The letter is a PDF file, but it is not text-searchable. The Speaker's blog posted the scanned version of the PDF, not the original text.

We would prefer the Vice President's staff counsel provide an electronic version of all letters. This would make it easier to search the text. Also, when the Speaker posts a pdf file of a letter, we would hope there were two versions: The original scanned file (not text searchable) and the text-searchable version.

If the Vice President, as President of the Senate needs guidance on how to provide useful information to the public in 2008, the Vice President has a bigger problem on his hands than just alleged war crimes.

As you read any letter from the VP Counsel, remember one thing: They are a public servant, they took an oath to the US Constitution. Their number one loyalty, on paper for legal purposes is the US Constitution.

In practice, and in alleged breach of the Constitution, attorneys will put their client before the Constitution, and, where possible, attempt to breach all laws and rules to defend their client. In court, they're allowed to do many things: The adversarial system is designed to check these abuses. In theory, the court will manage the attorney.

The problem they run into is when they make out of court statements; and foreget that they are not making a court motion. Sometimes legal counsel will forget this, and believe that they are in court, and can get away with things. The have to wear two hats: One hat to prepare for litigation; and a second hat, of public relations. Their litigation hat means writing letters they know will be presented to court; their PR-hat means reducing losses, and making the other side suffer more losses. Victory is not required when you can make the other side lose more than you did.

This crew has nothing to lose. They're already implicated in alleged war crimes. They've shown they will kill people in the blink of an eye, and will order war crimes. It means nothing for them to lie to the court, destroy evidence, or start an illegal war as a distraction.

This is a different situation. We're not in court, yet. But these letters will be before a war crimes tribunal.

When we're talking about media relations for a war cries tribunal, the two counsel for the legislature and executive are positioning themselves to appear to be acting in good faith; but have one goal: To obstruct the other side, without getting any sanction. The goal of both of the counsel is to make the other side lose.

Their goal is not to help anyone. Their only goal is to create the illusion of comity so they can avoid a judicial decision against their client; but provoke he other side to appear to be acting in a manner less than civil. In that spirit, the VP's counsel's original letter should be seen for what it was" A convoluted attempt to delay, confuse, and meander. They overtly stated they were concerned, but their legal analysis showed no respect for the other side. They were doing their job: Being lawyers, creating confusion, and doing everything they could to appear one thing, but do the opposite.

Having said that, let's look at the attorney standards of conduct, and attempt to make sense of the convoluted non-sense from the VP counsel's office. We start from the premise that this is a litigation, not reliable information, but made with one objective: To slow roll public knowledge and debate of war crimes issues that would undermine President McCain, now Senator McCain from broadly asserting power. All the players in DOJ OLC and OVP counsel should be expected to carry over into McCain's Administration. Their only goal is to protect the GOP from war crimes; and in return secure judicial appointments to legalize more war crimes. Their idea of change is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and do more of what is objectionable.

Again, we haven't yet touched the letter. There are two principles to recall: First, FISA is a legal requirement. Second, the Geneva Conventions are a ban against all POW abuse.

Let's deal with Geneva first. There are two prongs to Geneva, both apply. First, the Conventions act as a shield to the POWs. This means POWs have protections under Geneva. POWs can expect to be treated humanely and free of abuse. This is an assumption of warfare. When someone surrenders, or is taken out of the fight, they no longer have the means to wage war. A POW is defenseless. This dos not mean that POWs cannot attempt to resist. Resistance is expected, and protected. However, the detaining power may punish that POW for attempts for escaping or abusing Guards.

Second, the Conventions are a leash on the detaining power. This means the US, as a detaining power, is constrained from doing things.

This means even if a prisoner "has no rights", the second prong imposes a leash on the United states as a detaining power.

This is another way of saying that even if Addington and Yoo convinced themselves that the Taliban and others were "unlawful combatants," this does not mean the US Geneva obligations as a detaining power evaporated.

GEneva rights of a POW overlap with Geneva responsibilities on the detaining power. This means that even if the US said that a given enemy was "unlawful", that determination of an "unlawful combatant" cannot be asserted: It must be adjudicated. This means that the President, on his own, cannot simply classify a group of POWs as "unlawful combatants", deny them rights, then prosecute them.

The reverse has to happen. First, the POWs must be treated humanely. Then, at trial, after charges and lawful trial, the POWs can be then reclassified as "unlawful combatants" and punished.

