From the top down. James Comey was one of the only top officials to attempt defending the DOJ from being involved in illegal torture. He failed.
But Gonzales, after sharing Comey’s concerns with the Principals Committee, who included then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, Addington, and others, told Comey they were not persuaded by his arguments. Cheney and Addington were pressuring him to have the memos authorizing torture and the combination of brutal methods finalized and signed immediately.”I told [Gonzales] the people who were applying pressure now would not be there when the [shit] hit the fan,” Comey wrote in an April 28, 2005 email. “It would be Alberto Gonzales in the bull’s-eye. I told him it was my job to protect the department and the AG and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong. I told him it could be made right in a week, which was a blink of an eye, and that nobody would understand at a hearing three years from now why we didn’t take that week.”Additionally, Comey said he told Gonzales that he should tell the White House that Comey “had gone on record against this” and that he was willing to bear the brunt of the blame for blocking efforts to get the DOJ to authorize the torture program.”I told [Gonzales] I was leaving and was perfectly willing to catch that spear, as I had in other contexts,” Comey wrote Rosenberg in the April 28, 2005 email.
Keep in mind this was in 2005. At this time broadcasters such as Keith Olbermann were running stories on Bush complicity in torture almost every night, magazine stories were popping up everywhere, and McCain was grandstanding against torture. The Bush Admin, led by Cheney, were trying to use Gonzales and the DOJ to retroactively authorize the illegal torture they had been conducting for years.
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