Palace Revolt

I've written before about how much and why I like people like Fitz & Comey so it was a treat to learn today in an article in Newsweek that they are not alone. There are other good, principled people in government offices who believe that the laws should be enforced regardless of who is involved.

These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.

ReddHedd over at FDL has posted an article she calls Comey and the Rule of Law Versus the Cult of Cheney which begins...

For anyone who has doubted that there is, indeed, still some integrity left in the world, look no further. Newsweek has a story out today on James Comey and a band of conservative appointees in the DoJ and elsewhere throughout the intelligence legal community in the Bush Administration who stood up to what I'm going to call the "Cult of Cheney" -- the VP, David Addington, John Yoo and others, who continuously pushed the envelope and the rule of law to get what they wanted in terms of overreach of Presidential power.

Go read it... and you'll be introduced to another of the "good guys" named Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the DoJ and his battle with another operative for the Dark Side, David Addington, formerly counsel, now chief of staff to the vice president Darth Cheney.