On March 10^th, then, Attorney General John Ashcroft, lying near death while recovering from major surgery in an intensive care ward, received two visitors.  One was Alberto Gonzales, White House Consul, the other Andrew Card, Chief of Staff.

            They wanted Ashcroft to override Deputy Attorney General James Comely and approve a program to read peoples mail and tap phones without a court order. Comely was acting as Attorney General during Ashcroft’s illness and he refused to approve Gonzales plan of spying on Americans without a warrant deeming it to be unconstitutional.

            Gonzales suggested that Bush might do it anyway without the approval of the Justice Department and Comely, the Director of the FBI and several other high officials in the Department of Justice said that if so, they would collectively resign. Bush did not make the order and only until the Patriot Act was passed did that program commence.

            Ashcroft refused to override and reminded Gonzales that Comely was the acting Attorney General during his illness.

            When congress recently questioned Gonzales about this he vehemently denied that he had done that in spite of the testimony of the FBI director Mueller who stated that he was a witness to the incident.

            The fact that Gonzales lied to congress itself is not surprising for it appears that it would not be the first time.

            Gonzales knows that congress can do nothing to him anyway for any punishment, like Libby’s could be set aside by Bush.  And further, he could always appeal any sentence to Bush’s Supreme Court and it most certainly would die right then and there. So why not lie?

            No one can do anything about it, so why not lie?