And that common article three says that, you know, there will be no outrages upon the case.
So, welcome to the show Scott.
Hi, how are you doing Scott?
I'm doing great, good to talk to you again.
A pleasure.
Alright folks, so I guess for the purposes of this interview he'll be sir and I'll be Scott, and you should know that he is a New York attorney, human rights attorney, lectures at Columbia University.
He co-founded an American University somewhere in Central Asia, apparently.
And in less than two months at Harper's magazine, he has written 341 blog posts in his interview.his new blog for harper's uh... called no comment and uh... scott i was uh... consider myself fortunate enough uh... privileged enough to be on your email list no comment for a couple of years uh... since we first talked back in two thousand five and uh...and congratulations to you for getting that blog uh... because that's always really what it was anyway uh... posted up there on uh... on harper's magazine i don't know how you do it ladies and gentlemen this man literally really writes ten or fifteen blog entries every single day it's incredible but the black than you know i'm also writing some articles for harper he in fact everyone should look for the uh...july issue or have a major article talking about the uh... warfare camp about the which stamp lawfare this is the the uh... rubric that the administration uses to deal with the habeas corpus lawyers and i've evaluated interviewed a lot of them uh... looked at the entire situation and read an article uh...uh... evaluating it okay so i'm sorry help me understand this is the process by which uh... the bush administration decides who can be a habeas corpus lawyer for the what going on is a great day basically decided that they they don't like lawyers generally but they particularly don't like lawyers who were involved helping uh... the detainees down in guantanamo and uh... these people have been vilified attack uh... you know we had uh... cali them spend uh... making speeches on the radio which he called on their lawyer on their clients the fire them uh... they also upset people into the fell to tell the uh...uh... the detainees that uh... you realize your lawyers are jews and viaduct and homosexuals trying to disrupt the relationship there uh... and some of the uniformed jag lawyers to the who've been handling these cases have themselves been attacked and fired we have course charlie swift uh... who uh... uh... mail with military careers come to an end and michael mori uh... same thing and then just recently we have of course the conviction uh... another one of the jack lawyers uh... commander matthew dia i remember a couple years back there was a prosecutor named car and i think two others who resigned rather than then win rigs uh... trials that's only the tip of the iceberg go from our my sources therefore separate teams of prosecutors who have refused to participate uh... in the proceedings in guantanamo uh... calling them a disgrace and now if i remember correctly the way that you got really involved in this case is that some of these uh... the jack lawyers the judge advocate general lawyers from the military came to you guys at the new york bar association and said help their torture and people and it's supposed to be our responsibility but were frozen out of the process we feel like we're gonna get the blame and we want you guys to help us out is that all right that's about right there that that happened back in that in two thousand three and uh...and you and and people should know if you're not familiar store in the international human rights are you've been fighting this battle tooth-and-nail ever since and and at least in some ways involved right comes right i've been involved mostly studying it writing about it so i haven't actually been representing anybody is the lawyer other than a couple of journalists who got trouble right well but i remember you also uh...i believe uh... signed affidavit for a court in germany for the prosecution of donald rumsfeld for his purpose of responsibility in this that's right i i did the uh... experts affidavit on uh... american concept of war of war for the german and um...and well i i guess let's just get right into that uh... donald rumsfeld responsibility i thought everybody knew that if any prisoners were tortured at any time in iraq or guantanamo afghanistan or anywhere else as former soviet gulags in eastern europe what have you that uh... that would only be because some bad apples on the night shift were out of control it was donald rumsfeld somehow responsible for their behavior uh... donald rumsfeld gave an order in fact uh... it's now been published uh...and uh... december two thousand two he issued an order authorizing the mistreatment of the prisoners uh... after complaints that came from uh... several he figures in the defense department predicted including uh... the general counsel department of the navy alberto mora he was forced to defend that uh... but we're aware that he actually issued far more than just that one order that's come out there's several other documents uh... that had not yet been published that uh... he also uh... issued authorizing uh... abuse many of them uh... were highly classified document uh... and they related to the special operations command jay stock and uh... and said what go ahead and torture people they they authorize the uh... use of a series of very aggressive torture techniques including uh...hypothermia waterboarding long-time standing uh... and uh... long-term sleep deprivation anything in there about uh... wrapping them in israeli flags and beating them well we know in fact that that