DoJ Went Judge-Shopping for Judge Who Would Approve Secret Warrant?

Third time's a charm?

The link is to Gateway Pundit, and he links to Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker. (Lizza is admirably aggressive on these issues and, IMHO, should be white-listed as far as any boycott.)

The new documents show that two judges separately declared that the Justice Department was required to notify Rosen of the search warrant, even if the notification came after a delay. Otherwise: “The subscriber therefore will never know, by being provided a copy of the warrant, for example, that the government secured a warrant and searched the contents of her e-mail account,” Judge John M. Facciola wrote in an opinion rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument.

Machen appealed that decision, and in September, 2010, Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, granted Machen’s request to overturn the order of the two judges.

Holder's gonna make it all right, thought. As Step One in Making It All Right, he has let it be publicly known that he now feels a "creeping sense of remorse" when reading the search warrant he already read and signed years ago.

This Daily Beast article is incredible, and seems to represent a Crisis Communications firm's response to the scandal. Eric Holder really, really wants you to know he's sorry... even though he didn't do anything wrong.

Here are some representative quotes:

Holder’s Regrets and Repairs

by Daniel Klaidman

How the attorney general feels about his own role in the Fox News case—and how he plans to prevent it from happening again. By Daniel Klaidman.

But for Attorney General Eric Holder, the gravity of the situation didn’t fully sink in until Monday morning when he read the Post’s front-page story, sitting at his kitchen table....

Kitchen table! Why, he's Just Like You!

Holder knew that Justice would be besieged by the twin leak probes; but, according to aides, he was also beginning to feel a creeping sense of personal remorse....

By week’s end, Holder knew he had to be proactive in stemming the criticism and restoring the department’s credibility with the press. He and his advisers began exploring ways to reform the Justice Department’s internal guidelines for investigating leaks to safeguard the media against overly intrusive tactics....

I'll bet. A mafia don just called me and said he was feeling "remorse" and was exploring ways to reform LCN's "internal guidelines" for extortion and theft.

As one of Holder’s advisers put it, the message was: “Look we get it. We understand why this is so controversial, and we’re ready to make changes to find the right balance.”

...

But sources close to the attorney general says he has been particularly stung by the leak controversy, in large part because his department’s—and his own—actions are at odds with his image of himself as a pragmatic lawyer with liberal instincts and a well-honed sense of balance—not unlike the president he serves. “Look, Eric sees himself fundamentally as a progressive, not some Torquemada out to silence the press,” says a friend who asked not to be identified.

...

To begin the process of recalibrating that balance, Holder is initiating a dialogue with representatives of major media organizations. Invitations go out today, with the first meeting taking place possibly as early as this week. Holder’s aides say he is encouraging a no-holds-barred conversation with the goal of updating and strengthening DOJ guidelines. But Holder’s own personal soul searching has already begun, with, among other things, the question of why he signed off on an affidavit that in retrospect he believed may have crossed the line.

A Listening Tour. How novel.

I really get it, guys. I feel a growing sense of remorse. I think that something bad may have happened.

Next comes...

As an explanation, if not a justification...

Which is in fact an attempt at a justification, explaining that poor Eric Holder was "besieged" by demands for leak investigations from the CIA 'n stuff.

Then the writer explains that Eric Holder just might be too dedicated to his job.

Holder, his aides say, believes there may also be a cultural factor at the root of his decision. Prosecutors tend to have a somewhat insular mindset, not always able to see clearly beyond the walls of their cases. They are often dogged investigators, trained to vacuum up as much evidence as possible to sustain convictions in courts of law. That sometimes means taking maximum advantage of every law and procedural rule. It also can mean seeing every activity of those in their sights through a more sinister lens than may be justified.

...

Perhaps the most significant structural flaw in the current system, however...

Oh thank God, The System is to blame. For a moment I was afraid this Crisis Communications Firm's defense of Holder would forget to blame The System instead of its client.

...is that the fox is guarding the henhouse. Prosecutors whose main interest is catching and convicting leakers call the shots on how aggressively to pursue reporters as part of their investigations. That is why, Holder believes, there is ultimately no better solution than passing a media-shield law that would place those decisions in the hands of an independent federal judge. But until then, Holder will be the judge—a little more experienced, and perhaps a little wiser.

Hilarious. It ends on such an optimistic coda -- well, he screwed up, you know, but now he's got all this Wisdom he'll be using to protect us. Lose-Win, but accent on the Win.

I think the article should have stopped much earlier, after this sentence in the fourth paragraph:

DOJ officials, realizing the issue could turn into a press feeding frenzy, went into damage-control mode.

That is really the only news here. All the rest of this, about remorse and "internal reviews" and wisdom, is jut details.

It's all about damage control. And about nothing but that.

posted by Ace at 11:13 AM

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