INTELLIGENCE

The Chairman of the Senate Cover-Up Committee

Earlier this week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), voted along partisan lines to avoid a clash with President Bush over his domestic spying program. The New York Times writes that the intelligence committee has become "so paralyzingly partisan that it could not even manage to do its basic job this week." By voting down a sensible proposal offered by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) to comprehensively review the spying program, Roberts failed once again to demonstrate he has the leadership to conduct the required oversight of the Bush administration. As Rockefeller said, "This committee is basically under control of the White House." It was "no surprise that Mr. Roberts led this retreat;" he has been doing the "president's dirty work" repeatedly over the past few years in his efforts to stonewall investigations into important national security matters. The Progress Report has compiled a comprehensive report detailing how Roberts and his Senate Cover-Up Committee have obstructed investigations into the Bush administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence, the administration's complicity in acts of torture against detainees, and the White House's outing of a former CIA agent, among other issues. (Click here to see the report.) By failing to properly investigate important national security matters, Roberts has missed crucial opportunities to correct the administration's misguided policies in the war on terror.

FORMER BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL RAISED CONCERNS ABOUT NSA PROGRAM'S LEGALITY: Coming on the heels of Roberts's approval of the Bush administration's illegal spying program, the Washington Post reports that a former Justice Department official raised concerns about the program's legality. David S. Kris, a former associate deputy attorney general who oversaw national security issues at the Justice Department from 2000 until he left the department in 2003, exchanged a series of emails recently with Courtney Elwood, a current associate counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in which he argued that the administration's "key legal justifications for warrantless spying are weak and unlikely to be endorsed by the courts." "I do not think Congress can be said to have authorized the NSA surveillance," Kris wrote. His objections are the latest in a series of high-profile former Justice Department officials known to have raised concerns about the program. Previously, it was reported that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and former Attorney General John Ashcroft balked at authorizing the warrantless wiretapping program.

ROBERTS' COMPROMISE ALLOWS ADMINISTRATION TO BREAK THE LAW: Instead of first making a determination about the National Security Agency (NSA) program's legality, Roberts's compromise instead gives a green light to the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional warrantless spying on Americans. The proposal would establish a separate panel -- composed of four Republicans and three Democrats -- within the Senate Intelligence Committee that would receive classified briefings about the program, but would not have authority to make any changes to it for at least 45 days. The New York Times writes, "Faced with a president who is almost certainly breaking the law, the Senate sets up a panel to watch him do it and calls that control." According to the Roberts legislation, for 45 days, the NSA would continue to spy on phone calls and email messages of U.S. citizens if it had probable cause to believe one part to the communication was affiliated with terrorism. "The finding of probable cause would not be reviewed by any court." After 45 days, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be required to seek a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or explain under oath to the special intelligence panel why he could not seek a warrant. The proposal would not place any limit, however, on how many times the eavesdropping could be renewed. "Aside from the civil liberties dimension, there's an invitation here to the president to go on indefinitely with warrantless surveillance," said William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University.

FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE IRAQ: In June 2003, as revelations about the Bush administration's manipulation of faulty Iraq intelligence began to emerge, Roberts announced he would conduct a "thorough review" of what the administration knew before it went to war. Roberts said the committee would look into "whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information." While it took Roberts's committee just over one year to investigate and release Phase I of its report detailing the intelligence community's failings, the American public has waiting for almost three years for a completion of Phase II, which will look specifically at President Bush and Vice President Cheney's failings, among others. After Phase I was completed, Roberts pledged that Phase II was his "priority," adding "it will get done." By March 2005, just eight months later, Roberts changed his tune, stating that Phase II had been placed on the "back burner" and was a "monumental waste of time." After Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) forced the Senate into closed session in November 2005 to urge action on the investigation, Roberts again pledged to finish the report soon. But shortly thereafter, three intelligence committee members said Roberts refused to pursue "additional interviews and documents" needed to fully answer the "critical questions surrounding the use of intelligence in the months leading up to the war."

