Who Is Dennis Hastert?

Who Is Dennis Hastert?

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9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001: Capitol Building Finally Evacuates
The Capitol building in Washington begins evacuation. Congress is in session, but apparently the chambers are not filled with congresspeople. [Associated Press, 8/19/2002; Guardian, 7/22/2004] Senator Tom Daschle, Majority Leader of the Senate, later states, “Some capitol policemen broke into the room and said, ‘We’re under attack. I’ve got to take you out right away.’” Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, third in line of succession to the presidency behind Vice President Cheney, is in the Capitol building with other congresspeople. Only after this time are Hastert and others in the line of succession moved to secure locations. Some time after this, Hastert and other leaders are flown by helicopter to secret bunkers. [ABC News, 9/11/2002]

Between January 14, 2002 and February 1, 2002: FBI Translator Re-Translates Wiretaps Assigned to Colleague; Discovers Colleague Buried Critical Information
FBI contract linguist Sibel Edmonds re-translates 17 of the “hundreds” of wiretapped conversations that had been originally translated or reviewed by co-worker Melek Can Dickerson. [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005] She discovers that Dickerson marked as “not pertinent” every single file that included a reference to surveillance targets connected to the Turkish organizations with whom she had ties (see (November 2001)). One of those targets is a Turkish intelligence officer, who is a personal friend of Dickerson. Edmonds learns from the wiretaps that the officer had spies inside the US State Department and Pentagon seeking access to US military and intelligence secrets. [CBS, 10/27/2002] The wiretaps also reveal that the group is involved in arms and drug smuggling and is tied into a complex network of governmental and private figures in several countries. [United Press International, 11/15/2005] Additionally, Edmonds identifies hundreds of other instances where Dickerson’s work obstructed investigations. For example, she learns from one conversation that a US State Department staffer agreed to accept $7,000 in cash from certain individuals in the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in exchange for information. One wiretapped call discussed a payment to a Pentagon official, who seemed to be involved in weapons-procurement negotiations, while another suggested that Turkish doctoral students had been placed at US research institutions in order to obtain information about black market nuclear weapons. Edmonds also hears discussions about the laundering of drug smuggling profits, the selling of classified military technologies, and a scheme to secretly give Republican Congressman Dennis Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for political favors and information. She becomes convinced that the American-Turkish Council (ATC) is being used as a front for criminal activity. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004; Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]

September 3, 2002: Bush Attempts to Solicit Support from Skeptical Congressional Leaders for Confronting Iraq
President Bush invites a group of congressional leaders to have breakfast with him and Cheney in the White House’s private dining room to discuss Iraq. Present at the meeting are Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. At some point during the meeting, Daschle suggests that it would be better to postpone the debate on a congressional resolution authorizing military action in Iraq until after the November elections, so as to take politics out of the equation. According to Daschle, Bush looks at Cheney, who replies with a “half smile.” Then Bush answers, “We just have to do it now.” [New York Times, 9/7/2002; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 23]

September 5, 2002: Cheney and Tenet Discuss ‘Sensitive’ Iraq Information with Top Four Senators
Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director George Tenet meet with senators Trent Lott (R-Miss), Tom Daschle (S-SD), Dennis Hastert (R-Ill), and Richard Gephardt (D-Mo) and, in the words of Cheney, “share the most sensitive information [on Iraq’s alleged WMDs] with them.” [New York Times, 9/7/2002; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 30] They show blurry satellite photos of buildings or warehouses that Cheney insists are Iraqi nuclear weapons sites, and shots of drone aircraft presumably capable of attacking Israel with biological and chemical weapons. They also share sketches of tractor trailers that Tenet says are mobile biological weapons factories. Daschle, a former Air Force photo analyst intelligence officer, is skeptical of the photos, but says nothing. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 30]

