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Senator May Seek Gonzales Perjury Probe
Democrats say Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has repeatedly attempted to deceive them.
(By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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The notification provoked a nighttime visit in March 2004 by Gonzales and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to the hospital sickbed of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft at which they tried unsuccessfully to reverse the Justice Department position, according to Comey's account of the incident.
Gonzales has repeatedly stood by his original testimony, in which he said the disagreement was not about "the program that the president has confirmed." A Justice official conceded during a background briefing for reporters this week that Gonzales's "linguistic parsing" has caused some confusion, but said that he spoke accurately.
In June, Gonzales veered briefly from his own account when he said at a news conference that the dispute described by Comey centered on the NSA program. But Roehrkasse told The Washington Post several days later that Gonzales misspoke.
On Tuesday, Gonzales described the March 2004 briefing for eight members of Congress as an "emergency meeting" to discuss the classified legal dispute, and he reiterated that the dispute was not about the NSA surveillance program. Rockefeller and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who were present at the briefing, subsequently told reporters the activities in question were part of the NSA program.
"As far as I'm concerned, there was only one" program, Rockefeller said.
Bush, Gonzales and other administration officials have said the surveillance program allows the NSA to monitor telephone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and overseas in which one target is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda or its affiliates. The program, conducted without judicial involvement for five years, was put under the auspices of a special intelligence court in January.
Asked about the letter from Negroponte that listed the topic of the White House briefing as the surveillance program, a Justice Department official said that Gonzales "did not say that the TSP was not discussed at the meeting," but declined to elaborate.
But Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a critic of Gonzales on the Judiciary panel, said: "It seemed clear to just about everyone on the committee that the attorney general was deceiving us . . . and this letter is even more evidence that helps confirm our suspicions."
Washingtonpost.com staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.
