Free Republic

Alberto Gonzales’ tenure as U.S. attorney general was tough to defend. The Brennan Center for Justice’s Andrew Cohen, during his time as CBS News’ chief legal analyst, wrote in 2007, “By any reasonable standard, the Gonzales Era at the Justice Department is void of almost all redemptive qualities. He brought shame and disgrace to the Department.” A year later, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick added that Gonzales helped create a Justice Department in which “politics sometimes had no end.” Nevertheless, Gonzales remained quite popular with Republicans, even after he left George W. Bush’s cabinet, which makes his latest Washington Post op-ed all...

The top deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused two years ago to approve important parts of the secret program that allows domestic eavesdropping without warrants, prompting two leading White House aides to try to win the needed approval from Mr. Ashcroft himself while he was hospitalized after a gall bladder operation, according to officials knowledgeable about the episode. With Mr. Ashcroft recuperating from gall bladder surgery in March 2004, his deputy, James B. Comey, who was then acting as attorney general, was unwilling to give his certification to crucial aspects of the classified program, as required under the procedures...