FBI chief’s notes reveal more administration dispute over warrantless eavesdropping

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday released notes taken by the chief of the FBI that reveal more of the Bush administration’s intense internal wrangling over reauthorizing its warrantless wiretapping program in the spring of 2004.

FBI Director Robert Mueller gave the notes to Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the judiciary panel, after testifying before the committee last month and appearing to contradict sworn statements made by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Mueller’s account of the evening of March 10, 2004, compounds the political pressure on Gonzales — who has alienated lawmakers in both parties — but also raises the stakes for Democrats’ coming efforts to limit administration eavesdropping.

{mosads}Mueller confirmed testimony by James Comey, the former No. 2 at the Department of Justice, that John Ashcroft, then attorney general, had raised questions about the legality of the spying program in 2004. According to Mueller’s notes, Comey alerted him on the evening of March 10 that Gonzales, then White House counsel, and Andy Card, then White House chief of staff, were visiting Ashcroft’s hospital bed to ask for an overruling of Comey’s objections to the eavesdropping.

At 7:20 p.m., Mueller wrote, he agreed to intercept Gonzales and Card and “witness condition of AG [Ashcroft],” but by 7:40 p.m., when Mueller arrived, the duo had departed. Mueller noted that Ashcroft had told the White House officials “that he was barred from obtaining the advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the WH.”

Following the confrontation, Mueller agreed to bar all unapproved visitors other than Ashcroft’s family from the hospital room, and at 8:10 p.m., Mueller reported Ashcroft to be “feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed.”

Gonzales emphasized before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that no serious disputes occurred over the legality of the eavesdropping program that President Bush has confirmed. Justice officials maintain that the 2004 episode dealt with a separate intelligence operation, which many suspect to be a broader version of the spying setup that currently exists.

“Director Mueller’s notes and recollections concerning the White House visit to the attorney general’s hospital bed confirm an attempt to goad a sick and heavily medicated Ashcroft to approve the warrantless surveillance program,” Conyers said in a statement.

Conyers singled out the revelation that Ashcroft was asked to approve a program without full documentation of it, but decried the FBI’s redaction of Mueller’s notes on other events of March 2004. He vowed to press for a complete copy of the documents and notes from other officials involved in reauthorizing the spying program.

The day after the hospital confrontation, Mueller reported a private meeting with Card but not its details, followed by a private meeting with Gonzales and a later sit-down with Comey and unnamed officials.

Two days after the confrontation, Mueller reported a private meeting with Bush. It is unclear whether that discussion prompted Bush to make still-undisclosed changes to the eavesdropping program that averted the internal turmoil over its legality. Mueller reported a later talk with Cheney on March 23.

Mueller’s notes also reveal three meetings on March 9, the day before the hospital meeting.

The first included FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni, deputy director John Pistole and an official who appears to be Michael Fedarcyk, then-section chief of the counterterrorism division’s Communication Exploitation Section.

The second included Vice President Dick Cheney, Gonzales and then-National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden. Those three were also at the third meeting, as were Comey and members of the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice.