Another controversy for Alberto Gonzales
The US attorney general remains in hot water as questions resurface about his role in a wiretapping program.
from the May 18, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Gonzales entered the room and began to appeal to Ashcroft. Ashcroft then lifted his head from the pillow and pointed out in a strong voice that Comey, not he, was acting as the head of the Justice Department, and that the White House would have to deal with that fact.
"I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general," Comey testified.
Eventually, Comey met with President Bush himself and engineered a compromise. The program proceeded for some weeks without Justice Department approval, but changes were then put in place to accommodate the department's concerns.
In his congressional testimony, Comey did not mention warrantless eavesdropping by name, referring instead to a "particular classified program." But the context, plus previous news reports about the hospital dispute, indicated his likely subject.
The dispute could have centered on whether the National Security Agency had proper legal oversight of the program in place, according to outside experts. It may have included the basic question of whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to authorize such wiretaps in the first place.
"That's the backdrop of this, it seems to me. And remember, the timing of this approach to Ashcroft at the hospital was before any of this became public," says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.
Comey's testimony revived the issue of one of the Bush administration's most controversial programs at a moment when Attorney General Gonzales is trying to put disputes about the firing of US attorneys behind him.
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