From Thinkprogress:
In March 2004, President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying efforts were temporarily suspended after then-acting Attorney General James Comey refused to sign on to an extension of the program “amid concerns about its legality and oversight.”
Today, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Comey detailed the extraordinary and potentially illegal efforts made by Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card — then White House counsel and chief of staff, respectively — to attempt to force John Ashcroft to overrule Comey, despite the fact that Ashcroft was debilitated in a hospital with pancreatitis.
Details below:
First, Comey discussed the high-speed pursuit that took place when he learned that Card and Gonzales were on their way to see Ashcroft at the hospital:
COMEY: I was headed home at about 8 o’clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was — on Constitution Avenue — and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft’s chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call…and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft. […]
So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and — with whom I’d been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week — and told him what was happening. He said,
I’ll meet you at the hospital right now.
Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital.
I got out of the car and ran up — literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to that.
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