February 7, 2003: Ultra-Secret Patriot Act II is Revealed
Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity reveals the leaked text of a new anti-terrorism bill. Called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, it becomes popularly known as the Patriot Act II. The text of the bill is dated January 9, 2003. [Congress, 1/9/2003; NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/7/2003; Center for Public Integrity, 2/7/2003] Before it was leaked, the bill was being prepared in complete secrecy from the public and Congress. Only House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Vice President Cheney were sent copies on January 10. [San Francisco Chronicle, 2/11/2003] A week earlier, Attorney General Ashcroft said the Justice Department was not working on any bill of this type, and when the text is released, they say it is just a rough draft. But the text “has all the appearance of a document that has been worked over and over.” [Village Voice, 2/28/2003; ABC News, 3/12/2003] Some, including a number of congresspeople, speculate that the government is waiting until a new terrorist act or war fever before formally introducing this bill. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/7/2003; Associated Press, 2/10/2003; United Press International, 3/10/2003; Village Voice, 3/26/2003] Here are some of its provisions:

• 1) The attorney general is given the power to deport any foreign national, even people who are legal permanent residents. No crime need be asserted, no proof offered, and the deportation can occur in complete secrecy. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/2003]
• 2) It would authorize secret arrests in terrorism investigations, which would overturn a court order requiring the release of names of their detainees. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/2003] Not even an attorney or family need be informed until the person is formally charged, if that ever happens. [ABC News, 3/12/2003]
• 3) The citizenship of any US citizen can be revoked if they are members of or have supported any group the attorney general designates as terrorist. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/2003] A person who gives money to a charity that only later turns out to have some terrorist connection could then lose his or her citizenship. [CNN, 3/6/2003]
• 4) “Whole sections… are devoted to removing judicial oversight.” Federal agents investigating terrorism could have access to credit reports, without judicial permission. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/2003]
• 5) Federal investigators can conduct wiretaps without a court order for 15 days whenever Congress authorizes force or in response to an attack on the United States. [United Press International, 3/10/2003]
• 6) It creates a DNA database of anyone the Justice Department determines to be a “suspect,” without court order. [Mercury News (San Jose), 2/20/2003]
• 7) It would be a crime for someone subpoenaed in connection with an investigation being carried out under the Patriot Act to alert Congress to any possible abuses committed by federal agents. [ABC News, 3/12/2003]
• 8) Businesses and their personnel who provide information to anti-terrorism investigators are granted immunity even if the information is fraudulent. [ABC News, 3/12/2003]
• 9) The government would be allowed to carry out electronic searches of virtually all information available about an individual without having to show probable cause and without informing the individual that the investigation was being carried out. Critics say this provision “would fundamentally change American society” because everyone would be under suspicion at all times. [ABC News, 3/12/2003]
  bullet 10) Federal agents would be immune from prosecution when they engage in illegal surveillance acts. [United Press International, 3/10/2003]
• 11) Restrictions are eased on the use of secret evidence in the prosecution of terror cases. [United Press International, 3/10/2003]
• 12) Existing judicial consent decrees preventing local police departments from spying on civil rights groups and other organizations are canceled. [Salon, 3/24/2003]
• Initially the story generates little press coverage, but there is a slow stream of stories over the next weeks, all expressing criticism. Of all the major newspapers, only the Washington Post puts the story on the front page, and no television network has the story in prime time. [Associated Press, 2/8/2003; CBS News, 2/8/2003; Los Angeles Times, 2/8/2003; New York Times, 2/8/2003; Washington Post, 2/8/2003; Associated Press, 2/10/2003; San Francisco Chronicle, 2/11/2003; Los Angeles Times, 2/13/2003; St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/2003; Denver Post, 2/20/2003; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/20/2003; Mercury News (San Jose), 2/20/2003; Baltimore Sun, 2/21/2003; Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 2/21/2003; Village Voice, 2/28/2003; Houston Chronicle, 3/1/2003; CNN, 3/6/2003; United Press International, 3/10/2003; ABC News, 3/12/2003; Herald Tribune (Sarasota), 3/19/2003; Salon, 3/24/2003; Village Voice, 3/26/2003; Tampa Tribune, 4/6/2003] Representative Jerrold Nadler (D) says the bill amounts to “little more than the institution of a police state.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 2/11/2003]

