Vice President Blocks AG Appointment Over Wire Taps?
Does this mean Taps for Cheney, Card, and Gonzales? Time will tell. Now for a Special Prosecutor? We Hope! Biased news By Onetime Republican, Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo!
Vice President Blocks AG Appointment Over Wire Taps? Vice President Richard Cheney apparently blocked the promotion of a Justice Department official who opposed President Bush's eavesdropping program, a Senate committee learned yesterday.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said The Vice President notified Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he opposed the promotion of Patrick Philbin who once threatened to resign over the wiretap program. It is not clear to me if Mr. Phibin is any relation to the famous American Super Spy of the Post WW II era.
Subsequently, Gonzales did not try to promote Patrick Philbin to the vacant position of Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Comey reported.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey wrote, "I understood that someone at the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the vice president would oppose the appointment if the attorney general pursued the matter. The Attorney General (Gonzales) chose not to pursue it."
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey was responding to printed questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy Independent, Vermont.
Mr. Comey's comments corroborate the wide-ranging story of how the White House influenced the department's hiring practices.
The department also released 39 new pages of internal e-mails and documents, which may shed brighter light on attempts by the department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling. In rather starling inside jargon, an e-mail of January 2006, which appears to be attempting to establish or finalize authority in the hiring and firing of political staffers, appeared from Ms Goodling.
Goodling wrote in a Jan. 19, 2006, e-mail to Paul Corts, the assistant attorney general for administration, "Ok to send up directly to me, outside of system."
The Democrats' are investigating if the firings of eight U.S. attorneys were improperly political. That is what led to testimony in May in which Comey disclosed details the now famous hospital visit March 10, 2004, to the then John Ashcroft Attorney General.
Democrats contend the story shows the White House's hands-on and perhaps improper influence, micro-managing Justice Department hiring, including overseeing the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Dem-New York, leading the Senate's investigation, said, "Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while that White House hands guided Justice Department business. The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program."
Philbin and another Justice Department official led a review and research of the classified program by which Comey, acting with great integrity refused to endorse it.
In a March 9, 2004, meeting at the White House, Comey informed Vice President Cheney that he, Comey, would not certify the program, Comey stated in his written remarks Yesterday (June 6th, Wednesday). A Cheney spokesperson, Lea Anne McBride, refused to respond, alluding to the administration's policy of never commenting on personnel matters.
When Ashcroft was stricken with pancreatitis, he transferred the powers of his office to Comey, Ashcroft's deputy. Comey said that he and Ashcroft subsequently refused to recertify the legality of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program (for reasons that are classified).
Professor Bagnolo is a Renaissance man: Cultural Anthropologist, Architectural designer, painter, writer, novelist, theologian. As a child prodigy, abed with polio for almost two years, with an off the charts IQ, reading at the graduate level by 5th grade, offered an opportunity to skip three grades at age 8. Later He was a recipient of an Art Institute scholarship at age 11, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Anthropology and in Painting and a merit scholarship in art, and was appointed a Graduate Research Assistant position in college. He holds a triple bachelor's degree in Painting and Drawing, Anthropology, Architectural Design Advertising. MA's in Cultural Anthro, Painting and more. After being tenured he taught; architecture, anthropology, Theology, advertising, painting and drawing, entrepreneuring and Creative Profit Making. He produced a star-studded Music festival, had a radio talk show in Chicago, and cable TV show. Now, retired from Teaching, he paints, writes, and pursues other ventures.
The above bio harvested from the comments of Deans, colleagues, students, clients and collector's.