Adingont's problem is that he advocated for the former, and ignored the latter. He said, in so many words, that a class of combatants were unlawful, and without trial or charges, could be treated inhumanely. Addington allegedly ignored the second prong: That of the detaining power's obligations to first treat the POW humanely, then provide a tribunal that would lawfully review evidence and classify that POW as an "unlawful combatant".

Adddington and others did the opposite: They denied rights without a trial; conducted trials that did not meet Geneva requirements; and expected the world to roll over. Wrong. Once Addington, YOo, Gonzalez and others assented to Geneva violations, then other powers may impose like violations: Summary accusations without trial, and declare anyone an unlawful combatant.

By not meeting US obligations under Geneva, Addington and others allegedly opened the door to reciprocal violations against similarly detained-without charges American civilians. On accusation alone, any American civilian can be called an "enemy combatant" and tortured anywhere around the globe.

Nuremberg established that legal counsel can be prosecuted for doing this: Denying GEneva protections, or writing memoranda that would explain it away. Perversely, the Nazi lawyers attempted to enforce the laws of war, but were rebuked. Addington and others went beyond that, and did something some Nazi lawyers never imagined: overtly calling for a suspension of Geneva, and refusing to meeting Geneva obligations. The Nazi lawyers were concerned that if they abused POWs, German POWs would be abused. This does not address the Holocaust, which are a different class of war crime: Crimes against humanity. This in no way attempts to excuse what the Nazis did, nor paint the Nazi lawyer as nice people. Rather, Addington did something that some Nazi lawyers refused to do: Suspend Geneva.

Addington, YOo, and Gonzalez are in for a wild ride. They've well set themselves up for a problem.

Make no mistake about this VP Counsel letter: It is directly linked with alleged war crimes, and violations of the Oath of office. Addington's problem is 32 CFR 2800 which imposes a legal duty to retain data. This non-sense about whether the VP's office is or isn't an agency is irrelevant. 32 CFR 2800 is a legal requirement for Addington and OVP to comply in retaining records.

Even if we were to believe the non-sense that the WH and contractors were "transferring" emails, OVP cannot explain why it also is missing the same emails. It defies reason that the White House would "transfer" all emails across the WH, DOJ, and OVP. That's silly. There allegedly is no "retention" program, but a destruction program.

The real answer is in the JCON data. This is the DoJ database which retain the DOJ Staff emails they sent to the White HOuse. JCON wasn't updated. WHen you look for the "missing" emails from DOJ to the White House, and you can't find them in the JCON, you know there's been evidence destruction. If you want the contract number, what's involved, and how the data files are configured, you're going to have to ask. There are people who have this information, who do not work for the Vice President, and can be subpoenaed.

This rule touches on issues having some bearing to the Congressional review of Congress. I encourage you to read the narrative.

(Pausing, while you quickly skim the rule at the link. Yes, your head will hurt if you try to understand it. Just get a flavor for he language.)

Welcome back. Notice a few things: It's convoluted. There are exceptions. Things are vague.

By design. There's wiggle room. "Subject to interpretation." In other words, the rule says one thing, but like the tax code, you can frame an effort to corrupt congress as an "acceptable" practice.

Mind you, we're not discussing (yet) the rules of Congress. Just the attorney standards of conduct, and whether they really do or do not mean something.

There are two issues here: First, the war crimes trial hasn't started; second, anything the DOJ OLC can spew forth now is fair game to muddy the waters.

Putting aside DC has no interpretation of this rule on trial publicity, if we were dealing with an oversight system for lawyers, there would be something that would make false statements to Congress, but not directly to Congress, subject to discipline.

This rule relates to how someone, allegedly writing a defective memo, could be sanctioned under the DC Rules.

Again, if counsel is practicing under a different jurisdiction, the DC Rules don't mean anything.

Also note that these aren't simply issues of "the DC disciplinary board", but these are cases. Lawyers monitoring lawyers.

If the system worked, we'd have lawyers reviewing work products and not advocating for alleged war crimes. The issue isn't simply how the alleged war crimes were supported, but how Congressional staff counsel failed to challenge their peers.

The argument of "this is just politics" is trial in light of Nuremberg. No, these are issues of international war crimes, allegedly attached to DOJ OLC legal memoranda, and allegedly have Addington's fingers all over them. This mess has dragged on since 2001, for seven [7] years. And this crew wants to export this "model" of governance outside the United States?!? Nobody should be surprised why other combatants in battle resist the American approach.

