Alberto Gonzales Offers Totally Hypothetical Example Of How To Investigate, Say, A Leaked CIA Agent's Name
Well, this is ... this is ... we don't even ... FUCK!
So, there is a bit of kerfuffle and a hullabaloo about the Department of Justice getting a very narrow slice of two months' worth of phone records from AP while investigating a leak. For context, Fox News has asked for Alberto Gonzales's thoughts on the matter, as he is something of an expert, having been promoted to Attorney General after he was White House Counsel when Karl Rove's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent to Robert Novak, god rest his soul in hell. Gonzales's thoughts on this are ... FUCK!
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served in the Bush administration, said Tuesday that the Justice Department is "obligated" to investigate leaks of classified information that may pose a threat to national security. Gonzales, however, declined to elaborate further, noting that the facts of the DOJ's investigation are still emerging.
Gonzales called such probes "fairly unusual," but said they are necessary if information given to journalists relates to "something that is threatening the national security of our country or the lives of American citizens.
"Let's say that a publication runs a story identifying the names of CIA agents overseas,"Gonzales told FoxNews.com."Obviously that's a violation of law and a serious breach of national security. In that case, the department would feel obligated to do everything it possibly could to uncover the leak."
We don't even ... we don't even ... FUCK!
Here, let us outsource the trip to the Memory Hole to Think Progress as our brains have spattered all over our keyboard, and we have to spend the next few minutes making sure said keyboard does not go join John Ashcroft in hell. (And if you were wondering, NO, nowhere in the long Fox story does it ever mention a single "hypothetical" leak, for which Scooter Libby went to prison, and which Alberto Gonzales helped to stonewall.)
GONZALES INTERVIEWED BY THE GRAND JURY: Gonzales testified in front of the Grand Jury about the Plame leak on June 18, 2004. [Washington Post, 6/19/04]
GONZALES WAITED TWELVE HOURS BEFORE INFORMING WHITE HOUSE STAFF OF INVESTIGATION: On 9/29/03, the Department of Justice informed White House counsel Alberto Gonzales that it was launching a criminal investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity. Gonzales was instructed to notify the White House staff to preserve all documents related to the case. Gonzales, however, waited 12 hours before informing White House staff about the investigation. Instead, he told only Chief of Staff Andrew Card about the inquiry, in effect giving Card a 12-hour window to tip off White House staff, including Karl Rove, about the request. [Face the Nation, 7/24/05]
GONZALES SERVED AS ‘GATEKEEPER’ OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATION: After the Justice Department launched its investigation into the Plame leak, Gonzales was the chief advisor to White House staffers on complying with the investigation. He also acted as “gatekeeper,” invoking “executive privilege” in order to hold back certain sensitive White House documents from investigators. Gonzales personally spent days screening all requested documents before handing them over to investigators. [CBS, 10/7/03]
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below the beltway
Next up: Fox News turns to expert David Addington to discuss Obama's overreach of presidential power.