In March 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a now-famous late-night visit to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking to get Ashcroft to sign a certification stating that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program was legal. According to people familiar with statements recently made by Gonzales to federal investigators, Gonzales is now saying that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit.The hospital visit is already central to many contemporaneous historical accounts of the Bush presidency. At the time of the visit, Ashcroft had been in intensive care for six days, was heavily medicated, and was recovering from emergency surgery to remove his gall bladder. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey has said that he believes that Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who accompanied Gonzales to Ashcroft's hospital room, were trying to take advantage of Ashcroft's grievously ill state--pressing him to sign the certification possibly without even comprehending what he was doing--and in the process authorize a government surveillance program which both Ashcroft and the Justice Department had concluded was of questionable legality.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Isn't the rational assumption that Dumbya Bush will always do the wrong thing? The few occasions when he has done anything else have been outliers.
He deserves to be pelted with rocks and garbage wherever he goes for the rest of his life.
Oh please. Hasn't Murray Waas destroyed his reputation enough? He could find a conspiracy in a bowl of cornflakes.
You wrote 13 words and then quoted two paragraphs, but you still can't bother to use correct grammar.
This comes as a surprise to about three people. I guess the real news is that someone broke the administration's code of Omerta. Jesus, I hope the investigators tortured Gonzales to get this nugget. Just desserts and all that.
The really sad thing about this is that the underlying logic of the White House's actions -- that the AG can definitively rule on the legality of actions taken by its own administration -- is so incredibly wrong as to make the race to the hospital completely wasteful. For all his flaws, Ashcroft's guts to stand up to the WH from his sickbed have redeemed him (and this tale) somewhat in my book.
Your quote does not explicitly say that Ashcroft signed anything, only that his signature was "sought".
If there is to be anything to these "serious" allegations, there has to be some real evidence.
The serious allegation is that, the DOJ having refused to certify the legality of the surveillance program, Gonzales and Card sought Ashcroft's signature to override that refusal at a time when Ashcroft was very sick and heavily medicated. The current revelation by Gonzales himself is that he was directed by Bush to seek that signature, where before he testified that Bush wasn't involved in that particular act.
Not sure what you're having a problem with here, jwh. Nothing I've written above is seriously questioned.
BTW, Ashcroft refused to sign, pointing to Comey (acting AG) sitting there in the room and saying "there's the attorney general." Comey had already refused to certify the program.
"by Murray Waas"
The Atlantic is now publishing Murray Waas? Really? They've decided that Andrew Sullivan's rantings about Sarah Palin's placenta aren't enough, so they decided to double down on their credulity?
Next month in The Atlantic... some stuff we found on Democratic Undergroud!
Snort.
the DOJ having refused to certify the legality of the surveillance program
"the DOJ" isn't authorized to sign the certification. The Attorney General is. They are not the same thing.
Eh. Interesting story, but not "serious allegations", except according to the spin placed on it. Contrary to what the press would have you believe, this was a serious legal disagreement on what was allowable and what not. President Bush and company thought certain things were legal. Others disagreed. The issue was hotly contested. There were and are serious lawyers on both sides. Even if the final decision is against Bush's group, that doesn't make them criminals. Unless you wanted to put FDR in jail for trying to pack the Supreme Court.
Special prosecutor: We're talking about a witch hunt, with Democrats out to punish conservatives for policy disagreements.
Doesn't this allegation just continue to bolster small-gov't arguments?
Seriously. I wouldn't care who was on what sickbed if the gov't never had any kind of power remotely similar to its current state.
But as any pseudo-libertarian would immediately tell you: Kerry could have been worse.
Oh please. Hasn't Murray Waas destroyed his reputation enough? He could find a conspiracy in a bowl of cornflakes.
Who says he didn't? I hear that the underappreciated art of Cornflake Divination leads to astonishing feats of inner vision.
And if you want a really amazing sight to behold, try Grape Nuts Divination. They say if you stare long and hard enough into the bowl, you can ultimately transcend the idea that you're eating a serving of compressed sand pellets.
If Bush sent the guys to Ashcroft's bedside, that is just insensitive and inconsiderte conduct. Most heads of government are guilty of that occasionally; some very frequently.
If Bush authorised a program knowing it was illegal, we are in possible impeachment territory.