It depends on what the meaning of ‘abuse’ is

July 11, 2007

Yesterday, the WaPo had quite a damaging scoop about our embattled Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. In 2005, the FBI prepared a series of reports for Gonzales, detailing multiple instances in which the agency illegally obtained personal information about Americans that agents were not entitled to have. Six days later, Gonzales testified to a Senate committee that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. “There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,” Gonzales told senators.

It led to a straightforward proposition: either Gonzales read these reports and lied to the Senate, or he blew off reports about serious widespread FBI abuses.

Gonzales’s fate looked slightly worse when the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and the Assistant Attorney General for National Security both said that Gonzales had been briefed directly on the FBI’s “mistakes” and “violations.”

So, that’s it, right? Gonzales knew about the FBI problems, but told senators that there wasn’t a single verified case of abuse. Point, set, match? Game over?

No, Gonzales’ office has a new spin to rationalize all of this.

[Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth L. Wainstein] defended the 2005 statement by Gonzales that he was unaware of civil liberties abuses related to the government’s counterterrorism effort. Wainstein cited what he described as a dictionary definition of “abuse” in defending Gonzales’s remark. […]

Wainstein said Gonzales was saying only that there had been no intentional acts of misconduct, rather than the sorts of mistakes the FBI was self-disclosing. “That is why I cited the definition of ‘abuse,’ which in Webster’s . . . implies some sort of intentional conduct. And I think that is sort of the common understanding of the word ‘abuse,’ ” Wainstein said.

Got that? Those weren’t abuses; they were just instances in which FBI agents illegally obtained personal information about Americans that they were not entitled to have. Since the FBI didn’t mean to repeatedly violate the law, it’d be silly to characterize these as “abuses.” Therefore, logically, Gonzales was completely honest and forthcoming.

Somebody please just make these people go away.

For what it’s worth, Dems on the Hill, believe it or not, aren’t persuaded by the DoJ’s argument.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) noted that Gonzales said in a written statement last week that he first became aware of problems with the FBI’s use of a tool known as a “national security letter” earlier this year. Copies of the FBI reports sent to Gonzales in 2005 and 2006 described several problems with the letters, which allow agents to secretly collect Americans’ phone, computer and bank records without a court order or grand jury subpoena.

“This inconsistency is a disturbing addition to a growing list of misleading answers by the attorney general to questions from the Judiciary Committee, and it is unacceptable,” Leahy said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil liberties, said Gonzales should resign and a special prosecutor should be appointed. “Attorney General Gonzales has shown an apparent reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress,” Nadler said.

Stay tuned.

“This inconsistency is a disturbing addition to a growing list of misleading answers by the attorney general to questions from the Judiciary Committee, and it is unacceptable,” Leahy said.

This mush-mouth legalese statement personifies all that is wrong with the Dems: They refuse to call a lie a lie. Until they are ready to do that AND do something about it “these people” cannot be made to go away

  • This one can go away. It is called impeachment. Let the GOP Senators vote against conviction. On the heels of everything that has happened these past few years, and as the GOP abuses and of power, lies, and hypocrisy come ever clearer, their failure to support impeachment would be one last huge dagger in the GOP for 2008 and possibly beyond. The Dems have enough on this guy to impeach and convict now. Time to move, and to set the table for a potential run at Cheney.

  • Gonzales’s fate looked slightly worse when the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and the Assistant Attorney General for National Security both said that Gonzales had been briefed directly on the FBI’s “mistakes” and “violations.”

    Maybe his position, but hardly his fate.

    I really think Alberto needs a close encounter in a dark alley with some ruthless thugs. The last thing they should say to him, as they move away after making it clear they mean business, is: “Next time we slice off your balls, bozo!”

  • Um, Ms. Pelosi,

    If lying to Congress isn’t grounds for forcible dismissal of our AG? Would horrifyingly gross negligence do the trick?

    Is there anything that would make you pull the trigger, Ms. Speaker? He seems to have done everything, just tell us what we need to show you. We’ll start looking.

  • As much as I would like to see Cheney and Bush impeached, I agree with those who say it’s a bad idea right now.

    But why isn’t Gonzales being impeached? There is a picture of him in the dictionary next to “malfeasance.”

  • Perhaps using the word “crimes” would help the Attorney General understand the issue.