was used as a technique uh... as well as uh...beating people inside of the sleeping bag uh... so uh...i don't know that he actually find a directive that the authorized those specific techniques relaxing uh... the restrictions that made those things possible yes that he directed now is it something about the military structure the way it set up that everyone is just willing to take the fall for their boss that responsibilities never gets and passed up to the top well yeah that's correct i mean we've we've seen a lot of military reports that have been done uh... that princeton general phase report general jones's report uh... general to go bus report and in every case these these reports are required only to look down the chain of command and uh... and giving uh... blame uh... and assigning responsibility they're not permitted to look up the chain of command in fact a uh... military inquiry would be specifically precluded from criticizing a reviewing the conduct of a civilian superior so when rumsfeld and others run around saying well because they're not uh...because rumsfeld isn't in fact associated with uh... uh... the wrongdoing in these reports he's in the clear i mean whoever's saying that is simply dishonest because there's no way those reports could ever talk about rumsfeld right it's it's their structure in the first place to only look lower yeah well so now that the democrats control the house and the imperial senate are we going to see hearings about copper green and and find out just exactly who was responsible for all this uh... well that's an interesting question uh... i i i would say uh... you know quickly ministration when these issues have been raised the administration of the police said that the third armed services committee has no power to deal with these issues because they're highly classified so only the intelligence committee could deal with them that will be center jay rockefeller's committee uh... and uh... you know it's open question right now how deep how deeply further arco is going to start dealing with these issues uh... certainly there's a lot of pressure on him to do it uh... and there's a lot of resistance from the administration but i think we know from our recent report that's come out of the and told him to be in the house uh... that uh... did that the uh... you know they convert our operations have been going on have not been reported to the oversight committee neither in the senate or the house of representatives so i think the uh... you know the tactical approach the administration's going to take is to evade and avoid oversight i'm scott horton this is antiwar radio and i'm talking to the heroic anti torture lawyer scott horton from uh... patterson bill napkin web in new york city and uh... they say that right well i'm now from with human rights first in new york city of human rights first level offer okay uh... well let me make sure i write that down so i say rightly and now we know sort of how this started right uh...help me out let me get you started is something about uh... well the taliban even though they signed the geneva conventions because they're in the middle of a civil war it's a failed state their signature doesn't apply and so they use that that's how they got the gate open for going ahead and disregarding geneva and torturing whoever they want it well they just generally started with the proposition that they didn't want to apply that they want to use the law of war but they didn't want to be held accountable under the accountability provisions of the law of war so they worked out a series of different legal explanations or excuses i would say uh... for what they thought it shouldn't apply it will all these uh...excuses were false in fact the supreme court ultimately held back uh... so uh... you know now we have a supreme court decision and then which makes clear that common article three does a part of the little quick you played when uh...uh... george bush was a grudgingly knowledge that the wall was now settled right yeah i was the one where he in so many words said the supreme court has just ruled that i've been for long is we kidnapping and torturing people this whole time and uh... that i'd can do so unless i get congress to say it's okay but that that uh... pretty accurate god i mean that i think a lot of people who read they have been decision uh... come to the conclusion that uh... yes it is labeling conduct that he approved as criminal conduct yeah i don't understand why it is that uh...that's not just a de facto impeachment and indictments start coming down and george bush goes in front of a microphone it says the court just said that what i've been doing for four years has been well is that not the highest classification of felony kidnapping and torturing people yeah of course impeachment as it's established in our constitution is essentially a political process that is that right and not charged by a prosecutor and heard by the court rather uh... there is a bill of impeachment that's voted by the house of representatives and it's tried to defend that uh... so uh... you know in the end of the day the decision whether or not to charge uh... bush and hold them accountable uh... on these crimes of the political decision the american congress with a now let me ask you a little bit scott about uh...your background uh... your well i guess where you would place yourself on the political spectrum and that sort of thing i noticed a lot of times uh... the language you use comes what i would identify as from somewhat of a uh... liberal democrat position but then he threw around the terms uh... the term old republic and how we have to save the forms