Players in the Bush Administration rarely provide more information than what is asked of them. In fact, they rarely provide information even when issued a subpoena. We have seen Gonzales' krumping and clowning around the truth of the Warrantless Wiretapping Program, and still have no idea of the scope of the program.
Thanks to superfluous information provided by Robert Mueller, we now have a good indication of who was behind the initiation and execution of the NSA-driven Warrantless Wiretapping Program:
The Grand Wizard of Darkness: Dick Cheney
Following Robert Mueller's July 26, 2007 HJC testimony, John Conyers sent a formal letter requesting notes regarding conversations Mueller had with James Comey and John Ashcroft concerning the March 2004 Hospital Visit by Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card. In response to the request, on August 14, 2007, Mueller provided a heavily redacted version of his notes.
Interestingly, Mueller was asked to provide notes on his conversations with Mueller and Ashcroft, but atypical for the Bush Administration, he provided much more information.
Specifically, he left unredacted portions of his notes about events preceeding and following the Hospital Visit.
Importantly, the first meeting with the Principal Administration Architects of The Program was held on March 9, 2004, and the highest ranking Administration official in the room was the Vice President.
Mueller's notes indicate numerous other meetings or conversations with Card or Gonzales. Neither Comey nor Ashcroft were involved in these meetings.
The final meeting documented in Mueller's notes occurred on March 23, 2004, and it was with the Vice President in his office.
It is clear from the Mueller notes that the final word on the Warrantless Surveillance Program and the Hospital Visit was Vice President Cheney's. The Buck Stopped There.
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Why did Mueller tell us this?
There was no clear mandate in the Conyers letter to do so.
I have observed previously that Mueller's avoidance of artificial "TSP" terminology to describe the single Warrantless Wiretapping Program in his HJC testimony suggested that he was not playing ball with the Administration's attempt to selectively declassify to mislead the public and Congress:
On 7/26/07, FBI director Robert Mueller testified before the HJC and acknowledges that the 3/10/04 confrontation was about the National Security Agency’s counterterrorist eavesdropping program, describing it as "an N.S.A. program that has been much discussed." Asked whether he was referring to the Terrorist Surveillance Program, or T.S.P., he replied, "The discussion was on a national N.S.A. program that has been much discussed, yes." He never used the words TSP or terrorist surveillance program, but made it clear that the controversy was over the NSA program.
My analysis:
Mueller did not use the TSP terminology because he knows the "TSP" did not exist in 2004- it was a made up term to dissemble the December 2005 leak. Mueller was being honest and refusing to become entangled in the administration ambiguation, knowing full well that "TSP" is an artificial construct in which the administration has invested heavily, but which is not the full truth. He knows the extent of the NSA-surveillance programs and why they were controversial, and is not getting dragged into the cover-up.
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I am beginning to think that Mueller is either covering himself for when the truth of The Program is finally revealed, or is the only one still serving in the Administration with a conscience. It may be a combination of the two.
Importantly, Mueller did not have to reveal the other meetings not involving Comey or Ashcroft, and to have done so here generates many more questions than it answers. For Mueller to have revealed this information, rather than cover it up as the Administration would almost certainly have preferred, suggests that we may have found this Administration's version of John Dean.
Update: On the role of the President
Mueller met with the Pres alone on March 12.
There are four paragraphs of redacted information associated with this meeting.
I have suggested before, and believe more so now that until March 10, 2004 The Program was being run by Cheney with the President minimally involved. The President was forced to get more involved only by the resignation crisis. I am unsure whether he knew (or even today) knows the details of the program.
I think he was kept out of the loop for deniability.
I reupdated this section after rereading the McConnell letter.
A number of these intelligence activities were authorized in one order, which was reauthorized by the President approximately every 45 days, with certain modifications.... One particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more, was acknowledged by the President and described in December 2005 [The TSP]...
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Bush authorized the program and thus owns it, but I suspect Cheney was running it.
Update 2: More on the legal basis of the Program
In Gonzales' 2/6/06 SJC testimony he denied that legal analysis of domestic-domestic warrantless surveillance had been done. In written response on 2/28/06, he clarified his remarks to say (despite the general nature of the questions in testimony) his response restricted to the TSP, and since TSP (by convenient definition) had no domestic-domestic component, of course there was no legal analysis of that assoc with TSP.
He never answered whether the analysis had been done period.
With the Comey showdown, it is possible that domestic-domestic legal analysis held up the authorization. However, the Mueller notes offer a different explanation:
Mueller notes the AG (Ashcroft) complained that he was barred from obtaining the advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the White House.
This suggests that Comey, Goldsmith and Philbin, who were tasked with determining the legal basis of the program, might not ever have had full authorization to know the details of the program.
Reading Comey's May 15, 2007 SJC Testimony, Comey never says they found the program illegal, but rather that it had "no legal basis". Perhaps this is because the analysis could not be done due to compartmentalization.
In this case AG Ashcroft may have known the breadth of the program, but Ashcroft/Comey would not sign off because no one tasked with legal analysis had access to the details. It is also possible that Ashcroft was never fully briefed into the entire Program, and Spencer Ackerman notes at TPMm. In the end, the breadth of the program is probably known only to a few in Cheney's closest circle of advisers.
H/t to insightful comments by NC Dem, Ex Elephant and falstaffhonour, as well as Spencer Ackerman at TPMm.