would not have deleted emails on his own and that someone suggested he do it or did it for him. The reason I think that is because if he were to do it on his own it would suggest, to me at least, that he had a guilty mind.

Grindler: [Repeats EO]. I can confirm that 7 of 8 OLC opinions referenced have been formally withdrawn.

This is remarkable. Sounds like a grade of “F” for those involved in producing those OLC opinions.

Bob in AZ

Exactly; and Leahy let Grindler get away with complete buffoonery on that. Here is how that part should have gone:

Grindler: First want to get info back from IT experts. Including all questions of what occurred, at that point, be in position to evaluate whether anything needs to be done. Does include review of some of Yoo’s emails.

Leahy: What the hell have you been doing for the last 4-5 years? This administration has been in office well over a year now, what steps have been taken? What were the email protocols before and what are they now? If you don’t have any idea, why are you here? Who does know? That is just for starters…….

Enemy combatants with supposed ticking time bombs. All of them had, or had knowledge of ticking time bombs.

And therein lie some nice additional questions. This could have been explored deeply and, even if Grindler obfuscated or didn’t know, a record made for demanding followup submissions and/or testimony.

“Tell him further that I hold Montague in my power; that Montague is in the Bastille; that no letters were found upon him, it is true, but that torture may make him tell much of what he knows, and even what he does not know.”

“Exactly.”

Link

@44 48
Yoo’s high opinion of himself would be why, for example, he might want emails where he is childishly (I’m all about the childish – Yoo, notsomuch) mocking a man he’s proferring for torture as “boo boo” and he’s excruciatingly well aware of the details of his “defenses” on torture being tied to not being able to show any “specific intent” (although his definitions are pretty bogus) so I wouldn’t discount entirely that he might have deleted himself. They also say that when Levin was redoing the opinions, the only guy who was arguing with him about torture was Philbin (who may have still had his own forlorn hope of getting one of those nifty appointments Comey says he was denied, if he stepped in as flag bearer).

Philbin also issued one of the initial memos on being able to try al Qaeda guys (this was before Iraq had made “everything a war”) in military commissions v. domestic criminal trials – that was early early days. His opinion that military commissions could be used was premised in part on his passing notice that *of course* the Geneva Conventions would apply – that was the thing that he took as a given in making the military commissions argument. So with the very fast onslaught after that of “no Geneva Conventions” there might have been some very interesting emails.

I still don’t know why all the torture field trip participants weren’t interviewed and didn’t have their emails reviewed – I mean, what the heck was going on with that trip? You don’t just end up with that many top level guys going and there’s no back and forth about WHY they are going and it was all about the interrogation at the time. Larry Thompson and Wray went and I don’t seem them listed in the OPR review – although Larry Thompson turned around and shipped Maher Arar off for torture right after getting back (an action that has also not been investigated by OPR or anyone else – while Thompson kicks back and enjoys his slot at Pepsico).

And as a bit of non-sequitor and more re: the Padilla trial, a chunk of what Mukasey, Margolis etc. try to do in the review of the narrowly selected chunk of memos is say that only technical legal advice was being given, no policy input was being given etc. But the memo from Bybee to Ashcroft on handing off Padilla to the military is a RECOMMENDATION. IIRC, that word gets used more than once – that Bybee is recommending that Padilla be handed off to the military. Ok – later days maybe they started watching language more, but they were obviously on a footing of soliciting and recommending re: the handling of detainees, not just giving technical advice.

Karl Rove had his Connell, maybe Addington had someone else or used Connell too – who knows. No one much has been asing, though.

Thanks EW.

Mary @ 40. Good point about the role of missing emails messaging.

Jeff,

THAT is interesting. What perked my attention was the “inducing hypothermia.” Most people think that is “stripped and put out in the cold” method. There is a more science/medical based way to induce it which would reveal “near death” EIT’s were the practice. It’s something I have written about fairly in-depth in the past.

I could link to the complete science of Induced Hypothermia as a means to recover the body from many types of life threatening injuries when “out of a hospital.”

It would be worth asking if they meant all types of induced hypothermia. Then Marcy may have her answer/evidence irt “buried alive”.

You know, I absolutely agree with you on this.

Addington’s a very weird bird. But I don’t know that he’d have the emails destroyed himself.

A little history/echo: Leahy, Cheney, the media, balance of powers, secrecy, memes, etc:

July 30, 1987
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F40710FB345B0C738FDDAE0894DF484D81
IRAN-CONTRA HEARINGS; Leahy Confession: Fallout

I agree. And that is exactly why, when he injected himself in as a defacto custodian of records for emails, at a minimum as to the EOVP and arguably the larger executive branch, he should have been examined on everything he knew about executive department email protocols and performance.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a pathetic hearing.

Is this it? Did anyone hear anything about a follow up hearing?

