No. You have bought the White House line that Harriet Miers held an important position before this year. To the contrary, she was merely Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the time of that statement. Alberto Gonzales was White House Counsel.
Just as well. I hesitated to post that, because it's irrelevant to the present controversy anyway, but it just struck me that no one had commented on the probability that the White House was naive about the legal ramifications. Whoever was supposed to give legal advice appears to have fallen down on the job.