This rule relates to Addington: It refers to prior work Addington did as VP Counsel.

You're also going to see something very strange when it comes to issues of the 4th Amendment. Addington and others essentially explained away the 4th Amendment for FISA violations.

However, everything they said about FISA gets turned on its head. Why? Because Addington is now going t rely on the very Constitution he said didn't apply to America. Addington's goal is to pretend that this standard does not apply; but the privilege exists, while claiming there was no crime on the grounds of "vague Geneva"-standard.

the test for determining probable cause is whether the totality of the facts and circumstances presented would warrant a reasonable and prudent person in the belief that the attorney-client communications in question were in furtherance of an ongoing or future crime or fraud as explained in this opinion.

They're trying to convince themselves that they "didn't mean" to commit a crime. To convince themselves of this, they'ver written the rules abuot POW abuse to say, "It wasn't torture."

That. Is. Ir. Rel. E. Vant. GEneva is silent on whether or not something is torture; GEneva expreslsly prohibits all abuse. However, the memoranda in the FISA immunity email mentions the "intentional outrage"-standard. Notice the distraction: from the activity, to whether or not someone's reactoin to that POW abuse was outrageous or not. It's a feeble attempt to explain away a crime or knowlege of it.

Again, we go back to Nuremberg: Would a reasonable person know that this treatement of a human being was or wasn't lawful or civilized. Nuremberg establisehd that superior orders are no defense; but defendats must show that they reasonably relied on these orders.

The problem is that people had doubts about what they were doing, as evidenced by the separate reports. One goal of VP Counsel will be to say these doubts were not reasonable, isolated, but the majority overwhelming believed they were doing the right thing. Nazis argued the same and were executed after conviction for war crimes.

Now consider this:

the party asserting the privilege has the burden of proving that the Communications in question are protected, and that the burden then shifts to the opposing party to demonstrate the applicability of the crime-fraud exception.

Addington's problem is he doesn't know -- for sure -- what alleged war crimes evidence exists that would invoke the exception trumping the claim of attorney-client privilege. It's an issue of timing. Some members of the CIA are working with the EU to secure this information related to rendition.

That's where you come in. DOJ OLC is being targeted for war crimes discovery and JCON review. Also, CIA is cooperating with the EU. Your assistance is needed to secure any evidence about DOJ OLC state of mind, their discussions, or whether they timely distanced themselves.

AG Mukasey's latest comment that he did not plan to enforce Geneva because he believed the DOJ OLC memo was "correct" isn't a defense. Those memos were withdrawn; and DOJ OLC has been shown to make errors. That's why the issue with the 46 Patent Attorney is important: DOJ AG, DOJ OLC, and OVP now cannot argue that DOJ OLC is right, or that they reasonably relied on DOJ OLC.

Subsequent disclosures, but a pattern of inaction after 2001 make Addington's defense more difficult. It's harder for him and his legal counsel to justify confidence that what he is saying, or what DOJ OLC are arguing in memos about what is lawful or not, should or should not be believed. It appears as though they well know the Geneva issues and legal basis to have attorney-client privileged stripped when there are efforts to use privilege to commit crimes.

The goal is not to protect a secret, but to create the illusion that there will be "adverse effects" if the President "can't" get his "independent' view. That's non-sense. DOJ OLC memo shows, even when the President was told that POW abuse was permissible, the President said he would enforce Geneva, but his actions contradicted his own words. This lends support to the argument the memo wasn't written to legalize anything, but to create a smokescreen of a shield to hide evidence of the alleged war crimes. They've used a ruse to hide evidence; then used that shield to pretend the war crimes cannot be discovered. Their problem is they've failed to seal all the evidence.

Let's walk you through this. This is important. Once it can be shown the legal counsel hoped to suppress information that was publicly known, but cast it as an "illegal disclosure" -- to thwart inquiry-- the President's defense will crack, as will Addington's. That's the problem they now have: They're claiming the "only" way evidence could have been developed was using illegal surveillance of the Vice President, outside counsel, and the contractors.

What they don't realize is that there were lawful methods used to secure alleged war crimes evidence; but the information was packaged to make the VIce President and President's counsel believe it was only obtained through illegal methods. They took the bait, attempt to claim the disclosure was illegal, but in making this assertion, they failed to adequately refute the truth of the information: There were alleged war crimes, thereby trumping their claim of privilege because of this exception.