MORE STONEWALLING: Despite evidence that the CIA approved harsh interrogation techniques (including "waterboarding") against detainees at CIA-run facilities in Afghanistan and employed the practice of outsourcing torture to other countries, Roberts refused to investigate. The LA Times reported in March 2005: "Declaring that the CIA is 'not torturing detainees,' the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said...that he saw no reason for the panel to investigate allegations that the agency abused prisoners or transferred them to countries that engage in torture." When allegations began to heat up about the White House's involvement in outing former CIA covert operative Valerie Plame, Roberts pledged to hold hearings on the matter. "We intend to have a hearing," Roberts said. "And I think it would be a good idea to visit with her." But, just a short while later, Roberts declared there would be no investigation. "Senate intelligence has to be nonpartisan," he said. Also, refusing to compromise with members of his own committee, Roberts failed to pass the Intelligence Authorization bill this year on the Senate floor for the first time in nearly 30 years. In its final report, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission concluded that Congress needed to strengthen "congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability." But Roberts hardly knows the meaning of oversight. "It's 'oversight' when we know enough to ask our own questions," Rockefeller said. "It is 'undersight' when [officials in the White House] tell us what they want us to know."

ROBERTS SILENT WHILE INTEL AGENCIES CRUMBLE: Roberts has also been a silent voice when it comes to reforming and strengthening the CIA. Over the past year, a series of high-level departures have hampered the CIA, including the departures of the director of the Counter Terrorism Center, the second in command of the clandestine unit, two other directors of operations, and the chief of the Bin Laden unit. Roberts has also been silent as allegations have surfaced that the number three CIA official may have been involved in a bribery scheme. These reports, combined with information that National Intelligence Director John Negroponte spends three hours a day relaxing at a private club in Washington, D.C, begs the question about why Roberts has not been a stronger voice on the management issues involving our intelligence agencies.

Under the Radar ETHICS -- CUNNINGHAM CO-CONSPIRATOR HAD LINKS TO IRAN GROUP, PAID BY WHITE HOUSE: TPM Muckracker notes that in 2004, the White House was doling out money to Mitchell Wade -- who has pled guilty as Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's co-conspirator and faces several years in prison -- for an Iran regime-change organization. Wade, former head of MZM, Inc., "registered as the 'registered agent' for an outfit called the 'Iranian Democratization Foundation'" on April 5, 2004. Records show that the Executive Office of the President paid out three contracts worth $254,437 for unspecified "intelligence services" to MZM, Inc. in 2004. The White House has refused to comment on these contracts and TPM notes that "a cursory check has turned up no other filings for Wade's nonprofit: no employer ID number, 990 filing, or anything else. Nexis shows no mention of the group in any news coverage." Roll Call reports that the Defense Department missed its chance to "forestall one of the worst bribery cases ever involving a sitting Member of Congress" in 2000, when it began a criminal investigation into the former congressman's co-conspirator #1, defense contractor Brent Wilkes. The U.S. attorney's office in San Diego decided not to bring charges in the 2000 case. HUMAN RIGHTS -- DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO: A new State Department report on Human Rights Practices criticizes the United Arab Emirates for policies relating to the detention of terrorist suspects that are less extreme than those of the Bush administration. The UAE law, according to the State Department report, "allows public prosecutors to hold suspects in terrorism-related cases without charge for 6 months...once a suspect is charged, terrorism cases are handled by the Supreme Court, which may extend the detention period indefinitely." The UAE law provides suspects far more rights than they would receive in the United States. Its law guarantees that, after a period of time, the suspect must be charged and must receive judicial review. A United States anti-terrorism law passed in 2001 (The Authorization for Use of Military Force) allows the president to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge any person he determines to be related to terrorist activity. Another law passed in 2005 (Detainee Treatment Act) means these terrorism suspects have no ability to appeal against their detention unless and until they are convicted in specially created military courts, however, the president is under no obligation to ever bring these suspects before any court. HEALTH -- RIGHT-WING WEAKENS FOOD SAFETY: A Center for Disease Control and Prevention report found the federal government "declined to alert the public about suspect ground beef or request a recall after a 2004 salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 31 people nationwide." Although the Agriculture Department had traced the source of the salmonella to "a national supermarket chain and a single meat processing plant," they did not ask the company to recall the tainted meat. "No company has ever refused a recall request." Meanwhile, the House voted yesterday to "strip many warnings from food labels, potentially affecting alerts about arsenic in bottled water, lead in candy and allergy-causing sulfites, among others." The legislation "would prevent states from adding food warnings that go beyond federal law." Lawmakers "have family, friends and former staff among the lobbyists for the bill" including Abigail Blunt, wife of Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO); Brad Card, brother of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; and former staffers of Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH).