High Drama -- and High Crimes?

Charlie Savage explains some of the backstory in the Boston Globe: "After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without court oversight. The once-secret program bypassed a 1978 law that requires warrants, but the administration legal team asserted that presidents have the wartime power, as commander in chief, to set aside laws at their own discretion.

"In early 2004, several Justice officials who were not in office at the launch of the NSA program began questioning whether it violated civil liberties. Jack Goldsmith , the new head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, said he doubted that the program was lawful. After listening to Goldsmith, Comey and Ashcroft agreed, Comey said.

"The program was set to expire on March 11, 2004, unless the attorney general recertified that it was legal. That week, however, Ashcroft was hospitalized with pancreatitis, and Comey became the acting attorney general. Comey told the White House that he would not sign off on it, setting up the dramatic confrontation."

The Cast of Characters

As for who was behind all this, let's be blunt: Nobody who knows the players can seriously believe that Gonzales and Card were acting on their own. Neither has ever been known for his original thinking. When they served at the White House -- and in Gonzales's case, even after he left to become attorney general -- their role was to be loyal soldiers.

So who was telling them what to do? It doesn't take a whole lot of guesswork. The warrantless spying program -- like virtually all of the Bush era measures that have pushed executive power well past historic boundaries -- was born in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Cheney and David S. Addington, who is now his chief of staff, were its champions.

From yesterday's testimony:

"SPECTER: Well, Mr. Comey, did you have discussions with anybody else in the administration who disagreed with your conclusions?

"COMEY: Yes, sir.

"SPECTER: Who else?

"COMEY: Vice president.

"SPECTER: Anybody else?

"COMEY: Members of his staff.