December 2004
The House approves the intelligence reform bill 336-75 after a two week stand-off instigated by House Speaker Dennis Hastert on behalf of the White House and Pentagon, which publicly professed support for the bill. A compromise was not reached with the Republicans until the intelligence reform bill was altered to reduce the power of the new national intelligence director so that the secretary of defense could maintain his “statutory responsibilities.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/21/2004; CNN, 11/24/2004; CNN, 12/8/2004; Washington Post, 1/23/2005; New Yorker, 1/24/2005] “Rummy’s plan was to get a compromise in the bill in which the Pentagon keeps its marbles and the CIA loses theirs,” a former high-level intelligence official tells investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. “Then all the pieces of the puzzle fall in place. He gets authority for covert action that is not attributable, the ability to directly task national-intelligence assets” including US spy satellites. “Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official continues. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the CIA, the DOD, the FBI, and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’ Now he can keep all of the mattress mice out of it.” [New Yorker, 1/24/2005]

July 25, 2007: Documents Show Gonzales May Have Perjured Himself Before Congress
New documents contradict Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s recent sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicating that Gonzales may have committed perjury before the panel. In testimony before the committee (see July 24, 2007), Gonzales told senators that a March 10, 2004 emergency briefing with the so-called “Gang of Eight,” comprised of the Republican and Democratic leaders of the two houses of Congress and the ranking members of both houses’ intelligence committees (see March 10, 2004), did not concern the controversial NSA warrantless domestic surveillance program, but instead was about other surveillance programs which he was not at liberty to discuss. But according to a four-page memo from the national intelligence director’s office, that briefing was indeed about the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program,” or TSP, as it is now being called by White House officials and some lawmakers. The memo is dated May 17, 2006, and addressed to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. It details “the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program,” wrote then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. The DNI memo provides further evidence that Gonzales has not been truthful in his dealings with Congress, and gives further impetus to a possible perjury investigation by the Senate. So far, both Gonzales and Justice Department spokesmen have stood by his testimony. The nature of the March 2004 briefing is important because on that date, Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card tried to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, while Ashcroft was recuperating from emergency surgery in the hospital, to reauthorize the domestic wiretapping program over the objections of acting Attorney General James Comey, who had refused to sign off on the program due to its apparent illegality (see March 10-12, 2004). Comey’s own testimony before the Senate has already strongly contradicted Gonzales’s earlier testimonies and statements (see May 15, 2007). The entire imbroglio illustrates just how far from legality the NSA wiretapping program may be, and the controversy within the Justice Department it has produced. Gonzales flatly denied that the March 2004 briefing was about the NSA program, telling the panel, “The dissent related to other intelligence activities. The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) pressed Gonzales for clarification: “Not the TSP? Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.” Gonzales replied, “It was not. It was about other intelligence activities.” Today, with the DNI documents in hand, Schumer says, “It seemed clear to just about everyone on the committee that the attorney general was deceiving us when he said the dissent was about other intelligence activities and this memo is even more evidence that helps confirm our suspicions.” Other senators agree that Gonzales is not telling the truth. “There’s a discrepancy here in sworn testimony,” says committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT). “We’re going to have to ask who’s telling the truth, who’s not.” And committee Democrats are not the only ones who find Gonzales’s testimony hard to swallow. Arlen Specter (R-PA) told Gonzales yesterday, “I do not find your testimony credible, candidly.” The “Gang of Eight” members disagree about the content of the March briefing. Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, and Tom Daschle all say Gonzales’s testimony is inaccurate, with Rockefeller calling Gonzales’s testimony “untruthful.” But former House Intelligence chairman Porter Goss and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, both Republicans, refuse to directly dispute Gonzales’s claims. [Associated Press, 7/25/2007] Three weeks later, notes from FBI director Robert Mueller, also present at the Ashcroft meeting, further contradict Gonzales’s testimony (see August 16, 2007).