FACTS:
- Deputy Attorney General James Comey — who appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald to investigate the CIA leak case — is leaving the Justice Dept. for a private sector job.
- Pres. Bush has nominated Timothy Flanigan, senior vice president and general counsel of Tyco International, to replace Comey.
- “[T]he only control Fitzgerald’s Justice handler [Comey, then his successor] has is to fire him,” (WSJ July 29, 2005 Washington Wire, sub.)
MY QUESTIONS: Why is Comey leaving, and how would Flanigan’s controversial appointment affect the leak case?
I haven’t been able to find so much as a hint that Comey is leaving Justice because his December 2003 appointment of Fitzgerald — a longtime friend and co-worker (WSJ, sub.) in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office — rankled the Bush administration.
BELOW, the controversy over Bush’s appointment of Timothy Flanigan, and why Sen. Arlan Specter, Sen. Judiciary chair, may not support Flanigan:
Deputy Attorney General James Comey — appointed by the Bush White House to be second in charge at Justice — was given authority over the CIA leak case because, as John Dean pointed out in a January 2004 Salon article, Ashcroft had to recuse himself.
The new head of the investigation, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is a high-profile, well-respected U.S. attorney whoa runs one of the more important offices in the country, Chicago’s. Fitzgerald is also a close friend of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who announced his appointment. It seems unlikely that Fitzgerald was brought in merely to kill the case.
The WSJ reports today on the close relationship between Comey and Fitzgerald:
By December [2003], the White House had picked James Comey, then the Manhattan U.S. attorney, to be the No. 2 official at the Justice Department. Three weeks later, he turned to Mr. Fitzgerald, a close friend and career prosecutor, to be special counsel in charge of the leak investigation. The two men had worked together in the 1990s in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. The Times heralded the appointment, saying in a Dec. 31, 2003, editorial that Mr. Fitzgerald needed “true operational independence.”
Dean pointed out in the 2004 Salon piece that the appointment of Fitzgerald gave new life to the case:
On Dec. 30, Deputy Attorney General Comey held a press conference to announce that Ashcroft had removed himself from the investigation. Comey said that the investigation would instead be headed by Fitzgerald. Of note to me was Comey’s comment that “this has come together really in the last week” — meaning, apparently, the week of Dec. 22-26 — the Christmas holiday week during which the FBI raised the prospect of a grand jury.
As Comey explained, given Fitzgerald’s U.S. attorney status — which will be continuing concurrent with his “special counsel” status — there will be no interruption in the investigation. Comey noted that if Fitzgerald “needs to issue a subpoena involving the media, for example, or if he wants to grant immunity to somebody,” he will not have to obtain approval of the Justice Department. (The reference to the media certainly hints at subpoenaing Novak’s phone records or calling him before the grand jury — again suggesting progress in the inquiry.)
So we know that Comey, a White House appointee acting because Ashcroft couldn’t, appointed Fitzgerald. Ashcroft resigns, and Alberto Gonzales becomes U.S. Attorney General. Comey is now departing for the private sector, and Bush has now nominated a Tyco corporate attorney to replace him.
The concerns about Timothy Flanigan extend far beyond his ties to Tyco. Flanigan, a member of the Federalist Society, was involved in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, as Molly Ivins points out in her July 28 column about SCOTUS nominee John Roberts:
Other Federalists, Timothy Flanigan (who’s now in confirmation hearings for deputy attorney general) and Ted Olson (who became solicitor general of the United States) signed onto the brief to convince the Supremes to stop the count in Florida and install Bush.
Andrew Zajac of the Chicago Tribune writes — in a story picked up by Pennsylvania’s Timesleader.com via the KRT wire — that Flanigan was also involved in the infamous “torture memos”:
Timothy Flanigan, President Bush’s nominee to be deputy attorney general, has repeatedly found himself in pitched political and ideological battles, including the court fight over the disputed Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election, and the crafting of White House memos that justified torture of alleged terrorists.
His involvement with those memos while serving as deputy White House counsel following the Sept. 11 attacks almost certainly will draw questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is slated to hold a hearing on his nomination Tuesday afternoon.
