( – promoted by JDRyan)
Former Reagan Justice official and GOP beltway powerhouse lawyer Victoria Toensing has been hitting the circuit hard of late, and some speculate she may be auditioning (or being auditioned?) for Alberto Gonzales’ job, should he get the boot (which I still doubt, but I’m cynical that way). Somehow or other, Toensing has been tagged as the point person on defense during the Democrat-initiated resurrection of the Valerie Plame affair in the US House. Toensing popped up with a widely circulated WaPo piece which was easily debunkable GOP rhetori-babble, but got real appreciation from the left when she appeared in front of Rep. Waxman’s committee this week and did exactly what lefties hoped she would do; regurgitate long-refuted, defensive, snarling GOP nonsense in the face of all reality and objective facts with an almost stereotypically shifty, smarmy and nasty style that will make for excellent blogosphere distribution.
In other words, she aced the Team Bush audition.
But GMD visitors who were here last election season will remember another Toensing from the Washington family firm who has also made the rounds on the talk circuit as part of the National GOP attack machine – Charlotte Zoning Board of Adjustment Chair (and Brian Dubie’s schedule-vetter and problem-solver), attorney Brady Toensing, former staffer for Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH).
Son Brady is every bit the attack-dog that his mom is, and an Attorney General Toensing (either one, frankly) would fit right into the Bush way of government.
Of the many examples (such as Victoria pushing the Lewinsky scandal, or Brady supporting Bush’s “enemy combatant” designation), there was one that struck me as having an interesting symmetry with current events. During the 90’s, former DNC Chair Donald Fowler was getting well-deserved grief for selling access to President Clinton for campaign contributions. Fowler was sleazy and caught hell (for, of course, pulling the same crap that the GOP did), but The Toensings weren’t going to let the opportunity go by without maximum exploitation.
In a strange case of historical themes echoing themselves, the Toensings were actively working with an anonymous CIA staffer to promote a book capitalizing on the scandal and promoting allegations that Fowler had attempted to get individuals in the CIA to help a major donor (the same matter that tanked Anthony Lake’s bid to become CIA chief). The Toensings were, of course, determined to get all the political mileage they could regardless of concerns over CIA classified information. From the NYT:
The C.I.A. has blocked publication of the manuscript, arguing that it contains too much classified material about agency operations. Since the author submitted the manuscript to be cleared in December, the agency’s publications review board has repeatedly demanded numerous changes, despite a requirement that the review process be completed in 30 days. Current and former C.I.A. officials are required by law to seek agency clearance for books or articles they publish to ensure that they don’t divulge classified information.
[The author] said he now believes that the agency’s demands have been so excessive that the manuscript can’t be published in its current form.
The author and his Washington lawyer, Victoria Toensing, have appealed the decisions of the review board to the agency’s executive director. In the meantime, Harper Collins, the New York publisher, has canceled its contract to publish the manuscript, a spokeswoman for the publisher said.
Disputes between the agency and [the Author] and his attorney over the manuscript have intensified in recent days, after security personnel demanded to retrieve copies of a letter Ms. Toensing had written to the agency’s executive director relating to the manuscript. An agency spokesman said the incident was prompted by the fact that the C.I.A. believed the letter contained classified information, and Ms. Toensing had sent the letter to the agency over an unclassified fax machine.
However, Ms. Toensing said in an interview today that she had been using the same fax to communicate with the agency on matters related to the manuscript for months.
A C.I.A. security official called Ms. Toensing’s office and talked to her son, Brady Toensing, who is also a lawyer, since Ms. Toensing was traveling at the time. The security officer said she wanted to search the law office’s files and computer hard drives for classified information, according to Mr. Toensing. He said he denied the request.
Looking at this history, I suppose the Toensings perspective on the outing of CIA agent Plame has relevence after all…