Neo Cons, what's the definition and punishment for lying to Congress again?

[Le Jacquelope]

It's time to start changing said definitions and punishments.

Neo cons, start your engines!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726...s&printer=1;_ylt=ArArYGq317IqH2ubu57.zISWwvIE

Documents contradict Gonzales' testimony

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents underscore questions about Gonzales' credibility as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality.

"The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program."

"Not the TSP?" responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not."

"It was not," Gonzales answered. "It was about other intelligence activities."

A four-page memo from the national intelligence director's office says the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.

The memo, dated May 17, 2006, and addressed to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, details "the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program," wrote then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

It shows that the briefing in March 2004 was attended by the Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders and leading members of both chambers' intelligence committees, as Gonzales testified.

Schumer called the memo evidence that Gonzales was not truthful in his testimony.

"It seemed clear to just about everyone on the committee that the attorney general was deceiving us when he said the dissent was about other intelligence activities and this memo is even more evidence that helps confirm our suspicions," Schumer said.

Bush acknowledged the existence of the classified surveillance program in December 2005 after it was revealed by The New York Times. In January, it was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for judicial review before any wiretaps were to be approved.

Asked for comment on the documents Wednesday evening, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Gonzales "stands by his testimony."

"The disagreement referenced by Jim Comey in March 2004 was not about the particular intelligence activity that has been publicly described by the president," Roehrkasse said. "It was about other highly classified intelligence activities that have been briefed to the intelligence committees."

The disagreement over whether to renew the program led to a dramatic, and highly controversial, confrontation between Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the night of March 10, 2004.

After briefing the congressional leaders, Gonzales testified that he and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card headed to a Washington hospital room, where a sedated Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. Ashcroft had already turned over his powers as attorney general to Comey.

Comey was in the hospital room as well, and recounted to senators in his own sworn testimony in May that he "thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."

Ultimately, Ashcroft sided with Comey, and Gonzales and Card left the hospital after a five- to six-minute conversation.

Gonzales denied that he and Card tried to pressure Ashcroft into approving the program over Comey's objections.

"We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent," Gonzales told the Senate panel Tuesday. "At the end of his description of the legal issues, he said, 'I'm not making this decision. The deputy attorney general is.' And so Andy Card and I thanked him. We told him that we would continue working with the deputy attorney general and we left."

Democrats and Republicans alike expressed disbelief at Gonzales' version of events.

"There's a discrepancy here in sworn testimony," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said after listening to Gonzales, raising the possibility of a perjury inquiry. "We're going to have to ask who's telling the truth, who's not."

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, top Republican on the panel, also disregarded Gonzales' description. "I do not find your testimony credible, candidly," he told the attorney general.

House and Senate lawmakers who attended the Situation Room briefing are divided on the accuracy of Gonzales' account of that meeting, which he said concluded by a "consensus in the room from the congressional leadership is that we should continue the activities, at least for now, despite the objections of Mr. Comey."

Three Democrats — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle — dispute Gonzales' testimony. Rockefeller called it "untruthful," and Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker disagreed that it should be continued without Justice Department or FISA court oversight.

On the other hand, former GOP House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, "does not recall anyone saying the project must be ended,' spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said. And former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist stopped short of confirming or denying the meeting's outcome.

"I recall being briefed with the others about the program and it was stated that Gonzales would visit with Ashcroft in the hospital and that our meeting was part of the administration's responsibility to discuss with the leadership of Congress,' Frist said in a statement.

___

Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

It's only punishable if you're a Democratic President and there is a cum stained blue dress involved.

Perjury is only a "minor infraction" when you're covering for your bosses, so long as your bosses are Republicans.

Three years in prison is far too much time for 4 criminal convictions of Perjury, Obstruction, and giving false statements to the FBI, if you're a Republican stooge and they're afraid you're going to turn stoolie.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

It's only punishable if you're a Democratic President and there is a cum stained blue dress involved.

Perjury is only a "minor infraction" when you're covering for your bosses, so long as your bosses are Republicans.

Three years in prison is far too much time for 4 criminal convictions of Perjury, Obstruction, and giving false statements to the FBI, if you're a Republican stooge and they're afraid you're going to turn stoolie.

Indeed. It's morning time, so let the spin begin!!!

 

[Le Jacquelope]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726...s&printer=1;_ylt=AowT5B1y7xT6oKM4Tui6jkaMwfIE

FBI director contradicts Gonzales

By LAURIE KELLMAN and LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press WritersThu Jul 26, 6:55 PM ET

The head of the FBI contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn testimony and Senate Democrats requested a perjury investigation Thursday in a fresh barrage against President Bush's embattled longtime friend and aide.

