An internal Justice Department inquiry into whether department officials -- including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft -- acted properly in approving and overseeing the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program was stymied because investigators were denied security clearances to do their work. The investigators, however, were only seeking information and documents relating to the National Security Agency's surveillance program that were already in the Justice Department's possession, two senior government officials said in interviews.
More from the press release:
In January, Hinchey and three of his House colleagues requested that DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) conduct the investigation. OPR Counsel H. Marshall Jarrett informed Hinchey in February that a probe was underway, but on May 10 he wrote the congressman to say that the investigation had been closed because OPR was denied the necessary security clearances.
According to a National Journal article published online today, all of the information that OPR was seeking was already in DOJ's possession and did not involve any top secret data. However, OPR was still blocked from conducting its investigation. Top administration officials have refused to explain who denied the security clearances for OPR investigators that effectively closed the probe and have also failed to offer a substantive justification for shutting down the investigation. Since the administration has not been forthcoming, Hinchey introduced his resolution to require President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to turn over to Congress all documents, including telephone and electronic mail records, logs and calendars, personnel records, and records of internal discussions related to the termination of OPR's investigation.
...."The Bush administration cannot get away with designing a secret, illegal spy program and then shutting down an investigation into its creation and implementation. Since the Attorney General and others have refused to be forthcoming in a genuine way on their own, this resolution of inquiry will force them to pull back the curtain of secrecy and reveal who stopped the OPR investigation and why."
Hinchey and his colleagues seek an investigation to learn
....who within the DOJ first authorized the domestic surveillance program and what that official's justification was for doing so; if the Bush administration had already enacted the program before getting original DOJ approval; what the reauthorization process for the surveillance initiative entails; and why, according to news reports, did then-Acting Attorney General James Comey refuse to reauthorize the program and why then-Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed strong reservations about the program and may have rejected it as well.
In past letters Rep. Hinchey has asked for:
...what individuals and agencies refused to grant the security clearances needed for the probe.
As to what they are not requesting:
"We are not requesting transcripts of tapped phone calls or asking for any specific information gathered from the program. We just want to know how the administration came to develop a surveillance program that ignores the fact that this country has a Constitution.
Procedurally, here's how it works:
A House committee must debate the Hinchey measure or else the matter can be brought directly before the full House. If the full House adopts the measure, President Bush, Attorney General Gonzales, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would have 14 days to present Congress with all of the requested documents.
Here are the series of letters between Rep. Hinchey and DOJ's OPR Counsel Jarrett (pdf):
