Higher Loyalty, by James Comey: on Homeland Security

Alberto Gonzales: Wrote DOJ opinion on legality of CIA enhanced interrogations

I met with the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to explain to him why I thought it was so irresponsible to write a hypothetical opinion that way--and immediately saw the difference between the Attorney General I knew and respected, John Ashcroft, and his replacement. Wearily, Gonzalez complained that the vice president was putting enormous pressure on him and that Cheney had even prompted the president to ask when the opinions would be ready. I said that I understood the pressure, but there were no prototypical interrogations.

Dick Cheney: OpEd: Frustrated when definitions of torture changed

I understood why people like by Vice President Cheney were frustrated when the Department of Justice changed its legal opinions. But much of the responsibility for the original flawed legal work could be laid at the feet of policymakers like the vice president--powerful leaders who were absolutely certain what needed to be done and who demanded quick answers from a tiny group of lawyers. Their actions guaranteed the very problem we were forced to deal with down the road.

John Ashcroft: Reverse Justice Department ruling on legality of torture

We both recognized that it would leave CIA personal exposed, in a sense, because they had done rough stuff in reliance on a legal opinion that was now withdrawn. The interrogators weren't lawyers; they had a right to rely on the advice of government counsel. But they had acted based on bad advice from the Justice Department, and that shouldn't continue. A new legal opinion had to be written that was legally sound and firmly grounded in the facts.

Dick Cheney: OpEd: Pressured DOJ to declare NSA domestic spying legal

COMEY: I was the #2 person at the Justice Department then, the deputy attorney general. And we were in a dispute with the White House about whether there was a lawful basis for surveillance activities that the president had authorized the NSA to engage in [domestically]. We had concluded--and I agreed--that there wasn't a lawful basis for a big part of these activities. Vice President Cheney presided at a meeting to pressure me to change my view. He looked me in the eye and said, "Thousands of people are going to die because of what you're doing." What he meant was, "Because you are making us stop this surveillance program." I responded, "I have to say what we find lawful. So I can't change my view." I felt like I was going to be crushed like a grape, frankly. But in a way, there was no other way I could act. The law was clear.

John Ashcroft: OpEd: refused to declare NSA domestic spying legal

COMEY: Yeah, I did. My boss, John Ashcroft, was in intensive care at George Washington Hospital. And although we had told the White House we can't certify [NSA domestic surveillance], the president was sending two of his top people to the hospital. I ran over, to make sure a desperately ill man wasn't asked to sign something when he wasn't competent to sign it and I was the acting attorney general.

Q: And in the end, he didn't sign it?

COMEY: The White House [officials] tried to get John Ashcroft to sign off on this program that we had said couldn't continue because it didn't have a lawful basis. And Ashcroft shocked me by pushing himself up on his elbows & blasting them. And telling them he had been misled. They had deprived him of the legal advice he needed. The [White House officials] walked out.