Bush DoJ Officials Fear Keeping Communications Records Will Expose Them to Criminal Charges

Chitra Ragavan for US News reports: "You have no idea," said one Justice official, "how bad it is here." The fear that virtually any piece of communication will have to be turned over has paralyzed department officials' ability to communicate effectively and respond in unison to the crisis, as has the fact that senior Justice officials themselves say they still don't know the entire story about what happened that led to the crisis. So they are afraid that anything they put down on paper could be viewed as lies or obfuscation, when in fact, the story is changing daily as new documents are found and as the Office of Legal Counsel conducts its own internal probe into the matter. Kevin Drum asks "Golly. I wonder why they think that anything they put down on paper could be viewed as lies or obfuscation?" After all, if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear, right? Isn't that the premise of warrantless wiretaps?