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POPSinteractive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted
Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!). The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. For example, the wiretapping bubble ensnares George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales. At the same time, Ashcroft and Gonzales fall into the overlapping circle for monkey business related to DoJ hiring. Mouse over a person's name for information on how each person is involved. Mouse over the title of each circle for specifics about the particular scandal. And if all else fails, fall back on this golden rule of wrongdoing in the White House: All roads lead to Gonzales.
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POPSWhite House Ignored Detainee Innocence As far as I can figure out, this is the Bush admin. worrying that it might be embarrassed by the ham-handedness of their wide net approach to collecting detainees. Instead of admitting that they may have gone a little overboard, they kept innocent people in prison. This creates a new class of political prisoner -- the inconvenient and unrectified mistake.
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POPSDemand The U.S. House Censure Rep. Delahunt NOW! Also, more action alerts include: Tell YOUR Rep. to Co-Sponsor the "Affordable Gas Price Act" As usual, the government doesn't have a solution to the problem -- the government IS the problem! House bill H.R. 2415, short-titled the "Affordable Gas Price Act," was introduced on May 21, 2007. The official title of the bill states its purpose: "To reduce the price of gasoline by allowing for offshore drilling, eliminating Federal obstacles to constructing refineries and providing incentives for investment in refineries, suspending Federal fuel taxes when gasoline prices reach a benchmark amount, and promoting free trade." So for over a year now, Congress has had available to them legislation that reduces gas prices by reforming government polices that artificially inflate the price of gas. And not one of them has even had the guts to sign on as a co-sponsor.
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POPSDelahunt Is Glad Addington Is Al-Qaida Target Congressman Delahunt's response was, "I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you." Mr. Delahunt now denies he meant what he said. But what he clearly said was "I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you." Al Qaeda now knows the face of one of the men who relentlessly pursues its henchmen and deals with their interrogations. Mr. Addington volunteered for public service, not a death sentence with Congressional encouragement. Delahunt is both a vile liar and a cowardly lion willing to roar down at Mr. Addington while encouraging terrorists to do his dirty work in a war he has been ineffective at stopping. Congressman Delahunt's email address is william.delahunt@mail.house.gov. Congressman Delahunt can be reached at 202-225-3111 and by fax at 202-225-5658 Or, you can ask Barack Obama yourself at (866) 675-2008 http://youtube.com/watch?v=AEDR7ghl7AU
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POPSEasing of laws that led to torture hatched in secret And why did they do this? "Only one of the five War Council lawyers remains in office: David Addington, the brilliant but abrasive longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney. His primary motive, according to several former administration and defense officials, was to push for an expansion of presidential power that Congress or the courts couldn't check."
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POPSBush Is Right to Worry If Waterboarding Is Defined as Torture
"I have to say that I am both glad and amazed that the Bush administration is with it enough to worry. That is a good sign. And they should worry, because they should be indicted, at least. I hope that they are, and that, indeed, it does "go all the way up to the president." One of the Attorney General's jobs should be making sure not only that the laws are enforced, but also that the laws are actual laws -- not opinions by John Yoo or David Addington or some other administration apologist. There is an exact definition of what a law is in this country, and it is not the same as a partisan legal opinion. One of the enraging things about the Bush administration is the way that they have consistently written their own rules, as if governing the nation is like playing a game of stealing the flag, where the stronger team, when it finds itself losing, simply changes the score or the rules until they either technically "win" or wear out the other side..."
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POPSCHENEY'S LAW" --on FRONTLINE this TUESDAY EVENING
On Tuesday, in "Cheney's Law," Kirk tells one of the most significant stories of our times. Kirk outlines how two men - Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington - used a little-known group inside the Justice Department to interpret the law so as to greatly enhance presidential power. Their assertion of virtually unlimited presidential authority to conduct the war on terror, both abroad and at home, raises profound constitutional questions. Especially controversial is the role of Congress to act as a check on executive power. But it would be a revolt inside the Justice Department itself -- triggered by a conservative law professor, Jack Goldsmith, appointed by the president -- that would finally lead to a "no" to Cheney's lawyer, David Addington. For awhile, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, that "no" stood. But when Ashcroft left and President Bush appointed his old friend Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, some of the "no's" were then reconsider
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POPSCheney Aide Threatened Terror To Silence DoJ Lawyer When Goldsmith cautioned that the NSA eavesdropping program was a potential violation of the FISA court, shortly before controversy about the issue erupted in the media, Addington scorned him with the threat of a new 9/11, screeching, “We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court."
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POPSCheney Aide, "We're One Attack Away From Our Goal"
More revealing is Goldsmith's description of how the Bush administration systematically violated one law after the next employing tactics that are truly the hallmark of the most lawless third-world dictators. They literally decided they would break whatever laws they wanted based on patently baseless memos issued by obedient followers like John Yoo. Not only did they do this in complete secrecy from Congress, they refused even to allow Executive Branch officials who were told to follow orders to see the legal basis for what they were told to do. Goldsmith's first experienced this extraordinary concealment, or "strict compartmentalization," in late 2003 when, he recalls, Addington angrily denied a request by the N.S.A.'s inspector general to see a copy of the Office of Legal Counsel's legal analysis supporting the secret surveillance program. "Before I arrived in O.L.C., not even N.S.A. lawyers were allowed to see the Justice Department's legal analysis of what N.S.A. was doing,"
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