Leahy demands NSA documents from White House

Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committe demanded internal documents on the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday. Senator Leahy has set an August 20th deadline for the White House to comply with his latest demand. It's not clear as to why the Committee Chairman is pursuing the White House for internal documents over a surveillance program that has already been approved by the House in a 227-183 vote which followed the Senate's approval on Friday of last week. The Bill is now on its way to be signed by into law by President Bush.

Although this law will expire in six months unless an extension is approved by Congress it's hard to imagine that a majority of Senators and Congressmen will want to stand before their constituants during the upcoming 2008 election cycle and say, "I voted against NSA wiretaps" if it turns out the the program is responsible for the apprehension of suspects plotting a follow-up 9/11-style attack on American soil.

So why is Leahy, so interested in these internal memos that he is willing to risk yet another confrontation with the White House over the extent of his supoena power? Leahy is not completely nuts and he must know that he will get another letter from the White House like the one he received on August 1st that looks like this.

The President can continue to rest on executive privilege from now until the cows come home and Leahy's baseless claims are as useful as swinging his purse around in the wind.

The White House at this point can respond to Leahy's interminable requests for more and more documents with form letters that include the phrase:

The President's actions today are consistent with his previous assertion of executive
privilege over similar subpoenas for documents and testimony in this matter, for the
reasons set forth in detail in my letters of August 8, 2007, June 28, 2007 and July 9, 2007 to Chairman Leahy and Congressman Conyers.

Methinks the Senator is on a fishing expedition and trying to use bluff and blunder to extract as much information as he can from the White House for purely partisan political reasons. What legitimate purpose does it serve to demand internal documents from the White House for a program whose continuation has been approved by both houses of Congress and is on its way to a Presidential signature? Does the Leahy now want to insert a new talking point for Dem candidates, "Bush misled us into the NSA"? I suggest the Senator use his upcoming August recess time angling in the rivers and streams of Vermont instead of trolling the waters of the Potomac.

The Politico and Guardian provide background here and here.