Leahy Announces Intention to Vote Against Mukasey

The Boston Herald reports:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Friday he won’t support Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey, further undercutting his chances for a quick confirmation, because Mukasey hasn’t taken a firm enough stand against torture.

"No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture," said U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. He planned an afternoon news conference to make the announcement in Burlington.

Sliding support among Democrats on the panel, which will vote on the nomination Tuesday, makes it somewhat less likely the full Senate will send Mukasey to a Justice Department that has been leaderless for weeks.

Leahy became the first of the panel’s 10 Democrats so far to say they will not support him.

Once viewed as a sure thing, Mukasey’s nomination was threatened during hearings last month in which he repeatedly refused to say whether he considers the simulated drowning interrogation technique known as waterboarding to be a form of torture.

Torture is considered a war crime by the international community and waterboarding has been banned by the U.S. military, but CIA interrogators are believed to have used the technique on terror detainees as recently as a few years ago.

Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," but said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials vulnerable to lawsuits.

"I am eager to restore strong leadership and independence to the Department of Justice," said Leahy. "I like Michael Mukasey. I wish that I could support his nomination. But I cannot. America needs to be certain and confident of the bedrock principle— deeply embedded in our laws and our values — that no one, not even the president, is above the law."

Mukasey, a retired federal judge, was nominated in September to replace former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who resigned after months of questions about his honesty in congressional testimony and whether he allowed the Justice Department to become too entwined in White House politics.

Mukasey needs support from at least one Democrat on the 19-member Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to be sent to the full Senate for a vote. The four Democrats who sit on the panel and already have said they will oppose him are: Joe Biden of Delaware, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Earlier Friday, President Bush renewed his plea for Mukasey’s confirmation.

"He’s a good man. He’s a fair man. He’s an independent man, and he’s plenty qualified to be attorney general," Bush said of Mukasey, just after landing in Columbia, S.C., on his way to a political fundraiser and to give a speech at Fort Jackson.

On Thursday, Bush had warned that the Justice Department would go without a leader in a time of war if Democrats thwarted Mukasey.

Bush also said that if the Judiciary Committee were to block Mukasey because of his noncommittal stance on the legality of waterboarding, it would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general.

Another Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who was critical of Mukasey during the hearings, Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, said he has not yet decided how he’ll vote.

"He may be the best nominee we can get from this administration in this respect," Feingold said of Mukasey. "But I am concerned about his views on executive power, and I am weighing whether his answers to questions in that area adequately demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law."

Pat Leahy: "Intelligence Committee About to 'Cave' on Survellance"

The Hill reports:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday condemned Intelligence Committee Democrats for brokering a deal with the White House that would provide retroactive immunity for telephone companies that assisted the Bush administration’s controversial warrantless wiretapping program.

At the second day of confirmation hearings for President Bush’s Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Leahy warned that “the Intelligence Committee is about to cave on this,” citing pressure from the White House and press reports suggesting the administration had gotten its way.

“[Administration officials] know that it was illegal conduct and that there is no saving grace for the president to say, ‘Well, I was acting with authority,’ ” said Leahy. “Otherwise there wouldn't be so much pressure on us to immunize illegal conduct by either people acting within our government or within the private industry.”

Leahy’s remarks signal that a bipartisan accord to overhaul the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), reached Wednesday by the Intelligence panel’s leaders and the White House, could divide Democrats and hit a roadblock on his panel as well. The Intelligence Committee marks up the bill Thursday afternoon, after which it will be referred to Judiciary, where more Democrats have openly opposed retroactive immunity language.

His comments also come as House Democratic efforts to overhaul the law are falling into disarray, after House Republicans used parliamentary maneuvers to force leaders to pull the Democrats’ FISA rewrite from the floor late Wednesday.

Attempting to resolve a central point of contention, Senate Intelligence panel Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) reportedly reached a deal Wednesday with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to give full retroactive immunity to telephone companies if they can demonstrate they were cooperating lawfully with the secret wiretapping program when suits were levied against them.

Not all Democrats on the Judiciary Committee appeared to share Leahy’s concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sits on both the Judiciary and Intelligence panels, signaled she was likely to support the bipartisan approach.

“At this stage, it is a bipartisan bill,” Feinstein said. “I’m absolutely convinced that the only way we can legislate on this is on a bipartisan basis. This bill so far is bipartisan — that’s good news.”

