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I'm a big proponent of timelines. They're a really useful tool, retrospectively, to connect the dots, to understand how, say, Carol Lam's firing might relate to her investigation of Jerry Lewis or Dusty Foggo.
But now that we're in the majority, we're making the timelines. Which means we need to look forward as much as backwards to get our bearings.
So, as a public service (you might want to schedule some "sick" days, after all), I thought I'd do a timeline of what's coming. Note that most of these links go to PDFs, so click through accordingly.
March 23 Deadline for Condi to turn over (Condi apparently ignored this deadline--see her upcoming date with Waxman below)
March 30 (today!) House
and Senate[correction--DOJ wanted joint interviews, but it appears only the House Judiciary is involved at this point] Judiciary Committees begin to interview [in private interviews --so don't look for it on CSPAN] 7 current and former DOJ employees on the USA purge; interviewees include:
- Paul McNulty
- William Moschella
- Michael Elston
- William Mercer
- David Margolis
- Monica "Five for Freedom" Goodling
- Michael Battle
March 30 (today!) Deadline for State Department to turn over information on problems with the DynCorp contract to train Iraqi police
April 5 [House Oversight] Deadline for Fred Fielding to turn over information on the gwb43 and other non-governmental email practices (with interviews to occur the week of April 2)
April 5 [House Oversight] Susan Ralston scheduled to give deposition on the White House role in the Jack Abramoff scandal; this will include questions on the gwb43 email server
April 6 [House Oversight] Deadline for Josh Bolten to turn over all paperwork on MZM's contract to
install furnituresanitize the mail in OVPApril 7 [House Oversight] Deadline for information related to DOJ interference in tobacco settlement
April 10 [Closed SSCI hearing] CIA detention
April 12 [Closed SSCI hearing] National Security Letters
April 13 [House Oversight] Deadline for Karl Rove to answer questions regarding the PowerPoint targeting Democrats and potential Hatch Act violations
April 17 Soon to be former AG Alberto Gonzales testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee
April 17 [Closed SSCI hearing] Telecom liability act
April 18 [House Oversight] Condi visits (ha!) Waxman's committee to answer questions on the Niger intelligence and all the other things Condi ignored from 16 letters Waxman wrote her before he got his gavel
April 19 [Closed SSCI hearing] FISA Modernization Legislation
May 17 hearing on the Wilson's lawsuit
June 5 Libby's sentencing hearing
A couple of observations. First, while everyone else DC is putting things on hold during next week's recess, Waxman and the combined Judiciary committees will be very busy interviewing people next week. House Oversight Committee will be figuring out why the hell BushCo appears to be doing business on its own server, while the Judiciary committees will be interviewing all of the people who think they know better than some of the country's top US Attorneys.
Also, note how complementary Waxman's work and that of Judiciary are. Alberto Gonzales' testimony on April 17 is generally titled, "Justice Department Oversight." Depending on what Waxman digs up with his request for more information on the tobacco case, Gonzales may find himself discussing more than just the US Attorney firings.
FWIW, I fully expect Condi to blow off her invitation to visit Waxman's committee on April 18. Meanwhile, Waxman sent a letter to DCI Hayden requesting more information related to Plame's outing, which will give us incrementally more information about how Pat Roberts' SSCI produced a politicized document to support Cheney's claims about the war. And I suspect that if Waxman pursues the MZM inquiry to its logical conclusion, we will learn that (among other things) MZM got hired to politicize the Robb-Silberman report on Iraqi intelligence. In any case, if you've got a special calendar item marked: "Subpoena Showdown over Turdblossom's and Harriet's testimony," you might want to include an item mentioning Condi as well, because this Administration is going to try its damndest to prevent us from proving how they lied us into war.
And finally, note how the gwb43 inquiry jumped to the front of Waxman's oversight queue (the Ralston invite went out today, the request for information from Fielding went out yesterday)? What do you think--maybe Waxman agrees with us that this may be the closet where BushCo keeps all its smoking guns? I'm just dreaming of the day when we get a document dump of all the political dirty tricks Rove has overseen over the last six years.
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FITZ!
Drive by Zed?
Jane!
whoooo witchywoman…! TGIF!
