Oath of Loyalty

By James Carney

In Washington divided government loosens lips; narratives that might never have been told play out as sworn testimony. Some witnesses encase their truths in leaden prose. Not so James Comey, a former Deputy Attorney General, who unspooled a vivid tale in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the night in March 2004 when he raced to the hospital to prevent two top White House aides from taking advantage of his critically ill boss, John Ashcroft, in a dispute over the Administration's secret domestic eavesdropping program. Comey was acting Attorney General while Ashcroft was incapacitated by pancreatitis. 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 Department's concern about the surveillance programs. The weeks of recent hearings launched by Gonzales' firing of eight U.S. Attorneys have pried mountains of discovery from the Administration about the dismissals, but Comey's recounting of that night offered a glimpse into the drama of dissent that took place long before Gonzales met his current troubles. It's tempting to find comfort in the fact that off-camera, at least, these powerful men had been so passionately divided over issues of law and liberty. And Bush did ultimately yield to Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller. But just eight months later, the President chose Gonzales to be Ashcroft's successor. The lessons of that night--namely, that political fealty could go too far--went unheeded. Three years later, even Republicans are demanding that Gonzales resign. Said Comey in earlier testimony about the damage done: "I don't know [of] any way you can get the department's reputation back."