AG Gonzales: Bush personally blocked the DOJ investigation of the illegal NSA domestic spying program.

Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.

“It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?” asked Specter, R-Pa.

“The president of the United States makes the decision,” Gonzales told the committee hearing, during which he was strongly criticized on a range of national security issues by Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel’s senior Democrat.

After all, one way to avoid being told you've broken the law is to not allow the people who investigate these things to do their jobs.

From Murray Waas:

The investigation, by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, was halted when lawyers who were going to conduct the investigation were denied the security clearances that would have allowed them to view classified documents related to the surveillance program. President Bush made the decision to deny the security clearances for the investigators, Gonzales said . . .

The statement by Gonzales stunned some senior Justice Department officials, who were led to believe that Gonzales himself had made the decision to deny the clearances after consulting with intelligence agencies whose activities would be scrutinized, a senior federal law enforcement official said in an interview. . .

A senior Justice official said that the refusal to grant the clearances was "unprecedented" and questioned whether the clearances were denied because investigators might find "misconduct by those who were attempting to defeat" the probe from being conducted.

So, if you're keeping score at home, this means that the President says he has the right to quash any investigation that he wants, and that he doesn't have to submit to judicial, Congressional, legal, or any kind of review.  From anyone.  He's above the law.  (James Madison is spinning in his grave.)

Because President Bush is always right.