Justice Dept. Had Qualms About NSA Program

We are getting an inkling of the reason John Ashcroft chose to leave his position as Attorney General.

It appears that he was uneasy about the legality of the NSA domestic spying program.

Other high officials were even less thrilled about participating in illegal activities.

Today's New York Times has an article about heretofore unknown internal dissent within the administration about the extra-legal spying scandal. The Times piece includes a description of a bizarre scene involving some well known administration figures:

The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.

The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it.

(...)

Accounts differed as to exactly what was said at the hospital meeting between Mr. Ashcroft and the White House advisers. But some officials said that Mr. Ashcroft, like his deputy, appeared reluctant to give Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales his authorization to continue with aspects of the program in light of concerns among some senior government officials about whether the proper oversight was in place at the security agency and whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation.

It is unclear whether the White House ultimately persuaded Mr. Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it.

The idea of sending high-level White House officials to pressure a man on his sickbed is an outrage to the sensibilities of normal people. This attempt to exploit someone's weakness is simply another proof of the amoral essential nature of the Bush administration.