Gonzales - Bush Axis of Evil

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles...0/28justice.htm

Bedside drama. The bomb in question is James Comey, a highly regarded former deputy attorney general who dramatically described Gonzales's dark role in reauthorizing the National Security Agency's secret wiretap program. In riveting congressional testimony last week, Comey disclosed that in March 2004, when then Attorney General John Ashcroft lay deathly ill in a hospital bed, Gonzales-then White House counsel-and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card went to the hospital to persuade the ailing Ashcroft to sign off on the program. Comey, serving as acting AG, had refused to sign a presidential order reauthorizing the wiretapping program because he questioned its legality. Alerted to the others' visit, Comey raced to the hospital himself, getting there with just minutes to spare. "I remember waiting; it wasn't long, but it felt like forever," Comey told U.S. News in an exclusive interview. "And I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? What if they get him to sign something? Do I intervene physically? What do I do?'"

Ashcroft, although barely conscious, found the strength to support him, Comey testified. But Bush continued the program without any certification. So Comey said he, Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and senior Justice staffers all prepared to resign, prompting Bush to back Comey's demand for changes to the program. "If the thinking in the administration was that Gonzales can ride it out," says Steven Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor and former Democratic staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, "this is Exhibit A that it could get worse."