John Ashcroft in Higher Loyalty, by James Comey

On Homeland Security: Reverse Justice Department ruling on legality of torture

We both recognized that it would leave CIA personal exposed, in a sense, because they had done rough stuff in reliance on a legal opinion that was now withdrawn. The interrogators weren't lawyers; they had a right to rely on the advice of government counsel. But they had acted based on bad advice from the Justice Department, and that shouldn't continue. A new legal opinion had to be written that was legally sound and firmly grounded in the facts.

On Homeland Security: OpEd: refused to declare NSA domestic spying legal

COMEY: Yeah, I did. My boss, John Ashcroft, was in intensive care at George Washington Hospital. And although we had told the White House we can't certify [NSA domestic surveillance], the president was sending two of his top people to the hospital. I ran over, to make sure a desperately ill man wasn't asked to sign something when he wasn't competent to sign it and I was the acting attorney general.

Q: And in the end, he didn't sign it?

COMEY: The White House [officials] tried to get John Ashcroft to sign off on this program that we had said couldn't continue because it didn't have a lawful basis. And Ashcroft shocked me by pushing himself up on his elbows & blasting them. And telling them he had been misled. They had deprived him of the legal advice he needed. The [White House officials] walked out.