The below article regarding the Bush Administration's handling of the
Justice Department is chilling. Based on the article, it seem Attorney
General John Ashcroft was forced out of the Justice Department because
he refused to re-authorize the illegal wire tapping being done by NSA.
Then president Bush Administration put his long time comrade Alberto R.
Gonzales in the Justice Department to run things. With Alberto R.
Gonzales appointment to Attorney General, the Bush White house had the
entire Justice Department pretty well in their pocket, and could do
whatever they liked, legal or illegal, knowing that Attorney General
Gonzales would rule on any legal issue in favor of President Bush.
#----------------------------------------
Gonzales Hospital Episode Detailed
Ailing Ashcroft Pressured on Spy Program, Former Deputy Says
By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/dan+eggen+and+paul+kane/>
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A01
On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/John+Ashcroft?tid=informline>
lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received
an urgent call.
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/George+W.+Bush?tid=informline>'s
chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to
persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program,
which the Justice Department
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+Justice?tid=informline>
had just determined was illegal.
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Senate+Committee+on+the+Judiciary?tid=informline>
yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and
raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving
minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to
lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought.
Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the
room, turned and left.
The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White
House
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+White+House?tid=informline>
and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was
resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not
before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass
resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security
Agency
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/National+Security+Agency?tid=informline>
continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.
"I was angry," Comey testified. "I thought I just witnessed an effort to
take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the
attorney general because they had been transferred to me."
The broad outlines of the hospital-room conflict have been reported
previously, but without Comey's gripping detail of efforts by Card, who
has left the White House, and Gonzales, now the attorney general. His
account appears to present yet another challenge to the embattled
Gonzales, who has strongly defended the surveillance program's legality
and is embroiled in a battle with Congress over the dismissals of nine
U.S. attorneys last year.
It also marks the first public acknowledgment that the Justice
Department found the original surveillance program illegal, more than
two years after it began.
Gonzales, who has rejected lawmakers' call for his resignation,
continued yesterday to play down his own role in the dismissals. He
identified his deputy, Paul J. McNulty
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Paul+McNulty?tid=informline>,
who announced his resignation Monday, as the aide most responsible for
the firings.
"You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations
reflected the views of the deputy attorney general," Gonzales said at
the National Press Club
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/National+Press+Club?tid=informline>.
"The deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications
and the experiences of the United States
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline>
attorneys community, and he signed off on the names," he added.
Those comments appear to differ, at least in emphasis, from earlier
remarks by Gonzales, who has previously laid much of the responsibility
for the dismissals on his ex-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Kyle+Sampson?tid=informline>.
They stand in contrast to testimony and statements from McNulty, who has
acknowledged signing off on the firings but has told Congress he was
surprised when he heard about the effort.
The Justice Department and White House declined to comment in detail on
Comey's testimony, citing internal discussions of classified activities.
The warrantless eavesdropping program was approved by Bush after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It allowed the NSA to monitor e-mails and
telephone calls between the United States and overseas if one party was
believed linked to terrorist groups. The program was revealed in late
2005; Gonzales announced in January that it had been replaced with an
effort that would be supervised by a secret intelligence court.
The crisis in March 2004 stemmed from a review of the program by the
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which raised "concerns as
to our ability to certify its legality," according to Comey's testimony.
Ashcroft was briefed on the findings on March 4 and agreed that changes
needed to be made, Comey said.
That afternoon, Ashcroft was rushed to George Washington University
Hospital with a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis; on March 9, his
gallbladder was removed. The standoff between Justice and White House
officials came the next night, after Comey had refused to certify the
surveillance program on the eve of its 45-day reauthorization deadline,
he testified.
About 8 p.m. on March 10, Comey said that his security detail was
driving him home when he received an urgent call from Ashcroft's chief
of staff, David Ayres, who had just received an anxious call from
Ashcroft's wife, Janet. The White House -- possibly the president -- had
called, and Card and Gonzales were on their way.
Furious, Comey said he ordered his security detail to turn the car
toward the hospital, careening down Constitution Avenue. Comey said he
raced up the stairs of the hospital with his staff, beating Card and
Gonzales to Ashcroft's room.
"I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was,
that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in
no condition to do that," Comey said, saying that Ashcroft "seemed
pretty bad off."
Mueller, who also was rushing to the hospital, spoke by phone to the
security detail protecting Ashcroft, ordering them not to allow Card or
Gonzales to eject Comey from the hospital room.
Card and Gonzales arrived a few minutes later, with Gonzales holding an
envelope that contained the executive order for the program. Comey said
that, after listening to their entreaties, Ashcroft rebuffed the White
House aides.
"He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed
his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned
me," Comey said. Then, he said, Ashcroft added: "But that doesn't
matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney
general," and pointed at Comey, who was appointed acting attorney
general when Ashcroft fell ill.
Later, Card ordered an 11 p.m. meeting at the White House. But Comey
said he told Card that he would not go on his own, pulling
then-Solicitor General Theodore Olson from a dinner party to serve as
witness to anything Card or Gonzales told him. "After the conduct I had
just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present,"
Comey testified. "He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish
him well.' "
The next day, as terrorist bombs killed more than 200 commuters on rail
lines in Madrid
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Madrid?tid=informline>,
the White House approved the executive order without any signature from
the Justice Department certifying its legality. Comey responded by
drafting his letter of resignation, effective the next day, March 12.
"I couldn't stay if the administration was going to engage in conduct
that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis," he said. "I
just simply couldn't stay." Comey testified he was going to be joined in
a mass resignation by some of the nation's top law enforcement officers:
Ashcroft, Mueller, Ayres and Comey's own chief of staff.
Ayres persuaded Comey to delay his resignation, Comey testified. "Mr.
Ashcroft's chief of staff asked me something that meant a great deal to
him, and that is that I not resign until Mr. Ashcroft was well enough to
resign with me," he said.
The threat became moot after an Oval Office meeting March 12 with Bush,
Comey said. After meeting separately with Comey and Mueller, Bush gave
his support to making changes in the program, Comey testified. The
administration has never disclosed what those changes were.
/Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html?referrer=email
or
http://tinyurl.com/2lfjap
#----------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
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