of it and things like that which is not something i hear out of the mouths of new dealers very often so i wonder if you can clarify a little bit of that for me well my uh... one of my good friend andrew solomon another blogger uh...recently told me he thought i was the last living old wick i'd i'd say that's a pretty good description uh... you know i'm a my own political perspective is uh... berky and which is to say conservative hyphen liberal uh... you know back for the period of time when those two perspective uh... fused and my view on economic issues is more libertarian view okay well then that explains how old republic language lever and i'm not a believer in big state government and welfare program you don't uh... you don't uh... worry about the uh... internationalization of criminal law and subjecting americans to foreign jurisdiction and that kind of thing that seems like it would be a real a real big worry of of uh... some with a berky in view uh... well actually uh... jeremy bentham uh... contemporary of bert and a friend of his you know advanced this notion of international legal accountability very early on the same year our constitution was put forward but i think that the answer to these issues is that if we have accountability and our own court for their own judicial system there's no need to worry about an international capital demanded and the crisis we have right now is from a failure of accountability in our own system and and really i think this is the the common theme that comes up on this show all the time whether we're talking about foreign policy here the video trial or whatever it is it's that the forms of our system of government had changed it's not just that uh... the government is doing things that you disapprove override disapprove of the constitutional structure of the separation of powers and checks and balances has kind of fallen aside to this unitary executive theory and and really that's the main reason i asked you where you uh... put yourself on the spectrum uh... is because i know you don't approve of the unitary executive theory and so i wanted to try to have uh... at least a little bit of frame of reference of where you're coming from as you uh... proceed to denounce this theory that the president has unlimited power well i think the genius of the founding fathers was establishing a tripartite governmental structure with the three branches that oppose one another and thereby limit one another's powers uh... and uh... that insured a government of limited powers and ensure the maximum amount of space for personal freedom uh... well while also providing for enough very legal foundation uh... and the basis for uh... for commerce uh... and industry but uh... we've been a radical change uh... in that structure and i think that change began and the middle of the last century as we saw the growth of uh...of a much more powerful of a predominant uh... presidency and to a certain extent i think that growth was understandable and unavoidable but it's reaching ridiculous today i think uh... under the unitary executive theory uh... basically we have a government that's composed of the president and the other branches are sort of code or not uh... that really don't exercise any particular function of all fact over the last four years we saw congress even feeding its core oversight function that wasn't being that money was being appropriated without keeping track of how it was being used without uh...holding uh... waste uh... those who wasted the views the money to account and that the judiciary was subject to tremendous intimidation and political pressure and all that coming home to roost right now so this isn't just some ridiculous theory of constitutional interpretation we're living the unitary executive theory right now uh... absolutely that's been trip back i tell you if you look at the day uh... washington post that there's an op ed by mike mcconnell and they are these are large national intelligence i think in this case the titles are entirely appropriate uh... and he told us we shouldn't worry about the uh... fact that the five the statutes not being honored by the administration he said it's obsolete it's for nineteen seventy eight remember what the cell phones were like back then they were like a brick today we have really fancy sophisticated cell phone the size of credit cards he says so since the statute this criminal statute is so old why should you care that we ignore it well why should we care that they did that they ignore that they go to the geneva convention and that they ignore the constitution of course these are bedrock principles of our society in that column he's published is shocking and the premises that underlie it well you know what's you know what uh... laws really all the posse comitatus law uh... that's right eighteen thirty eight well yeah in that obsolete let me ask you this now is this not uh... i remember something i think may be from just before september eleventh maybe the summer of the shark and gary con it that there is this debate about the constitution in exile and the living constitution the liberal democrats say the constitution is living meaning basically it's dead in government can do whatever they want uh... those who say that the constitution is in exile and needs to be reinstated uh... basically sound a lot like libertarians but then aren't these the very same guys from the federalist association who are pushing this whole unitary executive thing well i think that's right i mean if you look at if you go to the web page for the federal society you look at the the premises that they articulate you'll be lots of quotations from james