NYT : Senator Upset With the Response to Subpoena

Senator Upset With the Response to Subpoena

By DAVID STOUT | August 20, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 — The White House did not fully comply today with a subpoena seeking material on the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program, and a leading Democratic senator reacted with anger, if not surprise.

“The time is up,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said after the 2:30 p.m. deadline passed. “The time is up. We’ve waited long enough.”

Mr. Leahy said he would bring up the administration’s stance before the full Senate when it reconvenes after Labor Day. He hinted at the possibility of seeking a contempt of Congress citation but emphasized, “I prefer cooperation to contempt.”

At issue is a surveillance program run by the National Security Agency. Congress recently updated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, broadly expanding the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

The measure was rushed through both the House and Senate as a stopgap measure, in part because of a classified ruling earlier this year by a special intelligence court, which held that the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.

The new law expires in six months, but the White House has said it wants the provisions made permanent. Mr. Leahy said his committee and the Senate in general need the paperwork to properly assess the administration’s rationale for the eavesdropping.

It was no surprise that the White House did not meet the demands of the subpoena today, since it has balked at earlier deadlines and the White House counsel, Fred Fielding, told Mr. Leahy’s committee today that the White House still needed more time.

Mr. Leahy did say that the office of Vice President Dick Cheney had at least acknowledged the existence of some documents that his committee is seeking. Mr. Leahy said a letter acknowledging the documents was “a good first step,” one that should be followed by the administration’s quickly turning them over.

But Mr. Leahy said the administration had maintained today, as it has before, that the office of the vice president is not part of the executive office of the president, and instead was “some kind of fourth branch of government.”

“Well, that’s wrong,” Mr. Leahy said. The United States Code says the vice presidency is part of the executive office of the president and so, for that matter, does the White House Web site, Mr. Leahy said.

In general, Mr. Leahy said, the attitude of the White House has been, “Do it our way, and we’ll be happy with you.”