On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department's top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The dark space is one of the biggest concerns on the part of counterterrorism officials right now. Comey did a good job of explaining how they jump into a direct messaging box and then go into platforms designed specifically to be secure. There's no way, even if we have a lawful court order, to be able to access those communications.
Is it 'left' to insist that presidents and CIA directors adhere to the law? I don't think so. I think it's American.
This administration, this agency, the very agency charged with enforcing Obamacare, systematically targeted groups that came into existence because they opposed Obamacare - and they started the targeting the very month, March 2010, that Obamacare came into law - expects us to believe it is the work of two rogue agents in Cincinnati.
The inattention of the Bush administration to the threat from al Qaeda had results. Shortly before 9/11, Bush's attorney general, John Ashcroft, turned down FBI requests for some 400 additional counterterrorism personnel.
And indeed, last week, the FBI executed a search warrant on my residence. This happened one day after my attorneys had left a message on the lead FBI investigator's voice mail confirming my continued readiness to answer questions and otherwise cooperate.
I'm not going to let people who work in the United States Department of Justice have their characters be assailed without any basis.
I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.
I expect VA's inspector general and the FBI to work closely together so that we can identify and eliminate the flaws that allowed this leak and prosecute any criminal acts.
And from the moment that we realized it was a terrorist attack, there isn't an agent or a support person in the FBI that wasn't committed to bringing to justice those who were responsible for this.
When I resigned, I put the U.S. Government on notice that I'm going to stick to policy issues, that I have no intention of going out and blowing the cover off of the intelligence operations, that those are truly sensitive and they should not be exposed.