madison and alexander hamilton and the talk about the uh...about the advantages of having uh... the uh... a government divided in three parts the advantages of having a limited government they talk about that there but when you look at the way uh... they've acted the philosophy that they've advanced is one of unbounded robust executive power that absolutely trumps uh... the the privileges of the other branches uh... and they figured out a what i'll call a state of exception that is in their view in time of war there is no balancing act between the three branches there's one branch the controls everything the president so as long as you can say we're always in the time of war then you've suspended the constitution and that's effectively what's going on right now even though war has been declared by the u s congress since nineteen forty one well you put your finger on the exact point that is the constitution very clearly divides responsibilities in wartime and it gives uh... it gives a very important role to congress not if it's not simply to the executive congress has a very important role and a lot of the issues that we've been talking about here for instance how detainees are treated in time of war uh... you know the constitution that the five actually talked about the standards for treatment of prisoners in wartime and it gives the power to address that issue not to the president it gives it to congress right yeah it's right there in article one section eight that's correct so you know when we have done you running around talking about commander-in-chief authority superseding all others it was just demonstrating the fact that john you have never read the constitution and now uh...there's anybody has their kiddos anywhere near the radio move them away from it because this anecdote to illustrate john use uh... extreme position here is uh... not one for kiddos uh... ears uh... but no bad words involved but just uh... concepts that you wouldn't want anybody under uh... say fifteen or so uh... to probably be exposed to but john you when questioned has basically uh... said that in his view the president has the right to kidnap and crush the testicles of the child in order to get his father to talk that that's right that occurred in a debate and uh... and chicago uh... absolutely amazing as it shows how far john use prepared to go that is he gives the president all power and all right subject to no limitations whatsoever dot even the limitations of the criminal law yes he said it would be up to the president but uh... he can't really and that's a situation where the president would think that that was necessary so don't worry about it uh... that's right but it reflects the richard nixon view of the law that is that means that the president does it it waffle and you know that's the questioner in the audience is they're coming up with the most absolutely you know uh... gestapo like and uh... question that they can they're they're trying to completely put this guy in a bind and and you know force into argue from ultimate absurdity and he says okay yeah that's right and if we go back to you know the first republican president abraham lincoln he addressed exactly this situation uh... and he issued an order to the troops in the field general orders number one hundred and which he said there are a whole series of things which can never be justified and will never be permitted and at the beginning of that list he put and in fact haven't i read something by you that talked about uh... george washington uh... back in the days of the american revolution executing his own soldiers for torturing people and and laying down the law that this will absolutely not be tolerated and that's right george washington was a very very strict disciplinary and then uh... he saw troops getting out of hand and mistreating prisoners during of the french and indian war uh... it was called the united states and america at that time and later when we came commander in chief of the continental army he took a very very stern position on abuse of prisoners the laid down uh... an order following the battle of trenton uh... that begins first treat them with humanity and it goes on to say it to list all the rules about how the prisoners were to be handled there it's received food uh... housing and medical attention in no way inferior to what the american soldiers got and in some ways even better they would be the first to get these things uh... and he said we will treat them by humanity with humanity we will treat them well and instead doing we will uh... have we would we will ensure that they see the benefits of our society and our way remember that started with all those hessian soldiers who were captured uh... and trenton and by the end of the war those hessian soldiers for the most part came over they became american citizens they settled in the united states and not a few of them finish the war fighting for the united states you know i i don't know if you know they teach us such uh... propagandistic stories about george washington when we're little kids i think a lot of people just grew up to you know backlash the other way the guy was far from perfect and you know innumerable ways what have you but i think the legacy laid down by george washington for this country is something that you know i don't know enough people i think hold close to their hearts that it's worth harping on that george washington would never tolerate this kind of thing that this is the guy that we hold up so high because when he had the opportunity to seize power he resigned his commission he gave his sword to the congress and he went home to his wife this is what america's