This afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee released James Comey’s answers to written questions from Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) about the Ashcroft hospital room incident. We’ve just added the written answers to the TPM Document Collection.
Separately, in written answers to 
questions from Sen. Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey confirmed that Vice President Cheney blocked a subsequent promotion for a Justice Department official, Patrick Philbin, who played a key role in blocking the recertification of the NSA warrantless wiretap program.
In a telling detail about Gonzales, the Attorney General apparently planned to promote Philbin to be principal deputy solicitor general. In other words, it would appear that for all the rest we have learned about Mr. Gonzales, he was not inclined to punish Philbin for his role in the Ashcroft-Comey recertification incident. However, Cheney intervened. In Comey’s words: “I understood that someone at the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the vice president would oppose the appointment if the attorney general pursued the matter. The attorney general chose not to pursue it.”
So, two sides of Mr. Gonzales, but a composite that fits the profile of the man — not personally vindictive or perhaps even a person of malign will, but an obedient servant of bad men.