This is the problem the DOJ OLC legal counsel now have, which explain why they've been using personal laptops, not recording information on the JCON, but have been reluctant to confront the House Judiciary overtly. Despite the leaks from Congress, they do not know what is really going on. DOJ OLC legal counsel is stuck. They know it. They know we know it. Their goal will be to surprise. That is coming.

There's also something else that is going on that relates to FISA. Reynolds permits classification of things when there is a substantial connection between national security and safeguarding that secret. "Substantial" isn't what you would think it should mean.

When we say "substantial" in every day conversation, that mens alot, quite a bit. From a lawyer's perspective, "substantial" can be as little as 1%. IT changes from something that seems alot, to something that is barely measurable. A 'substantial" national security interest can, in truth, be speculative, because it is up to the other party to prove that the US government is making a dubious claim.

Fortunately, the presumption of good faith is not absolute, and can be disproven. This means that someone can show that an affidavit is false, and should not be accepted as good faith because of other real, nonspeculative evidence. This can be done if there is open source information, or other public evidence.

That's why the DOJ OLC released memos are important: They paint a picture that the DOJ OLC counsel are not acting in good faith, are lying, and continue to deceive the court on the White House email retention, the JCON data, rendition, POW abuse.

The key problem is comparing the DOJ OLC memo -- that supposdly "legalized" things -- with the evidence contradicting that assertrion: Evidence that people were acting as if the conduct was not lawful; or that they knew there was a problem; or they blocked reviwes of "acceptable" behavior. Where the US was supposedly doing teh "right" thing, the US did not permit ICRC inspections; "ethical" treatment of POWs isn't supported by the CIA tapes getting destroyed or Rumsfelds comments to remove the gloves. This is why the Sanchez audit is still classified: There's allegedly more bad news for Addington.

The problem the US government has is when it captures people, take them prisoner, denies them a chance to defend themselves, removes them from the fight, but then continues waging war against them while they are held as a POW. That is uncivilized.

Some suggest that they were "holding" the information. That defies reason. There was a bounty program. People in Pakistan were paid to turn in their civilian neighbors but call them "war criminals".

Here's the problem for the US as a detaining power. It is a war crime to put a price on the enemy's head. Geneva prohibits this because bounties would induce civilians -- protected under GEneva -- to engage in combat-related activities. The ban on bounties is designed to dissuade civilians from taking up arms, engaging in combat-related act, and being denied all their Geneva protections.

The US error was to pay civilians substantial money -- there's that word again, "substantial" -- to detain people. Let's face it, if you're making no money raising goats, and someone offered you thousands of dollars to snitch on an annoying neighbor, and they would disappear, what might you think someone might do? They did that.

Unfortunately, seven years after capture, those civilians are getting released. They're talking. And the world knows about the illegal bounties, and the fact that civilians were held -- illegally -- without charges, and abused.

It doesn't matter if there is or isn't evidence of POW abuse per se. The evidence strong supports the conclusion the US government had a policy of ignoring GEneva, explanation it away, and inducing civilians to engage in prohibited acts that stripped them of their GEneva protections. Mukasey's statements in 2008 of that decision not to fully enforce Geneva help seal the deal and is not a credible defense of DOJ OLC; nor does it adequately explain away the alleged fraud-crime exception to privilege. He and others are engaging in alleged overt criminal, fraudulent acts to shield things they hope to say are not linked with fraud.

The point of the above isn't that this is going slowly, but the opposite: Despite no statute of limitations, the DOJ OLC legal memoranda are contradicting the very things Mukasey is saying about what he will or will not enforce. Inaction isn't a defense, but an alleged subsequent war crime, but on the record. Then we back step, from this known alleged illegal activity, prove it, then work on the alleged information hiding that illegal activity, then disclose it, then backstep again to the other evidence supposedly hidden to hide fraudulent activity. It doesn't matter if it takes time: There is no statute of limitations for war crimes.

Your job as a reader is to remain focused on one things: Different lines of evidence in 2008 need to be compared with other information from other years. We don't need (yet) information that's still hidden. All that needs to happen is to use the available information, show there is a public fraud, then backstep to the information the hope to shield. Their defenses are falling apart, just as Hitler's defenses collapsed as the allied forces marched toward Berlin.