all about right that's right show them how great we are by acting in front of them in term proper manner that's right george washington's office someone who realized he was never going to be the strongest army and the world through military engagement that was completely hopeless if america was going to win the war it was going to win that through its ideology to the ideology of the revolution and he implemented that and it worked that's right and you know if you take that same uh... that same kind of premise and take it to uh... well for example the neo cons war on tyranny in the world the best way to fight that if you really wanna quite a sustained effort to undo tyranny in the world it would be for us to perfect our society as close as we can get it to perfect liberty and then be that shining light not not the laser scope on a rifle but uh... an example to people around the world of how they could be free to that's right but if we look over the last six years we feed of america's standing in the world uh... fallen every single year year-on-year and now it's the lowest point it ever been the founding of our nation well that's only since the invasion of iraq because we know that american foreign policy according to rudolph juliani has no effect whatsoever on what people in the world think of us or on any of their motives for fighting against us and if you believe that you probably also think there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq uh... yeah they're all in syria now don't you read the weekly standard but that's right uh... boy now i'm sorry i just thought of ten things i could say about the weekly standard but i should pass that pass up the opportunity uh... nsa wiretapping let's talk about that uh... it's come out recently that alberto gonzalez uh... actually took a trip to john ash cross hospital bed to get him to do what now the uh... the department of justice that refused to approve continuation of uh...of an nsa surveillance program that targeted american citizens uh... and uh... james coming at that point and that was the acting attorney general and he had refused to but we also know that the head of the office of legal counsel uh... a man named uh... uh... goldsmith had uh... refused to approve it so uh... gonzalez went uh... to seek out john ashcroft in his hospital bed as he was suffering from pancreatitis uh... pancreatitis uh... passing in and out of consciousness and he did this late at night uh... and uh... we have in the testimony from uh... from james coming just last week a very dramatic portrayal of the entire incident passing in and out of consciousness you don't mean just falling asleep in waking back up a leg you know literally things that were under very heavy sedation so it was very difficult for him to maintain focus of attention but uh... comy felt that that uh... that ashcroft actually stood up and gave gonzalez a strong dressing down uh... and of course the interesting thing uh... to take from this entire incident is after this confrontation and which call me and others the justice department stood up for the law and that's all suppose them every single one of the justice department lawyers who supported the law in the constitution that is john ashcroft james call me jack uh... goldsmith uh... and several others removed they all left the department of justice can you name it as the new uh... attorney general alberto gonzalez can you imagine john ashcroft defender of liberty it's pretty amazing isn't it but you know i i have to say i i disagreed for a long time but john ashcroft about many things but he always struck me as a person of integrity and a serious person of the lawyer so i think he took an extremely conservative view of civil liberties issues but uh... that different from uh... taking uh... a uh... bill uh... the view that they don't exist at all which is the alberto gonzalez you right and now does this even have a view at all other than surface master george bush well that's of course what the uh... that the press of the story today which is called the gap uh... and i think if you look back on gonzalez's career his entire career from the tiny first appeared on the public stage has been serving george bush been defined around that uh... and uh... he is nothing essentially except uh...george bush is yes that that's what he always was yet and i really american history you've had you know obviously the attorney general isn't is a political point and uh... obviously had attorney generals who are close to the president but is this something altogether new where where the attorney general just doesn't even care about the law at all he simply might as well just be a white house press man i think it would go back to uh... you know throughout american history there have been several attorney generals who have been political figures you might even say political hack from times uh... but there's never been anything on the order of alberto gonzalez he's an entirely new category really uh... yeah uh... someone who is you know really not in any sense a functioning lawyer simply a political act that's all so this really is the media of course accusations were leveled at janet reno but she was a career prosecutor you know who really did not particularly strong partisan political prize uh... you know they were there were uh... accusations leveled of william french smith for instance that that need that they were political but i think all of those figures stand-up uh...detached serious lawyers numbered of involved with that we found out more and more overtime that really just as a wiretapping really does target basically all three hundred million of us on yeah i