According to Newsweek (Full Speed Ahead), there were key members of the Justice Department who had problems with the warrantless surveillance programs that we have been discussing:

On one day in the spring of 2024, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without success—to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping.

So, both Attorney General John Ashcroft and acting AG James Comey had problems with the program, which in and of itself is interesting. Further, this information would indicate that it isn’t the case that if one has all the facts that one would be satisfied with the President’s plan. I find that interesting, and potentially quite telling.

It is also ironic and mildly amusing, because many on the Left caricatured Ashcroft as being a vehement enemy of civil liberties.