[QUOTE][I][B]White House Pushed Ashcroft on Wiretappings[/B] Former Deputy Says Program Implemented Despite Objections[/I]

By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 15, 2007; 1:34 PM

The White House three years ago briefly implemented a classified program, parts of which the Justice Department found to be illegal, overriding the objections of top department officials after failing to get a seriously ill attorney general John D. Ashcroft to sign off on it from his hospital bed, Ashcroft's former deputy told a Senate panel today.

Former deputy attorney general James B. Comey testified under oath that Alberto R. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., at the time President Bush's White House counsel and chief of staff respectively, went to see Ashcroft in intensive care at George Washington University Hospital in March 2004 in an effort to "do an end run" around Comey, who was then acting attorney general, and obtain recertification of the highly sensitive program. Under the presidential directive then in effect, the legality of the program was to be certified by the Justice Department every 45 days.

Comey declined to identify the program, but members of the Senate Judiciary Committee indicated at today's hearing that it was the National Security Agency's controversial warrantless eavesdropping effort that the White House called the "terrorist surveillance program."

...

In his testimony today, Comey described publicly for the first time the tense confrontation between the White House and the Justice Department over the program in 2004, a dispute that he said was settled when Bush was confronted with the imminent prospect of mass resignations, including those of Ashcroft and Comey.

He said he had been angered by the visit of Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's hospital room after the Justice Department had refused to recertify the program for reasons that he declined to explain publicly.

"I was very upset," Comey told the committee. "I was angry. 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 testimony appeared to add more fuel to calls for the resignation of Gonzales, who is under fire for the controversial dismissals last year of nine U.S. attorneys. At today's hearing, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the only Republican present, joined Democrats in saying he was troubled by the testimony and that he thought Gonzales should step down.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html?nav=rss_politics[/url]

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

didn't 24 do just about this same exact story this season? ;)

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

these words resound in my head

'...as the checks and balances laid out in the constitution are systematically dismantled...'

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

[YOUTUBE]http://youtube.com/watch?v=EW2tujZISvc[/YOUTUBE]

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

I read this and it appears to be a political story to get Alberto Gonzales to resign. They already got the deputy AG, Paul McNulty, to resign and now they're after Gonzales. Supposedly, the resigning AG is taking the heat for firing those U.S. prosecutors and with the heat off of Gonzales a story is needed to put the pressure back on him.

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

[QUOTE=superdave;488567]I read this and it appears to be a political story to get Alberto Gonzales to resign. [/QUOTE]

I'm not naive enough to think that a replacement would be any less of a Bush lackey, but at this point, he ought to resign if only because he's taken so much heat, I doubt he can lead the DOJ effectively. Everything he does will be second-guessed. Best move for the DOJ is a fresh start, regardless of whether he actually did anything wrong or not.

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

[QUOTE=toasty;488830]I'm not naive enough to think that a replacement would be any less of a Bush lackey, but at this point, he ought to resign if only because he's taken so much heat, I doubt he can lead the DOJ effectively. Everything he does will be second-guessed. Best move for the DOJ is a fresh start, regardless of whether he actually did anything wrong or not.[/QUOTE]

I think he should resign too, but there's too many Bush lackeys that would replace him. I find the story of Monica Goodling an example of how Bush appoints people based on their loyalty to him and not their loyalty to America and their competency. She was a top aide in the DOJ that was instrumental in controversial U.S. attorneys being fired. She had little experience and graduated from law school in '99 and was only 31 years old when put in such a top position. She attended Pat Robertson's law school along with many other Bush administration employees and worked on the Bush election team. Now, she's since resigned and is expected to testify before Congress.

My point is how many Alberto Gonzales and Monica Goodlings are in the adminstration. Is this why this adminstration has done so poorly because of all the incompetent people they've hired?

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

[QUOTE=superdave;488869] My point is how many Alberto Gonzales and Monica Goodlings are in the adminstration. Is this why this adminstration has done so poorly because of all the incompetent people they've hired?[/QUOTE]

I truly and honestly think that plays a significant role. Much of the criticism of the Bush administration is leveled at policy decisions, but my bigger problems with him have to do with his staggering incompetence. Incompetent president + incompetent "yes men" (and women) surrounding him = recipe for disaster, IMO.

Forget policy, and whether or not we should have gone into Iraq, whether he lied to get us there, etc. -- his management of the war in Iraq and the war on terror in Afghanistan has been bloody awful. Only the most devout Bush followers can look at what's happening over there and be pleased...

Re: Wiretapping, revisited

That's certainly a factor in the incompetence of this administration. When you hire 150 graduates from Regent, Robertson's law school which as recently as 1999 had a 60% failure rate on the bar and is a tier 4 law school, it's no wonder how the gov't manages to fail time and time again. Think about that 150 lawyers out of however many are in the gov't from a school ranked 136th in the nation. They could do so much better, especially when just about every law school in the country has public service scholarships.

Getting back to Gonzales' incompetence, it amazes me how he continues to get away with the claim that he can't remember anything. A lawyer who can't remember what he did but 3 months earlier would be thrown out on his ass so fast by anyone other than Bush and looking at the alternative, if he really didn't know about the firings, exactly how much of an incompetent leader could he be that he wasn't involved in the firings of his immediate underlings?!