The ke will be to recognize the potential value of new information in the context of destroying the war crimes defense, penetrating the shield, and showing there is new evidence of a fraud that has been shielded to hide illegal activity; and show the claims of "State secrets" are dubious, and not linked with a credible interest to protect national security, but something else: Suppress war crimes evidence. This is a mess the DOJ OLC must now confront. They alone chose this path. Our job is to confront them lawfully as was done on the FISA violations, rendition, POW abuse, and other alleged war crimes.

With the above in mind, let's read the OVP letter.

The legal views of OVP counsel, as referenced, have been discredited. We need not take them seriously.

It is a misreading of the Constitution that there is any "power" of "blocking encoachment". That is illusory. The Framers intended overlapping powers to check.

OVP has no legal basis to demand the Congress explain the Constitution.

The law does not recognize a shield related to "official duties of the Vice President." Once the crime-fraud nexus is shown, as was done in re Libby name leak, the balance tilts away from the Vice President and Addington.

We make no comment, for now, whether OVP has or has not adequately characterized the Judiciary or correctly quoted the Judiciary letters in the first indented bullet.

Congress can ask any question and is not bound by any agreement to narrow inquiry. If Addington spills the beans, Congress may follow those beans where they roll.

The Committee may ask any question, and is not bound by any VP-Presidential claim of shield. If the fraud-crime exception is proven, Addington must testify.

House is not required to be specific with any questions, nor provide advance questions to anyone.

The House has well met its burden. OVP Counsel's citation of Barenblatt, as discussed, shows a misreading. The witness must be present to invoke the shield. It is not a bar from appearing. There is no merit to the OVP assertion.

This claim must be made in court. OVP has not adequately discussed Barenblatt. WE reject the notion the House owes OVP anything.

OVP counsel has provided nothing to justify confidence that a delay is warranted.

The House does not work for the OVP.

The House subpoena stands on its own, and is unrelated to any letter, conditions, immunities, claimed privileges OVP may be referring. The House rules do not bind the COmmittee to attach to any hearing specific conditions only agreeable to the witness. If agreeable, the subpoena -- under penalty -- would not be required.

The Crime-Fraud exception applies wich may breach the claimed attorney-client privilege.

OVP has provided no legal uathority to compel the House to do antyhing before issuing any subpoena.

The OPV Counsel letter is meaningless drivel.

OVP has no power to set any conditions on how a witness will be interrogated before any Committee.

Wheelbarger

6th Street Flats Condominiums, DC
Shares with 29 other condos.
Bundy Development

Neighbors

Mark Chen, Boston Consulting Group
Mark Pfeifle US govt Public Affairs

DHS

Senior Executive Service Performance Review Board
October 10, 2006
OPM: 63.240.206.196/ses
COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY
DHS

AKA

"Katie"

Bridesmaid for "Robyn"

Cambridge
Santa Clarita
10K Runner
Approx 31 yrs old in 2008, about 24 in 2001
No reported cases, no legal scholarly work

Discovery: Disclosed Email, Email Account, Outside counsel communications

kwheelbarger@georgewbush.com

From:
Ryan P. Meyers
202 887 3635, Direct
202 530 9565, Direct Fax
rmeyers@gibsondunn.com
202-544-6338
202-641-7532

Senator Cronyn Meeting
October 10th, Pharr, Texas
Topic: International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) flood control levees

Others:
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials Ron Vietello,
Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection;
William Peterson, Administrator for FEMA Region VI
Katie Wheelbarger

Here is the Theodore B. Olson testimony to Senate on Reporters' privilege, September 20, 2006

Olson is a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

Comey was an associate with associate for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and as Deputy AG refused March 2004 to sign off on the NSA surveillance when AG Ashcroft was hospitalized.

Gison Dunn was reported to be involved with Wolfowitz compensation issue. The review included Bush’s previous Solicitor General Ted Olson, with Gibson Dunn.

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher acted as legal advisor and Allen & Company and Citigroup Global Markets as financial advisors to Ask Jeeves during this transaction.

Doubts Yang "didn't know" about Gibson Dunn connection to the White House.

Yang didn't know that Gibson Dunn - who were representing Lewis in Yang's own investigation - had strong ties to Lewis? Yang didn't know that Gibson Dunn - who represented Bush in an obscure, little-known case called Bush v Gore - had strong ties to the White House?

MCI is reported to have cooperated with the NSA on the alleged domestic illegal surveillance.