Documents prove that Gonzales lied under oath.

I am watching Countdown right now and this story just broke that there are some documents that show that Gonzales lied to the Senate about what was discussed with the gang of eight on the day that he went to the sick bed of Ashcroft and tried to pressure him to allow the domestic spying to continue.

I will flesh this post out when I get more info.

Here it is:

Gonzales said he got the approval from congressional leaders “of both parties” for a continuation of these “vitally important intelligence activities.” It was only then, Gonzales said, that he and White House chief of staff Andrew Card made an extraordinary visit that same evening to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had just undergone gall-bladder surgery. At the meeting, which was first reported last year by NEWSWEEK and was described in detail earlier this year by former deputy attorney general James Comey, Gonzales made an unsuccessful effort to get the heavily medicated Ashcroft to overrule Justice Department objections to those activities.

Gonzales repeatedly insisted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the “emergency” White House briefing on March 10, and his later visit to Ashcroft’s hospital room that night, did not involve the president’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP)—a program that administration officials have said involves eavesdropping, without court warrants, of persons inside the country suspected of communicating with Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists overseas.

But the little-noticed letter from Negroponte last year to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert appears to undermine Gonzales’s account. Dated May 17, 2006, the letter declassifies “the dates, locations and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.” It then lists a series of briefings for House and Senate leaders—including the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees—starting in the fall of 2001 and continuing through the spring of 2006.

Included in the list is the very same March 10, 2004, meeting that Gonzales testified this week involved disagreements about other intelligence activities.

The day after Negroponte sent the letter, Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation to be CIA director. He, too, described the March 10, 2004, briefing for congressional leaders and another one the next day for House Majority Leader Tom Delay.

Is this a "smoking gun"? Why yes I believe that it is!