Cheney's Ass is Grass:
Top DoJ Official Nails Case for Impeachment
May 16 (EIRNS)--Testimony yesterday by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee is a clear-cut reason why impeachment of Dick Cheney is vital for the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Even before this dramatic testimony, a bill for impeachment, H.R. 333 had already been introduced into the House of Representatives over Cheney's Iraq war lies.
According to Comey, Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to run what can only be called a "cold coup" against the entire leadership of the Department of Justice. The picture presented by Comey was that while then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was critically ill in March 2004, and after Ashcroft, Comey, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel had determined that the Administration's domestic surveillance program "had no legal basis," that top White House officials, acting on behalf of Cheney and Cheney's counsel David Addington, invaded Ashcroft's intensive-care hospital room to attempt to get the weakened Ashcroft to sign a document re-authorizing the program. This was even though Ashcroft himself had earlier agreed that the DOJ should refuse to do so, and he had designated Comey as Acting Attorney General with full powers, during his hospitalization.
"I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the Acting Attorney General and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded -- the Department as a whole -- was unable to be certified as to its legality," Comey testified.
When Ashcroft refused the demand by then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to sign the document, the White House went ahead and reauthorized the illegal program without DOJ approval. At this point, Comey and all the top DOJ leadership -- including Ashcroft -- were prepared to resign, along with FBI Director Robert Mueller. "I couldn't stay, if the Administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice said had no legal basis," Comey told the Senate committee.
When Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) asked Comey if he had had discussions with anyone other than Card and Gonzales in the Administration who disagreed with the DOJ's conclusions over the NSA program, Comey answered that Cheney and Cheney's counsel David Addington had both told him personally that they disagreed; these were the only White House officials Comey could name as disagreeing. It is widely known that Cheney and Addington were the chief promoters of the illegal NSA domestic wiretapping program within the Administration -- and yesterday's testimony reveal the lengths to which they were prepared to go to continue their illegal and unconstitutional Nazi-like power grab.
Ultimately, according to Comey, President Bush agreed, after meeting privately with Comey and Mueller, without Cheney present, to allow them to make changes in the surveillance program which the DOJ believed put in on a better legal basis. Had he not, the country would have been faced with the spectacle of the top leaders of the DOJ and FBI resigning from office, in protest against Cheney's coup attempt.
