On Monday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee about President Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance programs. Here are some critical questions he must address –

1. Why did you mislead the Judiciary Committee about Bush’s warrantless surveillance during your confirmation hearing last year?

While under oath during his confirmation hearings in January 2005 Gonzales dismissed an inquiry by Sen. Russ Feingold questions about warrantless wiretapping as a “hypothetical situation” and said that it is “not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.” In fact, Gonzales had personally approved warrantless domestic wiretapping in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence surveillance act on multiple occasions.

2. If you are so confident that this program is legal, why don’t you let the FISA court review it and make an independent legal judgment?

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested this today during his appearance on Meet the Press:

SEN. SPECTER: I think this issue, Tim, of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is really big, big, big, because the President””the administration could take this entire program and lay it on the line to that court and go through what is involved in some detail, but they don’t want to deal with Congress because of leaks. That court has really an outstanding record of not leaking, out of being experts, and they would be preeminently well-qualified to evaluate this program and either say it’s OK or it’s not OK. And if they said it was OK, it would give the American people great reassurance; and if they said it wasn’t OK, knowing all the facts, then that ought to be changed.

MR. RUSSERT: Have you asked the administration, the President, to take the program and present it to the court?

SEN. SPECTER: Yeah, I have. I did that, in effect, in the letter that I sent to the attorney general, and his answer was unresponsive, simply said something like, “Well, we’ll exhaust all alternatives.”

As Specter said, the FISA court would be an ideal body to review the legality of the program because they are experts in this area of the law and regularly deal with highly classified information.

3. Can you guarantee this program has never — either intentionally or unintentionally — captured communications of political opponents or journalists?

Here, the burden of proof is on the administration. The Pentagon has already admitted to improperly targeting anti-war protesters with its domestic surveillance program. General Michael Hayden, who headed NSA when the program was created, was asked today on Fox News Sunday and refused to answer directly:

FOX’s CHRIS WALLACE: Let me ask another question which I’m sure concerns a lot of people. Can you assure Americans that there is no spying on political opponents or political critics of the Bush administration?

HAYDEN: Chris, this is focused on al Qaeda. The only justification we have to undertake this program is to detect and prevent attacks against the United States. We don’t have the time or the lawful authority to do anything except that.

It sounds nice, but it doesn’t answer the question. We’ll be expecting more from Gonzales on Monday.

On Meet the Press, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) strongly rejected one of the administration’s key legal justification’s of Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program:

RUSSERT: The administration says that they didn’t need to, that they already had authority from Congress when, back in October 2002, Congress voted an authorization to go to war against Iraq. And that is part of that war.

SPECTER: I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic. The authorization for the use of force doesn’t say anything about electronic surveillance.

The issue was never raised with the Congress. And there is a specific statute on the books, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which says flatly that you can’t undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order.

Specter is one of many conservative Senators who have been very critical of the program. Hearings on the program, chaired by Specter, start Monday.

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video.

The right-wing spin is that John Boehner (R-OH), Tom DeLay’s replacement as Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, represents a “clean break” from DeLay. The reality is that Boehner is as tightly connected to K Street lobbyists as any member of Congress. He has handed out tobacco industry checks on the House floor and has been wined and dined by special interests at the world’s most luxurious resorts and golf courses.

In case there was any doubt about where Boehner’s loyalties lie, he cleared it up this morning on Meet the Press. Boehner said that if DeLay is cleared of the criminal charges against him, Boehner would consider stepping aside and letting Delay assume his old role:

RUSSERT: If he [DeLay] is acquitted and chooses to come back to Washington and wants to become Majority Leader again, would you step aside?

BOEHNER: I’m sure we would talk about it. Tom and I have a different approach.

RUSSERT: You would talk about it?

BOEHNER: Tom and I have a different approaches. But I think what’s going on in Texas with tom DeLay is unfortunate, unfair, and highly partisan. And that’s why I gave him that money out of my PAC to help him pay for his tremendous legal fees.

RUSSERT: But if he’s acquitted and decided to come back to Washington and reclaim the Majority Leader position, you would consider it?

BOEHNER: He stepped down as Majority Leader. He vacated his seat. We had an election and I won. But I like Tom Delay. He’s been a great leader for our party. He’s a friend of mine. And we’re going to continue to work closely together.

RUSSERT: But you would step aside for him?

BOEHNER: I said we would talk about it.

Meet the new boss. Placeholder for the old boss.

UPDATE: Watch the video at Crooks & Liars.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald “found that Plame had indeed done ‘covert work overseas’ on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA ‘was making specific efforts to conceal’ her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge’s opinion.” Scooter Libby’s lawyers and White House allies “have repeatedly questioned whether Plame…really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003.”

“Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat,” the Washington Post reports.