think it's very clear that uh... that for the entire population of the united state is subject to the surveillance program but you shouldn't think of it in terms of wiretapping of the old tight that existed like in the movie the conversation of the new movie the life of others it's not that kind of surveillance uh... it driven by logarithms and uh... special techniques to allow them to mind through data to pull out things that might be interesting to them uh... but the representation that were made early on uh... that this was only dealing with uh... terrorism suspects and foreigners that definitely not through it dealing with all of us months you know even now walter pincus in the washington post wrote called it the terrorist surveillance program a couple weeks ago right but that's of course the administration's label for it right now i wonder why he doesn't call the the guys in gaza homicide bombers like on fox news well so how illegal is that i mean uh...this is the this is the thing i guess uh... the the point of frustration and i'm sure you feel it too it's very clear is it not in the law that you just can't go mining through everybody in america's phone calls and emails and you know the web surfing fishing for crime but that that's correct i mean the law is it gives broad authority to the government particularly when espionage and uh... and foreign sources are are involved uh... to go and intercept information but it's still subject to our tradition of oversight which means the court needs to authorize it uh... and there's a special court set up for this purpose by the way the attorney general can preemptively authorized things but he's got to go back at a later point to the court and get approval for it and what we're seeing here in the was very clear that's what it provides and what we're seeing here is a whole sale uh... skirting about law now that's a criminal law we're not just saying it break the law it eight crying to do that and the law was enacted because of the legacy of watergate when the government was found engaged in this sort of warrant was search in the decision was made by congress government officials to do this are criminals and should be criminalized so it's a very severe violation against that you know we get uh... arguments coming from the administration today that though i'll have you know this is an obsolete law it's uh... from nineteen seventy-eight and people at different cell phones back then so we can just ignore it outrageous yet well and also that and if it wasn't for them you'd be dead earth speaking arabic by now that's right yeah never forget you know the caliphate that's going to come conquer north america if we don't stop and now the the u s attorneys this is another gonzales scandal uh... i think i read on your blog you quoted marie coco saying stop calling it the fired u s attorney scandal and start calling it d justice department persecuting u s attorneys who would not go along with their partisan schemes scandals that about right that is right in fact they're just going to papers today we've got actually quite a number of newspapers looking at the latest evidence than saying that what's going on here is a politicization of the department of justice uh... and u s attorney seem to be consistently fired and replaced when they refused to allow their offices to be used to advance a republican campaign agenda particularly in the voting rights area uh... so that seems to be a major focus of it and it's interesting because we have a another interview given by john mccay who was the u s attorney in seattle uh...uh... until recently he was cashier to actually very highly respected very well regarded uh... u s attorney gave a speech to the mainstream republicans of washington on sunday evening uh... and he said in the middle of his speech that uh... he was concerned uh... that uh... the decision to remove him might itself have been a criminal act that that is you know part of a scheme to tamper with the voting process of washington so uh...i'm sure then uh... grand jury was immediately impaneled right but not until there's a new attorney general so i see when that i mean of course the biggest problem with god is that we have all these accusations flying all over the place u s attorney and uh...new mexico david a glitch is now i'm from new mexico and uh...yeah david a glitch is was long viewed as one of the real rising republican stars of the state someone a lot of people discussed at the potential uh... replacement to uh... new mexico's republican senator who couldn't get along with a very well uh... and you know you may more or less the same accusations he was put under tremendous pressure to abuse of office for partisan political purposes uh... and we had recently uh... the former u.s. attorney in kansas city missouri making the state charge uh... and we've been very spectacular headlines coming out of milwaukee involving the u.s. attorney there's even biscuit pick so this is brought a rare uh... that criminal prosecution of the state official that backfired and it was closely linked a republican uh... campaign interesting so this isn't just uh... they're trying to the white house is trying to get these attorneys to read cases that are initiate cases against democrats but this it's almost all entirely centered around electoral politics it's electoral politics that very heavily focused on uh... what we call the uh... the uh... the battleground state but with the roughly ten state which in every election of the real focus uh... the ones where the vote goes right down the wire so these guys really recognize no limits on their power whatsoever in the united states of america