What it says on the tin.
Mueller, former FBI Director, is back in the headlines following his appointment as the Special Counsel for the Trump/Russia investigation, but he first achieved prominence as the FBI director during the Bush, and later Obama, White Houses. In March of 2004, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey was attempting to prevent the Bush White House from re-authorizing the STELLAR WIND domestic surveillance program (which remained classified until 2015), to the point of keeping vigil by Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital bed (Ashcroft was critically ill with pancreatitis, and thus the duty of re-authorizing the program fell to Comey). Bush attempted to pull an end-run around Comey by removing him from the hospital (in order to get the semi-conscious Ashcroft to sign off on the program), leading to Comey to call on Mueller for help. In response, Muller and over a dozen FBI and DoJ officials prepared letters of resignation, and Mueller point blank told Bush, to his face, that he was prepared to resign over the program.
OTL, Bush blinked first and conceded to Comey and Mueller. However, Cheney and others in the Bush administration were fiercely opposed to this, and it's entirely possible that Bush could have called Mueller's bluff. Mind you, this is March of an election year; Kerry had just recently (mostly) clinched the Democratic nomination, but the general election campaign was still months away. What would the ramifications be, if the Bush administration intentionally caused the resignation of over a dozen FBI and DoJ officials, including the FBI Director and Deputy AG? Even more so, what happens if STELLAR WIND is also declassified (this seems almost a given)? I'd imagine that the revelation that the Bush administration was running an illegal domestic surveillance campaign, and persisted in running it despite the objections of senior DoJ and FBI officials would be pretty catastrophic to Bush's re-election prospects.
Source for the POD. Note: this also relates to Mueller's appointment as Special Counsel and discusses the ongoing investigation into Trump. If at all possible, could we keep current politics out of it?
Mueller, former FBI Director, is back in the headlines following his appointment as the Special Counsel for the Trump/Russia investigation, but he first achieved prominence as the FBI director during the Bush, and later Obama, White Houses. In March of 2004, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey was attempting to prevent the Bush White House from re-authorizing the STELLAR WIND domestic surveillance program (which remained classified until 2015), to the point of keeping vigil by Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital bed (Ashcroft was critically ill with pancreatitis, and thus the duty of re-authorizing the program fell to Comey). Bush attempted to pull an end-run around Comey by removing him from the hospital (in order to get the semi-conscious Ashcroft to sign off on the program), leading to Comey to call on Mueller for help. In response, Muller and over a dozen FBI and DoJ officials prepared letters of resignation, and Mueller point blank told Bush, to his face, that he was prepared to resign over the program.
OTL, Bush blinked first and conceded to Comey and Mueller. However, Cheney and others in the Bush administration were fiercely opposed to this, and it's entirely possible that Bush could have called Mueller's bluff. Mind you, this is March of an election year; Kerry had just recently (mostly) clinched the Democratic nomination, but the general election campaign was still months away. What would the ramifications be, if the Bush administration intentionally caused the resignation of over a dozen FBI and DoJ officials, including the FBI Director and Deputy AG? Even more so, what happens if STELLAR WIND is also declassified (this seems almost a given)? I'd imagine that the revelation that the Bush administration was running an illegal domestic surveillance campaign, and persisted in running it despite the objections of senior DoJ and FBI officials would be pretty catastrophic to Bush's re-election prospects.
Source for the POD. Note: this also relates to Mueller's appointment as Special Counsel and discusses the ongoing investigation into Trump. If at all possible, could we keep current politics out of it?
