Leahy readies subpoenas on warrantless wiretapping Michael Roston
Published: Friday June 8, 2007





The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary

Committee strongly criticized the Justice Department for obstructing
an investigation of the Bush administration's warrantless spying program.
The statement came after the committee scheduled a hearing next week to
authorize subpoenas related to the shadowy government program.
"The warrantless wiretapping program has operated for over five years
outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and without the
approval of the FISA Court. The Committee has continued to ask for the legal
justification for this sweeping and secret program, and has continually been
rebuffed by inadequate and at times, misleading, responses from this Justice
Department," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate
Judiciary Committee, in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "The information we
have requested has been specific to the legal justification for this program
and is firmly within the Committee's oversight jurisdiction."

Leahy's statement came after his committee had announced earlier in
the day that it planned to "authorize subpoenas in connection with
investigation of legal basis for warrantless wiretap program," according to
the committee's website. The meeting will occur on Thursday, June 14.

The Senator noted his frustration with the lack of response from the
Attorney General on the earlier requests for information sent by the
Committee on the program.

"The Justice Department's continued frustration of this Committee's
attempts to carry out its constitutional oversight function is unfortunate,"
he added in the statement. "We will continue in our pursuit of this
information until we get it, so that we can carry out our constitutional
duties."

In a hearing Thursday afternoon at the House Judiciary Committee, a
Justice Department official refused to turn over President Bush's legal
justification for the warrantless spying program.

"Those [Office of Legal Counsel opinions] reflect the internal
confidential legal advice of the executive branch," said Steven G. Bradbury,
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel. "We are citing the confidentiality interests that
the executive branch has in internal confidential deliberative advice of the
executive branch."

The program is operated by the National Security Agency and legally
certified by the Justice Department.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the subcommittee on
constitutional issues and is investigating the program, slammed the Bush
White House's actions in warrantless eavesdropping.

"We rejected monarchy in this country more than 200 years ago...This
President appears to have forgotten that fact," he said in his opening
statement. "Not only has he asserted the right to go around the FISA Court
and the Wiretap Act, but he has actually done so."

Nadler went further in an earlier interview with Talking Points Memo's
Josh Marshall.

"This entire warrantless wiretapping is illegal and the President and
Attorney General are engaged in a criminal conspiracy. I mean, to me this is
worse than Watergate," he said in the video interview.