Leahy, Specter Press For Answers
On Administration’s Domestic Spying Program
…Leading
Judiciary Committee Senators Continue To Seek Information
On Legal Justification For Warrantless Wiretapping Program
WASHINGTON (Tuesday, May 22) – Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking Member
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
seeking answers to longstanding questions about the Bush
Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Leahy and Specter renewed earlier requests
made by the Committee relating to the legal justifications for the
warrantless wiretapping program. The request follows testimony last
week by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who revealed that
the Justice Department had concerns about the legal basis for the
program and refused to certify it for a period of time in 2004.
“This Committee has made no fewer than
eight formal requests over the past 18 months – to the White House, the
Attorney General, or other Department of Justice officials – seeking
documents and information related to this surveillance program. These
requests have sought the Executive Branch legal analysis of this program
and documents reflecting its authorization by the President,” the
senators wrote. “You have rebuffed all requests for documents and your
answers to our questions have been wholly inadequate and, at times,
misleading.”
Leahy and Specter noted that the
information is crucial for the Committee to have before consideration of
any of the Administration’s proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). They set a deadline of June 5 for the Justice
Department to respond to the inquiry.
A PDF
is also available.
May 21, 2007
The Honorable Alberto
Gonzales
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General
Gonzalez:
Last week we heard dramatic
and deeply troubling testimony from former Deputy Attorney General Comey.
He testified that in March 2004, when he was Acting Attorney General, he
informed the White House that the Department of Justice had concluded an
ongoing classified surveillance program had “no legal basis” and would
not certify it. He then described how you, then Counsel to the
President, and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card arrived at
the hospital bedside of an extremely ill Attorney General Ashcroft and
attempted to persuade him to certify the program. When you failed,
because Mr. Ashcroft refused, Mr. Comey testified that the program was
nonetheless certified over the objections of the Department of Justice.
That apparently prompted a number of high-ranking Justice officials to
consider resigning en masse.
This incident obviously
raises very serious questions about your personal behavior and
commitment to the rule of law. Mr. Comey’s testimony also demonstrates
vividly how essential it is that this Committee understands the legal
underpinnings of the surveillance program that was the subject of that
incident, and how the legal justification evolved over time. The
stonewalling by you and the Administration must end. The Committee on
the Judiciary is charged with overseeing and legislating on
constitutional protections, civil and criminal justice, civil liberties,
and the Judiciary, all subjects that this matter impacts. We intend to
do our job.
This Committee has made no
fewer than eight formal requests over the past 18 months – to the White
House, the Attorney General, or other Department of Justice officials –
seeking documents and information related to this surveillance program.
These requests have sought the Executive Branch legal analysis of this
program and documents reflecting its authorization by the President.
You have rebuffed all requests for documents and your answers to our
questions have been wholly inadequate and, at times, misleading.
We note also that the
Administration has offered a legislative proposal that it contends seeks
to “modernize” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As you
know, the Judiciary Committee has historically overseen changes to FISA
and it is this Committee’s responsibility to review the Administration’s
proposal with great care. The draft legislation would make dramatic and
far-reaching changes to a critical national security authority. Before
we can even begin to consider any such legislative proposal, we must be
given appropriate access to the information necessary to carry out our
oversight and legislative duties.
This Administration has
asserted that it established its program of warrantless wiretapping by
the NSA because it deemed FISA’s requirements to be incompatible with
the needs of the intelligence community in fighting terrorism. You
testified in January that the warrantless wiretapping program had been
terminated and that henceforth surveillance would be conducted pursuant
to authorization from the FISA Court. To consider any changes to FISA,
it is critical that this Committee understand how the Department and the
FISA Court have interpreted FISA and the perceived flaws that led the
Administration to operate a warrantless surveillance program outside of
FISA’s provisions for over five years.
Your consistent stonewalling
and misdirection have prevented this Committee from carrying out its
constitutional oversight and legislative duties for far too long. We
understand that much of the information we seek may currently be
classified, but that can be no excuse for failing to provide relevant
information to all members of this Committee and select, cleared staff.
We will, of course, handle it with the greatest care and consistent with
security requirements.
Therefore, we reiterate our
requests for the following documents and ask that you provide them to
this Committee no later than June 5, 2007:
1) Please provide all
documents that reflect the President’s authorization and reauthorization
of the warrantless electronic surveillance program that you have called
the Terrorist Surveillance Program, including any predecessor programs,
from 2001 to the present;
2) Please provide all
memoranda or other documents containing analysis or opinions from the
Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, the Department of
Defense, the White House, or any other entity within the Executive
Branch on legality of or legal basis for the warrantless electronic
surveillance program, including documents that describe why the desired
surveillance would not or could not take place consistent with the
requirements and procedures of FISA from 2001 to the present;
3) Please provide all
documents reflecting communications with the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC) about the warrantless electronic surveillance
program or the types of surveillance that previously were conducted as
part of that program, that contain legal analysis, arguments, or
decisions concerning the interpretation of FISA, the Fourth Amendment,
the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or the President’s
authority under Article II of the Constitution, including the January
2007 FISC orders to which you refer in your January 17, 2007 letter to
us and all other opinions or orders of the FISA court with respect to
this surveillance;
4) If you do not
consider the surveillance program that was the subject of discussion
during the hospital visit and other events that former Deputy Attorney
General James Comey described in his May 15, 2007 testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Committee to be covered by the requests made above,
please provide all documents described in those requests relevant to
that program, as well.
We emphasize that we are
seeking the legal justifications and analysis underlying these matters
and not the specific operational details or information obtained by the
surveillance.
Sincerely,
PATRICK
LEAHY ARLEN SPECTER
Chairman
Ranking Member
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