I didn't have a chance to get to this the other day. Mukasey is headed for trouble as outlined by Chairman Waxman in this video. He warns the Attorney General of a Scheduled Contempt Vote over Cheney:

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Waxman; ...I have tried to investigate what really happened and the White House has resisted oversight every step of the way.

The committee's inquired has tried to penetrate the cloud surrounding VP Cheney's conduct. But today the President has asserted executive privilege and is withholding from the committee and the American people key evidence about the VP Cheney's actions. During our investigation we have learned that Mr. Libby told the FBI that it was possible that the Vice President instructed him to leak Miss Wilson's identity. That would be an extraordinary breach of trust. There is a key document that could explain what the VP knew and what he did. The report of the VP's interview with officials working from the FBI working for Mr. Fitzgerald. If there is one document that could pierce the cloud hanging over the VP, that is it.

Mr Mukasey decided that a different rule should apply to Republican Presidents than to Democratic Presidents.

The claim of executive privilege is ludicrous.

The President's actions have darkened the cloud over the VP and left important questions unanswered. As the committee considers its next steps, I hope the President and Vice President will also consider theirs. Congress and the American public are entitled to know what role the President and Vice President in the despicable outing of Miss. Wilson

AG Janet Reno provided this committee---the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and VP Gore a decade ago so what's the deal? Waxman is trying to find out what Cheney said to the FBI and is not too happy that Mukasey is blocking access to it. It sure looked like Scooter Libby was getting ready to hang Cheney out to dry unless Bush stepped in and gave him a get of jail card for free. Murray Waas wrote this great article about it a while ago:

Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says

Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report...read on

The Gavel: "Chairman Waxman writes Attorney General Mukasey that the Oversight Committee will vote to hold him in contempt unless the Attorney General produces a copy of the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney in the investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent."

Here's the pdf of the letter he wrote Mukasey.

Mr. Fitzgerald removed any doubt about this important point last week. He wrote the Committee that "there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews."

This should get real interesting soon.

“Scandal fatigue” can be common under the circumstances. After seven-and-a-half years of legal, moral, ethical, and political outrages, many of the scandals of the Bush/Cheney years start to blur together. Some are even forgotten, swept aside to make room for new, more offensive controversies.

It’s only natural, then, to shift the focus away from the White House and towards the campaign to pick the next president. I’m afraid, however, now isn’t a good time to stop watching the Bush gang — some of their bigger scandals are managing to look even worse.

The Bush administration today unveiled a set of novel and controversial legal arguments in refusing to disclose key details about Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

In two letters released Wednesday, the Justice Department revealed that, upon the recommendation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, President Bush had invoked executive privilege rather than turn over to Congress a never-released FBI report (known as a “302″) recounting a confidential 2004 interview with Cheney about his knowledge of the Plame affair.

The White House move effectively closes the door on the last chance for the public to learn answers to a swirl of questions that have surrounded Cheney’s actions from the outset of the Plame case.

Last year, Patrick Fitzgerald, pointing to Cheney’s conduct, told a jury, “[T]here is a cloud over what the vice president did.”

And yesterday, the White House and the Attorney General decided it’s better to keep that cloud in place than to cooperate with a congressional investigation and add facts to the public record.

Just how “novel and controversial” were the new legal arguments? Let’s put it this way: the Justice Department created privilege claims, out of thin air, that no one’s ever heard of before.

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The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn't on the table. On Wednesday's Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation.

As for Bush's executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney's role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress -- which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That's not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for:

"...This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey's confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they're going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won't. And Congress has a right to now say we're going back to doing this stuff ourselves." 

Perhaps Turdblossom got a little nervous that Democrats might actually locate their spines and charge him with inherent contempt and have him arrested? Video and more from Alternet:

Karl Rove was scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. He didn't show. Not only that, the Committee was told that Rove had left the country on a "long scheduled" trip.

In this video clip, Rep. Linda Sanchez explains that Rove never told them about any trip.

Sometimes, the irony is so overwhelming, I have to wonder if it’s some kind of satirical performance art, and I’m just not in on the joke. Consider this fascinating exchange between Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove on Fox News last night:

There are two key angles to this. First, the NYT article did, in fact, identify the CIA interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The article characterizes him as one of the good guys, gaining information through non-abusive means. Indeed, the interrogator, who refused training on how to waterboard a detainee, established a rapport with the terrorist — which “astonished his fellow C.I.A. officers” — by talking and bringing KSM food. The article, in other words, wasn’t a slam job.

So why include his name? It was a judgment call, but the Times explained that the interrogator “had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article.” Whether one finds this responsible or not is open to debate.

But for Karl Rove to have the chutzpah to lambaste the Times for this is extraordinary.

Scott McClellan has the right message on Scooter Libby: No pardon. (via Satyam)

Last year, asked about a possible Libby pardon, Bush said, "I rule nothing in and nothing out.”

I doubt the president will take McClellan's remarks to heart, but the former press secretary is right.

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Former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee this morning to answer questions about what he knew about, and his role in the treasonous outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame.

