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It's not the Crime, it's the Coverup
Author: BobR
Date: 07/15/2009 12:39:55
For some reason, it seems that politicians are unable or unwilling to prosecute other politicians for crimes. Perhaps it is a "professional courtesy", perhaps it is the fear of retribution. After prolonged investigations, and evidence is gathered, it seems that the crimes themselves are glossed over, and the politician is persecuted (and/or prosecuted) for covering up the crime.
Consider Nixon: The Watergate break-in was a definite crime. People closely associated with Nixon went to jail for it. But Nixon himself? He was not implicated in the crime, but in helping to try to cover it up. The 18 1/2 minute stretch of blank tape that he turned over to investigators was the nail in the coffin of his reputation.
Republicans went after Clinton like sharks smelling blood in an effort to bring him down. They kept digging and investigating in an effort to find *something* solid enough to be grounds for impeachment. Despite the tawdry tales from women in his past, there just wasn't anything that seemed to stick... That is - until he tried to cover up the Lewinsky affair. Once they had a small legal technicality they could hook onto, they flogged it all the way to impeachment hearings.
And so it is that the members of the former Bush Administration may also be brought to some sort of justice. Despite their (alleged) crimes against humanity, it might be their efforts to conceal them that becomes their undoing.
The amended National Security Act of 1947 requires that the President keep the congressional intelligence committees apprised of their actions. Although the initial accusations by House Speaker Pelosi's comments over being lied to and underinformed were (or at least seemed to be) in relation to torture programs, the program that seems to be the real crux of this matter is Official CIA Hit Squads:
As distasteful as "hit squads" sound, I've always believed we've been doing something like this since at least the Cold War. However, once again the focus is not on how reprehensible or legal the program might be, but on whether the Administration actively tried to deceive Congress about it's existence. The questions are shifting from "who knew what when?" to "did Cheney try to illegally conceal the activities from Congress?":
New reports, however, indicate that this (and probably other) programs were deliberately hidden from Congress at the behest of Dick Cheney:
So now we'll see where this goes. Did Cheney explicitly order the CIA to break the law by not divulging information to Congressional committees when it was legally required to do so? How is it that Cheney has that kind of weight? It's not too hard to fathom - Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, who himself used to be head of the CIA.
Perhaps once again the axiom will prove true. It's much easier to get a conviction on an easy to prove technicality than it is on a more serious, yet more complex crime.
Consider Nixon: The Watergate break-in was a definite crime. People closely associated with Nixon went to jail for it. But Nixon himself? He was not implicated in the crime, but in helping to try to cover it up. The 18 1/2 minute stretch of blank tape that he turned over to investigators was the nail in the coffin of his reputation.
Republicans went after Clinton like sharks smelling blood in an effort to bring him down. They kept digging and investigating in an effort to find *something* solid enough to be grounds for impeachment. Despite the tawdry tales from women in his past, there just wasn't anything that seemed to stick... That is - until he tried to cover up the Lewinsky affair. Once they had a small legal technicality they could hook onto, they flogged it all the way to impeachment hearings.
And so it is that the members of the former Bush Administration may also be brought to some sort of justice. Despite their (alleged) crimes against humanity, it might be their efforts to conceal them that becomes their undoing.
The amended National Security Act of 1947 requires that the President keep the congressional intelligence committees apprised of their actions. Although the initial accusations by House Speaker Pelosi's comments over being lied to and underinformed were (or at least seemed to be) in relation to torture programs, the program that seems to be the real crux of this matter is Official CIA Hit Squads:
The goal of the CIA hit squads created by a now canceled secret program was to put ‘bullets in heads,' an unnamed former intel official tells the Wall Street Journal.
"A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative axed by Director Leon Panetta examined how to assassinate members of al Qaeda with hit teams on the ground, according to current and former national-security officials familiar with the matter," Siobhan Gordon reports. "The goal was to assemble teams of CIA and special-operations forces ‘and put bullets in [the al Qaeda leaders'] heads," one former intelligence official said...
As distasteful as "hit squads" sound, I've always believed we've been doing something like this since at least the Cold War. However, once again the focus is not on how reprehensible or legal the program might be, but on whether the Administration actively tried to deceive Congress about it's existence. The questions are shifting from "who knew what when?" to "did Cheney try to illegally conceal the activities from Congress?":
The CIA made two mistakes. The first was to think that it could keep it all hidden.
There is much that will never be made public, it was perhaps inevitable that something damaging would come out. As it happens, a slew of revelations have emerged with shocking speed.
In recent days, the agency has admitted hiding from Congress - probably illegally - a covert anti-terrorism programme. Numerous leaks have revealed it to be an operation to kill al-Qaida operatives, sometimes in friendly countries. The leaks have not been denied by the CIA or members of Congress since informed about the programme.
That revelation came days after five federal inspectors general released a report in to the role of the CIA and the National Security Agency in to warrantless wiretaps and other surveillance at the behest of the White House.
New reports, however, indicate that this (and probably other) programs were deliberately hidden from Congress at the behest of Dick Cheney:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
[...]
Cheney played a central role in overseeing the Bush administration's surveillance program that was the subject of an inspectors general report this past week. That report noted that Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, personally decided who in Bush's inner circle could even know about the secret program.
But revelations about Cheney's role in making decisions for the CIA on whether to notify Congress came as a surprise to some on the committees, said another government official. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly...
So now we'll see where this goes. Did Cheney explicitly order the CIA to break the law by not divulging information to Congressional committees when it was legally required to do so? How is it that Cheney has that kind of weight? It's not too hard to fathom - Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, who himself used to be head of the CIA.
Perhaps once again the axiom will prove true. It's much easier to get a conviction on an easy to prove technicality than it is on a more serious, yet more complex crime.
