Washington – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came under new questioning Thursday about President Bush’s wiretapping program and the administration response to congressional subpoenas.
In a closed-door session, House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes said members were especially interested in the reasons behind Gonzales’ controversial 2004 visit to the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, reportedly to pressure him to endorse Bush’s surveillance program. Ashcroft, said to have been barely conscious at the time, refused.
Gonzales did not express any regret, Reyes said after the hearing ended.
“He, I thought, explained it very well in terms of why they had gone there,” said Reyes, D-Texas, declining to provide specifics because many details are classified.
Ranking Republican Pete Hoekstra urged Congress to move on from speculation over the hospital visit, which he likened to a discussion of “exactly what (flavor) Jell-O Ashcroft was eating in the hospital.”
Details of the hospital visit, first revealed in congressional testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, intensified calls by Democrats and some Republicans for Gonzales’ resignation.
In a letter to Gonzales on Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and other Democrats demanded to know whether a Justice Department memo declaring presidential aides absolutely immune from subpoenas was drafted legally.
That issue concerns demands by lawmakers for testimony from advisers such as former presidential counsel Harriet Miers.
The deadline for Gonzales’ answer: Monday, 24 hours before he is to testify publicly before the panel about an assortment of controversial Justice Department matters.
Democrats say the tale of the hospital visit is important because it shows the extent to which the administration will exert executive power over questions of whether civil liberties are being protected.