During the hearing, Democrats launched fresh criticism at Mukasey’s interpretation of FISA. After the nominee indicated that Bush was not acting illegally by going beyond that statute in authorizing eavesdropping without court warrants, Leahy called that argument “a loophole big enough to drive a truck [through].”

Whether the president is acting illegally “would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country,” Mukasey said.

White House to Give Senate Panel Surveillance Program Documents

The Washington Post reports:

The White House agreed yesterday to give Senate intelligence committee members and staff access to internal documents related to its domestic surveillance program in a bid to win Democratic lawmakers' support for the administration's version of an intelligence measure.

The move was meant in part to defuse a months-long clash between Congress and the Bush administration over access to legal memoranda and presidential decisions underpinning the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which allowed the government to eavesdrop without court warrants on communications between people in the United States and abroad when one of the parties is a terrorism-related suspect.

Some of the documents had been demanded by Senate Judiciary Committee members as a condition for considering the administration's nomination of former judge Michael B. Mukasey as the nation's 81st attorney general. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the committee's chairman, dropped that condition weeks ago but said yesterday that he still wants to see the documents.

Leahy told reporters after a meeting with Mukasey yesterday that he nonetheless expects Mukasey "to be confirmed" after a nomination hearing today, at which Mukasey is to be escorted into the room by Leahy and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.). Mukasey is to be formally introduced by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Schumer indicated after meeting separately with Mukasey yesterday that he expects the judge to promise to undertake a review of the department's legal justifications for the administration's counterterrorism policies, which are the subject of some of the documents made available to intelligence committee staff and members for review at the White House.

Mukasey has indicated that he strongly supports the administration's counterterrorism effort.

Committee member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who also sits on the Judiciary panel, said however that when one of her staff members reviewed the documents, "he wasn't impressed." She added that she was unsure whether the documents the staff member saw were exactly what Leahy was seeking.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the intelligence committee's ranking Republican, was more positive. "We're getting the information I think we need."

But House Democrats, who plan to vote today on a bill that would restrict domestic surveillance powers more tightly than the administration wants, complained yesterday that they should have been permitted the same access.

"Although even these materials are far short of the information that Congress has requested for more than a year on this crucial subject, we are extremely disappointed that the available information is being withheld from the House," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said in a letter yesterday to White House counsel Fred F. Fielding.

Besides trying to quiet congressional accusations of a coverup, the administration wants in particular to win support for a legal provision providing immunity for telecommunications companies that have been sued for violating privacy rights when they assisted the government's domestic surveillance effort.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that administration officials "routinely meet with members of Congress and their staffs to provide them with information they need when they are considering and drafting legislation." In this case, he said, members of the Senate intelligence panel "requested access to certain materials to assist their consideration" of relief for the companies.

In addition to seeking documents related to the surveillance program, Leahy has sought internal legal opinions related to torture issues involving terrorism suspects and testimony from White House advisers connected to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

Leahy said his questioning at the hearing today will be aimed at eliciting statements from Mukasey about the legality of torturing terrorism suspects and threats to the independence of federal prosecutors that impinge on their efforts to pursue cases regardless of political sensitivities. "How are you going to clean up this mess?" Leahy said he probably will ask Mukasey.

Mukasey has already sought to assure lawmakers in private that he will not let politics intrude on the department's decisions. "He will be light-years better than his predecessor," Leahy said, referring to former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, who resigned in late August after making a series of statements about the attorney firings and surveillance programs that were disputed by his former colleagues and lawmakers from both parties.

Congress Seeks Justice Department Documents On Torture

The New York Times reports:

The Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees asked the Justice Department today to turn over secret legal opinions issued in 2005 that authorized the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects after the Department publicly repudiated torture as “abhorrent” in a 2004 opinion.

The 2005 legal opinions, disclosed for the first time by The New York Times, remain in effect, according to officials familiar with the Bush administration’s policy on interrogation. One provided legal justification for the use of a battery of aggressive tactics and a second said the techniques did not amount to “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” practices under international agreements.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it appeared that the Justice Department lawyers had “reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime, in essence reinterpreting the law in secret.” He said his committee had been seeking information about the Justice Department’s legal interpretations of the law for two years without success and urged the administration to cooperate.

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, requested that the Justice Department’s opinions be turned over to the House panel as well and asked the department to make available for a hearing Steven G. Bradbury, of the department’s office of legal counsel, who signed the 2005 opinions.

Mr. Leahy also said his committee would hold confirmation hearings on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be attorney general on Oct. 17.

Officials at the White House and the Justice Department said the 2005 legal memorandum did not change the administration’s statement in 2004 that publicly renounced torture as “abhorrent.”

“The policy of the United States is not to torture,” said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary. “The president has not authorized it, he will not authorize it.”

“But he had done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country,” she said at a news briefing today.

“I am not going to comment on any specific alleged techniques,” Ms. Perino said. “It is not appropriate for me to do so. And to do so would provide the enemy with more information for how to train against these techniques.”

Asked whether the disclosure of the 2005 memorandum could harm national security, Ms. Perino said. “You know, it’s secret for a reason. It’s not secret just because we want it to be a secret. It’s secret because it is classified, and classified for the reasons to protect the country from terrorists who are determined to attack us.”

The Justice Department’s spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said in a statement that he could not comment on classified legal advice, but he reiterated that any opinions by the department were consistent with the public 2004 memorandum on interrogations. He said the Bush administration’s “strong opposition to torture” had been consistent.

He expressed the department’s support for Mr. Bradbury, whose nomination to be permanent head of legal counsel’s office has been blocked by Senate Democrats. Mr. Roehrkasse said Mr. Bradbury “has worked diligently to ensure that the authority of the office is employed in a careful and prudent manner.”

In the areas of domestic surveillance and detainee issues, Mr. Roehrkasse said Mr. Bradbury’s “efforts have strengthened cooperation among the branches in these key national security areas.”

Leahy Attacks Bush, Roberts

At Politico.com, Roger Simon writes:

Stating that "history will not be kind to the arrogance and indifference to law shown by this White House," U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sharply rebuked President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Chief Justice John Roberts in an interview Wednesday.

In an interview with The Politico conducted in his Senate office, Leahy said:

-- Chief Justice Roberts has made the court an "arm of the Republican Party."

-- Gonzales "has undermined law enforcement in America" and if he continues to stand behind his testimony to the Judiciary Committee, Leahy will ask the inspector general of the Justice Department to launch a formal investigation of the attorney general.

-- President Bush has stated, "in effect, that he is a law unto himself and the president can overrule the law, the courts and congressional actions."

-- Bush does not "listen to any views other than his own" and that those views are shaped by a vice president who has "an inordinate amount of control over him."

Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke in quiet, measured tones but nonetheless expressed outrage over what he sees as an attack on the system of checks and balances that he says keeps America a democracy.

Regarding Gonzales, Leahy said: "I don't trust him. He gives me the impression that he is someone to whom telling the truth does not come naturally."

Leahy went on: "Those of us who have been prosecutors are particularly concerned with him because his activities undermine law enforcement. If law enforcement is not impartial, the whole system breaks down. And the attorney general makes law enforcement appear political."

Leahy has given Gonzales to the end of this week to amend those statements he has made under oath to the Judiciary Committee that are in conflict with the testimony of others, a standard procedure the committee allows for all witnesses.

If Gonzales refuses, however, the outcome will not be standard procedure.

"If he stands behind the answers he gave, I find him not believable and will ask the inspector general to investigate," Leahy said.

The inspector general of the Justice Department is Glenn A. Fine, who was confirmed in the last days of the Clinton administration. He is a Rhodes scholar and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985.

While four Democrats on the Judiciary Committee want a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales for perjury, Leahy is opting for a slightly less explosive path.

"I am more interested in getting truthful answers than playing 'gotcha' or in a perjury conviction," Leahy told The Politico.

On Wednesday evening, Leahy received a letter from Gonzales saying that he "may have created confusion with his testimony."

But Leahy termed Gonzales' response a "legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony" and said the Friday deadline for Gonzales to "correct and supplement" his testimony would still stand.

Leahy, who is a "Watergate baby," a member of Congress elected after the scandals of the Nixon administration, has been in the Senate since 1975 and has worked with -- "not under," he states emphatically -- six presidents: Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and the current president.

He said he thinks the current president does not measure up to the rest.

