Henry Waxman noted the same thing that I did about Scottie McClellan's book. He noticed that Scottie McC's book sure came close to saying Dick Cheney and George Bush were personally involved in the outing of Valerie Wilson.

New revelations by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan raise additional questions about the actions of the President and the Vice President.  Mr. McClellan has stated that "[t]he President and Vice President directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby."  He has also asserted that "the top White House officials who knew the truth - including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney - allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie."  It would be a major breach of trust if the Vice President personally directed Mr. McClellan to mislead the public.

There's something disturbing in the Rules and By-Law Committee Meeting Materials handed out for Saturday's meeting: the distinct possibility that the RBC will overturn the results of MI's April 19 Convention, the only thing approaching a real exercise in democracy this year. It's the problem of how to assign uncommitted delegates as supporting Obama.

First, the document pretty much throws out the possibility of doing a 69-59 split, which is what MI recommended.

The Democratic Party's charter requires that the Party:

Establish standards and rules of procedure to afford all members of the Democratic Party full, timely and equal opportunities to participate in decisions concerning the selection of candidates, ... and further, to promote fair campaign practices and the fair adjudication of disputes. (Charter, Article I, Section 4)

Yet both the Democratic National Committee and the Michigan Democratic Party appear to be violating that requirement in their selection of which challenges to the MI Clusterfuck to hear at the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.

No no, not the bomb. Strictly a peaceful civil program, you understand, just like the Iranians say they're developing.

As Bush flew into Riyadh, the White House said the United  States, the world's largest energy consumer, had agreed to help  protect the resources of the world's top oil exporter and help  it in developing peaceful nuclear energy.

I just started a petition to collect the names of people who would like the MDP and the DNC to adopt my "Solomon's baby" solution for the seemingly intractable problem of how to seat MI's delegation.

What I'm about to write will probably get me bounced from local politics. But here goes--my suggestion for how you resolve the impasse over the MI delegates. It requires each campaign to lose a bit, still punishes Michigan for breaking DNC rules, but punishes those who were responsible, rather than the activists most critical to winning in November.

This is the current apportionment for the MI delegation:

Karl Rove has finally gone public with his cover story for his leak to Novak (transcripts here and here; my long-winded Rove debunk here). Don't you think it'd be nice if the "journalists" interviewing Rove would point out how closely Rove's story mirrors Libby's story ... the one a jury determined to be a deliberate and felonious lie?

Let's pretend, for a second that all the other reasons why the cries of "runaway prosecutor" from the Libby Lobby don't exist. Set aside the fact that the FBI and then Fitzgerald were investigating all leaks of Valerie Wilson's identity, not just those to Robert Novak. Set aside the fact that the 1X2X6 story (as well as the clear evidence of at least three leaks by October 12, 2003) didn't have the FBI looking for more than one leaker.

The claim that Fitzgerald should not have investigated beyond the the day when, on October 1, 2003, Armitage identified himself as the first source to Novak would still be wrong.

[Promoted from the Diaries - Meteor Blades]

Let me say straight out. Punishing Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence with censure would be like punishing Libby's obstruction of justice with just 400 hours of community service. It would simply reinforce the notion that Bush's Administration is above the law. It would be a punishment wholly unfit for the crime that has been committed: Obstruction of Justice. Bush's obstruction of justice piled up on top of Libby's obstruction of justice, all to prevent the American justice system from holding this Administration accountable for its actions.

The White House had a super-secret briefing yesterday in which they trotted out Fred Fielding, but then insisted he be referred to solely as a Senior Administration Official. Perhaps they insisted on the absurd background rules because they wanted to make Fred feel free to lie. And lie he did.

In the briefing, a journalist asked Fielding whether Bush's invocation of privilege meant that he was protecting deliberations he, personally, was involved in.

I wanted to call attention to the Michael Horowitz letter in support of leniency for Libby. Horowitz issues a thinly-veiled threat to retaliate if Libby has to do jail time.

Disposition of the Libby case will have much to do with whether the country will further and gravely descend into "us v. them" feelings of bitterness and contention. As the Bork case led inexorably to the Clinton impeachment, so can the case before the Court profoundly criminalize and poison the country's political process with calls for retribution on the part of many who will never believe--never--that Scooter merits criminal punishment or, God forbid, incarceration. It is an irony that Scooter would be the last to support such an embittering development, but the esteem in which he is held is such that any but the most Solomon-like disposition of his case could easily ensure this occurrence.

