WaPo: "Ashcroft and the Night Visitors" (Comey's "hair-raising testimony)

[pnwmom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501890.html?hpid=topnews


As if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales didn't have enough trouble, now comes word that, before coming to the Justice Department, Gonzales preyed on the infirm.

In hair-raising testimony before a Senate committee yesterday, Jim Comey, the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, described what might be called the Wednesday Night Massacre of March 10, 2004. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card staged a bedside ambush of Attorney General John Ashcroft while he lay in intensive care. Comey, serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's incapacitation, testified about how, on a tip from Ashcroft's wife, he intercepted the pair in Ashcroft's hospital room.

"The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey told the spellbound senators. "They came over and stood by the bed." They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on an eavesdropping plan that Comey and others at the Justice Department had already called legally indefensible.

Ashcroft "lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter" -- that Comey was right. "And as he laid back down, he said, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.' And he pointed to me."

snip

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee stared. The lone Republican in attendance, Arlen Specter (Pa.), looked down. The 6-foot-8 Comey, slightly hunched in the witness chair, swallowed frequently and kept his hands in his lap as he spun a narrative worthy of Dashiell Hammett.


SNIP



The whole article is well worth reading.

[aquart]

1. So, who's optioned the story for the movies?

Or are they waiting for a book?

[pnwmom]

2. LOL. Did you see that Arlen Specter compared this incident to

the Watergate era "Saturday Night Massacre"? He also asked Comey if he could remember an instance of good judgment by Gonzales, and then said something like "Let the record show a very long pause."

[aquart]

3. LOL! No, I didn't see it. Was it on cspan???

[pnwmom]

4. I watched it on you tube. (Edited to add link.)

Here's the link to a partial transcript -- but only the part with Schumer, not with Specter.

http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2007/05/15/comey_testimony/index.html

Okay, here's the youtube link. Again, it doesn't show questioning by Republicans, only by Schumer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxHjWYA50Ds

[MADem]

5. Ya know, this is an IMPORTANT story, but I have known about this event for a LONG time.

Why is it that the MSM didn't cover it like this when it first came out? Answer: Because BushCo still had a shitload of power. Why are they covering it now? Answer: Because they know the wind is changing:

"I told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly," Comey testified. "I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail. . . . I raced to the hospital room, entered." The room was dark, and Ashcroft was "pretty bad off."

In Comey's account, he got FBI Director Robert Mueller to tell his agents guarding Ashcroft not to let Card and Gonzales evict Comey from the room. A few minutes after the bedside confrontation, Card called the hospital. He "demanded that I come to the White House immediately," Comey testified. "I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present."

"He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.' " After Card demanded to know if Comey was "refusing to come to the White House," Comey, with the solicitor general, finally arrived at the West Wing at 11 p.m. His narrative covered the next two days, ending when Bush intervened and avoided a spate of resignations.

The senators had some trouble finding words for what they had heard. "This story makes me gulp," Schumer said.


Seeit isn't "news"--here's FIREDOGLAKE quoting NYT back in 2005 about this matter:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005_12_25_archive.html

According to the New York Times, it now appears that when John Ashcroft was hospitalized for a gall bladder operation in March of 2004, Andy Card and Abu Gonzales had to go his hospital bed and ask for approval of key parts of the warrantless wiretapping program because his acting deputy refused to certify it.

The deputy's name? James Comey.
With Mr. Ashcroft recuperating from gall bladder surgery in March 2004, his deputy, James B. Comey, who was then acting as attorney general, was unwilling to give his certification to crucial aspects of the classified program, as required under the procedures set up by the White House, said the officials, who asked for anonymity because the program is classified and they are not authorized to discuss it publicly.

That prompted two of President Bush's top aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now the attorney general - to make an emergency visit to George Washington University Hospital to review the program with Mr. Ashcroft during what aides have described as a difficult recovery, the officials said.

[pnwmom]

6. Right, but "anonymous officials" never carry the same weight as

live testimony by an actual human being.

And the other factor is that between when the story was first leaked to the press and now, the Democrats took over Congress. And it was during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Federal Attorney firings, under questioning by Schumer, that this whole story was able to come out in a public forum.

It was clear from Comey's testimony that he has been waiting for SOMEONE in power to ask these questions of him for a long time.

[MADem]

7. I understand that point, but the damned committee is acting like they didn't read this

shit in the NYT, when some of them are MENTIONED in the article. Surely they knew. Yet they play the "shocked, SHOCKED" card:

Several senior government officials have said that when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with it, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, officials have said.