I read that someone had set up gwb43.org and had harvested some e-mails meant for gwb43.com. But can’t find the site now.
I wonder whether our net-savvy friends might set up some other honey-traps (or whatever we should call them).
Heheh. Makes me feel all squishy and warm inside.
OT, re: Roots Project beta site
If you set up your account and start posting some of your own content to your own blog there, Matt Browner Hamlin and I will be looking daily for original material generated by the community to promote to the front page. You’ll also WIN FREE STUFF.
Well, maybe not, but anyway, it’s next generation Internets that we’re building, and you can be a a part of it. Check it out.
Please also make note of our new fundraising thermometer on the right sidebar of any FDL page.
Marcy, I can’t find anything on either Judiciary Committee website scheduling a hearing for today. Are you sure of that, and do you have a link?
Prof @
6
It’s a closed interview.
Prof @ 6
Oh, I see that these are interviews, not hearings.
OK, I can get some work done today. Thanks.
Prof @
8
Yep. Better get it done now. Because starting the second week of April things go crazy again.
Why is it acceptable to have to wait until April 17th to hear from Gonzales? What, the guy can’t clear his calendar to address the biggest scandal in DOJ since Nixon?
Somebody tell Peter Zeidenberg not to leave the area. We’ll need him to nail the DOJ Seven.
OT, but, if you missed it Raven, see my comment about Neil EPU’d from last thread.
Sparkles the Iguana @ 10
I don’t know that that works in his (or the Administration’s) favor. That was my point about the data collection that will take place before then: All 7 (6 plus Goodling) DOJ interviews will presumably have taken place by then, and Waxman will have more potentially incriminating information on the GWB43 server and on the Tobacco settlement.
Meanwhile, Abu G hangs around Bush’s and Rove’s neck, dragging them down.
Marcy you are a link with sanity, bless ya! egreious emailed me that you were trying to reach me - my gmail has been squirrely lately so try me here: afholliday AT sbcglobal DOT net. I hope it is about a book tour and I also have some hopeful news I wanted to share with you about a west coast asst. U.S. attorney……when you come up for air.
SCHWEEET!
EW, Question.
Can Condi legally NOT show to Waxmans invite without getting smacked with a contempt charge?
OmiGAWD, A whole string, scads of, an embarrassment of riches of…
Emptywheel Vindication Days!!
Calloo Callay!!!!! :)
I think I just pantsed myself…
drip, drip, drip…
Repost from the previous thread–I’ve posted a transcript of Christy’s interview on the Thom Hartmann Program here.
Bustednuckles @ 15
She would have to be subpoenaed for that to happen. Which would be a HUGE deal. Traditionally, Agency heads are “happy” to accept and invitation to testify. The best she can do is to fill up her calender and delay as long as she possibly can, which considering it is Condi, could be awhile.
Your dream, their nightmare.
Thanks WH.
Dammit.
Bustednuckles @
15
Right now it’s an “invitation.” I would imagine Waxman is approaching subpoenaing someone–particularly someone like Condi–with some degree of caution.
punaise @
17
makes me percolate a little..)
EMPTYWHEEL!!!
Thanks for the great calendar!!!
When do the Contempt of Congress citations start to go out?
Bob in HI
emptywheel @ 22
So, if she accepts will she be under oath?
Thanks so much EW for all this wonderful information. I have a question…what if the repubs. just deny they used those e-mail addies for any whitehouse business. Is there any way to get ahold of those e-mails from the internet service provider? Are e-mails archived at ISP’s, or do they just disappear forever once they are deleted.
Surfmom @ 26
Nothing is deleted forever, keep that in mind when you write em!
GREAT POST!!
I got Randi Rhodes on in the bacground, she had the Schumer/Sampson Fitz session up.
raven @ 25
Right now it’s an “invitation.” I would imagine Waxman is approaching subpoenaing someone–particularly someone like Condi–with some degree of caution.
So, if she accepts will she be under oath?
It is kind of unprecedented to have to subpoena a cabinet official. Just as it would unprecedented for a Cabinet official to simply not show up. It provides Waxman with a bit of a conundrum. High stakes, who’s going to blink first kind of thing.
Prof @
4
Security people set up “honey-pots” on their networks to identify hackers.
raven @ 25
Well, ol’Henry likes to start his hearings by saying, “it is the custom to put everyone who appears before this committee under oath…”
So I presume so. Which is probably why she is unlikely to accept the “invitation.”
March 23 Deadline for Condi to turn over
I don’t think she’ll be flipped just yet.
emptywheel @ 31
Just as I suspected!
marcy,
Are these interview one at a time, and serial? Do they not have an opportunity to coordinate their stories?
Abu Gonzales does an explicky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03.....ref=slogin
Great Horsey toon with KKKarl:
KKKARL
Let’s see if Gonzo can say “I don’t know” 123 times!
Sounds like a drinking game to me!
Condi’s just going to run out the clock. She will develop a sudden interest in a Mideast Peace plan, possibly even meet with Iranian envoys in a neutral location like Jordan. Lots and lots of travel for Condi.
Woodhall Hollow @ 29
Keep in mind, though, she has already blown off 16 letters–16!–from Waxman. And he will be asking her how the 16 words got in the SOTU, to which she would have to answer, “well, Bob Joseph weaseled them into the SOTU after being told by Alan Foley they shouldn’t be in there.”
So I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Condi was, um, reluctant to show up.
raven @
27
Ahhh!!! Sweet!!! Those fools.
Mr Waxman proving he can walk, chew gum, and make lists in his mind all at once. The man knows how to juggle, and keep records.
I still say that attention to detail came from likely working with his father in the grocery. It’s something that anyone in retail deals with no matter the aspect of it. Detailed inventory of what’s needed, and finding out what’s missing and WHY.
GO WAXMAN!
jayackroyd @ 34
These dudes have had weeks to coordinate their stories!
Luckovich toon on KKKarl:
KKKarl Again!
Marcy, did you notice that there is no date for Bolten to provide the details of the WH investigation of the Plame leak? I noticed that Waxman’s letter on the subjuect didn’t include a deadline for Bolten to produce this information. And it looks like the the hearings on Plame have gone dormant. How do you interpret this?
emptywheel @ 31
So how do you spin a refusal to come before an oversight committee so that it doesn’t look like you are hiding something? And how does Condi testify under oath without getting herself into trouble?
Marcy, you are amazing.
Here’s a practical question:
News of the gwb43 server was out for some time before the Congressional letter demanding preservation of those records.
As we’re talking Rove central, I’m assuming they went after the physical drives as soon as news broke - before Congress demanded access.
(still likely illegal - but this is Rove)
What legal powers (if any) do the Congressional committees have to compel the US signals collectors (NSA and the like) for copies of the gwb 43/ blackberry/ text msg communications?
[firmly adjusts tinfoil hat]
emptywheel @ 39
One more thing, though. Some (but not all) of the activities Waxman is interseted in here came when she was National Security Advisor which, Bush men like to argue, is entitled to slightly more privilege claims than, say Secretary of State.
Via TPM this morning I read the LAT op-ed piece by Joseph D. Rich from the DoJ where, among other things he pointed out that the USA interim appt, Schlozman ‘weeks before the election brought 4 voter fraud indictments…’
which “blatently contradicted the Dept’s long standing POLICY TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER AN ELECTION TO BRING SUCH INDICTMENTS”
I hadn’t heard discussions before this piece about what’s on the books within the DoJ in regard to actual policy on either bringing indictments close to an election and/or any other DoJ policies in place to segregate the arm of DoJ from political will. Perhaps Congress could get a leg up on not just the USA scandal but others as well, by cracking the books of the DoJ itself.
Condi is a real mystery–if you read up about her background, she was the ultimate straight arrow, goody two shoes; not the type to get her hands dirty. (though she is obviously all too willing to avert her gaze from in inconvenient truth.)
I remember reading somewhere that her father, with whom she was very close, died in Dec 2000. Apparently he was not happy that she was considering giving up her solid career at Stanford and going to work for the Bushies. She accepted her position as NSA just after her father died, so he never knew.
So, if she accepts will she be under oath?
Well, ol’Henry likes to start his hearings by saying, “it is the custom to put everyone who appears before this committee under oath…”
So I presume so. Which is probably why she is unlikely to accept the “invitation.”
