"... Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.
'It's hardball all the way,' a senior GOP congressional aide said.
The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings."
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Another very weird piece from Insight Magazine (the Washington Times folks) that suggests a White House in a bit of panic. No reason to be from where I'm sitting, so what to make of this?
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Perhaps its Specter, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, that has them worried. From the Washington Post, front page, December, 17th:
"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who favored the Patriot Act renewal but said the NSA issue provided valuable ammunition for its opponents.
And, from the Feb. 5th, "Meet the Press,"
SEN. SPECTER: Why the administration did not go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and tell them about the program. They have a great record for not leaking. They?re experts in the field. The program could?ve been presented there, still could be. And I think that?s the biggest question the administration has to answer.
MR. RUSSERT: The administration says that they didn?t need to, that they already had authority from Congress when, back in October 2002, Congress voted an authorization to go to war against Iraq, and this is part of that war.
SEN. SPECTER: I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic. The authorization for the use of force doesn?t say anything about electronic surveillance, issue was never raised with the Congress. And there is a specific statute on the books, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which says flatly that you can?t undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order.
MR. RUSSERT: The White House also says that they didn?t go to Congress because people in Congress told them that they would compromise this surveillance plan if they requested permission to conduct it.
SEN. SPECTER: Well, the administration also has said, Attorney General Gonzalez has been questioned, reported, and I asked this in a letter I sent to him, saying that if the administration went to Congress, they were likely to be denied the authority. So, it?s very hard in that kind of a context to claim that Congress intended to give the authority if the administration thought that Congress would turn it down.
[snip]
Specter continues:
Now, there is an involved question here, Tim, which we?re going to get into in some depth, as to whether the President?s powers under Article 2, his inherent powers, supercede a statute. If a statute is inconsistent with the Constitution, the Constitution governs and the constitutional powers predominate. But here you have the President signing on and saying this is it, and that?s why I?ve been so skeptical of the program because it is in flat violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but that?s not the end of the discussion. There?s a lot more to follow, and we won?t be able to cover it all here this evening?today, this morning, but we?re going to have a hearing tomorrow and some more hearings after that because of the importance of this issue and because of its complexity and depth.
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