"Ashcroft, weakened and drugged up, lifted his head from the pillow. In language that both Comey and Gonzales regarded as remarkably lucid, he outlined his concerns about the legality of the surveillance program, paralleling many of the same issues Comey had briefed him on the week before. He made clear that he shared those concerns. 'I've been told it would be improvident for me to sign,' he told Gonzales. 'But that doesn't matter,' he said, 'because I'm not the attorney general.' Gesturing to Comey next to him, he said: 'There is the attorney general.' Ashcroft put his head back down on the pillow. He looked so ill that Goldsmith figured he was going to die right there on the spot; it was, Goldsmith said later, 'the most amazing scene I've ever witnessed.'"