BushCo Takes The Offensive On PoliceStateGate

The last few days have been pretty interesting ones as far as the PoliceStateGate Scandal is concerned. First of all, Bush wants to find out who exposed him as a criminal:

The Justice Department disclosed Friday that it was investigating who had leaked classified information about President Bush's top-secret domestic spying program — paving the way for a potentially contentious criminal probe that could reach high into the White House, Congress and the courts.

Several U.S. officials familiar with the investigation — which is in its infancy — said it would be conducted by FBI agents trained in probing national security and counterintelligence matters.

The officials said the investigation would focus primarily on disclosures in the New York Times that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on people in the U.S. without getting warrants from a special federal court established to approve them.

I hope they find the person who leaked it so that whomever takes Bush's place in the White House can give this patriot the Medal of Freedom.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to change my opinion just a little bit regarding former Attorney General John Ashcroft. It has been widely reported that James Comey, Ashcroft's No. 2 man at the Justice Department in 2004, refused to authorize the secret wiretap program when Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. As Kos notes, however, this Newsweek article revealed some interesting information with regard to what happened when Andy Card and Roberto Gonzales tried to get Ashcroft to overrule Comey:

[I]n March 2004, White House chief of staff Card and White House Counsel Gonzales visited Ashcroft, the seriously ill attorney general, to try to get him to overrule Comey, who was officially acting as A.G. while Ashcroft was incapacitated. Ashcroft refused, and a battle over what to do broke out in the Justice Department and at the White House. Finally, sometime in the summer of 2004, a compromise was reached, with Comey onboard: according to an account in The New York Times, Justice and the NSA refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether "probable cause" existed to start monitoring someone's conversations.

I was stunned to read that even Ashcroft started having concerns about this unauthorized wiretapping program. That says a lot. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about this very intriguing intra-Administration battle in the months to come.