An FBI agent's notes stated that then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and Pres. G. W. Bush called the hospital room, and that Ashcroft's wife had taken the call. Card would not sit for an interview with the IGs about his dramatic visit with then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to the hospital bedside of an ailing Ashcroft. Gonzales told the inspectors general that Bush instructed him to go to the hospital to obtain Ashcroft's signature on a document that would green-light continuation of the program. "Extraordinary and inappropriate" secrecy about a warrantless eavesdropping program undermined its effectiveness as a terrorism-fighting tool, government watchdogs have concluded in the first examination of one of the most contentious episodes of the Bush administration. WP NYT Reader, report

Broad new surveillance powers
Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

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E-mail Gap
Miers responded , "Not sure whether this will be determined to require the boss's attention" and noted that President Bush had left town the night before. Sampson then asked, "Who will determine whether this requires the president's attention?" There is no follow-up response in the documents so far released
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warrantless domestic eavesdropping program
Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work. here