BUSH NOW SHAKING IN HIS BOOTS.....the commission WANTS ANSWERS....and his precious PDB's are NOW FAIR GAME!
9/11 Panel Threatens to Issue Subpoena for Bush’s Briefings
February 10, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - Members of the independent commission
investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks warned the
White House on Monday that it could face a politically
damaging subpoena this week if it refused to turn over
information from the highly classified Oval Office
intelligence reports given to President Bush before 9/11.
The panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a Republican and the
former governor of New Jersey, said through a spokesman
that he was hopeful an agreement would be worked out before
the commission's next meeting, on Tuesday. Commission
officials said that negotiations continued throughout the
day on Monday and into the evening with the office of
Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel.
But other members of the commission said that without an
immediate resolution, they would call for a vote on Tuesday
on issuing a subpoena to the White House for access to
information in the documents. The papers are known as the
President's Daily Brief, the intelligence summary prepared
each morning for Mr. Bush by the Central Intelligence
Agency.
Responding to earlier threats of a subpoena, the White
House agreed last year to allow three members of the
10-member commission and the panel's Republican staff
director to review portions of the daily briefings from
before the Sept. 11 attacks that referred to intelligence
warnings about Al Qaeda and its plans for terrorist
attacks.
The commission has described the briefings as vital since
they would show whether the White House had warnings of a
catastrophic terrorist attack. The White House has
acknowledged that one briefing Mr. Bush saw in August 2001
referred to the possibility of a Qaeda strike with
commercial airplanes.
In recent weeks, however, the White House has refused to
give permission for the four members of the delegation to
share their handwritten and computerized notes - which have
been retained by the White House under the agreement - with
the full commission. That has outraged Democrats and
Republicans on the panel and prompted the renewed threat of
a subpoena.
"I'm determined to resolve this with a subpoena vote," said
one of the Democrats, Timothy J. Roemer, a former
congressman from Indiana. "We need to get access to the
notes. There needs to be full information to all 10
commissioners. So far, the White House has vetoed that."
Another Democrat on the panel, Richard Ben-Veniste, a
former Watergate prosecutor, said he would be prepared to
support the subpoena.
"This thing has dragged on for months," Mr. Ben-Veniste
said Monday, adding that he was not convinced by repeated
statements from the White House that it intended to
cooperate fully with the commission.
"Saying that they have cooperated just doesn't get them
over the finish line," he said.
The delegation that has reviewed the briefing reports is
made up of Mr. Kean; Lee H. Hamilton, another former
Democratic congressman from Indiana and the commission's
vice chairman; Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general
in the Clinton administration; and Philip D. Zelikow, the
executive director.
The panel, known formally as the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was created by
Congress over the initial objections of Mr. Bush.
It has made use of its subpoena authority three times:
against the Defense Department, the Federal Aviation
Administration and the City of New York. A subpoena to the
White House could be politically damaging to Mr. Bush,
because it would allow his Democratic opponents to suggest
he was stonewalling the panel, and because it would raise
the prospect of an extended election-year court fight
between the commission and the White House.
A spokesman for the commission, Al Felzenberg, said that
Mr. Kean was involved Monday in the negotiations and that
there had been "some positive action."
"It's fair to say that the governor is hopeful that things
are going to move in a good direction," Mr. Felzenberg
added, "that we will have access to everything we need."
The subpoena threat comes a week after the White House
reversed itself and agreed to support the commission's
request to Congress for an additional two months to
complete its work, extending the deadline for a final
report until July.
That is subject to approval by Congress, and spokesmen for
the two crucial Senate authors of the bill creating the
commission - John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Joseph
I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut - said on Monday they
were negotiating with the commission and victims' families
over how much extra time the commission should get.
nytimes.com
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