Toensing phones Blitzer on air to make comments on spying

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220011


Toensing "called in" to CNN, falsely equated Clinton's searches in Ames case with Bush wiretapping


On the December 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer held a one-on-one discussion with CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin regarding recent efforts by numerous conservatives to falsely equate President Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance with the Clinton administration's use of physical searches without warrants. In the middle of this discussion, Blitzer informed his viewers that Republican attorney Victoria Toensing "has called us ... and wants to weigh in." Once on the air, Toensing repeated the claim that Clinton "did carry out the same authority" as Bush, citing as evidence Clinton's handling of the Aldrich Ames case and 1994 congressional testimony by Jamie Gorelick, then a deputy attorney general. Blitzer made no effort to challenge Toensing's highly misleading argument.

-snip-

During his conversation with Toensing, Blitzer asked twice if the DOJ went to the FISA court after the fact, a reference to FISA's "emergency" provision, which allows the government to obtain a warrant up to 72 hours after starting some surveillance or searches. But his question missed the central falsehood in Toensing's argument. FISA did not apply to physical searches at the time of the Ames investigation or the Gorelick testimony, a point that Blitzer did not raise despite Toobin's having made it minutes before. Prior to Toensing's apparently unexpected commentary on The Situation Room, Toobin had clearly affirmed that "physical searches were not covered by the FISA law" at the time of Gorelick's 1994 testimony and that the Clinton administration never "went ahead and wiretapped American citizens without informing or using the FISA court."

-snip-

BLITZER: Stand by for a moment, Jeff. Victoria Toensing has called us. She's a former Justice Department official. She's a well-known Washington attorney. Vickie, you're hearing the discussion I'm having now with Jeff Toobin, and you wanted to weigh in. So go ahead. What's your point?

TOENSING: Well, the Clinton administration did carry out that authority when they went into Aldrich Ames's house without a warrant. And they argued before the House -- Jamie Gorelick did -- that they had the inherent -- the president had the inherent constitutional authority to do so.

-snip-

BLITZER: Victoria Toensing served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. She was watching our program, called us in. And thanks for doing so. Vickie.
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how sweet of Vickie and Blitzer.

Wolfie is a classic presstitute & Vicky, well she is just a bald faced liar. So she certainly fits in well with the others in this administration.

she must be a sexually repressed woman ... i mean, the amount and wealth of energy she puts into defending the bushboy and the republicans...some of it must be coming from sexually repressed energy, i think.

nt

it is so transparent!