Politics: John Ashcroft Is Lying To You
I'm running down the fast-transcript of John Ashcroft's unbelievably duplicitous comments today to the House Judiciary Committee. The AG dropped some huge lies all over his testimony, but the largely friendly Republican-led Committee only wanted to chat about intellectual property and not much else. The chair, Rep. Lamar Smith, cited a shocking statistic: 20% of American criminals are illegal immigrants. I am not sure if he isn't making that up. But he and Ashcroft shared a moment about how Smith, living in a border state, has a keen understanding of the immigrant problem. Real touching.
From the beginning, it looks like Ashcroft's plan was never to address the accusations in the IG's report, but instead to just hammer away at the committee, laying the groundwork for a big piece of legislation that will further expand his powers.
The testimony was pretty disappointing because the committee's rules for the hearing were extremely constricting. Once a committee-member got done going through his or her fulsome introduction, usually naming people who died on 9/11 from their neck of the woods, they only had time for about two questions. And Ashcroft hemmed and hawed throughout the questions until time ran out.
I know that activists in Washington who go to hearings all the time complain constantly about the fact that Democrats never coordinate their messages. A ten minute meeting before the hearing would allow a meaningful line of questioning, without all this screwing around and wasting of time. Ashcroft sat there and spun an elaborate tale about past arrests and the value of the USA Patriot Act in finding terrorist weapons stored in the United States. He claimed that 15 people have pled guilty and are cooperating with the government in their terror investigation. Who are these people? How have we never heard about them. Where was the stash of al Qaida weapons hidden in the US?
Ashcroft lied like a dog, under oath, about the justice he was doling out and how America was safer because the Justice Department could keep immigrants in jail as long as possible. Sadly, our press corps is always helpful, revising history whenever it's needed. The AP, referring to the IG's report on abuse of immigrants rounded up AFTER 9/11, wrote: "The department's inspector general found "significant problems" in the Bush administration's actions toward 762 foreigners held on immigration violations after the attacks. Only one, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been charged in the United States with a terrorism-related crime; 505 have been deported." Of course, Moussaoui was arrested on August 17th, 2001, twenty-some days before the 9/11 attacks. But that doesn't jive with Ashcroft's timeline, so we'll just help him revise it.
Give me a break.
I'm running down the fast-transcript of John Ashcroft's unbelievably duplicitous comments today to the House Judiciary Committee. The AG dropped some huge lies all over his testimony, but the largely friendly Republican-led Committee only wanted to chat about intellectual property and not much else. The chair, Rep. Lamar Smith, cited a shocking statistic: 20% of American criminals are illegal immigrants. I am not sure if he isn't making that up. But he and Ashcroft shared a moment about how Smith, living in a border state, has a keen understanding of the immigrant problem. Real touching.
From the beginning, it looks like Ashcroft's plan was never to address the accusations in the IG's report, but instead to just hammer away at the committee, laying the groundwork for a big piece of legislation that will further expand his powers.
The testimony was pretty disappointing because the committee's rules for the hearing were extremely constricting. Once a committee-member got done going through his or her fulsome introduction, usually naming people who died on 9/11 from their neck of the woods, they only had time for about two questions. And Ashcroft hemmed and hawed throughout the questions until time ran out.
I know that activists in Washington who go to hearings all the time complain constantly about the fact that Democrats never coordinate their messages. A ten minute meeting before the hearing would allow a meaningful line of questioning, without all this screwing around and wasting of time. Ashcroft sat there and spun an elaborate tale about past arrests and the value of the USA Patriot Act in finding terrorist weapons stored in the United States. He claimed that 15 people have pled guilty and are cooperating with the government in their terror investigation. Who are these people? How have we never heard about them. Where was the stash of al Qaida weapons hidden in the US?
Ashcroft lied like a dog, under oath, about the justice he was doling out and how America was safer because the Justice Department could keep immigrants in jail as long as possible. Sadly, our press corps is always helpful, revising history whenever it's needed. The AP, referring to the IG's report on abuse of immigrants rounded up AFTER 9/11, wrote: "The department's inspector general found "significant problems" in the Bush administration's actions toward 762 foreigners held on immigration violations after the attacks. Only one, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been charged in the United States with a terrorism-related crime; 505 have been deported." Of course, Moussaoui was arrested on August 17th, 2001, twenty-some days before the 9/11 attacks. But that doesn't jive with Ashcroft's timeline, so we'll just help him revise it.
Give me a break.
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