Strange Days

The Jane Harman case keeps getting stranger, if that's possible. First, CQ is reporting that disagreement between the NSA and Gonzo's DoJ resulted in Nancy Pelosi being told of Harman's wiretap.

Intelligence officials, angry that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had blocked an FBI investigation into Democratic Rep. Jane Harman's interactions with a suspected Israeli agent, tipped off Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, that Harman had been picked up on a court-ordered National Security Agency wiretap targeting the agent. In doing so, the officials flouted an order by Gonzales not to inform Pelosi, three former national security officials said.

And second, Harman herself is now trying to sound like the poster child for stopping illegal wiretapping...wiretapping she herself defended on a number of occasions.

I don't know whether they were legally made or not, of my conversations about this matter... and hope that [Attorney General Holder] will investigate whether other members of Congress or other innocent Americans might have been subject to this same treatment. I call it an abuse of power in the letter I wrote him this morning....

I'm just very disappointed that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I'm one member of Congress who may be caught up in it, and I have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I'm thinking about others who have no bully pulpit, who may not be aware, as I was not, that someone is listening in on their conversations, and they're innocent Americans.

Very, very bizarre, but not wholly unexpected. We'll see how this shakes out.