So how do you spin a refusal to come before an oversight committee so that it doesn’t look like you are hiding something? And how does Condi testify under oath without getting herself into trouble?
Well, it’s just a perjury trap, right?
portia.vz @ 44
Right. And the Hayden letter doesn’t include a deadline. I’m not sure what to make of it. Will try to figure out, though.
Terry Olson @
35
Shorter Abu G.:
“It’s all Evil Radar’s fault! He lied to Congress yesterday! I’m not the liar — he is! Or maybe Harriet Miers! But it wasn’t me! Or Karl! Honest!”
Morris Sheppard @ 45
Well, it took a subpoena threat to get the WH to let Knodell (the designated fall guy for the Plame panel) testify. And he’s just a civil servant employee who wasn’t involved in the central lies. So I suspect that WH will fight this mightily.
emptywheel @ 39
Oh she will stall as long as she can. It’s up to Waxman. I assume that at this point he has only politely requested documentation. At some point he can begin to issue demands. He will give her a long leash (first) with which to hang herself later.
punaise @ 17
pour, pour, pour . . .
I suspect congressional democrats know exactly what they’re doing with both the pace and execution of their investigations. I think they’re doing a very good job up till this point.
That said, the political racketeering and utterly corrupt behavior of the GOP since 2000 can never be thoroughly investigated. Or rather, it would take the next twenty years to turn over every rock of criminal scandal were their wrongdoing properly dealt with.
I am in favor of the establishment of a South Africa-style Truth Commission. Identify and address the specific area’s of constitutional subversion by the executive branch (in particular) and their enablers in congress and the private sector, with the guarantee of immunity for truth tellers.
Is Monica Goodling actually being interviewed in private, after having pleaded the fifth amendment to avoid the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena?
And are these really House and Senate interviews? TMP only mentioned the House, and I thought that Leahy and the SJC were not yet buying into private interviews.
Sparkles the Iguana @ 38
Why doesn’t Waxman go for Rice’s deputy instead?
I’ve been very impressed with the hearings in the past few weeks. Elections do matter.
Couple of unrelated things.
1. these behind the door interviews/testimony. Will they be transcribed and eventually available to us?
2. if Monica Goodling is a member of the Virginia bar, may we file complaints about her being an atty and taking the 5th?
raven at 50 says:
she’s been under oath before, it’s just that now with all the investigations and sunlight, her perjury may become more evident. She going to be twisting herself into knots.
Thanks for the post.
(I have been listening to the hearings on Iraqi refugees and it has been wholly damning to bushco, the State Dept and us)
eCAHNomics @ 58
Now that is a thought! The problem is that the Niger stuff happened under Colin Powell’s watch, so I doubt that many of Powell’s people would still be around, and if they were, they wouldn’t recall.
I wonder why Waxman doesn’t haul Powell or Armitage up there…
I love to see Waxman’s shining smile! Thanks for this bit of housekeeping, EW
JW @ 56
get them all under a microscope with a Truth and Reckon Cilia Shun Commission
According to press reports, there will be a transcript made, which will be made available after consultation with the DOJ.
Sparkles the Iguana @ 42
Sure, sparkles, but you can only coordinate the first order of the story, and a general framework of how to deal with unexpected questions. How you manage second, third and fourth order questions cannot be fully managed. Moreover, you can meet and nod your heads and all agree to stick to the story line, but when you’re in the room by yourself with none of your collaborators there, you may well decide to move off the agreed line, out of self protection. (See the prisoner’s dilemma.)
This, of course, is why interrogations are done this way. It’s not that hard to break down a story when there are only two players. When you move it up to 8, by the time the fourth shows up, you can use material from previous interviews to elicit materials the witness didn’t plan to give out.
I hope McNulty is last.
Renee in Ohio @ 18
Thx R-in-O-hi-O. I listened on air. Now I can go back and find the money quotes. Thanks again.
Woodhall Hollow @ 49
Power corrupts and all that.
Prof @ 4
i think it was greg palast.
