A former Justice Department official recounts how White House officials attempted to bully ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft into approving the secret wiretapping program.
She called Comey to stop the uninvited visitors. Just the previous week, her husband had agreed not to reinstate the program.
Bush agreed to listen to Comey and Mueller and restructure the program did resignation plans go away. It was almost exactly 10 years ago, May 16, 2007, that Comey recounted the sequence of events before a Senate committee.
Ashcroft, weak from gallbladder surgery, was under pressure from White House officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to sign papers reauthorizing the domestic surveillance program secretly launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Advertisement. Ashcroft’s wife was distraught about the visit from the White House counsel and chief ...
On Wednesday, Mueller was named by Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein to be special counsel to take over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. “My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that prosecution is warranted,” Rosenstein said. “I have made no such determination.”.
Just the previous week, her husband had agreed not to reinstate the program. Comey called in help, asking Mueller, then the FBI director, and several top aides to meet him at the hospital. It was the start of a battle between the Justice Department and the White House. According to Comey, the White House renewed the program ...
Two senior White House officials, Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales, were headed to Ashcroft's hospital bed, despite the instructions of his wife that there would be no phone calls or visitors.
Ashcroft, buffered by his wife and three of his senior deputies, faces down Gonzales and Card and refuses to sign off on the spy program. Gonzales and Card storm out of the room.
The White House meeting produces no breakthrough. So the White House reauthorizes the program without the approval of the Department of Justice, apparently breaking its own procedure. "I prepared a letter of resignation, intending to resign the next day, Friday, March the 12th," Comey said. He expected many other senior Justice Department leaders, including Mueller, to resign as well. Eventually, President Bush steps in to smooth out the waters, overrule his staff and give permission to change the secret spy program to address the concerns of the Department of Justice.
Comey was the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, from January 2002 to the time of his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General on December 11, 2003. Among his first tasks was to take over the investigation into President Bill Clinton 's controversial pardon of Marc Rich, which Comey concluded involved no illegality. In November 2002, he led the prosecution of three men involved in one of the largest identity fraud cases in American history. The fraud had lasted two years and resulted in thousands of people across the country collectively losing over $3 million. He also led the indictment of Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas for bank fraud, wire fraud, and securities fraud. Rigas was convicted of the charges in 2004 and in 2005, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Adelphia Corporation was forced to file for bankruptcy after it acknowledged that it took $3.3 billion in false loans. It was "one of the most elaborate and extensive corporate frauds in United States history".
Statements from Trump and the White House suggested that Comey had been fired to ease the "pressure" Trump was under due to the Russia investigation. Later that month, Comey arranged for a friend to leak to the press a memo he had written after a February 14, 2017 private meeting with the president.
It allowed the Trump administration to attribute Comey's firing to Rosenstein's recommendation about the Clinton email controversy. It was later revealed that on May 8, Trump had requested Sessions and Rosenstein to detail in writing a case against Comey. Rosenstein's memo was forwarded to Trump on May 9 and was then construed as a recommendation to dismiss Comey, which Trump immediately did. In Trump's termination letter to Comey, he attributed the firing to the respective letters from Sessions and Rosenstein. On May 10, Trump told reporters he had fired Comey because Comey "wasn't doing a good job." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders added that the FBI rank and file had lost faith in Comey and that she had "heard from countless members of the FBI ... grateful and thankful for the president's decision."
"as a reminder of the bureau's capacity to do wrong".
On July 29, 2013, the Senate confirmed Comey to a full ten-year term as FBI director. He was confirmed by a vote of 93–1. Two senators voted present. He was sworn in as FBI director on September 4, 2013. Comey was dismissed by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017.
Comey received a three million dollar payout from Bridgewater, his net worth estimated at 14 million dollars. On February 1, 2013, after leaving Bridgewater, he was appointed by Columbia University Law School as a senior research scholar and Hertog fellow on national security law.
In February 2003, Comey was the lead prosecutor of Martha Stewart, who was indicted on the charges of securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to an FBI agent. She sold 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems, thereby avoiding a loss of $45,673.
The infamous showdown took place in March 2004, while Ashcroft was recovering from illness in a hospital bed. Acting attorney general James Comey—now President Obama’s nominee to head the FBI—was refusing to reauthorize one component of the secret surveillance program. Comey concluded that it was illegal. This prompted White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to rush to Ashcroft’s hospital room in hopes of getting the ailing AG to countermand Comey, who was tipped off about Gonzales’ plan and sped there as well.
Of course, we now know that after the hospital showdown, the administration simply went to the FISA court and obtained a blanket “pen register” order allowing the metadata collection to continue, this time with legal cover (though the Court apparently imposed stricter limits than the NSA’s own lawyers did).
In the confrontation that ensued, Ashcroft supported Comey both formally (because Comey was legally the attorney general while Ashcroft was incapacitated) and on the legal substance. Bush reauthorized the program despite the Justice Department’s conclusion that it was unlawful. Comey then threatened to resign—with Ashcroft, FBI director Robert Mueller, and other top officials reportedly ready to join him. Bush ultimately backed down, and the troublesome program was briefly suspended until it could be renewed under a different legal authority.
She called Comey to stop the uninvited visitors. Just the previous week, her husband had agreed not to reinstate the program.
Bush agreed to listen to Comey and Mueller and restructure the program did resignation plans go away. It was almost exactly 10 years ago, May 16, 2007, that Comey recounted the sequence of events before a Senate committee.
Ashcroft, weak from gallbladder surgery, was under pressure from White House officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to sign papers reauthorizing the domestic surveillance program secretly launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Advertisement. Ashcroft’s wife was distraught about the visit from the White House counsel and chief ...
On Wednesday, Mueller was named by Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein to be special counsel to take over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. “My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that prosecution is warranted,” Rosenstein said. “I have made no such determination.”.
Just the previous week, her husband had agreed not to reinstate the program. Comey called in help, asking Mueller, then the FBI director, and several top aides to meet him at the hospital. It was the start of a battle between the Justice Department and the White House. According to Comey, the White House renewed the program ...