Why did he bother? Why did Leahy bother? If DiFi and Whitehouse and Feingold couldn’t be there, why didn’t he reschedule? Did he even attempt to get Margolis or others to testify? If he couldn’t get some witnesses who had something to do with the situation, why didn’t he subpoena?

Has Leahy forgotten that he has subpoena power? (Remember how ecstatic we all were when we gained the majority in 2006 and knew that Conyers and Leahy would have subpoena power?)

Who is Sessions after, BTW? He went on and on about liberal bloggers and the leaking reports, and how the OPR should be investigating those leaks. Who does Sessions want to go after?

Somebody better get after those emails, and the White House emails, and the issue of destroying evidence. Is it my imagination or would that have been a serious crime in past decades?

Dumbfounded about the whole thing. Sickened.

… and a letter stating that what the bearer has done was done for the good of the state.

“Not recoverable e-mails” makes me think back to another Department of Justice Official.

Former Special Counsel Scott Bloch.

Who hired Geeks on Call to scrub his work computer.

I don’t believe we ever received an explanation as to why.

@57

Too fast on the observation…

OSC is not an arm of DOJ, it is independent.

The high standards of justice and accountability that are endlessly preached about to the peasants but not applied to the powers that be have an effect. And that effect is a deep disrespect that the working class has towards our so called justice system and those who are supposed to apply the rule of law. Trickles down.

Hell kids can see it

Re the emails and Leahy’s questions: I don’t get it. The OPR report specifically says the emails were deleted and unrecoverable. The question is: how did they know they were unrecoverable? Had they already checked? Why would DOJ’s IT guys be examining that now if someone had already determined they were not recoverable?

Also, the fact (if it is a fact) that they are not recoverable means they were professionally scrubbed. Just deleting them off the hard drive is not good enough, and all computer specialists know that, even average computer users know that. You pretty much have to destroy a hard drive, or engage in some heavy duty scrubbing to get that info totally out of there.

Could OPR have been telling us, don’t look there (or someone so informed OPR authors, to produce the same message)? Did someone lie to OPR?

“we were told that most of Yoo’s records had been deleted and were not recoverable.”

Told by whom? Leahy could have brought the OPR attorneys to Congress. They could have testified with identities hidden, if need be. Instead, now we’re going to initiate another go-nowhere investigtion?

So many questions on this, but Leahy never asked. So the idea that Leahy is really interested in pursuing this means that’s unlikely, or he’s just incompetent. I could believe either.

Same goes for the CIA missing documentation. The OPR report stated it had reason to believe they had not received all relevant docs from CIA. What about that? Down the rabbit hole.

What’s so astonishing (or maybe not) is that Grindler said the OPR report did not suggest there was anything “nefarious” about the fact that Yoo’s emails were missing.

Really? Deleted and unrecoverable would seem “nefarious,” especially if they went missing during the weeks they finalizing the torture memo.

One other tangential thing – Raddack and Horton have a 6 questions regarding what DOJ did with her, but there are some interesing points that would make her an interesting witness to call with Margolis or GG if they bring him back. First – she was NOT allowed any of the process they gave Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury, including an opportunity to review and comment. Second, and very interesting in light of today’s main point from Leahy, her emails went missing too and she did not delete them. Tose were emails that evidenced prosecutors were lying to the court in the Lindh proceeding (they said they were not aware his father had retained counsel for him when they abusively questioned him; she had emails proving they were aware).

Also of interest, no one sent the ordered production requests to her, despite her direct involvement in his case and her advice being given on several occassions. It was only because of one of the prosecutors coming to her with a question that she knew anything about it. That’s when she went to pull up her emails and found that they had been deleted. She went right away and got some IT help to get them restored and then produced them to the court.

Maybe Leahy could, after having her as a witness, recommend that Obamco hire her to come in and give sessions in how to preserve docs, how to follow up on resurrecting deleted docs, and how to properly comply with duties of production and how to disseminate information throughout the department in order to correctly respond to court ordered production.

Or not. Sessions will have hysteria over the fact that she said Lindh should not be questioned while he had an attorney.

Jeff or Jason,

Do we know anything about Margolis’ personal life?

That wasn’t their mandate, though – to see what kinds of actions by the lawyers were nefarious or lawbreaking. Their only mandate was to review the memos to see if professional standards were met in their drafting and even that got cut by Mukasey to limit review so as to exclude Bradbury.

The tone of all the report is pretty much that they can’t trust what has been produced to them by OLC, CIA or basically anyone. When OPR takes that tone with respect to their colleagues, what does that tell the courts?

Wow – that history does give some perspective to a lot of things. Thank you.

If you read the link from harpie at 53, you can see that some of the leak drone (not all of it, I think there were multiple purposes) was meant directly to dig at Leahy.