"The president, with others, has stated in effect that he is a law unto himself and the president can overrule the law, the courts and congressional actions," Leahy said. "We have seen this with regards to torture, signing statements and the president determining who will be prosecuted. And we have seen actions in the White House to make sure prosecutions are brought against Democrats and not Republicans."

Leahy continued: "This is unbelievable. You expect the White House to play by the rules and they have thrown out the rule book. History will not be kind to the arrogance and indifference to law shown by this White House."

Leahy also said that though he voted to confirm Chief Justice Roberts, Leahy now regrets that Roberts was ever nominated.

"I think in his actions and the actions in which he has joined, he has made the court an arm of the Republican Party," Leahy said.

Leahy said he voted for Roberts because he knew Roberts was going to be confirmed anyway and did not want a party-line vote that would encourage Roberts to believe that he was "an appointment of the Republican Party."

But that is what has happened anyway, Leahy said.

"I love to hear Republicans give lip service to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and then ignore them when it serves their purposes," he said. "They (the Republicans) say they don't want an activist Supreme Court, but this is the most activist Supreme Court we have ever seen, running roughshod over the Constitution, like Plessy v. Ferguson did."

In that landmark case in 1896, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation in America under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This was repudiated in 1954 by the court in another landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.

In a 5-4 decision a few weeks ago, the Roberts court ruled that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools, even when the purpose is to desegregate those schools.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts wrote in his decision.

Leahy said: "I am not sure the president realizes what he has done with the court. He was told by Dick Cheney and others, 'This is what you are going to do.'"

Asked to compare Bush with the other presidents he has served with, Leahy stated: "He does not measure up to any of the others.

I have never seen any introspection in him, with the possible exception of the comprehensive immigration bill, and election-year politics pushed him away from that. Our vice president has an inordinate amount of control over him."

Leahy says that when he talks to constituents, he finds "there is a real disquietude toward this administration from both Republicans and Democrats on everything from the environment to the war. They feel that nobody is listening, that the president is not listening to anybody except a small group at the White House, and that he is detached from the country."

Leahy blames many of the current ills on Congress, however.

"It was because they (the White House) had a rubber-stamp Congress for six years, a Congress in their corner," Leahy said. "The Senate allowed the White House to replace one majority leader with another! Bill Frist is a very nice guy, but he didn't have any idea how to lead the Senate. I can't imagine the Senate allowing the White House to dictate who the majority leader is going to be."

In late 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was replaced by Frist, a senator from Tennessee, after Lott made remarks that seemed to support America's segregated past.

"Too many members of the House and Senate think their greatest achievement is to win office," Leahy said. "Our greatest achievement is to do something good when we get here."

Leahy's office is unlike many other offices on Capitol Hill in that it contains no autographed pictures of Leahy standing with famous people.

Instead, it contains pictures that Leahy, a published photographer, has taken. The centerpiece -- placed, Leahy says, so he can stare into it every day from his desk -- is a haunting one of a man he met in a refugee camp in El Salvador in 1982.

"Sometimes Washington changes people," Leahy said. "We get a sense of our own importance. But I strongly believe the Senate should be and has been the conscience of the nation."

Sara Taylor & Patrick Leahy, On The Oath

All, Or Nothing At All

Reuters reports:

The White House on Monday dared the Democratic-led Congress to fight it in court by refusing to provide information and testimony demanded in an investigation into the firing of federal prosecutors.

White House counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter to two congressional chairmen, called their demands "unreasonable because it represents a substantial incursion into presidential prerogatives."

Congressional leaders disagreed and made it clear they were prepared for a court battle unless they reach a compromise with the White House on access to documents and witnesses.

"I hope the White House stops this stonewalling and accepts my offer to negotiate a workable solution," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.

Democrats have sought compromise because a fight over whether Congress or the White House is right could take years to weave its way through the court system and still be undecided when President George W. Bush's second term ends in January 2009.

Bush is relying on a legal doctrine known as executive privilege, which has been invoked with mixed success to shield presidents and their aides from having to answer questions or turn over information to Congress.

White House spokesman Tony Snow brushed off the threat of a possible congressional contempt citation, saying, "It's up to them."

"What we do believe is that we are on perfectly solid legal ground," Snow said.

Congress wants the documents and testimony to determine if the firing of nine of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys last year was the result of partisan politics and White House efforts to reward supporters.

Bush and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insist the dismissals of the federal prosecutors were justified but mishandled. Gonzales, with Bush's support, has withstood bipartisan calls to resign.

