Morris attacked Obama's DOJ choices with falsehood
SUMMARY: Summary: Dick Morris used a falsehood to attack President-elect Barack Obama's choices for positions at the Department of Justice, asserting that Eric Holder "approved of the Clinton/Reno 'wall' preventing intelligence from finding out what criminal investigators had found out." However, the so-called "wall" policy was established well before President Clinton took office and was retained by the Bush administration prior to September 11, 2001.
In a January 9 column, Dick Morris launched attacks based on a falsehood against President-elect Barack Obama's choices for positions at the Department of Justice. Morris asserted that Obama's choice for attorney general, Eric Holder, "approved of the Clinton/Reno 'wall' preventing intelligence from finding out what criminal investigators had found out." But it is not a "Clinton/Reno 'wall.' " In fact, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, the so-called "wall" policy was established well before President Clinton took office and was retained by the Bush administration prior to September 11, 2001.
Morris also claimed that "without warrantless FISA wiretaps," which Morris claimed Obama's Justice Department appointees would have blocked, "we could never have uncovered the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge." However, contrary to Morris' claim, some officials with direct knowledge of the case have reportedly said wiretaps conducted under the the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretap program -- which were in fact in defiance of FISA as then written and not "FISA wiretaps," as Morris claims -- did not play a significant role in the capture of Iyman Faris, who pleaded guilty in the case.
In addition, Morris stated that Dawn Johnsen, Obama's choice to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), "called the legal reasoning that gave the president broad powers to authorize 'rough' interrogation of terrorists 'shockingly flawed ... bogus ... outlandish.' She said it allowed 'horrific acts' and demanded to know, 'Where is the outrage? The public outcry?' " Morris added: "This is the person who will decide how to interrogate terrorists. If she errs on the side of weakening methods of questioning, there's no chance her boss, Eric Holder, the new attorney general, will reverse her." However, Morris did not note that the Bush administration has withdrawn the March 2003 OLC opinion to which Johnsen was referring.
Additionally, Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, who withdrew that opinion during his tenure as head of the OLC, wrote in his book The Terror Presidency (W.W. Norton & Co., 2007) that "OLC's analysis of the law of torture in the August 1, 2002, opinion and the March 2003 opinion was legally flawed, tendentious in substance and tone, and overbroad and thus largely unnecessary" [page 151].
From Morris's January 9 column:
President-elect Obama's new head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen, called the legal reasoning that gave the president broad powers to authorize "rough" interrogation of terrorists "shockingly flawed ... bogus ... outlandish." She said it allowed "horrific acts" and demanded to know, "Where is the outrage? The public outcry?"
This is the person who will decide how to interrogate terrorists. If she errs on the side of weakening methods of questioning, there's no chance her boss, Eric Holder, the new attorney general, will reverse her. He approved of the Clinton/Reno "wall" preventing intelligence from finding out what criminal investigators had found out and took the lead in pardoning the FALN terrorists.
What is Obama thinking? How could he weaken so dramatically our protections against terrorism? Doesn't he realize that without warrantless FISA wiretaps, we could never have uncovered the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge (how could we have gotten a warrant for conversations about the bridge when we didn't yet know that al Qaeda had it in its sights?)? Has he forgotten that we only found the name of the operative who was tasked with destroying the bridge because we subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, to "rough" interrogation techniques? Does he really mean to leave us vulnerable to terrorist attacks?
Yes, he does. Not because he is callous or fiendish, but because the new president seems to carry the thinking that animated the decisions of the Warren Court on defendants' rights over into the battle against terror. When the Warren Court first ruled that all defendants deserved free lawyers, that they had to be explicitly told of their right to remain silent, that evidence not obtained through warrants was inadmissible -- as were any "fruits of the poisonous tree" -- it occasioned great controversy (enough to help Nixon get elected president). Law-and-order types said that these decisions would lead to the release of thousands of criminals who would otherwise be in prison and would cause tens or hundreds of thousands more innocent people to become victims of serious crime. And they were right. The decisions of the Warren Court had exactly this effect.
But we have come to feel that these new procedural safeguards established by the court are fair and reasonable, even if it does result in more homicide victims and unsolved rapes. Unquestionably, the Warren Court decisions put American lives in danger. But we accepted that as the price for honoring our Constitution.