Other than what has been printed, not much, at least from my end. Here’s some relevant passages from the Legal Times story, which bmaz highlighted in the excellent post the other day. Not much to work with here:

Margolis was reared in Hartford, Conn. The son of a school administrator and a teacher, he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964 and was hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in Hartford the following year.

He distinguished himself in 1969, when he personally persuaded an armed fugitive wanted for two bank robberies to surrender to him during a meeting at a deserted baseball field.

At the time, Margolis was given to long sideburns and Edwardian suits, and, according to a report in the Hartford Courant, left a marked impression on a policeman who observed the negotiations. “When I first saw the kid sometime back, I thought he looked like a draft-card burner,” the policeman was quoted as saying. “But now I know the kid’s got moxie.”

[sni[]

In 1976 he would come to Washington, where future Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, then head of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, appointed Margolis as a deputy chief of the organized crime section.

In 1979, he took over as section chief, a job he’d hold for the next 11 years. By that time, Margolis had earned a reputation not only as a hard-charging prosecutor, but as something of a long-haired iconoclast amid the DOJ’s button-down culture. He kept an oversize portrait of Elvis Presley on the wall of his office and a jailhouse photo of Hank Williams Sr., naked to the waist. The dapper suits had disappeared and were replaced by T-shirts with slogans like “Hellbent and whiskey-bound.”

“He would come to work in blue jeans with a giant leather belt and silver Elvis Presley belt buckle,” says Paul Coffey, Margolis’ former deputy. “As chief of the organized crime section, he had this huge, huge office on the second floor. As you walked in you saw the pictures and the painting, and Dave’s desk was on the right. What you immediately noticed were four or five half-full coffee cups. In each cup would be the carcass of a cigarette; on the floor would be thousands of remains of popcorn, because [he] ate popcorn all day.

[snip]

But his remarkable devotion to the culture of the department itself is no doubt a factor in his success. In 1995, Margolis suffered a massive heart attack in his office. Then-Deputy Attorney General Gorelick recalls hearing the crack of Margolis’ head hitting a coffee table from her desk several doors away. Margolis was rushed to the hospital for quadruple-bypass surgery.

Five weeks later, he was back at work. Friends say the heart attack has mellowed Margolis. He’s quit smoking, gained weight, and given up wearing T-shirts in the office. He has no plans to retire, and still puts in nearly a full day of work on Saturdays.

crap. does that violate fair use? It’s a 3500 word story. Apologies to Marcy if I went overboard.

Good point, Mary. Thanks for the reminder on that. I was just struck by Grindler’s response.

Thanks, that was the link I could not access w/o a subscription. I hate to bug you. Did it give any additional information about his parents besides their careers or growing up in Hartford?

Grindler is a SOP type witness whom DOJ likes to call when it’s attempting to conceal important evidence. He doesn’t know squat because he has no personal knowledge of anything and, of course, he would prefer not to speculate beyond the four corners of the document he’s testifying about or repeat hearsay.

Procedure? Yah sure, you betcha. He knows all about the procedures followed because they’re in the book and he knows the book by heart just like everybody else because they’re all professionals and take their responsibilities seriously.

David Margolis? Yeah, He knows him. He’s a consummate professional. Second coming of Christ, actually. Godfather of all children of DOJ children.

Missing emails? What missing emails? Don’t know much about history. Don’t know much about biology. Don’t know shit about IT. I’ll get back to you on that someday.

At this point, he should have asked Leahy what he looked like and puffed out his cheeks like Belushi did in Animal House, the finest movie ever made.

Y’all know what should have happened next.

Heh heh, beautifully put.

happy to send you the full story if you like. Just shoot me an email at jasonleopold@pubrecord.org. It didn’t say anything more about his folks or growing up in Hartford though

Interesting. Thanks, Mary.

Jeff “So many questions on this, but Leahy never asked. So the idea that Leahy is really interested in pursuing this means that’s unlikely, or he’s just incompetent. I could believe either”

When Jane Hamsher and team were contacting Reps offices about the best progressive Reps contest they came back stating that many of the Reps that they talked with knew little to nothing about blogs, internet, etc.

Could it be that Leahy knows little about the computer world. Does not know and does not consult with the IT experts that he should be consulting with to ask relevant questions about why these emails are allegedly not “recoverable”

The who, what, why, when of the ” professionally scrubbed” emails?

What a steaming pile of shit

Actually there are several SPOS in this: Yoo, Bybee, the OPR in general, Holder, of course Margolis, but positively, absolutely Leahy.

I’m listening to this hearing from the committee website. I guess the committee has agreed to appear to be asking significant questions, while Grindler pretends to provide significant answers. When will they start calling the right people and asking the right questions?

Bob in AZ

I don’t think SJC intends to Bob.