At its outset in 2002, the surveillance operation was so highly classified that even Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general to Mr. Ashcroft, who was active in most of the government's most classified counterterrorism operations, was not given access to the program.

That led to uncertainties about the chain of command in overseeing law enforcement activities connected to the program, officials said, and it appears to have spurred concerns within the Justice Department over its use. Mr. Thompson's successor, Mr. Comey, was eventually authorized to take part in the program and to review intelligence material that grew out of it, and officials said he played a part in overseeing the reforms that were put in place in 2004.

But even after the imposition of the new restrictions last year, the agency maintained the authority to choose its eavesdropping targets and did not have to get specific approval from the Justice Department or other Bush officials before it began surveillance on phone calls or e-mail messages. The decision on whether someone is believed to be linked to Al Qaeda and should be monitored is left to a shift supervisor at the agency, the White House has said.

The White House has vigorously defended the legality and value of the domestic surveillance program, saying it has saved many American lives by allowing the government to respond more quickly and flexibly to threats. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said Friday that it had opened a criminal investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of the existence of the program.



Chickenshits...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/politics/01spy.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=cb8221ee6567f18f&ex=1179374400

[pnwmom]

9. I think that, politically speaking, they should be

"playing the shocked card."

Are they supposed to be acting like this is business as usual? Or "old news"? (Just go away, MSM, there's nothing to see here.)

Sure they knew about the rumors before, but it wasn't confirmed, and that changes everything.

Now, they NEED to act shocked, to get the MSM to pay attention. If they treated it as old news, then the media wouldn't cover it at all.

Edit to add: Here's another thread you might find of interest. It turns out that when the Senate Judiciary Committee was under Republican control, the White House refused to allow Comey and Ashcroft to testify about this matter.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x897414

[MADem]

10. Good point. I'm just irritated that it's taken so damned long, I guess NT

[pnwmom]

12. Me, too. And we DO have the media to blame for that.

A lot more effort should have been put into following up on the original story, but it was dropped almost as soon as it came out.

[bling bling]

8. That's the most chilling part of it. The MSM is a glorified Entertainment Tonight.

They only cover it now because it's become more safe and also more dramatic, like a mystery with all the puzzle pieces being put into place.

Gee, in a few years maybe the MSM will highlight all the puzzle pieces surrounding the inept administration's negligence leading up to 9/11. Maybe they'll even give it as much attention as they gave that weird guy who claimed to have killed Jon Benet Ramsey. Remember that? I know I do. I also remember some nobody named Natalie Holloway got months of attention on all the channels.

But I sure don't remember the MSM putting in months of reporting about the article you posted above. I think you're right though. The media was skeered of shrub and the retribution that would surely follow if they did their jobs. They are truly pathetic.

[MADem]

11. It's terrible how the "fascist" word is tossed around without knowledge, as though

it's all about brownshirts and jackboots, but in reality, it's all about corporations in bed with, and running, the government. And it sure seems like those corporations have the media end of things well wrapped up....

So, no war in Iraq, no kids who die...it's Paris, Britney and Anna Nicole for us suckers, I guess...

[pnwmom]

13. Yep, it's opiate for the masses. n/t

[Eurobabe]

14. Is that new song? Sounds like a great title for one

Ahscroft and the Night Visitors. It reminds me of something.

[pnwmom]

17. Are you an opera fan?

Amahl and the Night Visitors.

[Eurobabe]

19. See I knew there was a song with night visitors in it....

Yes, I like all types of music. :)

[ljm2002]

15. Great piece!

And here is how it concludes:

The senators had some trouble finding words for what they had heard. "This story makes me gulp," Schumer said.

Specter invoked the firing of the Watergate prosecutor. "It has some characteristics of the Saturday Night Massacre," he said. And the senator left little doubt about whom he blamed.

"Can you give us an example of an exercise of good judgment by Alberto Gonzales?" he asked.

This time, Comey had no narrative. "Let the record show a very long pause," Specter said.

[Supersedeas]

16. the lone Repig in attendance -- where were the others!!??!!

[unlawflcombatnt]

18. Heard Comey's Testimony Today

It certainly is worth hearing his testimony or reading about it. Comey telephoned FBI Director Mueller to have agents come to Ashcroft's bedside insure that they kept Gonzales and Card from having Comey removed from Ashcroft's room. This the most blatant abuse of power I've ever heard of.