Reuters : Anthrax suspect must have had help: U.S. senator

Anthrax suspect must have had help: U.S. senator

By Randall Mikkelsen | September 17, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senator targeted in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks said on Wednesday he is convinced that the man believed to have carried it out did not act alone.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, voiced doubts to FBI Director Robert Mueller at a hearing in which other lawmakers called for a stepped-up review of the FBI's case against U.S. Army scientist Bruce Ivins.

Last month the FBI and Justice Department said Ivins, an anthrax expert who killed himself in July, was solely responsible for the mailing of anthrax-laced envelopes to politicians and media organizations shortly after the September 11 attacks.

The mailings killed five people and sickened 17. One of the letters was addressed to Leahy, but it was misdirected to another building and he was unharmed.

"If he (Ivins) was the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress or the American people," Leahy told Mueller. "I believe there are others out there. I believe there are others who can be charged with murder."

Leahy did not explain his views, and a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for elaboration.

FBI officials have said the investigation is over and would be formally closed soon. But Mueller told Leahy the bureau would remain open to considering new evidence that pointed to additional suspects.

"We have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine if anyone else was involved and will continue to do so," Mueller said.

Ivins' death and the FBI's disclosure that new DNA analysis techniques helped crack the case have sparked questions over the reliability of the evidence against Ivins. His lawyer says he was innocent.

Mueller on Tuesday announced that the FBI had asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the scientific evidence, but some lawmakers said it was not enough.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa sought a congressional probe, and Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania urged Mueller to let Congress name some members of the review panel.

"There has to be some alternative process capable of ensuring, in a way that a trial could have, that the FBI got it right," Grassley said.

FBI investigators mistakenly focused for years on another scientist, Steven Hatfill. Hatfill was never charged and the government agreed in June to pay him $5.85 million to settle a lawsuit. Hatfill was seen in the audience for Wednesday's hearing but he did not address the lawmakers.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

TIME : Officials Admit Having Wiretap Papers

Officials Admit Having Wiretap Papers

AP | August 21, 2007

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged it has documents that "may be responsive" to an investigation into a secret eavesdropping program, although it indicated it would not turn over the papers without a fight.

Lawyers speaking on behalf of both President Bush and Cheney asked the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday for more time to respond to subpoenas involving a wiretapping program that Democrats in Congress have harshly questioned.

In a letter to committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Cheney's counsel Shannen W. Coffin, reported that the vice president's office had identified more than 40 "Top Secret/Codeword Presidential Authorizations" and memoranda from the Justice Department that may respond to the subpoena.

The documents listed in the letter are dated from Oct. 4, 2001 — about a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks — and December 2006. "We continue our efforts to identify further documents that may be responsive to the subpoena and renew the request made in our letter of Aug. 10, 2007 for an extension of time," Coffin wrote.

Cheney's counsel, however, did not indicate whether the vice president's office was willing to hand the documents without a struggle. The letter did indicate that Cheney would follow the lead of the president if Bush decided to assert executive privilege in refusing to turn over documents.

Leahy was not happy with the administration's response, threatening to hold key officials in contempt for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for the eavesdropping program. "When the Senate comes back in the session, I'll bring it up before the committee," the Vermont Democrat said. "I prefer cooperation to contempt. Right now, there's no question that they are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress."

Leahy's committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program.

White House lawyer Fred Fielding, in a separate letter to Leahy, said the administration needed more time. "A core set of highly sensitive national security and related documents we have so far identified are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege and that a more complete collection and review of all materials responsive to the subpoenas will require additional time," Fielding said.

Congress, before it left for its August recess, approved an update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing the government to eavesdrop on terror suspects overseas without first getting a court warrant.

The overhaul was the result of a recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling that banned eavesdropping on foreigners when their messages were routed though communications carriers based in the United States.

The provisions expire after six months, but the White House wants them made permanent. "For Congress to legislate effectively in this area, it has to have full information about the executive branch's interpretations of FISA," Leahy said. "We cannot, and certainly, we should not legislate in the dark, where the administration hides behind a fictitious veil of secrecy."

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.”

The Hill : Leahy issues subpoena for Rove

Leahy issues subpoena for Rove

By Klaus Marre | July 26, 2007

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Thursday issued a subpoena for top White House adviser Karl Rove to compel him to testify about the firing of several U.S. attorneys.

“The evidence shows that senior White House political operatives were focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and whether federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and corruption cases,” Leahy said. “It is obvious that the reasons given for the firings of these prosecutors were contrived as part of a cover-up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort.”

