FBI Chief’s Notes Tell of Ashcroft Hospital Scene
Corroborating an account by former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III detailed the dramatic events that occurred in then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in March 2004 when his successor, Alberto Gonzales, attempted to persuade a convalescing Ashcroft to sign off on a domestic wiretapping program he opposed.Corroborating an account by former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III detailed the dramatic events that occurred in then-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room in March 2004 when his successor, Alberto Gonzales, attempted to persuade a convalescing Ashcroft to sign off on a domestic wiretapping program he opposed. Here The New York Times provides a copy of Mueller’s (heavily redacted) notes.
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Mr. Mueller’s typed notes, which are undated, also reveal a series of meetings earlier and later that month between the F.B.I. director and other administration officials, including Mr. Comey, Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House Counsel and General Michael V. Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, which conducted the electronic monitoring program.
At one point in a meeting with Mr. Mueller, the notes show, Mr. Gonzales said that even he was “barred” from getting as much information as he wanted about the highly classified eavesdropping program, because of strict White House secrecy rules.
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