Confessing Their Sins

by mcjoan [at Daily Kos]

Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:32:02 PM PDT

"We have to address the fact that the president has broken the law." -- Senator Russ Feingold

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary committee yesterday, Attorney General Gonzales provided a "clarification" of his previous testimony in which he admitted that, from the very beginning, the President as King theory upon which this administration operates has guided the President's actions. He confirmed that the President has been acting as though the Constitution allows him to break the law.

In his letter, Gonzales revisited earlier testimony, during which he said the administration immediately viewed a congressional vote in September 2001 to authorize the use of military force against al-Qaeda as justification for the NSA surveillance program. Bush secretly began the program in October 2001, Gonzales's letter said.

On Feb. 6, Gonzales testified that the Justice Department considered the use-of-force vote as a legal green light for the wiretapping "before the program actually commenced."

But in yesterday's letter, he wrote, "these statements may give the misimpression that the Department's legal analysis has been static over time."

Fein said the letter seems to suggest that the Justice Department actually embraced the use-of-force argument some time later, prompting Gonzales to write that the legal justification "has evolved over time."

One government source who has been briefed on the issue confirmed yesterday that the administration believed from the beginning that the president had the constitutional authority to order the eavesdropping, and only more recently added the force resolution argument as a legal justification. [emphasis mine]

Let me repeat. The administration believed from the beginning that the president had the constitutional authority to violate FISA. The administration believed from the beginning that it was above the law and because they believed the President was above the law, the President BROKE the law. All of these "evolving" legal justifications for the illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens have been nothing more than diversions, window-dressing to make us think that the administration FELT like it had to provide justification for it's illegal actions. Whether he intended it or not, Gonzales just admitted that, from the very beginning, the President has operated as King.

Before the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees even consider revising FISA, they need to address the fact that the President of the United States is an admitted criminal.

-Taken from DailyKos