Leahy issued the subpoenas, one to Rove and one to White House aide Scott Jennings, after consulting with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee’s ranking member.

“The Bush-Cheney White House continues to place great strains on our constitutional system of checks and balances,” Leahy added. “Not since the darkest days of the Nixon administration have we seen efforts to corrupt federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to avoid accountability.”

The move is a further escalation of the constitutional battle between Congress and the White House over whether Bush administration officials must provide testimony and documents to legislative branch investigators.

Leahy said he is not taking this step lightly and only decided to proceed after “[exhausting] every avenue seeking the voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings.”

The Judiciary Committee chairman concluded that the investigation has “reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year.”

In a letter to Rove, Leahy gives the White House official a week to appear before the panel and testify under oath.

“I hope that the White House takes this opportunity to reconsider its blanket claim of executive privilege, especially in light of the testimony that the President was not involved in the dismissals of these U.S. Attorneys,” Leahy said in his letter. “I am left to ask what the White House is so intent on hiding that it cannot even identify the documents, the dates, the authors and recipients that they claim are privileged.”

WaPo : Senate Democrats Call for Perjury Probe of Gonzales

Senate Democrats Call for Perjury Probe of Gonzales

By Paul Kane | Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer | July 26, 2007

Four Senate Democrats today formally asked the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales lied to Congress in his testimony about a domestic surveillance program for terrorists.

At the same time, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, issued subpoenas to White House adviser Karl Rove and one of his deputies, demanding their testimony by Aug. 2 in the panel's long-running investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the alleged politicization of the Justice Department.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a senior committee member, accused Gonzales of taking an oath, both when he assumed his current office and before each of his congressional appearances, that he has now broken through deliberately misleading testimony.

"He tells the half-truth, the partial truth and anything but the truth," Schumer said in announcing the request, made to Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who is acting attorney general in all matters related to the congressional investigations of Gonzales.

Schumer pointed to Gonzales's testimony to the panel Tuesday, when he said that a critical March 10, 2004 meeting with congressional leaders at the White House concerned intelligence activities other than the NSA's controversial warrantless surveillance program.

Several Democrats who were at that meeting have said it was about the surveillance program, and a May 2006 letter from then-Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte to Congress showed the same thing.

Gonzales testified Tuesday that the intelligence program he referred to was supported by congressional leaders in the 2004 briefing, despite resistance from senior Justice Department officials who were refusing to re-authorize the program because of concerns about its legality.

But several Democrats present have said they opposed the program and were unaware at the time that Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card, would next attempt to persuade then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft to overrule his deputies. The two went to Ashcroft's hospital room, where he was recovering from emergency gallbladder surgery.

"This attorney general simply has not been straight with the Judiciary Committee," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who signed the letter to Clement along with Schumer, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Leahy has held off calling for a special prosecutor, instead offering Gonzales a week to clarify his statements. If there still are contradictions by the end of next week, Leahy has said he will ask Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to conduct a perjury investigation of the attorney general.

In expanding the U.S. attorney investigation, however, Leahy today issued subpoenas today to Rove and J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy political director. Both Rove and Jennings appear in Justice Department e-mails discussing various steps in the plan to fire the prosecutors.

President Bush has so far refused to allow any current or former White House staff to testify in the congressional probes, asserting executive privilege. Congressional committees also have subpoenaed former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

The committees want to determine the extent of the White House's role in the removal of nine prosecutors last year, seven of them on one day. The administration has offered to allow the officials to be interviewed privately, but not under oath and without transcripts.

Schumer also asked that a special prosecutor investigate the veracity of two other parts of Gonzales's testimony.

In February 2006, shortly after the warrantless surveillance program was revealed in the media, the attorney general testified that "there has not been any serious disagreement" inside the Justice Department about the validity of the program. But in May of this year, former deputy attorney general James P. Comey told the committee that, after Gonzales and Card visited Ashcroft's bedside seeking his approval of a surveillance program Comey would not certify, Comey and other senior members of the Justice department planned a mass resignation they ultimately did not carry out.

In an April 2007 appearance before the Judiciary committee, Gonzales said that he could not answer many of the senators' questions because he had intentionally not spoken to many of his aides about their recollections of the prosecutor dismissals, noting that they were all "fact witnesses" in a congressional investigation.

A month later, however, Monica Goodling, Gonzales's former counsel, testified to the House Judiciary Committee that on one of her last days at the department she had an "uncomfortable" conversation with Gonzales in which provided his recollection of how the firings took place.

Democrats have accused Gonzales of attempting to steer Goodling's testimony, while the attorney general has testified that the Goodling conversation was his attempt to "console a distraught woman" caught up in a congressional investigation.