mueller james comey was a former senior justice department official serving under attorney general john ashcroft while many law loud komi as a good public servant under bush he doesn't come to the table without some controversy privacy advocates question his ability to protect civil liberties considering recent allegations about the obama administration's policies regarding wiretapping and surveillance while serving as deputy attorney general komi approved the n.s.a. warrantless wiretapping policy so what can we expect from an f.b.i. with comey at its helm r.t.s. liz wall looks into it. it looks like president obama will nominate james comey to lead the f.b.i. komi has a resume that has garnered both praise and controversy between two thousand and three and two thousand and five komi has served as deputy attorney general in the bush administration in two thousand and four comey took over for his boss attorney general john ashcroft when he became sick despite pressure from the bush administration comey refused to reauthorize the n.s.a.'s warrantless wiretapping program at a senate hearing in two

obama referring to an incident in 2004 when he was filling in for a severely ill attorney general john ashcroft. while he was hospitalized, he refused to reauthorize the controversial eavesdropping progm implemented after september 11. while citing concerns over its legality. but the prinpal hero in the instant certainly was a man hated and reviled by most of the left. the refusal chief of staff and white hous counsel gonzales tried to make an endun. going to the hospital bed trying to pressure him into overruling his deputy. he refused to do so. and the next day president george w. bush agreed to change the program amid the department of justice's concern over legality. his resume includes a stand of u.s. attorne attorney for the sn district of new york, and reports he was considered by the obama administration in 2009 as a potential replacement on the supreme court. he did stand up to president bush men even threatening to resign back in 2004 if they didn't back wn, but ultimately the decision was made by his superior, attorney general john ashcroft. they store the obama administration will c

2004 if they didn't back down, but ultimately the decisias made by his superior, attorney general john ashcroft. they store the obama administration will continue to trand sell until tir man is confirmed aving out arguably the most important actor in it all. one of his first tasks will be to explain to congress and the american people the fbi's use of the aerial drones on american soil. outgoing fbi director robert mueller admitted in testimony thisweek the agency has employed drones heret home. fox news h uncered new deils of the fbi grown use. chief intelligence correspondent with our report. report back to heavily redacted documents released by theaa after a freedom of information request by california privacy groups show the fbi applied for and got permission at least four times since 2009 to fly surveillance drones in this country. spk to the fact they are heavily redacted iincredib significant showing the culture of secrecy in the way t drones are ooerated in the united states. >> revealing theyre flying drone while referring specific questions to the fbi the california manufacturer told

2004 standoff over a no-warrant wiretapping program literally at the hospital bed of attorney general john ashcroftcomey stopped white house officials in their attempt to get an ailing ashcroft to reauthorize the program. if confirmed by the senate, comey would serve a ten-year tenure and replace robert mueller. mueller has held the job since the week before the terrorist attacks on september 11th. >>> the murder investigation involving new england patriots tight end aaron hernandez continues to develop this morning. the fox affiliate in boston is reporting that neighbors heard gunshots early monday morning, the day that oden lloyd's body was found about a mile from hernandez's house. the station is also reporting that hernandez's cell phone and home security system were damaged when police arrived at the house to question hernandez. si.com is reporting hernandez likely will be arrested, although we do need to point out, it's not clear what he'll be charged with, if he is arrested. we could maybe make this one serve as the friday feel-good story for you. not hernandez, but this one. >>> it's an exp

being very tall in a job where you don't have to be very tall has to do with bush attorney general john ashcroftng pancreatitis. john ashcroft got acute pancreatitis had to go to the hospital in 2004. at the time there was this big standoff inside the bush administration over the government spying on people. the national security agency does signals intelligence. that is phone calls, e-mails, electronic digital radio based transmissions, all that kind of stuff. signals intelligence. they're supposed to be doing it outside the country supposed to be part of our spying on other countries. after 9/11 the bush administration reportedly told the nsa to start vacuuming up that kind of stuff inside the united states as well not just a broad turn those sensors inward, every five days president george w. bush would give the nsa a military order as commander in chief directing them the surveillance they were doing internationally, they should do it inside the country, too. that's a big deal. if you're at the nsa and get an order like that it raises the question whether that very big deal order from the pr

