Here’s the NYT report, and here’s Greenwald’s take on it:
Comey repeatedly stated that it appeared that Ashcroft was not even oriented to his surroundings. Compare that to Tony Snow’s disgustingly dismissive defense yesterday of the behavior of Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales: "Trying to take advantage of a sick man — because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn’t work?"
But more revealingly, just consider what it says about this administration. Not only did Comey think that he had to rush to the hospital room to protect Ashcroft from having a conniving Card and Gonzales manipulate his severe illness and confusion by coercing his signature on a document — behavior that is seen only in the worst cases of deceitful, conniving relatives coercing a sick and confused person to sign a new will — but the administration’s own FBI Director thought it was necessary to instruct his FBI agents not to allow Comey to be removed from the room.
Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs. Indeed, Comey said that when Card ordred him to the White House, Comey refused to meet with Card without a witness being present, and that Card refused to allow Comey’s summoned witness (Solicitor General Ted Olson) even to enter Card’s office. These are the most trusted intimates of the White House — the ones who are politically sympathetic to them and know them best — and they prepared for, defended themselves against, the most extreme acts of corruption and thuggery from the President’s Chief of Staff and his then-legal counsel (and current Attorney General of the United States).
Does this sound in any way like the behavior of a government operating under the rule of law, which believes that it had legal authority to spy on Americans without the warrants required for three decades by law? How can we possibly permit our government to engage in this behavior, to spy on us in deliberate violation of the laws which we enacted democratically precisely in order to limit how they can spy on us, and to literally commit felonies at will, knowing that they are breaking the law?
It’s encouraging to learn that among conservatives there are some who are willing to stand up to power on principle, but the frightening thing is that a rightwinger like Ashcroft is to the left of these thugs, and one of them now has his job.
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