Steve Clemons reports this morning (www.thewashingtonnote.com) that the powers behind Bolton have decided they are going to deny the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's requests to see sensitive NSA intercepts relating to Bolton.
The intercepts sought were ones w hich Bolton himself had requested as an Undersecretary, and which (unusually) also contained the names of people involved in the intercepts. (In most cases when intercept transcripts are provided -- and even that is a rare occasion -- names are redacted.)
There are strong suspicions that Bolton had demanded the intercepts as a tool to help spy on his opponents within the State Department and/or to help manage the intelligence disinformation effort which sought to undercut the State Department's own intelligence efforts on Iraq (later analysis shows the State Department's folks were the most accurate of all agencies in assessing the true state of Iraq's weapons programs.)
Clemons says this decision to refuse access to the intercepts to the members of the Committee could well be the final straw for Bolton:
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All bets are off now on Bolton. I think that a real battle could ensue over this now -- with those protesting Bolton and the political tactics driving his nomination as the ones on moral high ground. To win, the White House has to brutally crush opposition among Republican ranks. To do that costs vast amounts of political capital -- and ends up sending someone to the U.N. who will be "damaged goods" after this battle.
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I pray he is right. The big question is whether ANY of the Republican members of the committee will have the moral strength to resist the kinds of hellish pressure they MUST be getting right now from the Bush camp to support Bolton at any cost.
As I understand it, while the GOP does have the committee majority, the Democratic members could block action by failing to attend committee sessions, thus creating the lack of a quorum to conduct business.
The Bolton camp must be really concerned about the contents of those intercepts to have taken this step. As Clemons notes, refusing to provide the Committee the information they have requested really puts the GOP members in a hellish bind between respecting the Senate as an institution and (misguided) loyalty to a President (and Vice President) who believe a scorched earth policy is warranted in this case. One can only hope that the Bolton backers have now made the ultimate mis-judgement in their drive for victory at any cost.