In the year-long debate over the president’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, the strangest controversy arose in June. Several dozen Democratic lawmakers contacted the Department of Justice, arguing that political appointees had given the White House questionable legal advice about the program. Dems asked the DOJ’s inspector general to review whether the legal advice was sound.
The IG, Glenn Fine, kicked it to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is responsible for making sure Justice Department officials are “adhering to the law as they…make sure the rest of us adhere to the law.” Immediately after the OPR began an inquiry, the president shut down the investigation — Bush personally refused security clearances for OPR investigators. The Bush gang’s defense for the decision never made any sense.
Now, more than four months later, the DOJ is suddenly interested in doing its job again.
The Justice Department’s inspector general yesterday announced an investigation into the department’s connections to the government’s controversial warrantless surveillance program, but officials said the probe will not examine whether the National Security Agency is violating the Constitution or federal statutes.
In a letter to House lawmakers, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office decided to open the probe after conducting “initial inquiries” into the program. […]
The “program review” will examine how the Justice Department has used information obtained from the NSA program, as well as whether Justice lawyers complied with the “legal requirements” that govern it, according to Fine’s letter.
How very odd. The “initial inquiries” were several months ago. And yet, the Justice Department chose to do nothing until Democrats won the congressional majority, the lame-duck Congress sidestepped legislation on the issue, and incoming Dem committee chairs started hinting that they had a few questions about how the administration was conducting domestic surveillance with no oversight at all.
Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) … said he is “skeptical about the timing” of the announcement.
“I wonder whether this reversal is only coming now after the election as an attempt to appease Democrats in Congress who have been critical of the NSA program and will soon be in control and armed with subpoena power,” Hinchey said in a news release.
The timing of all of this does require some explanation. Fine didn’t want to do an inquiry, the OPR was denied the opportunity to do an inquiry, and the White House defended the widespread secrecy. Now, all of a sudden, Fine is ready to get to work and the Bush gang is willing to let the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board review the policy’s privacy protections. What’s more, the board, whose members were appointed by the president, told reporters that there are plenty of safeguards, even though we can’t know what they are.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said, “I don’t know why the White House would stonewall for a year, then within a month of the election, agree to these security clearances [for the inspector general’s staff.] We don’t know what it means, but we’ll find out.”
Good, because the whole thing is bizarre.