Word: counsel
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...ethical cloud stems from the visit then White House Counsel Gonzales paid then Attorney General John Ashcroft back in March 2004, as former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified to Congress earlier this week. President Bush needed the Attorney General's signature to reauthorize the administration's classified domestic wiretapping program. Trouble is, Ashcroft was in the hospital suffering from acute pancreatitis, and Acting Attorney General Comey refused to sign, because he didn't think the program was legal. So someone, quite possibly Bush, sent Gonzales and chief of staff Andrew Card rushing to Ashcroft's bedside in search...
...Like his boss, Comey had come to believe that President George W. Bush's surveillance program was illegal. The White House wanted it renewed. Comey refused. And so who turned up at Ashcroft's bedside with pen and paper in search of the Attorney General's signature? White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. Summoning his strength, Ashcroft lifted his head from his pillow, affirmed his support for Comey and refused Gonzales' request. Facing the threat of a mass resignation by senior law-enforcement officials, including Ashcroft, Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Bush finessed a compromise that ultimately addressed the Justice...
When then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went to John Ashcroft's hospital room on the evening of March 10, 2004 to ask the ailing Attorney General to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program, he was acting inappropriately, Ashcroft's deputy at the time, James Comey, testified before Congress earlier this week. But the question some lawyers, national security experts and Congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally...
...determine whether Gonzales broke the law or not, "You have to know the exact facts," says Elizabeth Parker, Dean of the University of the Pacific Law School and former General Counsel of the National Security Agency. "Obviously things can be discussed in ways that don't divulge highly classified information. The real issue is what is it about this program that is so classified that can't allow it to be discussed in a Congressional setting, even a closed Congressional hearing. In order to have confidence in what this program is all about, one needs to understand better what...
...Your country and your President are in dire need of an attorney who will do the tough job of providing independent counsel,” the letter says. It calls on Gonzales to “relent from this reckless path, and begin to restore respect for the rule of law we all learned to love many years...