Woodhall Hollow @ 19
She would have start globe hopping
Woodhall Hollow @ 62
No, the Deputy in question would be Stephen Hadley (who was DNSA under Condi and is now NSA himself). He received warnings not to use the Niger intell in October 2002 (Condi almost certainly did as well–that’s one thing Henry would like to discuss, no doubt).
And Mr. 16 words himself, Bob Joseph, was Special Assistant to COndi before, then was the Undersecretary of State who replaced Bolton at State, but has recently left so BushCo can try to make peace with the North Koreans. He’d make a nice witness too. I think he’s in a kind of Rummy holding position, on the government dole, but not in an obvious way.
But State under Powell, with the notable exception of Bolton’s department, was not responsible for any of the bad intell. They knew it sucked.
When is the Congress going to pass legislation forbidding an attack
on Iran without Congressional authorization? When is Congress
going to pass legislation forbidding the Executive branch from
declaring Martial law without Congressional authorization? When is
the Congress going to repeal the Patriot Act provision of declaring
United States citizens enemy combatants without due process?
These investigations by Congress are essential. In the meantime
a war with Iran is looming closer and closer. We need to start
talking about the blowback domestically yet alone internationally.
Would like to see the Congress get more pro-active in protecting
our civil liberties.
She would have to start globe hopping.
Problem is, nobody, not even the Saudis want to see her. Everyone is sick to death of her.
Unless she wanted to start dealing with Iran…but then Darth Cheney wouldn’t let that happen.
I’m tellin’ ya, subpoena the backup tapes for the GWB43.com mailservers….
Randi is saying one of listeners e-mailed that everytime Sampson tells a lie he shook his head 3 times!
LOL
Does anyone do tape backups anymore? I was under the impression the emails were stored on hard drives.
Maybe Tenet’s book will reveal all. Date of publication = April 30.
kirk murphy @ 46
There may a tech person or two who really doesn’t want to face an obstruction of justice charge. One of the dirty secrets of the tech business is that security processes are frequently violated for exigency reasons. (There was a time I was handed a CD with all the employee compensation information for an F500 company, including address and comp info for the executive suite, in complete and utter violation of their security policies, in order to facilitate the completion of a project that was considered mission critical.)
These folks have an enormous incentive to CYA by taking a tape or two home.
OT
I don’t know if anyone has brought this up yet but the FDA is set to approve meat & milk prodcts from cloned animals safe to sell to the public in supermarkets & to restaurants by the end of 2007. Since these cloned products are “safe”, the FDA does not feel they need to be labled. The FDA is taking public comments on their website until April 2nd, but (surprise) it’s not easy to find the comment section. The Center for Food Safety has info on this, just click on cloned animals.
So who benefits from this? The public sure isn’t clamoring for cloned meat & milk. To top it off, we won’t even have a choice when we buy meat & milk at the supermarket, eat out, or what our kids get for lunch in school.
Woodhall Hollow @ 73
Hmm, she might get so desperate that trips to Baghdad and Kabul would be required.
Oh wait, there’s always her counterpart in Canada. Didn’t the media practially have them in bed? Surely we need a sudden assload of diplomacy with Canada.
jayackroyd @ 78
I lost you with that last sentence. How does taking a tape or two home cover your ass? I would think that you could get into enormous trouble for taking privileged/classified info out of the WH?
All the bodies are buried in gwb43. There’s no doubt in my mind, however, that they set up this account as much to avoid the preservation of documents as to operate in the dark. I doubt very much useful material will be recovered.
But a boy can dream!
Sam @ 72
These investigations are to build the political will to get all that legislation passed.
The public has to be howling for it. All the public. So, start howling. CAll and write your Congresscritters
SERIOUS SUGGESTION:
Some rich person (Larry Flynt again?) should offer a boat load of money to any anonymous leaker in the RNC who turns over those extra-White House emails or email logs.
$5 million? $10 million?
That’s chump change to some, but could be convincing to others–such as hungry, demoralized RNC staff.
Woodhall Hollow @ 73
I hear Antartica can be lovely this time of year. *g*
emptywheel @ 71
Hadley & Joseph would be perfect. As for State, they might have known it was garbage but Powell used it at UN anyway. I’d love to see him on the hotseat explaining all that. Also, Armitage, we learned, is a gossip. What’s the chance he could stop himself from giving away the family jewels on the stand? It’s not like the narrow range of questions in the Libby trial.
bless you, ironranger.
