Notes Show Ashcroft Kept in Dark on Spying

Notes from FBI Director Robert Mueller, released Thursday by Congress, revealed that Bush administration officials may have prevented Attorney General John Ashcroft from conducting a review of a spying program, while at the same time attempting to gain Ashcroft's approval of the program.

Former Counsel to the House of Representatives Stanley Brand said it is "unbelievable" that "the Attorney General of the United States was barred from getting information on a decision that the law required him to make." Brand said, "This notion that the President can seal himself off from his own Attorney General is ludicrous."

In May, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told Congressional investigators that in March 2004 a standoff between the White House and the Justice Department ensued because Comey would not authorize a continuation of a warrantless wiretapping program instituted by the Bush administration. According to Comey's testimony, his refusal to reauthorize the spy program resulted in a street race between himself and two White House officials to the hospital, where then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and President Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to coerce a barely conscious Ashcroft to approve the controversial eavesdropping program.

Mueller told Congress that he recorded and kept notes about this incident because of the extraordinary nature of this encounter.

According to his notes, Mueller arrived at the hospital at 7:40 p.m., 20 minutes after receiving a call from Comey saying that Gonzales and Card were en route to the hospital and requesting Mueller's presence in order to "witness the condition of the Attorney General." By the time Mueller arrived, Gonzales and Card had already left. Mueller's notes of the subsequent conversation between Comey, Ashcroft and Mueller reveal that the top law enforcement officer of the United States may have been prevented from reviewing the wiretapping program that had already been put in place by the president.

In his notes, Mueller says that Ashcroft "reviewed for Gonzales and Card the legal concerns relating to the program. The AG also told Gonzales and Card that he was barred from obtaining the advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the White House."

John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called this new revelation "particularly disconcerting."

According to Conyers, these notes confirm Comey's testimony and raise questions. "Director Mueller's notes and recollections concerning the White House visit to the Attorney General's hospital bed confirm an attempt to goad a sick and heavily medicated Ashcroft to approve the warrantless surveillance program," adding that "this heavily redacted document raises far more questions than it answers. We intend to fully investigate this incident and the underlying subject matter that evoked such widespread distress within the Department and the FBI."

Congressman Artur Davis (D-Alabama), a lead investigator on the House Judiciary Committee, questioned testimony given by Gonzales regarding his visit to Ashcroft's hospital room. "The committee continues to be interested in the critical question of whether Alberto Gonzales was truthful rather than misleading when he testified to the House and Senate." Davis recently voted in favor of the Protect America Act of 2007, a bill that expanded the power of the president and the attorney general to conduct warrantless surveillance.

Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter Thursday, requesting that the Department of Justice Inspector General investigate statements made by Gonzales before Congress, including statements about the disagreement between the White House and the DOJ over the wiretapping program in question.

Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout.

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