Intelligence speculation

A few days ago I speculated that Gonzales may have actually been telling the truth before the Senate Judiciary Committee and that there may well be (or have been) some undisclosed domestic surveillance program that caused the clash between Gonzales and Card on the one hand and John Ashcroft on the other.

Since then I've basically disavowed that speculation, concluding instead that Gonzales is referring to some  controversial aspect of the TSP and calling it "other intelligence activities". Interestingly, though, instead of defending Gonzales obliquely, or throwing him under the bus, the White House is suggesting very strongly that the Attorney General's statement was correct down to the letter and that, yes, there is in fact another surveillance program:

The White House offered a vigorous defense of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales today, insisting that he had not given misleading testimony to Congress, but that national security factors prevented further clarification for now.      

“He has testified truthfully and tried to be very accurate,” the chief White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said of Mr. Gonzales’s testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Snow said repeatedly that Mr. Gonzales had not been contradicted by Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, as has been widely reported, on whether there were serious disagreements within the Bush administration on its secret surveillance program.

Mr. Snow said, in effect, that Mr. Gonzales had been constrained in what he could say because there was a danger he would divulge classified material. “I understand it’s difficult to parse, because what you have involved here are matters of classification,” Mr. Snow said. “Sometimes it’s going to lead people to talk very carefully, and there’s going to be plenty of room for interpretation or conclusion.”

I've still disavowed my primary speculation. I'd think, though, that if there was actually no second, totally distinct program, somebody like Russel Feingold would come out and say so. It can't be classified to say that a program that would in theory be classified doesn't really exist.

But seriously. Does the administration think this will hold water? Mueller said the program in question was the program that got all this media attention. If Ashcroft and others dissented with the adminstration over portions of the TSP, then there was dissent within the DOJ about the TSP. And though they may ultimately get away with it, the fact that they're hiding from an inquiry by claiming classification of the nature of the dissent itself--that is, whether the dissent was over a whole program, an element within that program, or a different program altogether--is seriously shady shit. I know, shocking, right?

Update: Read this. It lays out the possibilities much more clearly than I've been able to. But basically, there's a very, very strong case to be made based on existing public documents and testimony that--as I'd earlier speculated--the TSP was related to or was once some small part of a much larger, more controversial domestic spying program.

Comments

[JimPortlandOR]

Spackerman and Kiel at TPM Muckraker (and the excellent but varying comments) get into this in detail. Any one of the many speculations could be plausible.

After reading everything, I'm thinking this a much bigger thing than just Gonzo trying to pull off a specious defense before the Senate Judiciary Committee (amid my wonder earlier why he would do this). This is some serious shit.

The Project X versus TSP distinction that is made at the link is a helpful framework for thinking about how much broader the program could have been (and maybe still is). There is no assurance that what Bush described (and many of the BushCo folks seems to be referring to that 'description') is actually is what is functioning - without approval from the FISA Court, the Gang of 8, or the law.

They well may be doing spying on US folks in a very broad manner (like the Poindexter TIA program) with no one on the 'outside' knowing it. So what the gang of 8 knows may not be the whole story, and BushCo is doing a set-up to say no one CAN know - hence they can't prosecute anyone for the coverup - national security becomes the hidey-hole for anything.

[Anonymous Liberal]

Brian,

Here's my take. I've looked through the rest of Gonzales February 2006 testimony, and I think even his highly-technical defense doesn't hold up. I think he tried to get way too cute and ended up demonstrably lying.

[ike turner]

Gonzo, 'you got mo scuses dan a nigah bein' led off to jail'... and I hope some day you will be.