In a third blow to the Bush administration, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to compel the testimony of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, in connection with its investigation of the firings of federal prosecutors.

"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement calling for a special counsel to investigate.

"I'm convinced that he's not telling the truth," added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The developments marked a troubling turn for Gonzales as well as the administration, which has been on the political defensive since congressional Democrats opened an investigation seven months ago into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

That probe revealed information that Democrats have sought to weave into a pattern of improper political influence over prosecutions, of stonewalling and of deceit in sworn testimony before Congress.

The White House defiantly stuck by Gonzales on the perjury matter and flatly denied that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller on Thursday contradicted the attorney general's sworn testimony on internal Bush administration dissent over the president's secretive wiretapping program.

Gonzales repeatedly and emphatically told the Senate Judiciary Committee this week that the program was not at issue during his dramatic hospital bedside visit with ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004. Mueller, before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday, said it was.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Gonzales and Mueller can make only limited comments in public about the classified program.

"The FBI director didn't contradict the testimony," Snow said. "It is inappropriate and unfair to ask people to testify in public settings about highly classified programs."

"The president, meanwhile, maintains full confidence in the attorney general," he added.

Democrats also insisted that the White House had encouraged top aides to flout congressional subpoenas in the prosecutor firings inquiry.

But Gonzales took the toughest hits Thursday, when four Senate Democrats issued a list of examples of what they said was the attorney general lying to Congress under oath — the basis for their request to Clement to appoint a special counsel to investigate.

Among examples of what Democrats called Gonzales' untruthfulness was his insistence in his statement to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday that his hospital visit with Ashcroft was not related to an internal administration dispute about the president's secret warrantless eavesdropping program.

Last year, Gonzales told the panel that there had been no internal administration dispute about the program, but former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the panel that he, Ashcroft and Mueller were among the top Justice Department officials who believed the program was illegal and were prepared to resign over it.

In his own sworn testimony Thursday, Mueller contradicted Gonzales, saying under questioning that the terrorist surveillance program, or TSP, was the topic of the hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials.

Mueller was not in the hospital room at the time of the March 10, 2004, confrontation between Ashcroft and presidential advisers Andy Card and Gonzales, who was then serving as White House counsel. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee he arrived shortly after they left, and then spoke with the ailing Ashcroft.

"Did you have an understanding that the discussion was on TSP?" asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, in a round of questioning that may have sounded to listeners like bureaucratic alphabet soup.

"I had an understanding the discussion was on a NSA program, yes," Mueller answered.

Jackson Lee sought to clarify: "We use 'TSP,' we use 'warrantless wiretapping,' so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?"

"The discussion was on a national NSA program that has been much discussed, yes," Mueller responded.

The NSA, or National Security Agency, runs the program that eavesdropped on terror suspects in the United States, without court approval, until last January, when the program was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In a statement late Thursday, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse maintained Gonzales was referring during his testimony to a separate intelligence operation that has not yet been revealed.

"The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified," Roehrkasse said.

Roehrkasse also suggested the newly revealed intelligence operation was discussed with lawmakers at a March 10, 2004, briefing in the White House Situation Room, along with a discussion of the terrorist surveillance program.

Democrats said there were other examples of Gonzales "lying" that merited a probe by a special prosecutor.

They included the attorney general's sworn testimony that he had not spoken about the firings with other witnesses because the matter was under investigation.

His former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, testified under a grant of immunity that Gonzales had privately recounted his recollections of the firings and asked for her opinion on his version.

"There's no wiggle room," Schumer said. "Those are not misleading. Those are deceiving. Those are lying."

Not signing the letter to Clement was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who instead sent a letter to Gonzales Thursday giving him a week to resolve any inconsistencies in his testimony.

"The burden is on him to clear up the contradictions," Leahy said.

Ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania agreed, calling the call for a special counsel premature, and he took particular aim at Schumer, who has led the probe into the firing.

"Senator Schumer's not interested in looking at the record, he's interested in throwing down the gauntlet and making a story in tomorrow's newspapers," Specter said.

Meanwhile, Leahy subpoenaed Rove, the architect of Bush's rise to the White House and his top political adviser, to provide testimony and documents related to the firings by Aug. 2. Also subpoenaed is a White House political aide, J. Scott Jennings. The Justice Department included both men on e-mails about the firings and the administration's response to the congressional investigation.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has consistently said that top presidential aides — present and past — are immune from subpoenas and has declared the documents sought off-limits under executive privilege.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a contempt citation against two other Bush confidants, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. The full House is expected to vote on the citation in the fall, but the Justice Department has said it won't prosecute the two.

___

Associated Press writers Ben Feller in Washington and Brendan Riley in Carson City, Nev., contributed to this report.