I spent most of yesterday at work churning DOJ lawyer James Baker's 2002 testimony regarding Mike DeWine's proposal to lower the bar for getting surveillance warrants. I find myself concluding that as devastating as
WaPo,
the LA Times and
Knight Ridder's writeups were yesterday, they missed one very important point.
If the timeline for the warrantless spying is accurate, it was going on even as the administration, through Baker, effectively tomahawked the DeWine amendment (it was on life support anyway given that we still had a majority at the time). And if that's true, it can only mean that Baker knew about the spying and was told to lie to the Senate about it. If that's the case, somebody--or a whole lot of somebodies--at the White House is guilty of subornation of perjury. And that by itself is an impeachable offense.
It is technically possible that Shrub kept Baker in teh dark about the spying. However, this is very unlikely. Baker, as the DOJ's counsel for intelligence policy, would have been one of the lawyers responsible for signing off on the spying. He is the official responsible for preparing all of the applications for FISA warrants. So therefore, we're left with only one conclusion--Baker knew about the spying and lied about the administration's position. It's perjury, plain and simple.
I'm hoping some better-versed legal minds can take another look at it, but if my hunch is right a lot of people are under the gun here. An awful lot of people may have ordered Baker to lie--Ashcroft, Gonzales and most importantly, Shrub. Lest we forget, Article 3 of the Clinton impeachment in essence accused Clinton of several instances of suborning perjury.
The only thing that disappoints me about this coming out is that nobody bothered to come out and raise this issue.
cross-posted at The Christian Dem Home Journal