(From the diaries -- kos)

There is a mini-controversy brewing over whether the letters sent to Judge Walton, arguing that Libby shouldn't go to jail because he's too important, should be released to the public. You may think I'm joking. But Bill Jeffress is particularly worried about the letters getting released to you. To me. To bloggers.

Given the extraordinary media scrutiny here,  if any case presents the possibility that these letters, once released, would be published on the internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers, it is this case.

Though, it's not that I'm really the mocking type--except perhaps of high-priced lawyers who try to mock ordinary citizens watching over the judicial system.

There has been a bit of discussion about the Comey hospital story. Why would Gonzales and Card get Ashcroft's signature to authorize their domestic spying program? Any idiot who knew about Ashcroft's gallbladder surgery wouldn't accept his signature, on March 10, as valid. Is it possible they intended to backdate the signature? Nahhh! Gonzales wouldn't do that, would he?

Yes he would.

Yesterday's document dump includes the Control Sheet for Tim Griffin's appointment. The control sheet makes it very clear: Alberto Gonzales signed the appointment on December 18 ... but it was dated December 15.

Earlier this week, I mapped out all of the leaks used by Brent Wilkes' lawyer, Mark Geragos, to support his attempts to get Wilkes' indictment thrown out as improper. But there's one leak of particular concern--one which Geragos used to support his claim that Carol Lam had bypassed normal DOJ oversight when she brought the indictment. Geragos says that Main Justice told at least one reporter about its inability to exercise normal supervision of the Wilkes indictment. But if you look at the timeline, it is clear that the USA Purge investigation--and not any press leaks--were the only thing preventing DOJ from being as involved in the Wilkes indictment as they might like.

As Paul Kiel notes, one of the pieces of news from today's hearing is that James Comey asked two different USAs to resign. Comey didn't say who he had to fire. But it's clear that one of those USAs is former Maryland USA Thomas DiBiagio (DiBiagio resigned December 3, 2004, so he's the guy who resigned under Ashcroft). In an article earlier this year, David Margolis confirmed that DiBiagio was asked to step down.

In my post examining who BushCo has replaced the fired USAs with on the Native American Issues Subcommittee, I pointed out that DOJ decided to hide a salient fact about CO's USA Troy Eid's background. His DOJ bio reads:

Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig in 2003, Troy served for five years on the Cabinet of Colorado Governor Bill Owens.

And here's the new one, helpfully titled "eid_bio_new":

Returning to law practice in 2003, Troy was a partner in the Denver office of a national law firm, focusing on environmental, energy, technology, and federal Indian law, and was rated as one of America's best business attorneys by CHAMBERS USA.

There was an important part of the Gonzales hearing yesterday that was kind of confusing, so I wanted to unpack it here. It appears that Senator Whitehouse believes Gonzales tried to bury DOJ's internal investigation into the USA Purge.

Towards the end of the hearing, Whitehouse started schooling Gonzales on the appropriate office to conduct an internal investigation, Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) or Office of the Inspector General (OIG). What appears to have happened is that, as part of his attempt to claim to be trying to get to the bottom of the USA scandal, Gonzales ordered the OPR to conduct an investigation. Then, the OIG started an investigation on its  own accord. Only after an acting Chief of Staff (and note--this is Chuck Rosenberg and not Kevin O'Connor, whom Gonzales has since picked to be his real COS) suggested OIG investigate the firings did Gonzales think of encouraging the OIG to do an investigation. But at that point, OIG was already investigating on their own accord. So the question Whitehouse wants to ask is why Gonzales chose OPR and not OIG to conduct the internal investigation.

Josh Marshall notes a passage in a BoGlo article that suggests the politicization of the DOJ started before Kyle Sampson's suggestions to fire all the USAs in 2005. In fact, John Ashcroft changed hiring practices so as to make it easier to politicize hiring in 2002:

Their path to employment was further eased in late 2002, when John Ashcroft, then attorney general, changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.

Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.

2002 ... 2002 ... What happened in 2002? Well, for starters, that's when Monica Goodling came over to DOJ with Barbara Comstock: