Reply #42: James B. Comey has made a remarkable amount of trouble for the White House

[L. Coyote]

Loyal to Bush but Big Thorn in Republicans’ Side
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: May 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/washington/17comey.html?ex=1337054400&en=70e5494fb76dcdd8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

WASHINGTON, May 16 — For a loyal George W. Bush Republican, James B. Comey has made a remarkable amount of trouble for the White House.

As deputy attorney general in 2003, he appointed his old friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as independent counsel in the C.I.A. leak case, ....

In 2004, he backed Justice Department subordinates who withdrew a legal memorandum justifying harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.
....he publicly praised several United States attorneys who had been dismissed.....

Finally, at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Comey gave a riveting account of how he intervened in 2004 at the hospital bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft to prevent two top White House officials from persuading Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program.......