The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that President Obama has narrowed his list of possible replacements for FBI Director Robert Mueller to two candidates. Senate Republicans probably won't be happy with either of the highly respected choices. Lisa Monaco, the White House's top counterterrorism official, is a Harvard and University of Chicago-educated former prosecutor whose fraud and corruption cases included Enron. The other is James Comey, the former Bush administration deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft. But with his sins of having objected to President Bush's illicit program of NSA domestic surveillance and having selected Patrick Fitzgerald as the Special Counsel in the Plamegate case, Comey would likely hit a brick wall from the GOP.
As the Journal noted, Comey "is best remembered for a high-stakes standoff with his own bosses in the Bush administration." Most Americans are probably unaware of those high-stakes: just months before the 2004 election, Comey and the man he would now replace almost triggered the mass resignation of Justice Department leaders over the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.
In March 2004, Comey served as the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's recovery from emergency gall bladder surgery. In that capacity, Comey had refused to recertify President Bush's illegal NS domestic surveillance program. On March 10, Gonzales and Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card went behind Comey's back to pressure an "extremely ill and disoriented" Ashcroft. The Washington Post recounted Comey's May 2007 Congressional testimony about the scene as Ashcroft's bedside:
When the White House officials appeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why they were there. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong and unequivocal terms, refused to approve the eavesdropping program.As Barton Gellman documented, President Bush was blissfully unaware of the rebellion over his so-called "terrorist surveillance program." The crisis over the re-certification over the NSA eavesdropping effort nearly destroyed his Justice Department just months before the November 2004 elections. As Gellman recounted:"I was angry,' Mr. Comey told the committee. "I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper."
All hell was breaking loose at Justice. Lawyers streamed back from the suburbs, converging on the fourth-floor conference room. Most of them were not cleared to hear the details, but a decision began to coalesce: If Comey quit, none of them were staying.More below the fold.