A Senate committee investigating the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program issued subpoenas to the Bush administration this afternoon for documents related to the authorization and legal justification for the eavesdropping.
The Judiciary Committee subpoenas were delivered to the offices of the president, vice president, national security adviser and the Justice Department, escalating a simmering legal battle between Congress and the Bush administration.
“This committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote in letters delivered with the subpoenas. “All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.”
The White House offered no word on whether it would comply with the orders to turn over the documents by the committee’s July 18 deadline.
But I’m sure those documents will be turned over in a timely manner. Yeah. Maybe even before the deadline. Uh huh. Right about the time pigs fly.
But… but… we’re not a part of the executive branch either.
Yeah, they’re part of the Dick branch.
Either the Judiciary Committee has a right to those docs, in which case it should have grown a spine and taken forceful action long hence, or it doesn’t – in which case they can subpoena all they want, but it won’t make a darn bit of difference.
bamaslama, I’m not sure what action the Committee can take in the face of refusal other than asking for a court ruling. And I expect Bush would then do everything possible to run out the clock before the case could make its way through the appeal process.
Well, we could see impeachment charges, but until more Republicans in Congress get fed up with the underhanded tactics and power grabs — perhaps through a realization that Bushco is setting precedents for all future administrations, regardless of party — there’s not much point.