Comey Details White House Attempt to Force Approval of Secret Program

[kpete]

Comey Details White House Attempt to Force Approval of Secret Program
By Paul Kiel - May 15, 2007, 11:31 AM

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey detailed the desperate late night efforts by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card to get the Justice Department to approve a secret program -- presumably the warrantless wiretapping program.

According to Comey's testimony this morning, only when faced with resignations by a number of Justice Department officials including Comey, his chief of staff, Ashcroft's chief of staff, Ashcroft himself and possibly Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, did the White House agree to make changes to the program that would satisfy the requirements of the Justice Department to sign off on it (Comey refused to name the program, but it's apparent from the context and prior reports that this was the warrantless wiretapping program).

The events took place in March of 2004, when the program was in need of renewal by the Justice Department. When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft fell ill and was hospitalized, Comey became the acting-Attorney General.

........

The program was reauthorized without the signature of the attorney general. Because of that, Comey said, he prepared a letter of resignation. "I believed that I couldn't stay if the administration was going to engage in conduct that Justice Department said had no legal basis."

more at:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003221.php

[napi21]

1. I listened to that testimony! As has been said before, Comey

testified like an AG should! I wish I could have gotten the video of it too, but all I could find was the RealPlayer audio. Comey did a very respectable job this morning. I assume it's too much to hope it might be aired on cspan sometime later tonight.

Too funny. Spector was pitching a fit because Schumer took too much time! Said in all the years he's been in the Senate, he's never seen anyone go over their 5 minute time by 23 minutes!!!! Of course Schumer blew him off!

[MiniMe]

2. Seems like he should have been more concerned about what was

being said instead of how long it took.

[damntexdem]

5. He was.

But he couldn't say that, so he griped about the time.

[Botany]

3. March 2004?

Gotta get the wiretaps ready for the 2004 election. Kerry's phone lines
and Democratic phone lines were hacked in Ohio. Hello ATT & Dept. of Justice
know anything about that?

These U.S. Attorney scandals are shinning a light on whole rat's nests of corruption.

Either you worked for the continuation of repug/bush/Cheney/military-industrial power
or you were the enemy be it a U.S. attorney, a candidate for President, or a group that
tried to register voters.

Laws were just something that had to be gotten around as were the "real vote count."

[Imagevision]

4. Unlike Tenet at least Comey did the right thing and resigned...