they think they can just go around and uh... replace u s attorneys with compliant ones in order to steel elections i think that i think the focus of the end of the day is on perpetuating their hold on power it the ultimate corruption is absolutely amazing i mean you look at a bunch of people who are absolutely corrupt before they even took power it just seems like they would at least know for public relations reasons that their lines that they can't cross you know that's right but of course remember they uh... they kept up a public relation uh... front on this from the beginning and uh... alberto gonzalez whether not that in the u s day today in which he that the largest of overblown personnel matter uh... and in fact two weeks ago alberto gonzalez was telling his friend that he'd weathered the scandal and everything was just fine and and now this is the idea this vote of no confidence in the congress is there any such thing in the american system is a vote of no confidence it's happened a handful of times in the past you know we have a major effort to vote no confidence the president about a hundred years ago uh... it happened with the secretary of war also about a hundred years ago extremely rare uh... and of course uh...and the present circumstances it appears that there are somewhere between six and a dozen republican senators who will vote no confidence in gonzalez they've expressed it openly uh... so looks that there would be a very large majority uh...uh... expressing no confidence and then that's got to be looked at as uh...and the background against an impeachment effort because right now it looks increasingly that he would in fact be impeached and removed from office mhm and you know i'm sorry i can't remember which uh...legal expert it was but i was talking to him and then jacob hornberger from the future freedom foundation he said that the uh... the real danger here from the white house's point of view is that if gonzalez finally does resign and is replaced that the new guy is going to turn over all the paperwork because he's not going to want to get stuck with any of gonzalez's scandals and then at that point you're talking about possibly bringing down the bush regime but that you know they've been to press reports so far uh... quoting sources within the white house is that they've seen the materials of the them with health and not turned over and that these materials will show they give dollars perjured himself and they will show that carl road was the man who was orchestrating this entire program so i'd take it as a given right now that that's what's going to happen so when the vote is gone that we're going to move on actually to a much more detailed investigation of this scandal i think that's going to lead straight to carl rove and there's so many other scandals uh... within you know under gonzalez's uh... authority that uh...i guess depending on uh... how worried his replacement is we could find out a lot more about the torture the wiretapping and all kinds of other things too uh... that that's right i think there are other just uh... more mundane political scandals are going on and what i think that come out of the dismissal of uh... of carol lambe down in san diego and also the dismissal of her colleague uh... and los angeles uh... seems to have been very very closely tied to their investigation it was targeting three different republican congressman in connection with defense skin they uh... uh... defense spending uh...uh... misappropriation uh... and you know in fact uh... congressman cunningham uh... has been indicted convicted made to other republican congressman who are known to be in the crosshairs and now are just couple minutes left here when i ask one last thing there have been reports that uh...henry waxman from the house uh... government oversight committee wants uh... has issued a subpoena for connell is a rise he wants to know everything that she knows under oath about the niger uranium forgeries and how they ended up in the president speech even though the ci a on fourteen different occasions had attempted to remove that information from the uh... case for war and she's refusing citing executive privilege i thought that this case is already settled when she tried to cite executive privilege for uh... trying to refuse to testify before the nine eleven commission in which case she eventually relented and did go testify so does she have a leg to stand on it all the secretary of state here some basis because of course this goes to think she did when she was the national security advisor but i think given everything that's transpired in this case to give in the fact that he already testified before the nine eleven commission about it she's fair game in the end of the day at this if the subpoena issue is pushed to the wall she won't wear chill lose and she'll be embarrassed so really it makes much more sense for simply to comply right see that's what i thought was uh...okay she's fighting it wonderful you know this just give it uh... you know ten more headlines before she ends up having to testify anyway sounds good to me direct well there we go we're all out of time i appreciate you uh...coming on the show today everybody scott horton the other scott horton uh... from human rights first he's a new york city attorney lectures at columbia university and i didn't get to ask you about your american university in central asia will have to try that another time he writes no comment for harper's magazine thanks very much for time today scott all the best take care all right folks this is anti war radio chaos radio ninety five point nine fm in austin texas and we'll be right back