Then there is Flanigan’s involvement, Zajak finds, with Jack Abramoff:
In his current position as senior vice president and general counsel of Tyco International, Flanigan oversaw the work of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who is the subject of at least two congressional investigations and a Justice Department inquiry and is alleged to have bilked millions of dollars from six Indian tribes.
Specter is worried (Newsday, July 28):
A peeved Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has hinted he might not support President George W. Bush’s choice to serve as No. 2 man at the Justice Department if the nominee isn’t more willing to allow lawmakers to look over his shoulder.
Specter (R-Pa.) said Tuesday that his backing for Timothy Flanigan, a former deputy White House counsel, would depend on his “understanding of oversight” as explained in written questions from the committee.
It’s too early to tell if Specter’s pique will jeopardize Flanigan’s confirmation as deputy attorney general.
AGAIN, MY QUESTIONS: Why is Comey leaving, and how would Flanigan’s controversial appointment affect the leak case?
Fitzgerald has considerable power. But his friend at Justice is gone. What will that do to his investigation?
manipulation of corporate funds by a stupid greedy CEO. I am driven to the conclusion that we do not have a conservative or liberal media – we have a corporate media. I am now being driven to the conclusion that we do not have a dem or repub congress – we have a corporate owned congress. Some Dems and all repubs alike are owned. They owe us nothing – not allegiance – nothing.
While Flanigan’s work while at Tyco with Jack Abramoff is certainly worthy of further inquiry, any association with the “stupid greedy CEO” of Tyco, Dennis Kozlowski (stories here and here), is misplaced. Kozlowski resigned from Tyco in early June 2002, just prior to his indictment. Flanigan came in to work with the new management at the company in November 2002. It’s also worth noting that his position at Tyco was “General Counsel, Corporate and International Law. . . . Mr. Flanigan will be responsible for corporate and international legal functions for Tyco, including corporate governance and compliance programs. He will report to Tyco General Counsel William B. Lytton.” (press release) As such, he wasn’t even the top legal officer of the company.
Fitzgerald has subpoena power, and as a Justice career man he likely has better access to information within the department than the political appointees. So they can’t obstruct him, they can only fire him. And only Gonzales can do that.
That would be a politically costly action for Gonzales, particularly as so many reports indicate he had knowledge of the CIA White House memo showing Plame’s covert status.
I think if they want to get at Fitzgerald, they’re going to have to go a more underhanded route.
What’s more politically costly: Firing Fitzgerald or allowing Fitzgerald to continue,(assuming he’s on the level) and bringing indictments to Dick Cheney and or Karl Rove.
Obviously they are going to fire him. It’s a good solution from their point of view.
Most of the American public is not really aware of what’s going on with all this. It would work from their standpoint.
If people are so passive as to allow this war and all that goes with it (Plame) what makes you think they won’t fire Fitzgerald?
I have been very worried about Fitzgerald’s health. I was worried unbeknownst to us he might be suffering from severe depression and attempt suicide.
What in the HELL?
It was snark. As in other times and places where people who were causing unwanted attention in the system sudden committed suicid.
Flanigan gets in and fires Fitzgerald.
If this reaches to Cheney or Bush you can bet they’ll pull a massacre of Fitz. And probably get away with it since there is no independent Congress to hold their feet to the fire.
I believe Fitzgeralds’s initial term as special prosecutor expires in October, more or less at the same time as the expiration of the current grand jury. At that time, he could be reauthorized for another stint if he hadn’t wrapped up his case, and this is where the Flanigan appointment to replace Comey could be used by the Bush regime as a vehicle for shutting the whole thing down.
As to why Comey is leaving, that’s anyone’s guess. I doubt the devious fool Gonzales is much liked by his subordinates, and perhaps Comey feels that as the second Bush term continues, things will be getting much worse, and so he may simply want to depart before he runs the risk of having his own reputation sullied just because he remained a part of the Bush machine.
Just to set the record straight, James Comey announced his departure from the DoJ back on April 20, not just recently. I don’t see any reason to believe that his departure is really motivated by anything more than a desire to trade up from his current government salary to one several multiples higher in the private legal community. A story published in Legal Times from shortly after last November’s election strongly suggested that Comey was expected to be heavily recruited by the private sector if he failed to garner the nomination as Attorney General. In other words, this has all been foreseen for quite some time.
