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Leahy Threatens Bush Aides
With Contempt
JESSE J. HOLLAND
AP
Monday Aug 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — A top Senate Democrat on Monday
threatened to hold members of the Bush administration in contempt
for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification
for President Bush's secretive eavesdropping program.
"When the Senate comes back in the session, I'll bring it
up before the committee," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I prefer
cooperation to contempt. Right now, there's no question that they
are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress."
Leahy's committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department,
National Security Council and the offices of the president and
vice president for documents relating to the National Security
Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program.
(Article continues below)
White House lawyer Fred Fielding, in a Monday letter to Leahy,
said that the administration needed more time.
"A core set of highly sensitive national security and related
documents we have so far identified are potentially subject to claims
of executive privilege and that a more complete collection and review
of all materials responsive to the subpoenas will require additional
time," Fielding said.
Leahy said they had waited long enough.
"It has been almost two months since service of the subpoenas,
three weeks since the time they asked for additional time. And
still, we have nothing at all," Leahy said.
Leahy also questioned whether the Senate would again reauthorize
laws that expand the government's authority to spy on foreigners
without the subpoenaed information.
Congress, before it left for its August recess, approved an update
to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing the
government to eavesdrop on terror suspects overseas without first
getting a court warrant.
The overhaul was the result of a recent Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court ruling that banned eavesdropping on foreigners
when their messages were routed though communications carriers
based in the United States.
The provisions expire after six months, but the White House wants
them made permanent.
"For Congress to legislate effectively in this area, it
has to have full information about the executive branch's interpretations
of FISA," Leahy said. "We cannot, and certainly, we
should not legislate in the dark, where the administration hides
behind a fictitious veil of secrecy."
The White House said it was not looking for a conflict with Congress
over FISA.
"Extending and modernizing FISA is critical to our national
security, and our intelligence professionals consider it imperative
that we do not weaken the tools they feel are necessary to protect
America's national security interests," White House spokesman
Tony Fratto said.
Leahy also indicated that the committee would continue to seek
recently resigned White House adviser Karl Rove's appearance on
the U.S. attorney firings.
Fielding has said President Bush would invoke executive privilege
to keep Rove from answering questions or submitting documents
to Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee has been investigating
whether the White House ordered the prosecutor firings in ways
that might help Republicans in elections.
"I don't think he had a valid claim of executive privilege,
because all the testimony has been it wasn't discussed with the
president. If it wasn't discussed with the president, there's
no executive privilege," Leahy said. "And they've just
lost the other claim they could make that he's too important to
the operation of the White House to be able to take time to testify.
That's not going to be the case anymore."
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