Bush's latest nominee, Michael "EAT SOMETHING" Chertoff is supposed to be a shoe-in. As Bush told us during his announcement, Chertoff's been confirmed by the Senate three times.
But the NYT today has thrown a wrench in the works.
According to the Times:
Newly disclosed documents in the John Walker Lindh case appear to conflict with assertions made to Congress by Michael Chertoff, nominated this week as homeland security secretary, about the Justice Department's handling of ethics concerns in the high-profile prosecution.
In other words, he lied.
The Times continues:
At his confirmation hearing in 2003, Mr. Chertoff said he and his deputies in the criminal division did not have an active role in discussions about ethics warnings in the case from lawyers elsewhere in the department.
But in previously undisclosed department documents, provided to The New York Times by a person involved in the case who insisted on anonymity, a longtime lawyer in the division who worked under Mr. Chertoff detailed numerous contacts he had with lawyers inside and outside the division on Mr. Lindh's questioning.
Thank you, anonymous!
Mr. Chertoff said, "I was not consulted with respect to this matter," and he said he was unaware that the office that handled ethics issues had given an official opinion on interviewing Mr. Lindh without his lawyer.
"I do not recall anyone expressing the opinion that the F.B.I. should be stopped from interviewing John Walker Lindh because of professional ethics rules about contacts with represented persons," he said in a written response to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Chertoff defended the propriety of the interview, saying at his hearing it was highly unlikely "that a lawyer was going to be flown into the battlefield in Afghanistan."
As Whistleblower reveals, though, Chertoff DID know about potential ethical violations in the Lindh case, as the documents given to the Times show:
The lawyer, John De Pue, cautioned in one e-mail message that questioning a suspect represented by a lawyer could be perceived as "an ethical violation." Mr. De Pue told investigators from the inspector general's office of the department that his superiors were upset that he had sought the advice of the department's Professional Responsibility Advisory Office, or P.R.A.O., about Mr. Lindh's questioning.
A supervisor "informed me that the criminal division's leadership was disturbed that I had sought P.R.A.O.'s advice in this matter," Mr. De Pue said in his statement, which was included in an inspector general's investigation into a leak in the case. The supervisor also asked him to search his e-mail "trash" files to determine what internal discussions had occurred on the issue, he said.
Mr. De Pue said on Wednesday that the inspector general's report had accurately quoted his concerns.
"The front office was unhappy with the fact that I had gone to P.R.A.O. with my inquiry," he said. "I was more or less told that I was out of line in making that inquiry. It was not a popular thing to do, but I thought at the time it was the reasonable thing to do. We'd been told time after time that if an ethics issue arose, the people in that office were the ones to see."
A supervisor in the counterterrorism section of the criminal division who expressed the division's displeasure "did not use Chertoff's name, but I certainly inferred from what he said that the unhappiness was coming from Chertoff" and his top deputy, Mr. De Pue said.
Democracy Now also carries the story. They will air an interview with Jesselyn Radack, an attory at the PRAO. She raised objections to Lindh's questioning, and, lo and behold, "Radack was pushed out of her job at the Justice Department, fired from her next job, put under criminal investigation and put on the no-fly list."
So, let's review:
Kerik -- liar.
Chertoff -- liar.
Mr. Bush -- is it that hard to find an honest person for this job?