Who Can Count To 2 Or Higher?

[ThomWV]

On May the 15th James Comey, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to a question by Senator Charles Schumer
said:

"In the early part of 2004, the Department of Justice was engaged — the Office of Legal Counsel, under my supervision — in a reevaluation both factually and legally of a particular classified program. And it was a program that was renewed on a regular basis, and required signature by the attorney general certifying to its legality." more at http://thinkprogress.org/comey-testimony/


The subject at the time was the the warantless wiretapping program, otherwise known as the domestic surveillance program, and so it was presumed that is the "particular" program that he was talking about. The Washington Post certainly though so when they published this:

"White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal." Full article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html

However today Attorney General Gonzalez tells us that in fact some other program was being reauthorized - that there were in fact more than one program. Comey didn't tell us anything different.

So the question to ask now is not how well they protected their program(s) from the Judiciary Committee, the question is did they ever get around to mentioning this second (or more) program to the Intelligence Committee? And beyond that, if the additional program(s) were not approved by DOJ then, are they now?

I'd say that either we heard a clear perjury today or there are a lot more questions to be asked and the Judiciary Committee isn't the only one that should be asking.