summoned and escorted, raced sirens pla sirens blairing to the hospital bed of then attorney general john ashcroft. recount that story if you would and tell us why it's connected to the domestic surveillance debate. >> well, the attorney general john ashcroft had been very ill. he was hospitalized in bed. there was a feeling that he was going to be asked to, perhaps, to continue a program that he may or may not have had any angst with. the real question came here was, was he really in charge at that point? had he handed off the day-to-day material dealings of the department of justice to his chief deputy, jim comey, or was he still functioning as the attorney general. he was in very bad shape on that particular day medically. and there was a showdown. i believe it was at george washington hospital. at that time jim comey came forth as did bob mueller. there was a confrontation. in fact, they prevailed. >> he's taken over when there's been increased public unease really about domestic surveillance. what are the challenges ahead for him and for the fbi? >> well, the fbi is always faced with a number

in fact, the attorney general himself, bush's attorney general, john ashcroft, had to stop the program because they thought it was illegal. one of the most dramatic moments from the bush administration. that's the difference. president obama has the authorization of congress, the support of the congress, and he's got the court's overseeing, this and within the executive branch are checks and balances. i still don't like it, but it's not illegal. but it looks like it was under mr. bush and mr. cheney. >> ari, jump in. you've said in the past this current administration is basically a third bush term, particularly when it comes to national security. after hearing president obama last night, you tweeted president obama denies he's dick cheney. i love it. he's fighting with one of his strawman. pretty funny actually. >> this is one of those weird issues. dick cheney is right. barack obama is right. and paul begala is wrong. and that doesn't happen too often. here's what's going on. barack obama, to his credit, is continuing the very architecture he inherited from president bush when it com

the attorney general john ashcroft had to stop it because they thought it was illegal. that's the difference. president obama has the authorization of congress, support of congress and got the courts overseeing it and within the executive branch checks and balances. i still don't like it, but it's not illegal and looks like it was under mr. bush and cheney. >> you've also said in the past this current administration on these issues is basically a continuation, a third bush term particularly national security. after hearing president obama last night, you tweeted this, president obama denies he's dick cheney. i love it. he's fighting with one of his strawmen. funny, actually. tell us what you meant by that. >> this is one of those weird issues, john. dick cheney is right. barack obama is right and paul is wrong. that doesn't happen often. here is what is going on, barack obama to his credit is continuing what he inherited from president bush when it comes to drone strikes and nsa and secret remember dagnditions continuing the architecture he inherited from president bush

appears to trigger the famed march 2004 confrontation in the hospital room of then attorney general john ashcroft and he refused to sign off on the reauthorizing the warrantless surveillance program. ecuador is defiantly resisting u.s. calls to reject edward snowden's asylum bid. on thursday, the ecuadorian government said it would waive preferential trade right after u.s. so visuals -- officials suggested they could be revoked. in washington, u.s. trade representative michael froman said the obama administration will evaluate ecuador's eligibility for trade benefits. his comments came one day after democratic senator robert menendez said the welcoming snowden would severely jeopardize u.s. relations with ecuador. the ecuadorian president said his country's dignity has no price. >> all of a sudden, trade tariffs became black male. behave or leave the free trade movement. ,n the face of threats arrogance of certain u.s. sectors, which have pressure to remove the preferential tariffs because of the snowden case, ecuador tells the world, we unilaterally and irrevocably denounce the preferential tari

rushed to the hospital to keep two top white house aides aides from asking a very sick attorney general john ashcroftauthorize the wiretapping program. president obama did not mention that today when you did he praise comey for putting integrity of ahead of politics. >> he was than doing something fundamentally wrong. we know the rule of law sets this nation apart and is its foundation. >> shepard: the president thanked the fbi director robert mueller saying countless americans are alive today because of him. director mueller took over the fbi the week before 9/11 he is set to retire this september. close call in new york city. two planes got within 200 feet of each other last week. thankfully both landed safely. now investigators say they are trying to figure out how this happened. lauer ingle is in our new york newsroom. laura. >> hi, shep. there was just barely enough airspace to go around two planes came within a football field length of each other. happened june 14th at 2:40 p.m. john f. kennedy and laguardia airports. a boeing 747 arriving at jfk came dangerously close do a shuttle flight takin

