James Comey's Testimony Limns Presidential Felonies

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its investigation of the growing scandal at the Department of Justice. Comey's testimony shed new light on yet another scandal that has been sitting on the back burner for years now: illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping by the National Security Agency at the direction of the Bush Administration.

By now all political junkies know about the dramatic bedside scene at George Washington Hospital where then-Attorney General John Ashcroft lay ill and under sedation. Comey testified that he and FBI Director Robert Mueller raced to the hospital to fend off Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card, who were on their way to secure Ashcroft's signature on a document that almost certainly was the finding that the NSA eavesdropping program was legal. Comey got there first and held the fort until Mueller arrived. When Gonzales and Card got there, Ashcroft roused himself from his stupor to tell the White House staffers where they could put that unsigned document.

But the drama appears to be distracting people from the real issue. Here's how Glenn Greenwald puts it:

Amazingly, the President's own political appointees — the two top Justice Department officials, including one (Ashcroft) who was known for his "aggressive" use of law enforcement powers in the name of fighting terrorism and at the expense of civil liberties — were so convinced of [the NSA eavesdropping program's] illegality that they refused to certify it and were preparing, along with numerous other top DOJ officials, to resign en masse once they learned that the program would continue notwithstanding the President's knowledge that it was illegal.

The overarching point here, as always, is that it is simply crystal clear that the President consciously and deliberately violated the law and committed multiple felonies by eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law. [emphasis in the original]

Greenwald and Josh Marshall are the go-to guys for this story. Go to them and read all about it.