Bush senior aides went to Ashcroft in hospital for spy certification

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/politics/01spy.html?th&emc=th

Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: January 1, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.

The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.

The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it.

With Mr. Comey unwilling to sign off on the program, the White House went to Mr. Ashcroft - who had been in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital with pancreatitis and was housed under unusually tight security - because "they needed him for certification," according to an official briefed on the episode. The official, like others who discussed the issue, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the program.

Mr. Comey declined to comment, and Mr. Gonzales could not be reached.

determined to get permission to spy on unsuspecting citizens?

1) The Abu Ghraib hearings (Gonzales had lots of reason to be worried about them. They ended after the Nick Berg video was released, and have never resumed.

2) It was an election year. Lots of reasons to want to spy on the oppostion party. Wasn't Orin Hatch's staff caught doing some spying on Democrats back then?

3) The Valerie Plame investigation was going on, and many WH officials were being called to testify before the Grand Jury.

4) The FBI was investigating the Pentagon Spy case, which could lead to Douglas Feith (he has been placed under investigation recently, shortly after Larry Franklin (his associate) entered a guilty plea and agreed to cooperate in that case). Maybe Larry Franklin has begun talking already.

5) Not sure about this, but wasn't Dan Rather working on the Bush AWOL story in 2004?

So many people to spy on, not to mention the Catholic group who were feeding the poor, or the Quaker group who, as I understand, are usually pretty peaceful people.

Then there were all those protestors exercising their right to state their political opposition to this administration.

If they were, as Bush now claims, only watching people talking to terrorists, why not release the names of all those who were under surveillance and brief Congress on why they were being spied on?

If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to worry about.

They seem awfully worried, so worried they tried to stop the story from being printed. Why didn't they tell the NYT editors that what they were about to publish could jeoparidize national security, if that was the case? I doubt any newspaper, once shown proof of that, would publish a story that would harm this country.

has been hiding and lying and lying and hiding since before day one!!

Mr.Comey knew what he was doing; he wants no part of this foolishness!:dilemma:

:kick:

they're thinking, "how can we get rid of this guy..." :D

Comey or Fitz or both.

almost always a result of ongoing alcohol abuse. Other causes are extremely rare. We're pretty sure the Prez-nit is sucking the foam of his Lone Star Beer, but apparently Ashcroft was too.

Maybe what's wrong with them is that they are all drunk most of the time. Or if they aren't, maybe they should be.:beer:

thanks for the laugh.:rofl: