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I didn t have a chance to get to this the other day. Mukasey is headed for trouble as outlined by Chairman Waxman in this video. He warns the Attorney General of a Scheduled Contempt Vote over Cheney: Download | Play Download | Play (rough transcript) Waxman; I have tried to investigate what really happened and the White House has resisted oversight every step of the way. The committee s inquired has tried to penetrate the cloud surrounding VP Cheney s conduct. But today the President has asserted executive privilege and is withholding from the committee and the American people key evidence about the VP Cheney s actions. During our investigation we have learned that Mr. Libby told the FBI that it was possible that the Vice President instructed him to leak Miss Wilson s identity. That would be an extraordinary breach of trust. There is a key document that could explain what the VP knew and what he did. The report of the VP s interview with officials working from the FBI working for Mr. Fitzgerald. If there is one document that could pierce the cloud hanging over the VP, that is it. Mr Mukasey decided that a different rule should apply to Republican Presidents than to Democratic Presidents. The claim of executive privilege is ludicrous. The President s actions have darkened the cloud over the VP and left important questions unanswered. As the committee considers its next steps, I hope the President and Vice President will also consider theirs. Congress and the American public are entitled to know what role the President and Vice President in the despicable outing of Miss. Wilson AG Janet Reno provided this committee the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and VP Gore a decade ago so what s the deal? Waxman is trying to find out what Cheney said to the FBI and is not too happy that Mukasey is blocking access to it. It sure looked like Scooter Libby was getting ready to hang Cheney out to dry unless Bush stepped in and gave him a get of jail card for free. Murray Waas wrote this great article about it a while ago: Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis Scooter Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration s Iraq policy, according to Libby s grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report read on The Gavel: Chairman Waxman writes Attorney General Mukasey that the Oversight Committee will vote to hold him in contempt unless the Attorney General produces a copy of the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney in the investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent. Here s the pdf of the letter he wrote Mukasey. Mr. Fitzgerald removed any doubt about this important point last week. He wrote the Committee that there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews. This should get real interesting soon.

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t BillW) The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn t on the table. On Wednesday s Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation. As for Bush s executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney s role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That s not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for: This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey s confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they re going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won t. And Congress has a right to now say we re going back to doing this stuff ourselves.

