"as many as 30 top DOJ officials would have resigned" Newsweek

[Demeter]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18881810/site/newsweek/page/0/

Bush's Monica Problem
Gonzales, the president's lawyer and Texas buddy, is twisting slowly in the wind, facing a vote of no confidence from the Senate.



Live Vote
Do you think Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should have to step down? * 16697 responses

Yes
90%

No
8.1%

Not sure
2.1%
Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.










By Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

June 4, 2007 issue - The United States Department of Justice has not always been above politics. John F. Kennedy, after all, appointed his brother and consigliere Robert to be attorney general. But the Justice Department is supposed to stand for the rule of law—to be the enforcer of the laws of the United States, not the place presidents go to get around the law. Independence is an important tradition in the columned limestone building on Constitution Avenue. It is worth remembering that before Richard Nixon could find someone at the Justice Department willing to fire the Watergate special prosecutor in 1973, he had to accept the resignations of the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and the deputy attorney general, William Ruckelshaus. (Solicitor General Robert Bork finally did the deed.)


So consider these scenes from March 2004, described by two former top Justice officials who, like other ex-officials interviewed by NEWSWEEK, did not wish to be identified discussing sensitive internal matters. Attorney General John Ashcroft is really sick. About to give a press conference in Virginia, he is stricken with pain so severe he has to lie down on the floor. Taken to the hospital for an emergency gallbladder operation, he hallucinates under medication as he lies, near death, in intensive care. On the night after his operation, he has two visitors: White House chief of staff Andrew Card and presidential counsel Alberto Gonzales. As described in public testimony, they want Ashcroft to sign a document authorizing the government's top-secret eavesdropping program to go on. The attorney general, who thinks the program is illegal, refuses.

Back at the Justice Department, there is an equally extraordinary scene. Appalled by the White House's heavy-handed attempt to coerce the gravely ill attorney general, virtually the entire top leadership of the Justice Department is threatening to resign. The group includes the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum and the chief of the Criminal Division, Chris Wray. Some of them gather in the conference room of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who describes Ashcroft's bravely turning away the president's men from his hospital bed. The mood that night in the conference room was tense—and sober. "This was a showdown," says a former senior Justice Department official who was there. "Everybody understood the choice they were making and the gravity of the situation. Everybody knew what the stakes were." A different source estimated that as many as 30 top DOJ officials would have resigned.....

CUT OUT THE DIRT ON YOO HERE


The confrontation over the eavesdropping program "seared" the relationship between the White House and Ashcroft's team at Justice, according to a former senior Justice official. Within months, many of the top officials had resigned or started making plans to do so. Solicitor General Ted Olson was the first to go that summer. On Election Day 2004, Ashcroft—sensing that he would not be asked to stay for a second term—personally wrote his letter of resignation, and Bush promptly tapped Gonzales to replace him. Comey announced his resignation the next summer.

[hlthe2b]

1. Take the poll.... It is being freeped...

yeah, it is "online, unscientific, etc., etc." but damn, there is no way that anywhere less than 90% of the public supports Gonzo GOING...

[Kagemusha]

2. Wait, Olson was against this mystery program too?

Olson? Whose wife died on 9/11? I always wondered why he left. I didn't think there was any greater True Believer than he.

[L. Coyote]

3. The NO's are gaining ground. Was 4.2%

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=978046&mesg_id=978593

[AndyTiedye]

4. Step Down? He Should Do That "Step" Known as the "Frog March"

[williesgirl]

5. How could 8% of respondents say "NO"? Amazing. recommended

[RamboLiberal]

6. Here's another key paragraph - and everyone read this article

the stuff on you is quite frightening. Remember that name cause we need to get this MF'er completely out of government.

Bush's role has remained shadowy throughout the controversy over the eavesdropping program. But there are strong suggestions that he was an active presence. On the night after Ashcroft's operation, as Ashcroft lay groggy in his bed, his wife, Janet, took a phone call. It was Andy Card, asking if he could come over with Gonzales to speak to the attorney general. Mrs. Ashcroft said no, her husband was too sick for visitors. The phone rang again, and this time Mrs. Ashcroft acquiesced to a visit from the White House officials. Who was the second caller, one with enough power to persuade Mrs. Ashcroft to relent? The former Ashcroft aide who described this scene would not say, but senior DOJ officials had little doubt who it was—the president. (The White House would not comment on the president's role.) Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, then called Comey, Ashcroft's deputy, to warn him that the White House duo was on the way. With an FBI escort, Comey raced to the hospital to try to stop them, but Ashcroft himself was strong enough to turn down his White House visitors' request.