By Channon Hodge, Michael Schmidt and Ben Werschkul
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
James B. Comey in 90 Seconds: The former Justice Department official, named by President Obama to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prosecuted Martha Stewart and stood up to President George W. Bush.
WASHINGTON — James B. Comey, President Obama’s nominee to be F.B.I. director, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday as part of his confirmation process.
Mr. Comey’s nomination has received strong bipartisan support, but some Democrats and civil liberty groups have raised questions about his role as deputy attorney general in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. His views about enemy interrogations and government surveillance were particularly thorny issues, given the disclosures by Edward J. Snowden about classified National Security Agency spying programs.
The Obama administration has little time to get the Senate, which takes a recess in August, to confirm Mr. Comey by Sept. 3, when the current director, Robert S. Mueller III, is required by law to leave his post.
In testimony before the same Senate committee five years ago, Mr. Comey distinguished himself from many members of the Bush administration — and significantly raised his national profile — with testimony that was perceived as repudiating government surveillance programs.
At a hearing about the Justice Department’s firings of several United States attorneys, Mr. Comey riveted the senators by testifying about a 2004 episode in which he believed that senior Bush administration officials tried to persuade his ailing boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, to sign off on an illegal data-collection program.
Mr. Comey said that Mr. Ashcroft, who was in the hospital, had signed his powers over to him. But Mr. Bush’s chief of staff and White House counsel, he said, went to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room and asked him to sign off on a National Security Agency program that was collecting Internet data on Americans.
Mr. Comey, who said he had been tipped off that the White House officials were headed to the hospital, testified that he confronted them. The program was halted soon after.
After his testimony, Mr. Comey was widely credited with putting the law over political concerns. But senior Bush administration officials said that although Mr. Comey’s objections halted the program, it was later resumed under a similar legal framework and with few procedural changes.
After Mr. Obama nominated Mr. Comey as F.B.I. director, Bush administration officials and civil liberty groups raised questions about whether he was truly skeptical of government surveillance programs.
They have pointed to the other surveillance programs that Mr. Comey supported — like wiretapping without warrants — as examples of how he is comfortable with an array of controversial programs. A senior Bush administration official who worked closely with Mr. Comey said that “he was quite comfortable with a whole bunch” of government surveillance programs and that he had repeatedly signed off on their authorization.
“There’s one very big problem with describing Comey as some sort of civil libertarian — some facts suggest otherwise,” Laura W. Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington, said in an article published by The Guardian.
She added: “While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he also approved or defended some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration during his time as deputy attorney general. Those included torture, warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention.”
Before serving as the deputy attorney general under Mr. Bush, Mr. Comey was the United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he oversaw a variety of prosecutions, including the case against Martha Stewart. He teaches at Columbia Law School after having served as general counsel for the large Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
James B. Comey in 90 Seconds: The former Justice Department official, named by President Obama to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prosecuted Martha Stewart and stood up to President George W. Bush.
WASHINGTON — James B. Comey, President Obama’s nominee to be F.B.I. director, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday as part of his confirmation process.
Mr. Comey’s nomination has received strong bipartisan support, but some Democrats and civil liberty groups have raised questions about his role as deputy attorney general in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. His views about enemy interrogations and government surveillance were particularly thorny issues, given the disclosures by Edward J. Snowden about classified National Security Agency spying programs.
The Obama administration has little time to get the Senate, which takes a recess in August, to confirm Mr. Comey by Sept. 3, when the current director, Robert S. Mueller III, is required by law to leave his post.
In testimony before the same Senate committee five years ago, Mr. Comey distinguished himself from many members of the Bush administration — and significantly raised his national profile — with testimony that was perceived as repudiating government surveillance programs.
At a hearing about the Justice Department’s firings of several United States attorneys, Mr. Comey riveted the senators by testifying about a 2004 episode in which he believed that senior Bush administration officials tried to persuade his ailing boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, to sign off on an illegal data-collection program.
Mr. Comey said that Mr. Ashcroft, who was in the hospital, had signed his powers over to him. But Mr. Bush’s chief of staff and White House counsel, he said, went to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room and asked him to sign off on a National Security Agency program that was collecting Internet data on Americans.
Mr. Comey, who said he had been tipped off that the White House officials were headed to the hospital, testified that he confronted them. The program was halted soon after.
After his testimony, Mr. Comey was widely credited with putting the law over political concerns. But senior Bush administration officials said that although Mr. Comey’s objections halted the program, it was later resumed under a similar legal framework and with few procedural changes.
After Mr. Obama nominated Mr. Comey as F.B.I. director, Bush administration officials and civil liberty groups raised questions about whether he was truly skeptical of government surveillance programs.
They have pointed to the other surveillance programs that Mr. Comey supported — like wiretapping without warrants — as examples of how he is comfortable with an array of controversial programs. A senior Bush administration official who worked closely with Mr. Comey said that “he was quite comfortable with a whole bunch” of government surveillance programs and that he had repeatedly signed off on their authorization.
“There’s one very big problem with describing Comey as some sort of civil libertarian — some facts suggest otherwise,” Laura W. Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington, said in an article published by The Guardian.
She added: “While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he also approved or defended some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration during his time as deputy attorney general. Those included torture, warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention.”
Before serving as the deputy attorney general under Mr. Bush, Mr. Comey was the United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he oversaw a variety of prosecutions, including the case against Martha Stewart. He teaches at Columbia Law School after having served as general counsel for the large Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.