perjury. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15, 2007, former Deputy Attorney General Comey was asked to recall the events of the evening of March 10, 2004, when, (at the behest of President Bush,) Gonzales and Bush's then-chief-of-staff Andrew H. Card Jr. sought to bypass Comey's refusal to authorize "a particular classified program," by appealing to the ailing John Ashcroft in a visit to his hospital bedside, as he recovered from surgery for pancreatitis. According to Comey, he had consulted with AG Ashcroft prior to his hospitalization and, (though Ashcroft had previously signed off on the program many times in previous years,) the two of them came to agree that there had arisen legitimate concerns, which interfered with the ability of the attorney general's office, "to certify (the program's) legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed." More than a week later, Comey continued, Ashcroft had become extremely ill and his wife had forbidden any visitors to his hospital room, so when he and the other officials met at his bedside on March 10, he was very concerned about General Ashcroft's ability to think clearly about the issue at hand. Later testimony from Gonzales and others confirmed that Ashcroft did not seem disoriented, but in fact seemed lucid enough to describe to Card and Gonzales, in great detail, the basis of the Department's legal arguments, and even to complain about clearance decisions by the President relative to the TSP. Comey also testified that there was significant dissent among top law enforcement officers over the program, although he did not specifically identify it in the hearing. Moreover, in light of the incident at the hospital, "top Justice Department officials were prepared to resign over it." Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, corroborates many of the details of Comey's Senate testimony regarding the March 10, 2004, hospital room visit, in a preview of his book "The Terror Presidency", which was to be published in Fall 2007. In the September 9, 2007, issue of The New York Times Magazine Jeffrey Rosen reports on an extended interview he had with Goldsmith, who was also in the hospital room that night. Comey also testified that Ashcroft "expressed himself in very strong terms." Goldsmith testified that Ashcroft spoke at length about the legal issue. "Attorney General Ashcroft ... [gave] a couple