Breaking News!  Hinchey Introduces Measure to Force Bush Administration To Reveal Who Blocked Justice Dept. Probe of NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program

Measure Would Require President, Attorney General & Defense Secretary To Hand Over Documents Related To Closure Of Investigation

Washington, DC -- In an effort to find out who blocked an internal U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the agency's role in the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless surveillance program and the reasons for doing so, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today introduced a resolution of inquiry in the House that would force top members of the Bush administration to turn over all materials related to the termination of the probe.  In January, Hinchey and three of his House colleagues requested that DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) conduct the investigation.  OPR Counsel H. Marshall Jarrett informed Hinchey in February that a probe was underway, but on May 10 he wrote the congressman to say that the investigation had been closed because OPR was denied the necessary security clearances. 

According to a National Journal article published online today, [http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0525nj2.htm] all of the information that OPR was seeking was already in DOJ's possession and did not involve any top secret data.  However, OPR was still blocked from conducting its investigation.  Top administration officials have refused to explain who denied the security clearances for OPR investigators that effectively closed the probe and have also failed to offer a substantive justification for shutting down the investigation.  Since the administration has not been forthcoming, Hinchey introduced his resolution to require President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to turn over to Congress all documents, including telephone and electronic mail records, logs and calendars, personnel records, and records of internal discussions related to the termination of OPR's investigation.

"The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is designed to ensure that the highest ethical standards are met by those who enforce our laws.  For administration officials to deny OPR officials security clearances needed to do their job and conduct the proper oversight is absurd and is contradictory to what the American people expect and deserve from their government," Hinchey said. "The Bush administration cannot get away with designing a secret, illegal spy program and then shutting down an investigation into its creation and implementation.  Since the Attorney General and others have refused to be forthcoming in a genuine way on their own, this resolution of inquiry will force them to pull back the curtain of secrecy and reveal who stopped the OPR investigation and why."  

Among other things, Hinchey and his colleagues -- Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) -- specifically requested an investigation to find out: who within the DOJ first authorized the domestic surveillance program and what that official's justification was for doing so; if the Bush administration had already enacted the program before getting original DOJ approval; what the reauthorization process for the surveillance initiative entails; and why, according to news reports, did then-Acting Attorney General James Comey refuse to reauthorize the program and why then-Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed strong reservations about the program and may have rejected it as well. 

"Administration officials can't just go around and say that disclosing information about the evolution and execution of the NSA program would jeopardize national security because it wouldn't," Hinchey said. "We are not requesting transcripts of tapped phone calls or asking for any specific information gathered from the program.  We just want to know how the administration came to develop a surveillance program that ignores the fact that this country has a Constitution." 

The Hinchey measure to acquire the documents surrounding the termination of the OPR investigation is a resolution of inquiry, which is a type of bill that seeks factual information from the executive branch.  A House committee must debate the Hinchey measure or else the matter can be brought directly before the full House.  If the full House adopts the measure, President Bush, Attorney General Gonzales, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would have 14 days to present Congress with all of the requested documents.

Hinchey has also written back to OPR Counsel Jarrett in an attempt to find out what individuals and agencies refused to grant the security clearances needed for the probe.

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