Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps
Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 7, 2007; A03
Vice President Cheney told Justice Department
officials that he disagreed with their objections
to a secret surveillance program during a
high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a
former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.
The meeting came one day before White House
officials tried to get approval for the same
program from then-Attorney General John D.
Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a
hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.
ComeyÂ’s disclosures, made in response to written
questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee,
indicate that Cheney and his aides were more
closely involved than previously known in a
fierce internal battle over the legality of the
warrantless surveillance program. The program
allowed the National Security Agency to monitor
phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.
Comey said that CheneyÂ’s office later blocked the
promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer,
Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising
concerns about the surveillance.
The disclosures also provide further details
about the role played by then-White House counsel
Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his
hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on
the surveillance program shortly afterward,
according to ComeyÂ’s responses. Gonzales is now
the attorney general. He faces possible
congressional votes of no-confidence because of
his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.
“How are you, General?” Gonzales asked Ashcroft
at the hospital, according to Comey.
“Not well,” replied Ashcroft, who had just
undergone gallbladder surgery and was battling pancreatitis.
The new details follow ComeyÂ’s gripping testimony
last month about the visit by Gonzales and Andrew
H. Card Jr., then President BushÂ’s chief of
staff, to AshcroftÂ’s hospital bed on the night of
March 10, 2004. The two Bush aides tried to
persuade Ashcroft to renew the authorization of
the NSA surveillance program, after Comey and
other Justice Department officials had said they
would not certify the legality of the effort,
according to the testimony and other officials.
Ashcroft refused, noting that Comey had been
designated as acting attorney general during his illness.
The episode prompted sharp criticism from
Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned
whether Gonzales and Card were attempting to take
advantage of a sick man to get around legal
objections from government lawyers. It is unclear
who directed the two Bush aides to make the visit.
Democrats said yesterday that the new details
from Comey raise further questions about the role
of Cheney and other White House officials in the episode.
“Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a
while — that White House hands guided Justice
Department business,” said Sen. Charles E.
Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The vice president’s
fingerprints are all over the effort to
strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the
obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?”
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse
said the surveillance program “was always subject
to rigorous oversight and review. . . . We have
acknowledged that there have been disagreements
about other intelligence activities, as one would expect.”
Democrats have criticized Gonzales for testifying
last year that there were no “serious disagreements” about the program.
According to Comey, the hospital visit was
preceded by a March 9, 2004, meeting at the White
House on the Justice Department objections. It
was attended by Cheney; Gonzales; Card; CheneyÂ’s
counsel then, David S. Addington; and others, Comey said.
Comey also named eight Justice Department
officials who were prepared to quit if the White
House had not backed down, including FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller III, current U.S. Attorney
Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria and Jack Goldsmith,
who headed the Office of Legal Counsel and led an
internal legal review of the surveillance program.
Comey said that the review “focused on current
operations during late 2003 and early 2004, and
the legal basis for the program.” He declined to
answer detailed questions about the program or
the review, citing restrictions on classified information.
Bush confirmed the existence of the surveillance
effort after news reports in December 2005,
saying it was authorized after the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks and was vital to protecting the
nation from terrorist attacks. The program has
since been put under the auspices of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees
clandestine eavesdropping in the United States.
Staff writer Amy Goldstein contributed to this report
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