Rockefeller Says March 2004 'Gang Of Eight' Meeting Was Not As Gonzales Described

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disputed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' version of events surrounding a March 10, 2004, meeting at the White House involving senior Bush administration officials and congressional leaders, a session that preceded the now infamous visit to the then Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital by Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was outraged that Gonzales and Card would go to see Ashcroft, who was in intensive care, in a bid to overrule Comey, who was refusing to reauthorize what was believed to be the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program. Comey's testimony was a devastating blow to Gonzales' credibility, and has helped spur a renewed fight between Democrats and the White House over the NSA program.

The way that Gonzales portrayed the situation to senators today, the "Gang of Eight," made up of the top Democratic and Republican leaders in both the House and Senate, as well as the top Democrat and Republican from both the House and Senate Intelligence committees, was concerned about Comey's refusal to reauthorize the program, and then Card and Gonzales went to the Ashcroft's hospital room in a failed attempt to go over Comey's head. ''We went there because we thought it was important for him to know where the congressional leadership was on this,' Gonzales said.

Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, insisted today that the fight with Comey was not over the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," which is the White House's name for the NSA effort, although that claim infuriated Judiciary Committee Democrats, who all but said that Gonzales was lying.