Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed tonight on Larry King Live. In it, he confirmed that Alberto Gonzales lied last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Below is the exchange between Larry King and Dick Cheney:

Q Moving on to other areas. Alberto Gonzales — do you stand by him?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do. Al is a good man, a good friend, in a difficult assignment.

Q Are you troubled by what appears to have happened — the appearance of him not telling the truth?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t want to get into the specifics with respect to his testimony and the questions that were asked. I know Al on a personal and professional basis, and I hold him in high regard.

Q You’re going to stand by him?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir.

Q No doubt about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct.

Q In that regard, The New York Times — which, as you said, is not your favorite — reports it was you who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital in 2004 to push Ashcroft to certify the President’s intelligence-gathering program. Was it you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t recall — first of all, I haven’t seen the story. And I don’t recall that I gave instructions to that effect.

Q That would be something you would recall.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would think so. But certainly I was involved because I was a big advocate of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had been responsible and working with General Hayden and George Tenet to get it to the President for approval. By the time this occurred, it had already been approved about 12 times by the Department of Justice. There was nothing new about it.

Q So you didn’t send them to get permission.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital. [Emphasis added by me.]

Larry King was asking Dick Cheney about "the President’s intelligence-gathering program". In response, Cheney confirmed that by the time the hospital confrontation occurred, "it" had been approved 12 times by the DOJ and there was "nothing new about it". The "it" being the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" as Cheney makes clear in the preceding sentence, even though Larry King had referred to it as "the President’s intelligence-gathering program". There you have it: confirmation from the Vice President of the United States that Gonzo confronted Ashcroft about the "Terrorist Surveillance Program".

In last week’s testimony, Gonzo claimed that the "dissent" and the subject of the hospital bed confrontation with Ashcroft was not about the "Terrorist Surveillance Program":

“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.”  [Emphasis added by me.]

Now, the man who apparently sent Gonzo on his late night errand is directly contradicting him. Time to resign, Gonzo.

[UPDATE (7/31/2007 10:50 PM): I cross-posted at the Daily Kos. The diary has hit the recommended list and there is a lively comment thread.]

[Update 2: TPMMuckraker has now picked up on Cheney’s little admission. Hopefully, the MSM will follow…]

We are witnessing historic events in Washington. It is now indisputable that the Attorney General of the United States has perjured himself. It is now only a matter of time before Alberto Gonzales is forced to resign for his lying, dissembling and obfuscations. It is also now very likely that the chief law enforcement officer of the United States may himself be guilty of serious crimes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, at a hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee, directly contradicted Gonzo’s sworn testimony from Tuesday:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has contradicted the sworn testimony of his boss, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, by telling Congress that a prominent warrantless surveillance program was the subject of a dramatic legal debate within the Bush administration.

Mueller’s testimony appears to mark the first public confirmation from a Bush administration official that the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program was at issue in an unusual nighttime visit by Gonzales to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, then under sedation and recovering from surgery.

Mueller’s remarks to the House Judiciary Committee about that contentious meeting differed from testimony earlier in the week from Gonzales, who told a Senate panel that a legal disagreement aired at the hospital did not concern the NSA program. Details of the program, kept secret for four years, were confirmed by President Bush in December 2005, provoking wide controversy on Capitol Hill.

"The discussion was on a national–an NSA program that has been much discussed, yes," Mueller said in response to a question from Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas). Mueller also told another lawmaker that he had serious reservations about the warrantless wiretapping program.

Director Mueller has also in his possession notes that he took to document the March 10, 2004 showdown in then Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room. The director said that he took the notes because the episode was "out of the ordinary."

Gonzo’s lies began to unravel after former Deputy Attorney General James Comey provided dramatic testimony of Gonzo’s late night visit to the hospital to try and take advantage of a very sick man. It is a story worthy of mob movies like The Godfather. Yet, it was then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales that was behaving in mafia-like fashion, quite likely at the direction of the President or Vice President of the United States. Today Gonzo is finally being held to account for his thuggish behavior.

This walking embarrassment to the Department of Justice must resign.

Below is James Comey’s dramatic testimony:

Below are relevant parts of FBI Director Robert Mueller’s testimony from earlier today:

This man is a national disgrace. Behold the attorney general of the United States testifying today in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s time to resign.

Gonzo as Miracle Max:

Gonzo cannot recall deciding to send a man to his death:

Gonzo becomes self-aware:

Gonzo sets a new standard for crime and punishment:

Gonzo gets an FBI escort:

Gonzo as errand-boy:

Gonzo clarifies his clarification:

Gonzo as Donald Trump:

Gonzo gives the Vice President broadband access to the DOJ:

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified yesterday about Mr. Gonzales’s late night visit to the hospital to convince an ailing attorney general John Ashcroft to sign off on Mr. Bush’s domestic wiretapping plan which the Justice Department had already deemed illegal. It was riveting testimony. There is not much I can add to Mr. Comey’s testimony in this post. My best advice is that you watch the entirety of it - it is well worth the time.

I was reminded of the famous scene in "The Godfather" where Vito Corleone lies in the hospital unguarded and Michael Corleone rushes to save his father’s life.

To get a flavor of the kind of attorney general Alberto Gonzales is, as Alfredo points out in the comments, consider his remarks at the National Press Club soon after Paul McNulty resigned:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that his deputy, who is resigning, was the most important player in the controversial decision about which U.S. attorneys should be fired last year.

…

"You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales said. "And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this room, anyone — again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community, and he signed off on the names."

Gonzales, who called McNulty’s pending departure "a loss" for the Department of Justice, said that his chief of staff had only coordinated the process of evaluating U.S. attorneys, while McNulty’s opinion "would be the most important.

"The one person I would care about would be the views of the deputy attorney general, because the deputy attorney general is the direct supervisor of the United States attorneys," Gonzales said.

Gonzales said he was reassured by McNulty as recently as March that the firings all were justified.

Gonzo. Pathetic. Worse than Watergate.

I’ve started a wiki to capture nuggets people find in the recent document dump from the Department of Justice. Click here to visit Gonzopedia and please feel free to add any nugget you have to offer. I’ve left the format open to the user; feel free to expand in any way you feel is appropriate.

The latest DOJ documents are available at the House Judiciary Committee website. The latest news on the US attorney firing scandal is also available at Talking Points Memo.

Currently, Gonzopedia is built around analyzing the document dump from March 19, 2007. Feel free to expand Gonzopedia to all things Gonzo, including Gonzo’s part in torture advocacy.