The New York Times Magazine has an extraordinary article by Jeffrey Rosen, about an extraordinarily conscientious conservative, who formerly worked in the Bush Administration:
In the fall of 2003, Jack L. Goldsmith was widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament. A 40-year-old law professor at the University of Chicago, Goldsmith had established himself, with his friend and fellow law professor John Yoo, as a leading proponent of the view that international standards of human rights should not apply in cases before U.S. courts. In recognition of their prominence, Goldsmith and Yoo had been anointed the "New Sovereigntists" by the journal Foreign Affairs.
Goldsmith had been hired the year before as a legal adviser to the general counsel of the Defense Department, William J. Haynes II. While at the Pentagon, Goldsmith wrote a memo for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warning that prosecutors from the International Criminal Court might indict American officials for their actions in the war on terror. Goldsmith described this threat as "the judicialization of international politics." No one was surprised when he was hired in October 2003 to head the Office of Legal Counsel, the division of the Justice Department that advises the president on the limits of executive power. Immediately, the job put him at the center of critical debates within the Bush administration about its continuing response to 9/11 — debates about coercive interrogation, secret surveillance and the detention and trial of enemy combatants.
Nine months later, in June 2004, Goldsmith resigned. Although he refused to discuss his resignation at the time, he had led a small group of administration lawyers in a behind-the-scenes revolt against what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors in the war on terror. During his first weeks on the job, Goldsmith had discovered that the Office of Legal Counsel had written two legal opinions — both drafted by Goldsmith’s friend Yoo, who served as a deputy in the office — about the authority of the executive branch to conduct coercive interrogations. Goldsmith considered these opinions, now known as the "torture memos," to be tendentious, overly broad and legally flawed, and he fought to change them. He also found himself challenging the White House on a variety of other issues, ranging from surveillance to the trial of suspected terrorists. His efforts succeeded in bringing the Bush administration somewhat closer to what Goldsmith considered the rule of law — although at considerable cost to Goldsmith himself. By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. "I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted," he told me recently.
It's a very long article, and I recommend everyone read it, but, as he so often does, Glenn Greenwald gets to the heart of it. The title of this diary is the title of his current article in Salon:
Two revelations in particular are extraordinary and deserve (but are unlikely to receive) intense media coverage. First, it was Goldsmith who first argued that the administration's secret, warrantless surveillance programs were illegal, and it was that conclusion which sparked the now famous refusal of Ashcroft/Comey in early 2004 to certify the program's legality. Goldsmith argued continuously about his conclusion with Addington, and during the course of those arguments, this is what happened:
[Goldsmith] shared the White House's concern that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act might prevent wiretaps on international calls involving terrorists. But Goldsmith deplored the way the White House tried to fix the problem, which was highly contemptuous of Congress and the courts. "We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court," Goldsmith recalls Addington telling him in February 2004.
Their goal all along was to "get rid of the obnoxious FISA court" entirely, so that they could freely eavesdrop on whomever they wanted with no warrants or oversight of any kind. And here is Dick Cheney's top aide, drooling with anticipation at the prospect of another terrorist attack so that they could seize this power without challenge. Addington views the Next Terrorist Attack as the golden opportunity to seize yet more power. Sitting around the White House dreaming of all the great new powers they will have once the new terrorist attack occurs -- as Addington was doing -- is nothing short of deranged.
(emphases all Greenwald's)
Now, let me be clear, because I know how the Conspiracy Theorists will interpret that. I believe such CT'ing an irrelevant distraction. I believe September 11 CT'ing distracts from the known facts about the pre-September 11 negligence and incompetence of the Bush Administration, which were horrible enough, in themselves. Similarly, here, we see the way the Bush Administration's top people think. As Greenwald says: it's deranged.
But Greenwald expands on a second revelation, from the article, about the Administration's blithe dismissal of any legal accountability, as they repeatedly made specious secret legal findings to "justify" the breaking of literally any laws they chose.
Not only did they do this in complete secrecy from Congress, they refused even to allow Executive Branch officials who were told to follow orders to see the legal basis for what they were told to do.
Greenwald is right. These revelations should open a floodgate of investigations into the repeated deliberate criminality of this Administration. They knew they were breaking laws. They arrogantly and dismissively played games with their rationalizations for breaking them. They obviously believe they can do whatever the hell they want, and no one will call them on it. Once again, it's time to ask if anyone wants to prove them wrong. I'm guessing that Goldsmith would not have made these revelations unless he was hoping to be called to testify before Congress.