Opening Remarks Of Sen. Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee
Executive Business Meeting
May 11, 2006
Oversight - Domestic Spying - The USA Today Report
May 11, 2006
Office of Senator Patrick Leahy
We did not accomplish much in the way of oversight this week.
Despite the Attorney General’s continuing refusal to answer my questions and others about the Government’s collective massive databases on ordinary Americans, we now are beginning to learn the truth. USA TODAY’s front page headline reads: “NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls.” This secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans includes ordinary Americans not suspected of any crime or any contact with al Qaeda. The President concealed the NSA eavesdropping program when he reassured all Americans that when this Administration talks about a wiretap that requires a court-ordered search warrant. We now know that he had been having the NSA engage in warrantless wiretaps Americans since October 2001. So while the Administration has tried to reassure us about the NSA domestic spying activities by characterizing them in the most narrow and self-serving terms, as if they were merely listening to Osama bin Laden calling into the United States, I have had my doubts. We need truthful answers to the questions we asked of the Attorney General back in February. We need him to explain his subsequent letter recasting his testimony. We need to know what our Government is doing in its activities that spy upon Americans. The Republican-controlled Congress has failed in its oversight responsibilities to the American people.
Also today we learn that the Administration has shut down the Department of Justice investigation into the NSA wiretapping program that was to be conducted by the Office of Professional Responsibility. Reports are that the White House will not allow Justice Department investigators the security clearances they need to do their job. This is an internal government investigation that is being stymied by the White House. This further complicates the nomination of Steven G. Bradbury, the acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, and the person currently responsible for legal opinions of the Attorney General and giving advice to the White House Counsel and other Government agencies.
What little we were able to accomplish this week came when Mr. Kavanaugh finally admitted that Karl Rove played a role in the selection of judicial nominees.
We need to do more in the way of oversight and to begin to hold the Bush-Cheney Administration accountable. I hope that with these developments this Committee will finally have had enough stonewalling and be ready to consider more effective action to obtain the information we need. I will support it and I think the Democratic Members of the Committee will support getting answers to our questions. Joining together, Republican and Democratic Members could insist upon responsive answers and needed information to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities to the American people. I hope that we will follow through on these important matters and thoroughly investigate what powers the President has secretly claimed and how he has secretly used them to spy on Americans.
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