That’s good to know. I’d missed the reports at the time. Hopefully such facts will help prevent random speculation from being assumed to be truth.
for our older members that can remember Watergate and the Nixon administration better than us youngins.
Before Watergate broke, how well known were Haldeman and Erlichman? How did their fame compare to Rove and Libby?
Are YOU asking me what did I know and when did I know it?
For SURE. Because of the VIETNAM WAR! Big time!
.
Controversial appointments so far as advisors were not under Congressional oversight. The main media attention was the limited access to the president and therefore the three advisors wielded a lot of power. This even frustrated National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, which is well documented. The media attention from 1968-1972 was the Vietnam War, not internal White House politics.
Ping-pong Diplomacy – A Breakthrough 1972
The Nixon advisors were less well known because of this, which changed very abruptly of course after the Watergate burglary. The link to earlier administrations was through the CIA henchmen, the plumbers who performed the burglary. These men had connections to the CIA covert actions against Cuba of Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban exiles in Florida and New Orleans, with connection to the activities of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Important difference, Rove and Libby as well as many cabinet members of Bush #43 are vets of Reagan and Bush #41. A Republican administration of 12 years, and in realty 20 years when you include the Nixon years: 1968-1976 and 1980-1992.
GW Bush – Gannon & JFK ¶ SBVT 2004 ◊ by creve coeur
~~~
June 23, 1972 – President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation in 1974.)
Apr 30, 1973 – President Nixon announced the resignations of top aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, along with Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean.
Mar 01, 1974 – A federal grand jury indicted seven men, including Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and White House special counsel Charles Colson, for conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Jul 12, 1974 – John Ehrlichman, an ex-aide to President Nixon, and three others were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist.
Jul 30, 1974 – 1. One of the President Nixon’s main men, John Erlichman was sentenced to prison for his role in the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Ellsberg was the Pentagon consultant who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” (which purportedly told Americans how and why the US really got into the Vietnam War). Ehrlichman also created the White House unit that was called the `plumbers’ because it was intended to plug leaks.
Oct 01, 1974 – Five Nixon aides–Kenneth Parkinson, Robert Mardian, Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell–go on trial for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. Ref: 2
Oct 03, 1974 Watergate trial begins. Ref: 5
Jan 01, 1975 – Ex-Atty. Gen. Mitchell, Halderman and Ehrlichman are convicted on cover-up charges relating to Watergate break-in Ref: 62
Feb 21, 1975 – John Mitchell, H R Haldeman & John D Ehrlichman sentenced to 2½-8 years.
As OUI notes – almost completely unknown except in and around D.C.
Haldeman and Erlichman had almost no name recognition at all until the Watergate coverup started to unravel. Besides, the main news hog, the principle media hungry face in the Nixon regime was the odious Kissinger, and he wanted as much of the attention as he could get, eclipsing almost everyone else, often times even upstaging “Tyrannosaurus Nix” himself.
Comey’s confirmation hearing before Senate Judiciary in October 2003.
Guess what the primary topic was? Schumer leads off.
this from CNN on July 20, 2005:
Later comes the explanation for the cancellation:
I’m not a conspiracy guy, but it seems a little odd that Comey got out of testifying, and being questioned under oath, because the Bush administration needed him elsewhere. And now, about a week later, he’s leaving altogether?
I’m pretty tired, if none of this makes sense, please ignore.
Comey’s announcement of Ashcroft’s recusal, and appointment of Fitzgerald:
When I read that, I realized that it describes Pat Fitzgerald perfectly. I once told a Chicago newspaper that Pat Fitzgerald was Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree and a sense of humor. Anyone who knows him, who knows his work, who knows his background, knows that he is the perfect man for this job.
Fitz isn’t going anywhere until the job’s done. The rest of the press conference is a good read. He’s truly an Untouchable.
Oops. NOT untouchable:
MR. COMEY: That’s a great question. (Laughter.) Now I believe that I could revoke the delegation of authority that I’ve given to him. I don’t believe that I could —