White House pushed Ashcroft on wiretaps

[sabra]

Source: USA Today/AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was so questionable that a top Justice Department official refused for a time to reauthorize it, sparking a battle with top White House officials at the bedside of an ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday.

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004.

Comey, the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, said then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card responded by trying to get Ashcroft to sign the recertification from his bed at George Washington University Hospital.

During that dramatic meeting, also attended by Comey, Ashcroft lifted his head off the pillow and appeared reluctant to sign the document, pointing out that Comey held the powers of the office.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-15-ashcroft-wiretapping_N.htm

[maddezmom]

1. watched the hearing

lots of interesting news came out

[Kagemusha]

2. Not that this is news to me... but it's a lot more public this way, right?

So the AP runs a story as if it's new because to most of the public it is?

[bemildred]

3. Not "questionable", "illegal".

As in "President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was so illegal that a top Justice Department official refused for a time to reauthorize it ...".

[Lobster Martini]

4. Ashcroft: My Pancreas Made Me Do It

Right. The attorney general delegates authorization of warrantless wiretapping to his assistant. Comey is going to be tied to the railroad track with McNulty, and the Acela will not run smoothly.

[Missy Vixen]

8. Actually, Mr. Comey is no longer with the DOJ

>Comey is going to be tied to the railroad track with McNulty, and the Acela will not run smoothly.<

He's now in the private sector. He also is Gonzales' worst nightmare.

Julie

[underpants]

5. Sounds like two sons trying to get a dying mother to sign over the deed to the house

I wonder if they learned that from Falwell

[VWolf]

6. Sad to think

that this admin has sunk so low that ASHCROFT & COMEY look honorable in comparison.

[DearAbby]

7. No Kidding

...before I can dash it from my mind, I am thinking damn they were going to take advantage of a sick old man. Then I remember it was Ashcroft. I for a second had pity for Ashcroft. :wow:

I knew to some extent, this happened, just hearing it from someone who was there, made it all more real, and all the more frightening. We have to break the hold these criminals have on our country, before it is too late.

Set the table Madame Speaker, operating the NSA wiretapping program, illegally is a high crime.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. more from AP/CNN:

Comey also said he had considered resigning after disagreements about the surveillance program.

Calling it "the most difficult time in my period of life," Comey discussed publicly for the first time a hospital visit then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card and then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made to Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004. (Watch Comey describe Ashcroft's response during the hospital visit Video)
***
"I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I had 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. I thought he had conducted himself -- and I said to the attorney general -- in a way that demonstrated a strength that I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper," Comey told the committee.
***
Comey said the program was reauthorized the next day without a Justice Department signature, and he then prepared a letter of resignation. However, he said he did not hand that letter in because the Justice Department's chief of staff asked him to delay it until Ashcroft could also resign.
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/15/ashcroft.nsa/index.html

[NastyRiffraff]

10. Wow...hard to believe that anyone could

make Ashcroft a sympathetic figure. As bad as he was...and he was bad...Gonzo has managed to make him look good in comparison.