OFFER TO TALK

The White House has offered to allow current and former aides to talk to lawmakers behind closed doors -- but only if it is not sworn testimony and there is no transcript. Leahy and others say the offer is unacceptable.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said, "I think, candidly, there's a lot of posturing going on on both sides."

"I hope we can work it out so that we don't test the good faith of the executive branch ... or the good faith of the legislative branch," Specter said.

In his letter, Fielding rejected requests for materials to support Bush's claim of executive privilege last month in refusing to turn over documents. He also wrote Bush, as expected, was asserting presidential privilege to block subpoenaed testimony by two former aides, Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers.

Taylor, who served as White House political director, has been summoned to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, while Miers, who served as White House counsel, had been ordered to testify before a House panel on Thursday.

"While we remain willing to negotiate with the White House, they adhere to their unacceptable all-or-nothing position, and now will not even seek to properly justify their privilege claims," said House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

"Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally," Conyers said.

There was no immediate indication how much longer Democrats would seek to reach an agreement with the White House before initiating court action.

Bush Invokes Executive Privilege, Refuses To Allow Miers & Taylor To Testify

The International Herald Tribune reports:

President George W. Bush, invoking executive privilege for the second time in his clash with lawmakers over the firing of federal prosecutors, said Monday that he would refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas for testimony from two top former aides.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Bush's counsel, Fred Fielding, declared that the legislative and executive branches of government were at an impasse. Fielding wrote that Bush was directing the two aides - Sara Taylor, former White House political director, and Harriet Miers, former White House counsel - not to testify.

"The assertion of executive privilege here is intended to protect a fundamental interest of the presidency: the necessity that a president receive candid advice from his advisers and that those advisers be able to communicate freely and openly with the president," Fielding wrote.

He added that in the case of the firing of federal prosecutors, "the institutional interest of the executive branch is very strong."

The move was not unexpected.

Bush said last month that he had no intention of letting Miers or Taylor testify.

Bush offered at that time to allow the two women, as well as other top aides - including Karl Rove, his chief political strategist - to be interviewed by lawmakers if the interviews were not under oath and were not transcribed. Though Democratic leaders in Congress rejected that offer as insufficient, Bush renewed it Monday.

The latest refusal to comply with the subpoenas raises tensions in an already tense legislative-executive clash and heightens the likelihood that the two sides will wind up in court. Congressional Democrats are trying to determine who sought the firings of nine federal prosecutors, and why. They want to know whether White House officials, including Rove, interfered with hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department for political reasons, or perhaps to thwart certain investigations.

Bush said in June that he would not comply with subpoenas for documents in the case. At that time, the committee chairmen - Representative John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy - wrote to Fielding to complain that Bush was not acting in good faith.

In his letter, Fielding complained about the tone and language the Democrats used, telling them he wanted to convey "a note of concern over your letter's apparent direction in dealing with a situation of this gravity."

Leahy was dismissive of Fielding's letter, saying in a statement: "This is more stonewalling from a White House that believes it can unilaterally control the other co-equal branches of government. What is the White House trying to hide by refusing to turn over evidence it was willing to provide months ago, as long as that information was shared in secret with no opportunity for Congress to pursue the matter further?"

Anthrax Coverup: A Government Insider Speaks Out

At AfterDowningStreet.org:

Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 advisor thinks it is.

Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.

"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress," Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based talk-show host Alex Jones. "That would have set up a police state.

"Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The
first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas
corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and
guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere,
come these anthrax attacks."

"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either
with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New
York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator
Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined
with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade
anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly
proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to
me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you
could have gotten that."

Boyle's assessment was based on his years of expertise regarding
America's bioweapons programs. He was responsible for drafting the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed
unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President
George H.W. Bush.

After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic job,
Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism
and counterterrorism, Marion "Spike" Bowman. Boyle and Bowman had met
at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School.
Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to
carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government
anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave
Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs
conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.

Bowman then informed Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick
on the matter. Boyle expressed his view that Fort Detrick could be the
main problem. As widely reported in 2002 publications, notably the New
Scientist, the anthrax strain used in the attacks was officially
assessed as "military grade."

"Soon after I informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorized
the destruction of the Ames cultural anthrax database," the professor
said. The Ames strain turned out to be the same strain as the spores
used in the attacks.