McClellan recognized the enormous damage the Plame scandal caused our country and government, and continued his calls for an end to the permanent campaign and scandal culture in Washington D.C.. He criticized President Bush for failing to work in a transparent, and honest manner for the American people, and the media for glorifying people who perpetuate partisan politics, rather than searching for the truth. I, as many others, take issue with his lack of candor back when these crimes were being perpetrated against our country, but at least he's there, in front of Congress and doing the right thing now. You can stream the hearings live on CSPAN's website.

Good morning Mr. Chairman, Congressman Smith, and members of the committee.

I am here today at your invitation to answer questions about what I know regarding the Valerie Plame episode. Back in 2005, I was prohibited from discussing it by the White House ostensibly because of the criminal investigation underway, but I made a commitment to share with the public what I knew as soon as possible. That commitment was one of the reasons I wrote my book.

Unfortunately, this matter continues to be investigated by Congress because of what the White House has chosen to conceal from the public. Despite assurances that the administration would discuss the matter once the Special Counsel had completed his work, the White House has sought to avoid public scrutiny and accountability.

The continuing cloud of suspicion over the White House is not something I can remove because I know only one part of the story. Only those who know the underlying truth can bring this to an end. Sadly, they remain silent.

The result has been an increase in suspicion and partisan warfare, and a perpetuation of Washington's scandal culture, one of three core factors that have poisoned the atmosphere in Washington for the past two decades. The central message in my book is the need to change the way Washington governs. We need to minimize the negative influence of the permanent campaign, end the scandal culture, and move beyond the philosophy of politics as war.

The rest of the transcript below the fold.

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Emptywheel makes the case that Scotty McClellan admitted as much this morning on the Today Show:

During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had--himself--authorized the selective leaking of the NIE. [...]

Thus far ... we only had Dick Cheney's word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn't have Bush's confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we've had Dick Cheney's claims that he--Dick--had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers.

But now we've got George Bush, confirming that he, the President of the United States, authorized the leaks of "this information."

Now, though Scottie refers, obliquely, to "this information," he explicitly refers only to the NIE. But as I've described over and over again, it's not just the NIE Bush authorized Dick to order Libby to leak. ...(more)

Do give the rest of it a read. You can watch the entire interview here on the MSNBC website.

Hopefully Keith Olbermann will follow up on this as McClellan is due to appear on tonight's Countdown.

Scott McClellan's new book called "What's Happening," is making heads of former and current BushCo. loyalists explode. I always enjoy that. Fran Townsend was on CNN this morning killing Scotty. Dan Bartlett joined Wolfie. Karl Rove was on H&C and says he's irresponsible in his behavior and compliments Scotty by saying he sounds like a left wing blogger. Thanks Karl, that's quite a compliment. You see, truth and honesty are now associated to left wing blogs and lying, distorting and Stepford like behavior is now what Conservative Republicans represent. He certainly is touchy about the Valerie Plame affair. He clams up about it because there's a civil lawsuit. OK, then why are you on our airwaves? He denies leaking the name of Valerie Plame too...

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather) At the end of the clip he says this...

Hannity: Why didn't he leave earlier?

Rove: Two things. First of all this doesn't sound like Scott, it really doesn't, not the Scott McClellan I known for a long time. Second of all, it sounds like somebody else, it sounds like a left wing blogger.

Karl Rove denies every charge leveled by Scott, including the famous photo of Bush looking at NOLA from his plane.

The administration is coming out full force on Scotty. On the Situation Room, Bartlett said this via CNN:

BLITZER: He writes this in the book about the president: "He and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war." Now he doesn't flatly say the president was lying to the American people, but that is the upshot.

BARTLETT: Well, I think this is the part that gives me the biggest concern about this book, because to give credibility to such an outrageous accusation that mostly was coming from the left wing of the Democratic Party is really disappointing.

And Billw wonders if Bush still stands by his man:

BUSH: It's going to be hard to replace Scott. But nevertheless, he's made the decision, and I accept it.

One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, "Job well done."

MCCLELLAN: Thank you, sir.

BUSH: You bet. Appreciate you.

The Liberal Media Myth....Hahaha...

It makes it way too easy for someone to document their crimes.

An internet agitprop artist publishing the website "Republican Offenders dot com" has produced a list of 272 Republicans charged with criminal activity, 60 of which are pedophiles. Each name is linked to a group heading of the type of crime alleged or convicted. (Among the categories are rape, bribery and "assorted felonies".)

The list really has to be seen to be appreciated.

Howard Dean his own self could not have thought the culture of corruption ran this wide and deep. h/t Contextual Criticism.

WTOP News:

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been disbarred.

In an order released by the D.C. Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel stripped Libby of his ability to practice law after he was found guilty last year of obstructing the investigation in the CIA leak investigation.

"When a member of the Bar is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude, disbarment is mandatory," reads the ruling, citing D.C. Code. Read on...

Luckily for old Scooter, he won't need a license to practice law to make the six or seven figure salary he's sure to procure in the near future. Wingnut welfare will see to it that he can maintain the lifestyle he enjoyed before he committed treason against his country and then lied to the feds.

