An Angry Specter
by TChris
Shortly after being reelected in 2004, Arlen Specter earned the wrath of conservative extremists by suggesting that anti-abortion judges would have difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Specter learned the power of conservative outrage when his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee was threatened. Specter executed a quick flip-flop by assuring extremists that he "would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue."
A year-and-a-half later, the inability of conservative extremists to govern has been exposed, and their death grip on Specter has weakened. While Specter has shown little inclination to oppose any of the president's judicial nominees, he's recently been slapping the Bush administration, apparently content in the knowledge that the president and his supporters are too weak to hit back with any force.
Yesterday, the Justice Department sent Matthew Friedrich to stonewall the Judiciary Committee's interest in Alberto Gonzales' assertion that journalists can be prosecuted for divulging classified information. Specter put up a fuss when Friedrich dodged his questions.
Mr. Specter grew irritated when Mr. Friedrich declined to say whether prosecutors have actually considered indicting journalists for their role in publishing classified information. "I don't even understand your point in declining to answer whether the Department of Justice has ever considered it," the senator said.
Today Specter sent Vice President Cheney a testy letter (pdf) complaining that Cheney went behind his back to sabotage the Judiciary Committee's investigation of reports that telephone companies have handed over customer calling records to the NSA.
I was advised yesterday that you had called Republican members of the Judiciary Committee lobbying them to oppose any Judiciary Committee hearing, even a closed one, with the telephone companies. I was further advised that you told those Republican members that the telephone companies had been instructed not to provide any information to the Committee as they were prohibited from disclosing classified information.
I was surprised, to say the least, that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the Committee without calling me first, or at least calling me at some point. This was expecially perplexing since we both attended the Republican Senators caucus lunch yesterday and I walked directly in front of you on at least two occasions enroute from the buffet to my table.
It seems the senator is a bit peeved. And rightly so. Instructing a witness not to appear before a Senate committee smacks of obstructing justice. And Cheney's failure to disclose his back-stabbing by Specter's second trip to the buffet was downright disrespectful -- the greater source, perhaps, of Specter's consternation.
Extreme conservatives have painted Specter as a crazy liberal because he occasionally shows some interest in protecting the Constitution. Specter is no liberal. He is, however, chair of the Judiciary Committee, a position that meant something before the administration decided that the legislature is irrelevant. Specter plainly wants the position to mean something again. If he finally believes it's safe to remind his colleagues that Congress has an oversight role even when Republicans are in the White House, more power to him.
Specter has harsh words for the administration's continuing violation of the law.
There is no doubt that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which sets forth the exclusive procedure for domestic wiretaps which requires the approval of the FISA Court.
Specter argues that the president's claim of inherent Article II authority to ignore legislation he doesn't like isn't a "blank check" to keep Congress in the dark about the details of its domestic spying.
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