WASHINGTON  Alberto Gonzales, in his first public account of a late-night hospital visit to then-attorney general John Ashcroft, denied pressuring the ailing Ashcroft to approve a warrantless surveillance program.

Several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that they didn't believe him. "I do not find your testimony credible," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told the embattled attorney general.

"It's hard to see anything but a pattern of intentionally misleading Congress again and again," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Gonzales.

Gonzales has been under fire for dismissing nine U.S. attorneys and filling career jobs at the Justice Department with Republican loyalists.

On Tuesday, senators grilled Gonzales about whether Bush administration officials had questioned the legality of the intelligence-gathering operation, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

TSP, publicly acknowledged by President Bush in December 2005, allows wiretapping of international phone calls to or from the USA when one of the parties is a suspected member of a terrorist group.

Gonzales said the hospital visit on May 10, 2004, came after an emergency meeting at the White House with eight members of Congress authorized to hear intelligence and national security matters.

The lawmakers urged Gonzales, then the White House counsel, to do what he could to continue the program, which was due to expire the next day, he said.

Gonzales said he and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card visited Ashcroft, who was critically ill with pancreatitis, at George Washington University Hospital.

"When we got there, Mr. Ashcroft did most of the talking," Gonzales told the committee. He said Ashcroft was lucid but emphasized that he had transferred his authority to make decisions to his deputy, James Comey, who had objected to the program.

"Comey told us he would not approve the continuation of a specific intelligence activity. He thought the president did not have the authority," Gonzales said.

Gonzales' account conflicts with the version Comey told the committee in May. Comey said Card and Gonzales had tried to "take advantage of a very sick man."

Comey testified that he and other top Justice Department officials considered resigning after the White House renewed the program over their objections.

Comey said he changed his mind only after President Bush met with FBI Director Robert Mueller and instructed Mueller to modify the program to address the Justice Department's concerns about its legality.

"You said categorically there hasn't been any serious disagreement about the program," Leahy told Gonzales on Tuesday. "Comey says the opposite is true."

Gonzales had repeatedly told Congress that the program was not controversial within the administration. In a May 17 letter to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Gonzales reaffirmed his testimony and said "there had not been serious disagreement about the lawfulness" of the TSP.

"The disagreement was not about the terrorist surveillance program the president announced to the American people," Gonzales said Tuesday. "It was another intelligence matter." He said the matter was classified and would not discuss it.

Gonzales, in his appearance Tuesday, also sought more power for terrorism investigations by asking Congress to broaden the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. However, the hearing quickly turned hostile, and several committee members, among them Specter and Leahy, again suggested that Gonzales should resign.

"The attorney general has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people," Leahy said. "The Justice Department has been reduced to the role of enabler for this administration. What we need instead is genuine accountability and real independence."

Gonzales said he would not resign. "I've decided to stay and fix the problems, and that's what I have been doing,."

Enlarge By Dennis Cook, AP Alberto Gonzales said within the Justice Department "there had not been serious disagreement about the lawfulness" of warrantless surveillance program.

Panel Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, on right, said the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales "has been reduced to the role of enabler" for the Bush administration.



By Alex Wong, Getty Images