    Personally, I think the clarity of national dialog would improve if we called things what they are. For example, “misspoke” makes sense when replaced with “lied.”

  • Jerry Nadler sez: “Attorney General Gonzales has shown an apparent reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress,”

    The hell you say… Apparent? Apparent!!? APPARENT?!!!?!?

    Everytime Gonzo’s opened his trap, he’s shown “reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress.”

    Stop being polite about it for shit’s sake. Gonzo did and there’s no pussyfooting about it. Might as well just be direct and blunt and hammer (figuratively and literally) the SOB to the wall.

  • “Next time we slice off your balls, bozo!” – #3

    Problem is he doesn’t have any. That explains his (and a surprising number of conservatives’) falsetto.

  • Steve, you have to give John Solomon credit. Solid investigative reporting, and from the Washington Post! Two great investigations in the past thirty days (the Cheney articles and now this). Of course, they’re six years late and hundreds of billions of dollars short but hey, who needed Constitutional government anyway?

  • I’d be happy to teach Mob Lieutenant Gonzales the meaning of the word “abuse.” And he’d never have a problem recalling the lesson.

  • Washington appears to be full of idiots who don’t bother to read important papers. Just look at Hillary with the NIE and Gonzales with this FBI report (assuming that he’s telling the truth in the first place).

  • Somebody please just make these people go away.

    It’s like the body politic was infected with a herpes like virus sometime in the late 60’s called the modern GOP. There asymptomatic periods, but every now and then it flares up. Stress such a terrorist attack seems to one fact or these flare ups. According to the latest tests, i.e. polls, it appears that the immune system of the may finally be pushing the virus back into remission.

  • Perhaps, next time I get stopped for speeding, I can say that I didn’t intend to speed, I just didn’t look at the speedometer, or notice that I was passing by all the other cars.

    Tell ‘the judge’ to “tell it to the judge, buddy.”

  • As long as “Impeachment is not on the table”, Little G’s Felony Squad will continue to push the envelope – treasonous and criminal – until what remains of our system of checks and balances has been completely destroyed.

    Ironically, when the next president (Democratic) takes office Republicans will be frantically attempting to shove the “Unitary Executive” Genii back into the lamp.

    Good Luck with THAT!

  • “Ironically, when the next president (Democratic) takes office Republicans will be frantically attempting to shove the “Unitary Executive” Genii back into the lamp.”

    Which is why I sort of wish the Dems would push some of these things and force the matter to the courts, and the Supreme Court. Let the Court make the calls now. SCOTUS can choose to support the administration’s current positions relative to unitary executive, guaranteeing these powers to the next Dem administration, or it can do what most would think is right and smack down Cheney and his kind once and for all.

  • Wainstein said Gonzales was saying only that there had been no intentional acts of misconduct, rather than the sorts of mistakes the FBI was self-disclosing. “That is why I cited the definition of ‘abuse,’ which in Webster’s . . . implies some sort of intentional conduct. And I think that is sort of the common understanding of the word ‘abuse,’ ” Wainstein said.

    Really? Seriously? LMAO. I’m not a lawyer, but come on, this is Rule 3 of arguing on the Internet*: citing the dictionary definition of a term is futile at best, and usually little more than using pedantry to forestall a loss.

    * Rule 1 being Godwin’s Law, and Rule 2 being the popular interpretation of Godwin’s Law and whichever of the variations on it is your favorite and all that.

  • That’s not so much spin as limping in a circle before falling over. Every definition of abuse I find includes “improper use.” Was it proper for the Feeb to collect that information? No? Then it was abuse.

    So. Wankstain wants us to believe that Gonzales was using exceedingly precise language when he said there was no “abuse,” but he didn’t see fit to clarify that he was using this exact meaning and, since it wasn’t (in his mind) abuse, he didn’t see fit to share what he didfind.

    Yeah. The only way this makes sense is if they’re trying to make Leahy laugh so hard he dies.

    I say we lock these buffoons a room full of bludgeon wielding English teachers and go have a drink.

  • So you don’t like my definition of “abuse”? So, OK, define “verified”. Maybe there was some abuse. But I don’t remember ever verifying it. That’s to the best of my recollection.
    Gonzo.

  • What we really need about now is a “Martha Mitchel” Gonzales. Is AG married?

    • Comments are closed.