James Comey: Ashcroft and FBI director Mueller threatened to resign over NSA wiretapping

By
David Johnston the New York Times reports this significant and sordid tale from yesterday's testimony by former acting Attorney General, James Comey.

It's hard to read this account of Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card seeking, perhaps in violation of the law, the signature of an ill and disoriented John Ashcroft without a sense of repugnance at the tawdriness to which the Bush Administration stooped. This is a tawdriness beyond tawdriness; seeking the signature of a sick man to approve an illegal program that spied on American citizens.

However, as Comey testified, it went further:

Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card quickly departed [the hospital where John Ashcroft lay ill], but Mr. Comey said he soon got an angry phone call from Mr. Card, demanding that he come to the White House. Mr. Comey said he replied: “After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.”

Mr. Comey said he reached Theodore B. Olson, the solicitor general, at a dinner party. At the White House session, which included Mr. Olson, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Comey and Mr. Card, the four officials discussed the impasse. Mr. Comey knew that other top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, wanted to continue the program.

Mr. Card expressed concern about mass resignations at the Justice Department, Mr. Comey said. He told the Senate panel that he prepared a letter of resignation and that David Ayres, Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff, asked him to delay delivering it so that Mr. Ashcroft could join him. Mr. Comey said Mr. Mueller was also prepared to quit.


The Director of the FBI, the Attorney General and the acting Attorney General all intended to resign over the administration's effort to proceed without authorization for the NSA warrantless wiretapping program after Alberto Gonzales and the President's Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried and failed to get an ailing Attorney General to sign off on it.

{Video of the testimony.}


Tags:

Comments

Anonymous said…
brbvsuThis directly involves the President and VP, Gonzalez must resign. Andrew Card should be ordered to testify berofe congress...this is far worse than watergate this is unconstitutional and they knew it, that is why they tried to get the signature while Ashcroft was sick. This is beyond Democrat/Republican, even Republicans Ashcroft and Comey knew this was wrong! By the way Bill Clinton would be hanged in public if he did this!!
2:41 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

a serious moment

By
I was really struck by this photo , which graced the cover of Tuesday's New York Times, showing Ariel Sharon, Condoleeza Rice and James Baker attending a memorial of the late Yitzhak Rabin in Israel. There's something in that picture...in Rice's face, jaw set, eyes hidden behind rockstar sunglasses...and how she is flanked on either side by two men who've played hard-ball power politics for decades: Ariel Sharon, peering beneath his furrowed brow and, always conscious he is being observed, gesturing and thinking...and James Baker, completely hidden behind a permanent dimplomatic mask, an impenetrable sphinx. Of course, that photo sends a powerful message to the world. Rice was in Israel to do serious business . The fact that she brought Baker with her meant that the full weight of the U.S. military-industrial complex... the old guard ...was with her. That trip to Israel was important; and I would guess that U.S. plans and actions regarding Syria were part of that
Read more

James Watson: racism alive and well in the USA

By
I've spent the last 24 hours reading as the fires ignited by Nobel laureate James Watson have spurred hundreds of racist comments on message boards across the world . The racial views espoused by Watson are not simply pernicious, they are unamerican. The premise that you could walk out your door in the United States and make the claim, with a straight face and in a public place, that you presume that someone is less intelligent than you because of the color of their skin or ethnic background is abhorrent. Watson claims that everyone with Black employees “knows that they are not the equals of Whites” and, somehow, that is supposed to be acceptable? We are supposed to take him seriously…as a scientist? I don’t think so. Watson is about to lose his job and what was left of his reputation. The equality of every citizen, respect for each other including our differences and a sense of the potential inherent in each and every citizen, especially our children, is essential to what it m
Read more

Sharks, Carp and Dolphins: applying a model from business to politics

By
From where I stand, it is encouraging to read essays expressing creative and critical ways to think about Democratic strategy in what is shaping up to be a significant election year.   Thereisnospoon has served up another solid challenge (always welcome) to Democratic assumptions...and bmaples addendem to that diary (including a nice summary of some thoughts from Markos) extended the idea of a  "broad assault" on conservatism that I (with many others) advocated in the wake of Katrina with flipping the rock . What I'd like to do with this essay is adapt a paradigm from the world of business strategy that I think applies to the Democratic party in 2006.  I think you'll find these ideas dovetail with the above essays, and, I hope, will prove useful tools for thinking about Democratic strategy in 2006... Dudley Lynch's 1989 book Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World divided business strategy into three competing paradigms:  that of Sharks, that
Read more