"These guys who OPR was planning on talking to, were two appointees who vehemently opposed the NSA program and made it clear to the Attorney General and then-White House Counsel that it was not within the confines of the law," he said.
"Investigators from [OPR] notified senior aides to Gonzales early last year that the first two people they intended to interview were Jack Goldsmith, who had been an assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, and James A. Baker, the counsel for Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. Both men had raised questions about the propriety and legality of various aspects of the eavesdropping program, which was undertaken after September 11 as an anti-terrorism tool," the National Journal reported.
The National Journal cites "law enforcement officials" as their confidential sources that Gonzales’s aides proceeded to inform him of the planned interviews with Goldsmith and Baker.
What happens next is "really going to depend on the Attorney General response to [the letters] and further investigation. It's a news article with sources unfamiliar to the Committee with very little on the record for anyone," the anonymous senior Congressional Staffer told APN.
It was unprecedented for the OPR to have been denied security clearances before, until Bush denied them regarding the wiretap review. However, another anonymous Congressional Staffer told APN in January 2006 that they were concerned the Bush Administration would not provide the clearances.
"The decision by the President to shut down the OPR investigation by denying security clearances to key Department personnel was itself extremely unusual, controversial and, in our view, improper," Chairman Conyers wrote in his letter today.
Atlanta Progressive News reported in December 2006 that a separate investigation at the USDOJ is underway. This time, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will be looking into how the wiretap program came about and how it had been carried out. It’s unclear why the OIG decided to look into the matter shortly after the 2006 Congressional Elections, several months after the initial request [which had actually been to the OIG and not the OPR] had been denied.
The OIG investigation is underway, a spokesperson told APN, and could not get into details. This separate investigation by the OIG could still pose further problems for Gonzales.
(FLASHBACK: Please see "Justice Department Reviews Own Role in NSA Wiretapping" http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0116.html)
Subsequently, the Bush Administration reversed course on the NSA Wiretapping and decided that indeed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court could resume its jurisdiction over NSA wiretapping. However, civil liberties advocates say special modifications to the FISA Court’s operations, intended to appease Bush, don’t leave much of a victory on the matter.
(FLASHBACK: Please see "Bush Retreats on Illegal Domestic Wiretapping" http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0119.html)
Gonzales is currently under pressure to resign from several US Senate Democrats and even one Senate Republican--US Sens. Clinton (D-NY), Obama (D-IL), Schumer, and Sununu (R-NH)--for his role in apparently orchestrating the firing of US Attorneys for political purposes.
Gonzales also apologized recently for misleading Congress in regards to that issue.
US Sen. Feingold last year pointed out additional dishonesty by Gonzales in his Senate Confirmation Hearings. Gonzales had said the President would never break the law when Feingold asked whether the President had the authority to order wiretaps.
(FLASHBACK: Please see “Gonzales Lied to Congress over Wiretapping” http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0019.html
Several Congressional sources tell Atlanta Progressive News it looks like Gonzales’s career as Attorney General is almost at an end. Gonzales’s Chief of Staff resigned a few days ago. Gonzales was Bush’s private legal counsel before he become Attorney General of the US.