The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames,
Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant
destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of finding out
which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of anthrax
used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led
directly back to a secret government biowarfare program.

"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction of
justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That collection should have
been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the
fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this was
Ames strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letters."

At that point, recounted Boyle, it became very clear to him that there
was a coverup underway. He later discovered, while reading David Ray
Griffin's book on the 9/11 attacks, The New Pearl Harbor, that Bowman
was the same FBI agent who allegedly sabotaged the FISA warrant for
access to [convicted co-conspirator] Zacharias Moussaoui's computer
prior to 9/11. Moussaoui's computer contained information that could
have helped prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.

In 2003, Bowman was promoted and given the Presidential Rank Award by
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a
letter to Mueller, chastising the organization for granting such an
honor to an agent who had so obviously compromised America's security.

During the anthrax scare, the House of Representatives was officially
shut down for the first time in the history of the republic. Once
opposition from Leahy and Daschle evaporated in the wake of the
attempts on their lives, the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed through.
Testimony by Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most
members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even
reading it.

"They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which is
all that really separates us from a police state," Boyle said. "And
that is what they have done now with respect to enemy combatants [in
the Military Commissions Act of 2006]." Boyle added that lawmakers are
now arguing that Amendment XIV, which guarantees due process of law to
all Americans, does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that,
under the Military Commissions Act, any U.S. citizen can be stripped of
citizenship and be labeled an enemy combatant.

Continued Boyle: "In other words, they have taken the position that at
some point in time, if they want to, they can unilaterally round up
United States native-born citizens, as they did for Japanese-Americans
in World War II, and stick us into concentration camps." Boyle asserted
that top officials, such as White House legal advisor John Yoo and
former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith (now a professor at
Harvard Law School), are pushing for the legalization of torture as
well.

"The Nazis did the exact same thing," said Boyle. "They had their
lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl Schmidt was the worst, and he
was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the [ideological] founder of the
neoconservatives. So the same phenomenon that started in Nazi Germany
is happening here, and I exaggerate not. We could all be tortured; we
could all be treated this way."

Boyle stressed that it is vital to keep up the pressure on Senator
Leahy, who now chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving him
subpoena power. Since Leahy was himself a target, he may have
sufficient motivation to get to the bottom of the attacks. The FBI and
the Justice Department have so far refused full disclosure to Congress.

In addition to his credentials as a government advisor, Boyle also
holds a doctorate of law magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in political
science, both from Harvard University. He teaches international law at
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Boyle also served on
the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-92) and
represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court.

Boyle alleged that due to his activities as a lawyer, he was
interrogated by an agent from the CIA/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in
the summer of 2004. The agent tried to recruit him as an informant to
provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When
he refused, according to Boyle, the FBI placed him on the government's
terrorism watch lists.

Gonzales Uses U.S. Attorney Appointment Power That Congress Banned

Raw Story reports:
In a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday morning, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again used an interim appointment authority at the heart of the US Attorneys controversy that Congress banned in a bill sent to the President for signature on June 4.

"Senator Feinstein’s U.S. Attorney bill....repeals that portion of the Patriot Act Reauthorization that had allowed the Attorney General to circumvent advice and consent with respect to U.S. Attorneys. That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the President’s desk since June 4. It seems he just cannot bring himself to sign it. Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the Attorney General has used the power that we have voted to repeal, again," said Senator Leahy, the committee's chairman.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Senator Leahy, clarified the situation in an e-mail to RAW STORY.

"It just so happens the committee got notice yesterday, that on June 16, George Cardona's 210 days as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California will have run out and the Attorney General will appoint him as an interim U.S. Attorney at that time. (i.e. still using the end-run authority because Bush has slow-walked signing the bill)," she wrote.

RAW STORY could not reach the Justice Department for comment at press time.

On June 4, the Congress sent S. 214, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, to President George W. Bush. The bill overturned a measure stealthily passed by the Republican-led Congress in 2006 that allowed the Attorney General to indefinitely appoint US Attorneys on an interim basis. Critics said the provision was intended to do an end-run around the standard Senate confirmation process for US Attorneys.

The bill passed the Senate by a 94-2 margin on March 20, and also cleared the House of Representatives by a 306-114 vote on May 22. The President has yet to sign or veto the bill.