Without Honor?

(Updated April 19, 2008)

Glenn Greenwald covers a revelation about 9/11 offered by Attorney General Michael Mukasey almost six and a half years after the terrorist strike against the United States:

• "Michael Mukasey's tearful lies", March 29, 2008


• "Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?", April 3, 2008


• "The DOJ comments on the Mukasey controversy", April 4, 2008


• "The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell", April 5, 2008


• "The Associated Press fails to reveal Mukasey's favorite color", April 6, 2008


• "Lee Hamilton denies Michael Mukasey's claim about 9/11", April 8, 2008


• "More on Michael Mukasey's false 9/11 and FISA claims", April 11, 2008


• "Mukasey dishonesty update", April 18, 2008

• • •

See also: Josh Gerstein, "Mukasey Makes Emotional Plea for Surveillance Powers"

Attorney General Mukasey, in an emotional plea for broad surveillance authority in the war on terror, is warning that the price for failing to empower the government would be paid in American lives. Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody picks up the phone in Iraq and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about," Mr. Mukasey said yesterday as he took questions from the audience following a speech to a public affairs forum, the Commonwealth Club. "We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

At that point in his answer, Mr. Mukasey grimaced, swallowed hard, and seemed to tear up as he reflected on the weaknesses in America's anti-terrorism strategy prior to the 2001 attacks. "We got three thousand. ... We've got three thousand people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for that," he said, struggling to maintain his composure.