Emails are circulating that Jason Leopold has apparently decided to leave Truthout to start his own site, BackgroundBriefing.org, sometime in the next few months. Truthout's Executive Director Marc Ash assured readers that Leopold's departure is in no way related to Leopold's reporting back in May of '06 that Karl Rove had been indicted and that he had tendered his resignation -- stories that every last one of us who waited so impatiently for Fitzmas remembers all too well -- stories that never panned out but Marc Ash asserts that Truthout "stood by the factual accuracy of our reports, and we stand by them now." While that's probably true enough as that all happened more than a year and a half ago, certainly that whole saga took a heavy toll on the organization ever since.

In Leopold's defense, perhaps we may yet find out someday that his sealed indictment story was right all along but it seems a safer bet that he was punked by Rove and Co., and in Jason's case, that sure wouldn't be the first time he tried to deliver the goods on a story bigger than most journos out there could handle and came out on the short end of the stick. I will say that there's something to be admired for even being willing to try to unravel one of the biggest corporate scandals of all-time and to come out so strongly against a venomous White House like he did, but there's also been a lot of harsh criticism of Leopold's work along the way: Two that stand out is this one in the Columbia Journalism Review and another in WaPo by Howie Kurtz, so it comes as quite a surprise (Nicole spotted it) that Howie apparently just last week decided to post a comment at the bottom of the year and a half old CJR article, blasting the author and defending Leopold's reporting, which he wrote "has since proved reliable and trustworthy."

That's quite an endorsement from a former critic-- if it's true that Howie Kurtz wrote it and it wasn't someone else posing as him in the comments. I'm just sayin', because if it was Howie, doesn't he owe Jason something in an article to that effect, and not just some buried comment on an ancient thread that seemingly goes against what he's previously said in print?

   CREW:

Very, very late last night, just before midnight, the Bush administration submitted a filing in CREW v. Executive Office of the President, our lawsuit challenging the failure of the White House to preserve and restore millions of missing emails. We first documented the massive loss of White House e-mails in our April 2007 report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act.

The latest filing from the Bush administration raises some very troubling questions that the White House clearly does not want to answer. (The filing from the White House and related documents can be found here.) This is how CREW's chief counsel, Anne Weismann, described the situation:

With this new filing, the White House has admitted that although it has long known about the missing emails, it did nothing to recover them, or discover how and why they went missing in the first place. The missing emails are important historical records that belong not to the Bush administration, but to the American people. As a result, the public deserves a full accounting and hopefully, now that the matter is before a federal court, we will get one.

The White House has now admitted that it does not have an effective system for storing and preserving emails. This is no mere technicality; it is this failure that led to the likely destruction of over 10 million email. What the White House has not explained is why it abandoned the electronic record-keeping system used by the prior administration -- a system that properly preserved White House email -- but did not replace it with another effective and appropriate system.

Anyone surprised that the time period for this ridiculous excuse of archiving was March 2003 to October 2003. Hmm....what could have been going on at that time? Oh, silly little things like initial invasion and occupation of Iraq, not to mention the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. Patrick Fitzgerald's inability to continue his investigation past Scooter Libby's obstruction and perjury charges suddenly seems far less confusing. Government Exec has more...

At various points in recent years, the Bush gang has used the legal proceedings to avoid responding to questions about this scandal.

Before Libby was charged, White House officials said they couldn't talk because there’s an ongoing criminal investigation. After Libby was charged, they said they couldn't talk because there’s an ongoing trial. After Libby was convicted, they said they couldn't talk because there was a civil suit. After the civil suit was thrown out of court, they couldn't talk because Libby's ruling was under appeal.

So, with Libby ending his appeals, they're out of excuses, right? Wrong.

Reporters tried again Monday, and White House press secretary Dana Perino said she would check. At the press "gaggle" yesterday, Perino was asked if she had "had a chance to talk with the president about the Scooter Libby case."

"I have not," she said, "but I did talk to our counsel's office because I forgot that there is a civil case that is pending on this issue. I did forget. The Wilsons have filed a case in civil court, it was dismissed, and they are on appeal."

Maybe someday, but we probably shouldn't count on it.

AP Via Yahoo:

A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has dropped his appeal in a perjury case that fueled debate over the Iraq war, his attorney said on Monday.

Libby was found guilty in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA officer,Valerie Plame, whose husband had criticized the Iraq war.

"We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," attorney Ted Wells said in a statement. "However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear."

High-powered allies like Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson raised millions of dollars to cover Libby's steep legal bills. Read on...

Jane at FDL thinks Scooter's looking for a Christmas miracle, Marcy reminds us that he's still a criminal and Jeralyn at Talk Left got an e-mail from Joe Wilson today. Is a full pardon for Scooter on the horizon? The Bush administration has said repeatedly they won't discuss Scooter because of the ongoing investigation, but rest assured, it will be a cold day in hell before they'll talk openly about their treason. I suspect we'll be hearing the term executive privilege or some such nonsense in short order. You can read Scooter's full statement here.