By Spencer Ackerman, TPMMuckraker
Get ready for more revelations about the extent of the National Security Agency’s post-9/11 warrantless surveillance program. Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to hear testimony from Jack Goldsmith, the former head of Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, a key ally in James Comey’s efforts as acting attorney general to scale back what they considered an illegal program.
A Senate source confirms to TPMmuckraker that the committee “expects him to testify at a hearing sometime after Congress reconvenes,” but no dates have been announced yet. Nor is there word about other witnesses, or if Goldsmith – who didn’t testify along with Comey during his dramatic May 15 hearing – has been subpoenaed. Isikoff reports that that the hearing will likely occur next month.
Goldsmith’s testimony will be interesting on its own merits: a stalwart conservative and current Harvard Law professor, it was largely Goldsmith’s legal analysis that convinced Comey the warrantless surveillance program was illegal. But it’ll also have political implications, Isikoff explains, now that Gonzales is on his way out and President Bush is shopping around for a new attorney general. Democrats may tether the approval of Bush’s forthcoming nominee to a Watergate-style agreement for the creation of a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales-related scandals about the U.S. attorney firings and the surveillance program. As Isikoff writes, with a fresh account on the record about widespread wrongdoing at the Justice Department, Goldsmith will provide the Democrats with “fresh ammunition in their campaign for a special prosecutor.”