Download | Play Download | Play Former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee this morning to answer questions about what he knew about, and his role in the treasonous outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. McClellan recognized the enormous damage the Plame scandal caused our country and government, and continued his calls for an end to the permanent campaign and scandal culture in Washington D.C.. He criticized President Bush for failing to work in a transparent, and honest manner for the American people, and the media for glorifying people who perpetuate partisan politics, rather than searching for the truth. I, as many others, take issue with his lack of candor back when these crimes were being perpetrated against our country, but at least he s there, in front of Congress and doing the right thing now. You can stream the hearings live on CSPAN s website. Good morning Mr. Chairman, Congressman Smith, and members of the committee. I am here today at your invitation to answer questions about what I know regarding the Valerie Plame episode. Back in 2005, I was prohibited from discussing it by the White House ostensibly because of the criminal investigation underway, but I made a commitment to share with the public what I knew as soon as possible. That commitment was one of the reasons I wrote my book. Unfortunately, this matter continues to be investigated by Congress because of what the White House has chosen to conceal from the public. Despite assurances that the administration would discuss the matter once the Special Counsel had completed his work, the White House has sought to avoid public scrutiny and accountability. The continuing cloud of suspicion over the White House is not something I can remove because I know only one part of the story. Only those who know the underlying truth can bring this to an end. Sadly, they remain silent. The result has been an increase in suspicion and partisan warfare, and a perpetuation of Washington s scandal culture, one of three core factors that have poisoned the atmosphere in Washington for the past two decades. The central message in my book is the need to change the way Washington governs. We need to minimize the negative influence of the permanent campaign, end the scandal culture, and move beyond the philosophy of politics as war. The rest of the transcript below the fold. No one has a better opportunity to make that happen than the president. To do so, he must first fully embrace openness and candor and then constantly strive to build trust across the aisle and seek common ground to unite Americans from all walks of life and political persuasions. I believed President Bush could be that kind of leader for the country when I first went to work for him in Texas. He was a popular, bipartisan leader who had a record of working with Democrats. Unfortunately, like many good people who come to Washington, he ended up playing the game by the existing rules rather than transforming it. The larger message of my book is bigger than any person or party. It is about restoring civility and bipartisanship and candor to our national political discourse. It is about putting our Nation s interests above partisan goals. Indeed, all of us especially those in elected office can do more to make this happen by promoting openness and engaging in civil discourse. The permanent campaign leads to just the opposite. Substantive debates over policy give way to a contest over which side can most effectively manipulate the media narrative to its advantage. It is about power and electoral victory. Governing becomes an offshoot of campaigning rather than the other way around. Vicious attacks, distortions, political manipulation and spin become accepted. Complex issues are reduced to black-and-white terms and oversimplified in the context of winners and losers and how they will affect the next election. Too often, the media unwittingly ignores the impact of government on the daily lives of Americans, focusing foremost on the Beltway game and lionizing those who play it most skillfully. There is no more recent example of this unsavory side of politics than the initial reaction from some in Washington to my book. I received plenty of criticism for daring to tell the story as I knew it. Yet few of my critics tried to refute the larger themes and perspectives in the book. Instead of engaging in a reasoned, rational, and honest discussion of the issues raised, some sought to turn it into a game of gotcha, misrepresenting what I wrote and seeking to discredit me through inaccurate personal attacks on me and my motives. The American people deserve better. Governing inevitably has an adversarial element. People and groups will always differ about the proper use of limited government resources. But should government be a process of constant campaigning to manipulate public opinion, or should it be centered as much as possible on rational debate, deliberation, and compromise? Writing this book was not easy for me to do. These are my words, my experiences, and my conclusions. I sought to take a clear-eyed look at events. To do so, I had to remove my partisan lens and step back from the White House bubble. Some of the conclusions I came to were different from those I would have embraced at the outset. My book reflects the only idea of loyalty that I believe is appropriate in democratic government, and that is loyalty to the ideals of candor, transparency and integrity, and indeed to the constitutional system itself. Too often in Washington, people mistakenly think that loyalty to an individual officeholder should override loyalty to basic ideals. This false loyalty is not only mistaken, but can exercise a corrupt influence on government. I am here because in my heart I am a public servant who, like many Americans, wants to improve the way Washington governs and does not want to see future administrations repeat the mistakes this White House made. I do not know whether a crime was committed by any of the Administration officials who revealed Valerie Plame s identity to reporters. Nor do I know if there was an attempt by any person or persons to engage in a cover-up during the investigation. I do know that it was wrong to reveal her identity, because it compromised the effectiveness of a covert official for political reasons. I regret that I played a role, however unintentionally, in relaying false information to the public about it. I ll do my best to answer any questions on this matter that members of the committee may wish to ask. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Download | Play Download | Play Emptywheel makes the case that Scotty McClellan admitted as much this morning on the Today Show: During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had himself authorized the selective leaking of the NIE. [ ] Thus far we only had Dick Cheney s word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn t have Bush s confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we ve had Dick Cheney s claims that he Dick had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers. But now we ve got George Bush, confirming that he, the President of the United States, authorized the leaks of this information. Now, though Scottie refers, obliquely, to this information, he explicitly refers only to the NIE. But as I ve described over and over again, it s not just the NIE Bush authorized Dick to order Libby to leak. (more) Do give the rest of it a read. You can watch the entire interview here on the MSNBC website. Hopefully Keith Olbermann will follow up on this as McClellan is due to appear on tonight s Countdown.

O Reilly goes ballistic over former White House press secretary Scott McClellan s publisher s recent revelations and Scotty in particular for not coming out and clarifying whether he is calling Bush a liar in his upcoming book or not. Download (5129) | Play (6683) Download (2927) | Play (3857) (fixing clips) O Reilly: It s not going to hurt his dopey book sales to come out and clear the air about a very serious allegation about people he worked with, people he was close to. What s the matter with this McClellan? So Billo, just as he has done so many times before, sent his minions out to ambush him at his home but there was no answer. The big giant head then gets himself all worked up, screaming and shaking his finger and he basically calls Scott a wimp in playgroundspeak. Word to Scotty. Billo s coming to your home and insulting your manliness in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers. You just gonna take that?

