Specter Considering Subpoenas in Electronic Spy Rumpus

“I will ask next week if we don’t get an adequate response,” Specter said. In his letter, Specter asked Gonzalez to explain why his office closed an inquiry into the “legal and ethical propriety of the actions of lawyers in connection with the president’s program of warrantless wiretapping.” The govt.’s denial of security clearances to govt. investigators, which halted the investigation, was “wrong,” the letter said.

To resolve the matter, Specter has been negotiating with Vice President Cheney in an exchange of letters, phone calls and meetings that has led to progress, he said. Specter wrote Cheney June 7 chastising the Administration for failing to “comply with the requirements of the National Security Act of 1947 to keep the House and Senate Intelligence Committees fully informed,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Communications Daily.

“I am taking this unusual step in writing to you to establish a public record,” the letter said: “It is neither pleasant nor easy to raise these issues with the administration of my own party, but I do so because of their importance.” The letter said Specter planned to invite phone company CEOs to a closed hearing to provide information on the program. But the hearing was delayed when Sen. Hatch (R- Utah) agreed to support Specter’s bill and “to give him an opportunity to secure the administration’s approval of the bill which he thought could be done,” the letter said.

“There is no doubt that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which sets forth the exclusive procedure for domestic wiretaps, which requires the approval of the FISA Court,” Specter said in his letter. The President may have authority to “trump” the law, but he doesn’t have a “blank check,” and there needs to be a “balancing test which requires knowing what the surveillance program constitutes,” the letter said.

Congress and the Administration can collaborate to resolve their differences, Cheney replied in a letter sent the next day to Specter, according to a copy obtained by Communications Daily. Cheney told Specter that DoJ has explained “in detail in writing” its legal basis for warrantless electronic spying under the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” He also told Specter, who isn’t privy to classified White House briefings, that the Congress and the “country as a whole” are best served by “concentrating the congressional handling of intelligence matters within the intelligence committees of the Congress.”

The Administration responded quickly, setting high-level meetings with Specter upon learning he might use a “compulsory process in an attempt to force testimony that may involve extremely sensitive classified information,” Cheney’s letter said. Specter should work on legislation to strengthen the govt.’s ability to pursue terrorists yet protect Americans’ rights, “if it is the judgment of Congress that such legislation should be enacted,” Cheney said.

Specter’s bill, now in various draft forms, would enable the President to ask for a warrant to conduct electronic surveillance programs. The legislation was to be marked up Thurs. but Specter delayed action to negotiate with the White House, he said: “We've had extensive discussion about this legislation,” he said. “A lot of people would like to know what the [electronic surveillance] program is, me included.” Specter also suggested there might need to be a review of who in Congress gets classified information.

Ranking Member Leahy (D-Vt.) slammed Gonzales’ silence on a letter the senator had sent inquiring about electronic surveillance, Leahy said at the business meeting. “He doesn’t respond to letters from me,” Leahy said: “It’s contrary to statements he made when he was up here for confirmation. I give him high marks for faking sincerity.” - - Anne Veigle