Report: DOJ Blocking Obama Team From Seeing Secret Legal Memos

[babylonsister]

Obama Transition Team Pushing for Secret Legal Memos

Joe Palazzolo
Legal Times
December 10, 2008



A senior Justice Department official said Tuesday that "99.8 percent" of the department's work with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.

In a roundtable discussion with reporters last week, Attorney General Michael Mukasey declined to discuss specific requests made by transition staff regarding opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel, the arm of the Justice Department that provides legal advice to the president and all other executive branch agencies.

The Justice official said the dispute over access to the NSA and CIA opinions has made its way up to Williams & Connolly's Gregory Craig, who earlier this month was named to be Obama's White House counsel. Craig was expected to meet with current White House counsel Fred Fielding to discuss the issue, the official said. It's unclear whether such a meeting has already taken place. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Justice official said the department was reluctant to provide the opinions to Obama's team without permission from the two intelligence agencies whose activities they address. At the roundtable, Mukasey said OLC opinions are issued at the request of other agencies with their "own equity or interest in the information."

more...

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202426606768

[tridim]

1. The .2% probably represents the coverup of BushCo crimes

Too bad DOJ, you can't hide it much longer.

[acmavm]

2. Well hell yeah they're playing it cagey. Look at what the information

relates to:

<snip>
The opinions, some of which have been released to Congress in redacted form, contain the legal rationale of the NSA's warrantless spying program and the CIA's detention and interrogation policies, among other intelligence initiatives.

[bigtree]

3. reason enough to immediately announce the replacement of Hayden

. . . and McConnell

[screembloodymurder]

4. Bring in the military and take out the spooks.

:mad:

[babylonsister]

5. And screambloodymurder!

:hide:

[McCamy Taylor]

6. The stuff related to DOJ crimes and coverups? Is Blago blackmail by DOJ

to keep Obama's new DOJ from prosecuting Mukasey and the outgoing guys for torture, Siegelman etc?

[babylonsister]

7. Wow. I'd find that hard to believe. Blago dug his own grave with no

help from anyone.