by TChris

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is portraying himself to the press as a prosecutor of principle, claiming he would have resigned had the White House ordered him to return the property seized in a search of Rep. Jefferson's office. Stalling the investigation for 45 days by secreting the evidence with the Solicitor General is apparently an insufficiently significant interference with the FBI's work to trigger a resignation.

The practice of standing up for the law in a principled manner is new to Gonzales, who has been an untroubled defender of torture, secret and indefinite detention without trial, domestic spying, warrantless wiretapping and scrutiny of calling records, while advocating the suppression of whistleblowers who expose the illegal acts that he defends. Ignoring the law is easy for Gonzales. It isn't so easy to ignore FBI agents and career prosecutors who would go public if Gonzales permitted obvious political obstruction of criminal investigations.

The good news is that Gonzales' sudden concern for the appearance of principle might prevent a coverup of Republican scandals.

Did Matt Cooper change a material or a trivial detail of his Time Magazine article about meeting with Scooter Libby? Judge Walton today issued a 40 page opinion (text of opinion here (pdf), thanks to Tom Maguire) in which he ordered Time to turn over earlier drafts of his article to Libby. Walton has been reviewing in camera the materials Libby subpoenaed from Cooper, Judith Miller, Andrea Mitchell and other NBC reporters.

Walton said Time magazine must turn over drafts of first-person stories that reporter Matthew Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby because the judge found inconsistencies between them..... Walton said, he found "a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles" Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby and the reporter's first-person account of his testimony before a federal grand jury.

"This slight alteration between the drafts will permit the defendant to impeach Cooper, regardless of the substance of his trial testimony, because his trial testimony cannot be consistent with both versions," Walton wrote.

Unbelievable. According to an early police report describing an interview with the accuser in the duke lacrosse alleged rape case, the accuser said she was groped but not sexually assaulted.

It was not until the police decided to involuntarily commit her that she changed her account.

There also was an earlier lineup one week after the incident in which she failed to identify Dave Evans.

by TChris

The president who, during a presidential debate, couldn't recall making a bad decision now confesses that he made mistakes. Today's spin diverts attention from the president's poor policy choices to his poor communication skills. The folksy president regrets using colorful expressions like "bring 'em on" and "dead or alive" because "certain parts of the world" (including, presumably, the rest of it) misinterpreted his "tough talk." Could be that all the needless killing reinforced that (mis?)interpretation, but the president didn't go there.

With Tony Blair at his side, President Bush firmly reaffirmed his commitment to stay the course in Iraq, dismissing rumors of troop reductions as "speculation in the press." The policy that brought us 2,460 U.S. military deaths and chaos in Iraq won't change, but Bush has promised to explain the policy "in a more sophisticated manner" from now on. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.

Former Ken Starr Deputy and Bush water-carrier Brett Kavenaugh was confirmed to a seat on the D.C. Court of Appeals. He may be the most unqualified appeals judge to be appointed in decades.

According to his DOJ resume, he has never been a judge or a trial lawyer. He's never tried a case. He has been a law clerk numerous times and a Starr deputy during Clinton (after which he became a partner at Starr's firm, Kirkland and Ellis.) He spent a year in the Solicitor General's office and then became associate counsel for Bush. Since 2003, he has been a staff secretary in the White House counsel's office.

The Senate today confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden as Director of the CIA. The vote was 78 to 15.

Sen. Arlen Specter voted against Hayden, as did Russ Feingold.

by TChris

A group of marines "carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians" in Iraq, according to congressional and Pentagon officials who have been briefed on the results of an inquiry into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November.

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.

The military first claimed the civilians were killed by a makeshift bomb, then announced that they were caught in a cross-fire between marines and insurgents.

A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.

I'm told this is the most popular screen-saver in the U.S. (If he gets stuck, just move him with your cursor or right-click and press play.)

Here's an open thread to begin the holiday weekend.

President Bush has sealed the records seized by the FBI from Rep. William Jefferson's congressional office.

The president directed that no one involved in the investigation have access to the documents taken last weekend from the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., and that they remain in the custody of the Justice Department's solicitor general.

Bush's move was described as an attempt to cool off a heated confrontation between his administration and leaders of House leaders of both parties, particularly Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The Solicitor General's office? A commenter at Law Prof Orrin Kerr's blog says:

The Solicitor General's office is an impenetrable lockbox! It is clothed in sovereign immunity from everything! What's more, the Solicitor General's offices cannot be breached by a warrant! The Solicitor General speaks and debates before the Supreme Court and thus is protected by Article III AND Article I.

The Wall St. Journal reports (free link) that the Government may help the phone companies defend the lawsuits brought over contracts to turn over customer records by asserting a states secret privilege:

The plaintiffs, who accuse Bell phone companies of privacy violations and are seeking billions of dollars in damages, would need to delve into the depths of the NSA's surveillance program to make their cases. But the government considers such information top secret, and legal experts expect the Bush administration to assert the "state secrets" privilege in the 20 or more lawsuits filed by privacy advocates in recent weeks. If judges accept the claim, as has been the case in nearly every instance in which it has been asserted since the early 1950s, the suits will dissolve.

According to one phone company lawyer:

From Congressman Maurice Hinchy's office:

In an effort to find out who blocked an internal U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the agency's role in the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless surveillance program and the reasons for doing so, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today introduced a resolution of inquiry (pdf) in the House that would force top members of the Bush administration to turn over all materials related to the termination of the probe.

Joining him are Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). A resolution of inquiry is a bill seeking factual information from the Executive Branch.

Murray Waas and Shane Harris have an article in the National Journal explaining the background to the controversey.

In 1,278 pages of discovery, there is only one reference to how the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse player's alleged rape case described her attackers to police. Yet DA Nifong says he has turned over his complete file. How can that be? The defense isn't buying it and Reade Seligman's attorney filed a motion today requesting the DA turn over her descriptions.

"At some point in their interviews and investigations, one or more of these officers asked (the accuser) to describe the men who she claims sexually assaulted her, and (she) provided some answer to that question," the motion filed by lawyers Bill Cotter and Wade Smith said.

Her "response to that question is critical to the defense of the case and the state may not withhold that evidence from the defendant."