White House Insisted On Bush Loyalists For Top DOJ Posts In 2003Former Attorney General John Ashcroft left the Department of Justice more than three years ago, but he’s still in the news and will be up on Capitol Hill this morning for testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
This morning’s Washington Post takes us back to to 2003 and shows how the White House insisted on getting its own man inside the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.
In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft’s list reached the White House, President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.
Ashcroft’s refusal created a tense standoff and was the only time in the attorney general’s tenure that Bush was called upon to resolve a personnel dispute, the sources said.
Ashcroft’s testimony starts at 10 AM ET. We’ll be watching and posting, so stay tuned for updates.