CNN s round-table on the new revelations and clarifications coming from Scotty McClellan s book publisher really exposed Gloria Borger s egregious White House shillery for what it is. Download (6433) | Play (7290) Download (3787) | Play (4502) Gloria thinks that because nobody wants to see the President accused of lying over a leak that was really just a technicality anyway that we ought to just wait until Bush writes his memoir to find out the truth (I m so not kidding. I wish I were) about whatever happened because really nobody cares anymore. Thank heavens we had Jack Cafferty to help set the conversation straight. Suzanne Malveaux: Jack, let s start with you. With a bombshell accusation like this, what does it say about the administration? Jack Cafferty: Well, a couple of things occur to me. The first one is, whoever is doing the PR for McClellan s book ought to get a raise, because he s doing a masterful of creating buzz and interest in a book that won t even be out until next April. The second thing is, it doesn t really seem to me like it s breaking news that the administration, the White House, may have misled one of their own about something. After all, they ve been lying to the rest of the country about a whole bunch of stuff for the better part of six and a half years. You remember when the story broke about the CIA agent and President Bush said I will fire anybody in the White House who was involved in compromising the identity of a CIA agent? Well, that was a lie wasn t it? Because Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and some of those folks, they were up to their armpits in the compromising of Valerie Plame s identity. so the President changed and he said I will fire anybody who is convicted of committing a crime in conjunction with the outing of a C So I mean that place has turned into an oil slick a long time ago and I don t believe a whole bunch of anything that comes out of there these days. [snip] Suzanne Malveaux: Gloria, how s this going to be perceived by the White House? Who s the potential fall guy in all of this? Gloria Borger: Well, they are not happy obviously because nobody wants to see the President accused of lying and I think the key word to look at here which everybody seems to be throwing around is knowingly. I did not knowingly tell somebody a falsehood. If the President actually told Scott McClellan that nobody in the White House had leaked Valerie Plame s name, that is probably what the Vice President, what the President was told. I agree with John. The question is who told the President that? Was it the Vice President? And we know how close the vice President was to Scooter Libby. And did Karl Rove technically leak Valerie Plame s name or did he say to the Time correspondent when the Time correspondent raised it, said Yeah, I heard that. Is that technically leaking her name? Maybe not. I think this whole thing is a bunch of technicalities right now and by the way, I agree with you Jack this is a big publicity stunt because really nobody cares anymore. Cafferty: Well I care, and I ll tell you why I care. George Bush is the President of the United States and this idea that he was somehow victimized by his own people, he didn t know what was going on. He s the President. This was a huge story at the time. Borger: But what if he s lied to Jack? What if somebody lied to the President? Cafferty: Excuse me. Excuse me. The buck stops at the oval office. He s in charge. It s up to him to find out who s telling the truth and who isn t. It s up to him to tell the American people what went on in his White House. It s his, it s his White House. It s his White House. Borger: I think we ll hear that in his memoir. I think when he writes his memoir, when he writes his memoir maybe we ll get to the bottom of it. Cafferty: I d like to hear it now. No, I d like to hear it now. There might still be time to impeach him. Borger: I would to. I d like to hear it. Malveaux: Should we wait for the memoirs? Does anybody believe the President should jump in now, or the next 15 months? Cafferty: No. How about the American public be told what the chief executive office of the United States government is up to? How about if we were told the truth? Wouldn t that be a switch? Yes Jack, it would be.

Download (1087) | Play (1168) Download (549) | Play (510) On Wednesday s Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked with former Ambassador Joe Wilson about revelations from Scott McClellan s new book and it s effect on his wife, Valerie Plame, the victim in this case. Wilson hammers away at George Bush and Dick Cheney, calls Robert Novak a gossip columnist and assures Keith he and Valerie plan to review the new information with their lawyer and decide how to proceed with their civil suit after the holidays. Wilson: Well, I was amused by some of the Washington pundits today saying this was old news. I remind people treason is never old news. When you betray the national security of your country it deserves to be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, however high and mighty the officials involved in it might be.

Download (2558) | Play (2913) Download (1163) | Play (1484) (thanks to Dan for vids) What an amazingly refreshing and grown up admission from a former member of the Bush Administration. When shown a clip of Valerie Plame Wilson castigating him for revealing her identity to Robert Novak by Wolf Blitzer, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has really only one thing to say: She s right. Download (1397) | Play (1467) Download (358) | Play (725) In the second clip, Wolf asks Armitage about his work with the CSIS Commission on Smart Power. Armitage s response to the way that Bush War on Terror sounds amazingly like a *gasp!* progressive position: BLITZER: Are you suggesting that the “War on Terror” is not the central component of U.S. policy right now? ARMITAGE: There’s two different things. I’m suggesting that it perhaps shouldn’t be. The fact that we make a war on “terror” which I think is a bit of a misnomer—perhaps it should be a war on extremism, certainly Islamic extremism right now—is keeping us from focusing on other issues, both domestic and international. Look, these terrorists want to hurt us; they’re a real and growing threat. But absent the availability of WMDs to them, they don’t pose an existential threat to us. This is not like fascism during the second world war or communism. The threat they pose to us is whether we in response to their activities will actually do harm to ourselves by changing our way of life, by suspending writs of habeas corpus and by engaging in such activities as torture.