An adviser of John McCain's, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has been going round and round with the media about letter he wrote which responded to an article written by The National Review, where they questioned quotes attributed to him by The Washington Post
Starting at the beginning, the Washington Post wrote an article titled "For McCain, A Switch On Telecom Immunity?", which started a tidal wave of communications from a McCain adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, that claims the Washington post story was "was an incorrect, and one could argue, negligently written story." He asserts that he was misquoted in the article.
The Washington Post article has quotes from two sources at question.
First they start the article with:
A top lawyer for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign said telecommunications companies should be forced to explain their role in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program as a condition for legal immunity for past wiretapping, a statement that stands in marked contrast to positions taken by President Bush, McCain and other Republicans in Congress.
That first paragraph is addressed in a letter written to National Review Online, (NRO) the same day, by Doug Holtz-Eakin, where he says:
For example, if you read Weisman’s lead paragraph, he explicitly asserts that Chuck Fish is a top lawyer for the campaign (false; as you know, he's a legal volunteer who helped out once as a last-minute policy surrogate). Additionally, I made it abundantly clear to Mr. Weisman that if there were instances where Fish stated positions that were contrary to McCain’s positions, those views had no bearing or credibility to McCain’s policy position. I carefully corrected Weisman on both of those points yesterday and he chose to ignore them.
Most importantly, I went on the record and said: “John McCain's position has never changed on this issue. Period.” For reasons that are unclear that point didn't make print.
Doug Holtz-Eakinalso levels the accusation at the Washington Post writer saying that after reading the article he has to conclude that "he desperately wanted to write a story about a division among Republicans where one does not exist", he went on to say that "author of the article (Jonathan Weisman) displayed a reckless disregard for key facts that I gave him during an interview yesterday."
The NRO published another article asking further qualifying questions and asks about quotes in the original Washington Post article that the writer attributed to Doug Holtz-Eakin himself.
That is to say, does Sen. McCain believe, despite (a) the above mentioned assertion by the highest, most specialized federal court ever to rule on FISA, (b) numerous other federal appellate court decisions attesting to the president's power to conduct warrantless surveillance to protect against foreign national-security threats, (c) the opinions expressed by the Justice Department during both Democrat and Republican administrations, (d) the sense of Congress expressed in the original 1968 federal wiretapping statute, and (e) numerous federal court decisions (including Supreme Court decisions) permitting warrantless searches of persons, items sent by mail, and computers (including stored email) as they cross U.S. borders, that President Bush did not have constitutional authority to order warrantless monitoring of cross-border communications to or from suspected foreign terrorists after 3000 Americans were murdered on 9/11 by embedded al Qaeda operatives acting on the instruction of their overseas masters?
That was all on May 29, 2008.
On June 2, 2008, NRO published a letter from Doug Holtz-Eakin, who sent it as a response to the questions asked in the last NRO.
Dear Andy:
I read your post yesterday on the Corner where you expressed some concern over Senator McCain’s position on pending FISA legislation. I am happy to provide you with more clarification on Senator McCain’s position and take this opportunity to set the record straight since Jonathan Weisman’s story in the Washington Post was written with a complete disregard of the facts, misrepresenting my statements to him and Senator McCain’s position on FISA.
Here is the bottom line: Senator McCain supports the FISA modernization bill passed by the Senate without qualification. He believes no additional steps should be necessary to secure immunity for the telecoms; both the 109th and 110th Congresses have conducted extensive evaluation and examination of this topic and have satisfied the public’s need for appropriate oversight; hearings purportedly designed to ‘get to the bottom of things’ have already occurred; and neither the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Senator McCain has never stated, nor does he believe that telecoms should only receive retroactive immunity in exchange for congressional testimony about their actions. We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.
As you know, the FISA modernization legislation passed by the Senate earlier this year sets forth clear guidelines authorizing the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to direct a telecom company to immediately provide the government with all information necessary to protect Americans from foreign threats and outlines legal procedures with respect to any challenges of this authority. Additionally, the bill requires the Attorney General and the Director to assess compliance of the intelligence community with minimization techniques. These types of modernization provisions placed in the bill are the “clear guidelines” and “vetting processes” I stated that Senator McCain, like a majority of his colleagues, supports.
Today the New York Times jumped into the mix trying to follow the twists and turns of the firestorm that a volunteer lawyer and a Washington Post writer brought about in the media and the blogosphere, and the New York times brings a couple addition points up.
First they show a reaction from Barack Obama's Campaign adviser, Greg Craig, who said, "that anyone reading Mr. McCain’s answers to The Globe and the more recent statement would be “totally confused” about “what Senator McCain thinks about what the Constitution means and what President Bush did. American voters deserve to know which side of this flip-flop he’s on today, and what he would do as president."
The second thing they brought up, which was mentioned in the Obama adviser statement, which is the only actual quotes from John McCain himself in this whole fiasco. That is the Boston Globe interview from December 20, 2007.
The question from Charlie Savage to John McCain was, "Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?"
John McCain responded with, "There are some areas where the statutes don’t apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is."
Savage followed up with a clarifying question, "Okay, so is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?"
John McCain answered with, "I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law."
With all the he said, she said, from the Washington Post, NRO, letters from Douglas Holtz-Eakin, quotes or misquotes and statements or misstatements from Chuck Fish, who was a volunteer lawyer sent to a computer policy conference on the McCain campaign's behalf... the Boston Globe article is the only actual statements made by McCain that have been reported in the firestorm media frenzy since the Washington Post story was first published.
It promises to be a very long few months ahead in the campaign for the general election.
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