march of 2004 goldsmith and jim comfy, who's the deputy attorney general, convince attorney general john ashcroft that he has to say no to part of it. and then john ashcroft becomes quite sick, comfy has the confrontation with cheney and eventually with the president and nearly resigns. so here's what we know -- >> suarez: now that you've had a chance to look over documents that reveal things that you didn't know for years after trying to find them out, what would you say the tone of the inspector general's conclusions stpwh-r was he a probeus? was he judgmental and casting harsh judgment on what had happened or generally looking at it as something that happened in the wake of a terrible tragedy in the united states? >> well, this report is written with an inside view. it is not blaming anybody for anything it's a kind of very dry and i'd say sympathetic factual accounting of the sequence of events. what we know for the first time now-- and i wrote about this almost two weeks ago in the "washington post"-- is that there were four different programs. there was the program that president obama admi

director and then attorney general john ashcroft and several aides of both of them what's interesting about it is that after having been caught violating the law instead of suffering any penalties for it the n.s.a. was rewarded with a statutory blank check in the two thousand and eight pfizer amendments act which essentially made illegal everything that the original five was passed to prohibit and it was essentially the act of turning over to the n.s.a. the keys to the internet the backdoor the phone system and since then the n.s.a. has essentially had its way with the rights of the american people and i would just note that the recent disclosures that we've heard about are just the tip of an iceberg and if we knew the full extent of the iceberg i dare say that there would be an earthquake across washington what we've seen i think is just the beginning of a tremor that i do hope very much will grow as we learn more about what the n.s.a. has been doing in secret thank you show here and my apologies for mispronouncing your name. james to what extent is that iceberg show who just identif

attorney general when john ashcroft was in the hospital, comey threatened to resign over the administration's renew an electronic eavesdropping program. that comey found simply to be too intrusive. here's a window into comey's thinking from a recent promotional video that he participated in for a recent employer of his, bridgewater securities. listen up to this. >> i had sat in the white house situation room in meetings chaired by the president where i could tell from the body language of people around the table that there were things to say, and they didn't say them. >> reporter: the president set to introduce james comey as the new fbi director nominee at a rose garden ceremony, 2:05 this amp. rick, we'll be there for that. rick: doug mckelway, thanks so much. martha: nearly 500 homes have been evacuated as air tankers are dropping fire retardant on wildfires that are going on in arizona, along the arizona/new mexico border. the evacuees are streaming into shelters hoping for any good news out there. >> the dc-10s were flying over the tops of our houses, and that fire was coming down, the s

john ashcroft the attorney general at the time was very ill. what was happening was top white house officials in the bush white house were trying to race over to the hospital and get john ashcroft to sign up on the warrantless wiretapping program the justice department just ruled was illegal. you remember james comey was the person who intervened with robert mueller's help, the fbi director then. comey pushed back on all of that. you see the president coming out introducing comey. >> forgive me. >> for more than a century we have counted on the dedicated women of the fbi to keep us safe. that time the fbi's been led by six directors. and the second longest serving director of the fbi, for the last 12 years, has been an exemplary public servant, bob mu moeller. by law, fbi directors only serve 10 years, back in 2011 when bob's term was up, i asked congress to give him two more years. it wasn't a request i made lightly and i know congress didn't grant it lightly but at a time when transitions were under way at the cia and the pentagon, and given t

and the fairness of it is think if this had happened in the bush administration with john ashcroft as the attorney generalyou know full well if the democrats on the left would be going very hard after them with these issues that are in play. >> bill: wow, brokaw trying to be fair and balanced there, bernie and you say? >> well, as moved as -- i mean as touched as i am, bill, by the fact that you and your new best friend tom brokaw finally agree on something. >> bill: right. >> in this case that eric holder can't survive, i'm saying unless you give me a timetable to go abelong with your bold prediction, you are not telling me enough. for one thing, when is he going to go? >> bill: he is going to go in late august. >> oh. >> bill: when everybody is on vacation. friday. >> exactly. >> bill: friday late august about 5:30. >> we have no disagreement at all if that is your position. i didn't know that was your position. >> bill: he is not going to go now. ease him out when everybody is on vacation. late august, 5:30. he goes hey, i need a break. i have got to go. see you. >> that is word for word my position wo

white house chief of staff and the president's council went to the hospital room of john ashcroft, the attorney general, to get him to overrule the justice department and comey and bob mueller and some others physically stood there and said "no, this is our ruling, we're sticking with this ruling." ashcroft stood with them. and to stand up as a mid-level civil servant against the chief of staff and the white house, that takes enormous courage and if anybody wants to see how to testify before congress, go on youtube and watch this testimony. it's exemplary in how he presents himself. >> woodruff: is this a slam dunk in terms of confirmation if he's nominated? he still hasn't been nominated. >> if he isn't nominated i don't think he will be confirmed judy, that's the way it works. (laughter) it was an inspired and brilliant choice, i do. on substance and politically. chuck hagel, who is a republican, had been a friend of barack obama's, even a supporter. james comey is not political at all. there's nothing partisan about him. he is a republican, he's a registered republican but he's most of all a public

and the fairness of it, think if this had happened in the bush administration with john ashcroft as the attorney general. you know full well the democrats and the left would be going very hard after them with these issues that are in play. >> tom brokaw, thank you very much. we'll see you coming up on thursday nights this summer on the military channel. your special series of iconic moments in history called "the brokaw files." thanks very much for spending a couple minutes with us this morning. >> thanks, david. >> david, reaction to that. >> i think those two issues live together. i think you can at once say we have to protect these classified matters as tom said that have grave consequences and cannot be in the public domain. on the other hand, we have to find a set of rules and laws -- >> jonathan alter, can you imagine a republican president doing what this president did? i mean, they came out there and they said, no apologies. these are serious crimes. we're going to investigate them. a few days later they said, you know what? maybe we overreached here. >> i can't imagine mitt romney doing that be

after september 11, john ashcroft, the attorney general at that time, gathered a bunch of those wishists together, stapled them together and took them to capitol hill and said this is what we would like to do. you are right, none of this stuff just appeared on tuesday morning. it was stuff that intelligence agencies have been talking about for years. host: the president's choice as the next fbi director played a key part in the debate, a hospital room scene in which john ashcroft had been suffering from gallbladder surgery and basically turned it over to the acting district attorney -- the acting justice. -- the acting attorney general. guest: according to the story ney threatenedol to resign if some of these surveillance or not repealed. he felt the way the government was going at it originally was illegal. host: there is this from senator bernie sanders -- guest: i can make the counter argument as well, just for fun, that if you have teenagers in your life, it may not be a bad thing if they know or think that people are watching them all the time so they won't tweet gusting picture

fairness of it, is, think of this, if this had happened in the bush administration with john ashcroft as the attorney general. you know full well the democrats and the left would be going very hard after them with these issues that are in play. >> tom brokaw, thank you very much. we'll see you coming up on thursday nights this summer on the military channel. your special series of iconic moments in history appropriately called "the brokaw files." thanks very much for spending a couple minutes with us this morning. >> thanks, david. >> david, reaction to that. tom's reaction on holder's future. >> i think those two issues live together. i think you can at once say we have to protect these classified matters as tom said that have grave consequences and cannot be in the public domain. on the other hand, we have to find a set of rules and laws -- >> jonathan alter, can you imagine a republican president doing what this president did? i mean, they came out there and they said, no apologies. these are serious crimes. we're going to investigate them. a few days later they said, you know what? maybe we overreached h

general who has not been a lightning rod for his or her president? >> michael mukasy. >> okay, that's one. >> you asked me to name one. >> okay, that's one. john ashcrofting rod for president bush. >> aren't we making the point that holder is uniquely, is uniquely an ag that has been targeted ? we all just named others that have been as well. >> the next point i'm going to make is eric holder, unlike anybody else in this administration, what they're doing to eric holder, fighting a proxy war with president obama. >> yes. >> he is the highest ranking person, that have been going after him since he walked into the office. they will go after him till the time he he leaves. my big point on that is good luck with that. there is no way you are going to get president obama to say to eric holder, look, dude, you are costing me politically and you have to go. it's just not going to happen. >> i agree with you. he's not going to do it. >> it galled president obama to see what happened to susan rice, a capable person who he wanted to nominate as secretary of state, but couldn't do it because of the backlash. you think he's going to get rid of his sitting ag? >> n