It seemed like a no-brainer. The ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), had unveiled a proposal to have the committee do its job, and conduct an investigation of a controversial intelligence-gathering mechanism, in this case, the president’s warrantless-search program. Seven of the 15 members of the Committee are Dems, and all agreed with Rockefeller’s common-sense approach, and two Republicans — Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel — expressed their support for the probe. It appeared almost certain that the Senate Intelligence Committee would finally do its duty.
And then yesterday, it all fell apart.
Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday defeated a Democratic push to investigate a domestic espionage operation authorized by President Bush, but pledged to increase scrutiny of the controversial program through a newly created subcommittee. […]
“The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House,” said Rockefeller, who had campaigned for a committee investigation and argued that all members of the panel ought to have full access to information on the program.
Rockefeller’s complaint couldn’t be more accurate. The White House engaged in an aggressive lobbying effort, trying for weeks to convince Snowe and Hagel to stop the committee from doing its job. It worked and the two backed down, despite public assurances to the contrary. As Jane summarized quite succinctly, “There is no such thing as a moderate Republican.”
This was a test. The Republicans on the committee basically put their credibility on the line. Would they take their responsibilities seriously or would they do what Bush told them to do? I was foolish to hope that even one GOP member of the committee would honor a sense of duty and vote for a probe that is obviously needed.
Hagel, Snowe, and others instead backed a “compromise” solution. Does it have merit? Let me put it this way: the White House loves this compromise.
The proposed legislation would create a seven-member “terrorist surveillance subcommittee” and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program’s operations. […]
The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration. The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.
If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.
Naturally, the White House immediately expressed its support for this approach.
And what not? The “compromise” still doesn’t require the administration to brief the entire Senate Intelligence Committee on domestic warrantless surveillance; it requires the administration to follow the law “whenever possible”; and all Alberto Gonzales has to do to keep the program going indefinitely is assert, every 45 days, that warrantless searches are “necessary to protect the country.”
They really have no shame.