I was just speaking with David Kurtz about the news coverage of yesterday’s Comey testimony. As David notes, both the Times and the Post suggest that this was a dispute among the president’s subordinates and that, in the Post’s words, the crisis was “resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card.” The Times says that the president eventually “intervened … to avert a crisis … and quelled the revolt.”
But I’m not sure that’s the only or really the most likely interpretation of what Comey said. In Comey’s testimony he actually says that he thinks it was the president himself who called the hospital to say Gonzales and Card were coming over. He hesitated and said he wasn’t certain of that. But his recollection seemed to be that it was the president.
His actual words are as follows …
Comey: Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.
Schumer: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
Comey: (hesitation) I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself. But I don’t know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.
The logic of the testimony also suggests that the president sent Gonzales and Card over. Later, in response to the threatened resignations, the president backed Comey and the Justice Department and allowed them to make changes that would bring the program under legal or constitutional limits.
I think it’s a stretch to believe that the president was brought in as some neutral arbiter. A more logical interpretation is that the president dispatched Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft’s bedside and then later backed down.
Late Update: Marty Lederman who of course knows the legal and constitutional issues far better than I do has more on this here.