Since GM taters kill off mammals, I’d never knowingly eat GM (cloned) animals or drink GM (cloned) dairy products.
Yecch.
Thanks for getting out the word.
_______________________________
and thanks jayackroyd -
that gives me hope…
Re scheduling sick days, I recommend:
“I will have been not feeling well.”
looseheadprop @ 70
emptywheel @ 46 “Keep in mind, though, she has already blown off 16 letters–16!–from Waxman. And he will be asking her how the 16 words got in the SOTU, to which she would have to answer, “well, Bob Joseph weaseled them into the SOTU after being told by Alan Foley they shouldn’t be in there.”
Admit it if you knew Bob Joseph’s and Alan Foley’s roles in the 16 words in the SOTU. If you’re like me, you didn’t dut I’m learning more everyday thanks to people like emptywheel and the other firepups.
looseheadprop @ 85
She better bring her Ferragamo hip waders cause it’s a-meltin.
dut = but
Brisingamen @ 75
IANACP (computer programmer) but it strikes me that disappearing hard drives is not as easy as it sounds. Do they have hard drives dedicated to gwb43, or do they share? Also getting someone to go into the facility, figure out which ones are the right ones, disabling them, marching out with them in your gwb43 totebag would raise some eyebrows and risk a whistle blower.
The chickens are coming home to roost in Nevada:
Nevada turkeys
ew at 47:
One more thing, though. Some (but not all) of the activities Waxman is interseted in here came when she was National Security Advisor which, Bush men like to argue, is entitled to slightly more privilege claims than, say Secretary of State.
You think this is a baseless claim? The NSA is not confirmed, right? And the NSA role is, by design, one that would justify a stronger executive privilege claim. I mean, a good NSA adviser should carry around in her head a lot of information about motives and goals of the principals. Seems to me that the candor argument actually does seem to apply to the NSA more than almost any other adviser.
Neil @ 90
LOL, I’m not allowed to come when Joe Wilson speaks anymore, because he always asks, “Who out there knows who put the 16 words in the SOTU.”
Having someone in teh audience raise her hand kind of ruins the trick.
LHP @ 83, the other thing these hearings do is to control the daily media–which is why it is so smart that Waxman is keeping the momentum going (with help from Leahy and Conyers). Notice how suddenly Bush is out all over the place making public appearances and giving speeches, when normally he likes to stay hidden away in the Oval Office. They are trying to keep him and his war at the top of the news summaries, and to try to distract from all the corruption scandals.
Not working out too well though. This whole thing is coming together like a perfect storm. It is a strange twist of good fortune that the Rovians et al were so full of hubris that they never even contemplated the idea that they could loose either the House or the Senate before Bush was out of office. Remember Rove’s grand plan to install a permanent Republican majority? He actually believed that he could pull it off, and we are seeing the dirty work that was done in that effort.
Hubris always precedes a great fall. The gods to not like to be superseded, particularly by the likes of Bush and Rove and Cheney.
Woodhall Hollow @ 81
The servers in question AREN’T inside the WH, they’re owned by the Republican National Party and are probably at the party’s HQ.
The reason this is so serious is that doing government business on an outside server is a big no-no. First, it violates the Presidential Records Act, and second, since some of the fools are accessing the email accounts from WH computer, I’m given to understand it breaches security on those computers to a fare-thee-well…
Regular Federal employees aren’t supposed access outside servers with their work computers either.
Does anyone know what Abu’s responsibility is to show up on the 17th if he is no longer AG at that time?
The Democrats in Congress are going to need to establish a triage center to cope with the tidal wave of pus and decay that is being released as a result of their investigatory oversight.
The deep rot in every governmental agency has been festering under Republican neglect for the past six years, and many of the patients are clinically dead.
Of course, the attempts to stanch the gangrenous atrophy will be called “overreach” and “partisan politcal witch hunts” by our noble commentariat and the dedicated gatekeepers of public information in the corporate media.
I hope the American public has the stomach to watch and not turn away in disgust.