Senate [tag]Democrats[\/tag] intend to use next week’s confirmation hearings for a new C.I.A. director to press the Bush administration on its broad surveillance programs, engaging Republicans on national security grounds that have proved politically treacherous for Democrats in the aftermath of Sept. 11.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers and senior Democratic officials say they believe a combination of [tag]Democratic[\/tag] gains on security issues and a loss of public confidence in President Bush gives them new strength to question the National Security Agency operations that the administration says are essential to preventing another domestic terror attack.<\/p>\n
As a result, Democrats say they will not hesitate to aggressively question Mr. Bush’s choice to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who is the former director of the N.S.A., at a hearing set for next Thursday.<\/p>\n
“We have to raise the issues,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who met Friday with General Hayden. “The American people expect someone to do it. Certainly the administration is not doing it. We are all they’ve got.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are really two questions here: Hayden’s confirmation and the issues Hayden’s nomination raises. Republicans, even those with “questions” about NSA activities, have quietly said they’d vote to confirm Hayden, making it awfully difficult for Dems to stop Hayden from replacing Porter Goss.<\/p>\n
But using the opportunity to highlight the administration’s problems is another matter entirely.
\n<\/p>\n
[L]eading Democrats said that his confirmation hearing could evolve into a proxy for questioning the legal foundation of the extensive surveillance programs established by the administration and that General Hayden’s handling of the issue would have a bearing on his fate in the Senate.<\/p>\n
“My inclination had been to support him,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “From the internal reports you get, he is a man of integrity who has fought for the independence of intelligence agencies. But it will be a test of his independence whether he is able to answer some of these questions.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In light of [tag]Michael Hayden[\/tag]’s role in domestic [tag]surveillance[\/tag], the [tag]Senate[\/tag] should have plenty of interesting questions to ask him during his confirmation [tag]hearings[\/tag] to be the new head of the [tag]CIA[\/tag]. But will Dems show the necessary follow through? Apparently so. Senate [tag]Democrats[\/tag] intend to use next week’s confirmation hearings for a new C.I.A. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}