What Really Happened in Ashcroft's Room

In his testimony Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed that when James Comey raised objections to the administration’s spying program, he was referring to “other intelligence activities,” not the warrantless wiretapping program that Bush has confirmed. Gonzales also denied that he and former White House chief of staff Andy Card tried during to pressure a hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Ashcroft was in an intensive care unit recovering from gall bladder surgery and Gonzales was Bush’s White House legal counsel. Ashcroft had transferred the powers of his office to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

Comey testified in May that he thought Gonzales and Card tried to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general.

I've discovered a previously unknown video of the entire event. Below is a snippet:

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WHY the Gonzo-Card rush to Ashcroft’s hospital?

On a political chat site, an acquaintance raised this issue about why Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card felt they HAD to The New York Times rush to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed and force him to sign another extension for their domestic warrentless wiretapping, when such extensions ran just 45 days at a time anyway.

My answer?

Could this be because political ops were involved?

Here’s what I told her:

I haven’t seen THAT broached yet on Talking Points Memo. It’s a VERY good question, though.

A possibility that pops into my head, given what all else were finding out about Gonzo and Rove and the “vote fraud” scam-crap, and how the Watergate similarities are ratcheting up ...

This is 2004, mind you. Presidential election year, etc.

What if some of this wiretapping is, as with the Nixon years (and some degree the Johnson years) ...

Political operations?

Think about it.

Cross-posted at SocraticGadfly.

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Comey's Testimony About The Gonzales/Ashcroft Hospital Exchange

This is shocking stuff. Ashcroft rises from his sick bed to say NO to Alberto Gonzales. It is pretty clear that Gonzales and Card were under a great deal of pressure when they went to the hospital. The initial call may have come from the President. Hummmmm, who could put that kind of pressure on Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card?

It is also clear that if the President hadn't relented that damn near all of the competent lawyers at the top of the DOJ and the FBI director would have walked rather than support the non-certified Domestic Surveillance Program Gonzales wanted certified. The President relented, but Ashcroft and Comey were replaced.

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Gonzales Attempted to Bully John Ashcroft Into Authorizing An Illegal Domestic Spying Program As Ashcroft Lay Seriously Ill In Intensive Care

Dan Eggan and Paul Kane of the Washington Post have filed a chilling report detailing a confrontation between Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft over the administration's domestic surveillance program, a program the justice department had determined was illegal. During yesterday's testimony before the senate judiciary committee James B. Comey told the panel that on the night of March 10, 2004, Ashcroft lay seriously ill in intensive care. Comey, who was then acting Attorney General, learned that Gonzales and Andy Card were on their way to the hospital to have Ashcroft overrule Comey's decision not to reauthorize the program.

(Comey) 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 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.

Read the entire story. It is like something out of a political potboiler. Apparently the President signed off on the program without ever receiving approval from the Department of Justice. According to David Johnston of The New York Times after approving the illegal program, the President directed the justice department to take necessary, but undisclosed, steps to bring it into compliance with the law.

"The story is a shocking one. It makes you almost gulp," Schumer said. "The incident shows that Gonzales holds the rule of law `in minimum low regard,'" the senator said, adding, "It's hard to understand after hearing this story how Attorney General Gonzales could remain as attorney general."

Laurie Asseo of Bloomberg reports

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee's ranking Republican, said the confrontation ``has some characteristics of the Saturday Night Massacre'' during the Nixon administration when top Justice Department officials resigned rather than fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Specter also said yesterday's announcement that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty will resign provided ``evidence that the department really cannot function with the continued leadership or lack of leadership of Attorney General Gonzales.'' . . .

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said Gonzales is doing an ``abysmal job'' and the Justice Department is ``being run like a political arm of the White House.''

Ashcroft declined to comment on Comey's testimony.

Feel safer because people in the Department of Justice stood tall for our rights? Well, the good guys in this story have all left government. The bad guys are still there. Now do you feel safer?

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