[Sung to the tune of Love and Marriage]
Let me see, this is the guy who philandered while his wife was taking chemo treatments for her cancer, and just why is it that he has any moral authority to lecture anyone on behavior.?? This guy is a Republican stooge and anyone who pays attention to him also is no doubt a Republican schill.
Apparently Dick Morris found something really nasty in his oatmeal - as he seems to have every morning in the past few years - too bad to see his talent and energy wasted . . . futile and toxic. Sad.
I suppose anyone who accepts that string of whoppers will not choke on the last assertion that....
hundreds of thousands more innocent people to become victims of serious crime. And they were right. The decisions of the Warren Court had exactly this effect.
That nasty nasty Constitution that protects even the rights of criminals. How awful.
Falling into the false framing. The Warren Court's decisions do not protect the rights of criminals, they protect the rights of the accused. There is a very significant difference between the two and the right loves to blur that line.
Isn't Dick the guy who wrote Primary Colors and published it under Anonymous because anyone who crossed the Clinton's was risking his life? Why isn't he dead yet?
No, that was Joe Klein.
Dick Morris, toe sucking 'ho chaser and serial adulterer, is a perfect fir for Fixed News. If anyone gives an ounce of credibility to anything this clown says, they are seriously deluded.
Nah they are Faux news consumers!
-- it is not a "Clinton/Reno 'wall.' "...the so-called "wall" policy was established well before President Clinton took office... -- mmfa
So cute...but a real strawman.
-- Mr. Ashcroft pointed out that the wall was raised even higher in the mid-1990s, in the midst of what was then one of the most important antiterror investigations in American history--into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing... -- wsj
-- "We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions...These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation" -- Gorelick/wsj
-- July 19, 1995, memo...In it, the then-Attorney General instructs all U.S. Attorneys about avoiding "the appearance" of overlap between intelligence-related activities and law-enforcement operations. -- wsj
Now that's a real strawman.
In what respect? What were the intelligence and law enforcement communities doing that change when the "wall" was "enacted"?
"in the midst of what was then one of the most important antiterror investigations in american history--into the 1993 world trade center bombing..."
and this is what the 9-11 commission said about that investigation, page 72 of the 9-11 report: "the fbi and the justice department did excellent work investigating the bombing". "as a result of the investigations and arrests, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york prosecuted and convicted multiple individuals..for crimes related to the world trade center bombing and other plots".
page 100: "in february [1995], he [clinton] sent congress proposals to extend federal criminal jurisdiction, to make it easier to deport terrorists, and to act against terrorist fund-raising. in early may, he submitted a bundle of strong amendments".
and bush? well, guess i'll go clear some brush. to hell with that warning of an attack. i won't ask any questions or issue any directives. the "wall" was between bush and anyone, like richard clarke, who was issuing dire warnings of a huge attack. and after the attack? as the head of the cia unit tracking bin laden at tora bora noted a few weeks ago on 60 minutes, every plan that his unit thought had a chance of catching him and was submitted for approval was shot down in washington. all the revisionist history does not change the record.
Was this the plot to cut the cables with a torch?
Concerning the Brooklyn Bridge plot: 1) Success was highly improbable; 2) Iyman Faris, the first suspect arrested in the plot, was questioned immediately following 9/11 because of his travels to and from Pakistan and Afghanistan and either having or trying to obtain a hazmat driver's license; 3) Faris was kept under completely legal surveillance for close to a year before being arrested; 4) KSM provided no new info about Faris to the FBI, he merely corroborated what they already knew.
Yeah, extralegal powers sure were necessary in that case.
1. When is Bill Clinton going to be praised by the right wing, or anyone else, for keeping us safe from terrorism for a period LONGER than Bush- from February 1993 to the time he left office?
2. When is Bill Clinton going to receive credit for rounding up the WTC bombers and getting them sent off to jail?
3. When is the right wing going to stop telling us that Bush kept us safe from another terrorist attack, since he clearly didn't-- I remember 9/11. That was the second attack. The first was February 1993. His JOB was to protect us from another attack. He didn't.
4. When is someone going to point out that maybe the reason we have not been hit since 9/11 is because the terrorists no longer need to travel thousands of miles to kill Americans, now that we are camped in their own backyards?
Geez. The Dick criticizing the Clintons and/or people affiliated with them. How shocking. How terribly shocking.
At some point, this guy has to get a life,