Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee he paid a visit to his predecessor in a hospital intensive care room in 2004 at the behest of lawmakers who were urging the administration to find a way to continue conducting “vitally important intelligence activities” without Justice Department approval or new legislation.

Lawmakers have assumed that the episode involved the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program that the New York Times first disclosed in December 2005 and Bush subsequently confirmed. But Gonzales said Tuesday the hospital encounter was not about that program.

The attorney general testified before the committee in February 2006 that there had been no serious disagreement among Justice Department officials about the legality of the presidentially confirmed NSA program, which the administration dubbed the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

“The disagreement that occurred, and the reason for the visit to the hospital, senator, was about other intelligence activities,” Gonzales said Tuesday under questioning by committee chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. “It was not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.”

Former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey told the committee in May that then-White House counsel Gonzales tried to bypass him in March 2004 and get Justice Department authorization for a secret program from John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized. Ashcroft had relinquished his duties to Comey after being stricken with acute pancreatitis. Comey testified that he, Ashcroft, their top aides and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III nearly resigned after the administration subsequently went ahead with the classified program without Justice Department approval. The mass resignation was averted after the White House agreed to make some changes to the program.

Gonzales said he went to Ashcroft’s hospital room with then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. after an “emergency meeting” in the White House Situation Room earlier that day between senior administration officials, congressional leaders and the top members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

“The purpose of that meeting was for the White House to advise the Congress that Mr. Comey had advised us that he could not approve the continuation of vitally important intelligence activities despite the repeated approvals during the past two years of the same activities,” Gonzales said.

The attorney general told the committee that the administration asked for “emergency legislation” but that the “consensus” among lawmakers was that it would be too difficult to pass a bill without compromising the classified program. Gonzales portrayed the hospital trip as an effort to make sure Ashcroft knew about the lawmakers’ views, and to see if, in light of them, Ashcroft would decide to reclaim his authority from Comey. Gonzales said that Ashcroft “did most of the talking” and that he and Card left after Ashcroft reminded them that Comey was the acting attorney general.

Under questioning from Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., Gonzales said the president had only publicly confirmed one intelligence program. Schumer then confronted Gonzales with his February 2006 testimony, and with Gonzales’ statement at a press conference last month that “Mr. Comey’s testimony related to a highly classified program which the President confirmed to the American people sometime ago.”

Gonzales told Schumer that “I’m told that in fact here in the press conference I did misspeak.” He said that two days after the press conference, a Justice Department spokesperson “clarified” his statement with a Washington Post reporter at Gonzales’ behest.

Schumer and other committee members were convinced that Gonzales has not lied to the committee about the hospital episode.

“How can you say that you should stay on as attorney general when we go through exercise like this, where you’re bobbing and weaving and ducking to avoid admitting that you deceived the committee?” Schumer said.

Democrats on the committee, along with the panel’s ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, questioned Gonzales bluntly about the hospital trip, the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year, and other matters. Gonzales has clearly lost credibility with most of the committee, and his answers Tuesday weakened his standing even further.

President Bush has asserted executive privilege over White House documents, and the testimony of current and former White House officials, on the U.S. attorney firings. The House Judiciary Committee is moving to respond with contempt of Congress citations against the White House and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. The Senate committee might soon take similar action.

Gonzales declined to answer queries from senators about the administration’s apparent unwillingness to allow the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to take a contempt of Congress citation before a grand jury, as called for under federal law. Gonzales is recused from Justice Department matters involving the federal prosecutor firings. Specter signaled that he might ask the acting attorney general in the matter — Solicitor General Paul Clement to appoint a special prosecutor in the matter.

First posted July 24, 2007 12:58 p.m.