Domestic spying

ABC and CBS evening news shows did not cover Comey's testimony about wiretapping power struggle

Of the three national nightly news broadcasts, only NBC's Nightly News reported on former deputy attorney general James B. Comey's May 15 congressional testimony regarding what Nightly News anchor Brian Williams called a "rare glimpse of a high-level, late-night power struggle" among the Justice Department, the FBI, and the White House over the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretapping program. As NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that current Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, and Andrew Card, then-White House chief of staff, attempted to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "at his [hospital] bedside ... to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections even though Ashcroft was seriously ill," and did not have power as the attorney general during his recovery from surgery.
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