A Tale Of Five Republicans

SENATOR DEWINE (R-OH) ♥ THE WHITE HOUSE
Senator DeWine, whose 2002 amendment caused the administration a great dealt of angst earlier this year, is now making amends by advocating the legalization of an illegal program.  Via Think Progress:

The White House announced its support for a legislative proposal by Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine to exclude Bush's NSA wiretapping program from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ThinkProgress explained earlier why the proposal is a bad idea. Tonight, on Fox News, DeWine explained his motivations:    

You know, there's been some controversy about whether or not this program is legal or is not legal. I think we need to get beyond that. And the vast majority of American people believe these calls need to be listened to. But we don't want to have any kind of debate about whether it's constitutional or not constitutional. So I think we need to put that beyond us.

CHAIRMAN PAT ROBERTS TAKES THE HEAT
Republican Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said DeWine's proposal "would not be met with much support" on Capitol Hill, where a growing number of Republicans have expressed great concern at the program's legality.  On Thursday, Roberts said he was negotiating with the White House to "fix" FISA to accommodate the program.  Roberts also killed a vote in a closed-door session of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, echoing DeWine by saying "Whether or not an investigation is the right thing to do at this particular time, I am not sure."

Yesterday, after receiving some backlash about preventing the investigation and allegations of his committee skirting its oversight responsibilities, Roberts defended his proposal by saying it would involve the FISA court:

More on the flip...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 -- The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday that he wanted the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program brought under the authority of a special intelligence court, a move President Bush has argued is not necessary. [...]

"I think it should come before the FISA court, but I don't know how it works," Mr. Roberts said. "You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit. So we have to solve that problem."

Mr. Roberts spoke in an interview a day after announcing that the White House, in a turnabout, had agreed to open discussions about changing surveillance law. By Friday, with Mr. Roberts apparently stung by accusations that he had caved to White House pressure not to investigate the eavesdropping without warrants, it appeared the talks could put the White House and Congress on a collision course.

Senator Rockerfeller, who emerged from the closed-door session on Thursday "fuming and accused Republicans of caving to White House pressure,"  was informed by Chairman Roberts that if no White House deal was made before March 7th, Rockerfeller's motion to investigate would then be considered.

SENATOR WARNER (R-VA) WORKING WITH GANG OF 14
Meanwhile, Sen. John Warner, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been meeting with the Gang of 14 to determine whether they should push for  FISA amendments or an investigation. As for whether he thinks the program is illegal? "All I know, there's considerable doubt out there," he says.

JUDICIARY CHAIRMAN SPECTER (R-PA) FRUSTRATED WITH THE STONEWALLING
Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, who believes the program is illegal and whose called the administration's rationales "very strained and unrealistic," is realizing just how bad the administration wants to cover this up.  Specter is drafting his own legislation which would require FISA to rule on the constitutionality of the program.  He has wanted to call former Attorney General Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey as witnesses, since both of the high-ranking DoJ officials apparently refused to sign off on the legality of the program. But the Department of Justice is feverishly trying to dissuade Specter from calling them as witnesses:

The Justice Department strongly discouraged him from calling former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey, to testify about the surveillance program.

"In light of their inability to discuss such confidential information, along with the fact that the attorney general has already provided the executive branch position on the legal authority for the program, we do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position to provide any new information to the committee," Moschella said.

Earlier this month, the DOJ rebuffed the Judiciary Committee on its request for all legal memoranda and paperwork on the domestic spying program.  But this week, a federal judge ruled that the administration has to release the legal documents or provide a list of what it refuses to disclose.

REPRESENTATIVE HOEKSTRA FRUSTRATED WITH REPUBLICAN CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION
There has been no greater supporter of Bush's spying program than Representative Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee. We know that the House Judiciary Committee, under the strong-arming of Chairman Sensenbrenner, killed two Democratic bills for an inquiry into the program. But over at the House Intelligence Committee, Hoekstra wasn't able to pull off the same feat.

This is due in large part to Republican Heather Wilson, who serves on the committee and came out strongly for an investigation. Wilson, who's in dangerous polling territory in her reelection bid, is advocating for a broad investigation to cover both the legality of the program and the methods of its implementation. Hoekstra agreed to an inquiry, but is desperately trying to keep his GOP ducks in line:

But Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, said: "This is not an inquiry into the program. It's a comprehensive review of the FISA statute. " He said Mr. Hoekstra "wants to set up a process to move forward and look at the entire statute and ways to modernize it."

But aides in two other Congressional offices, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said their understanding of the agreement was that the inquiry would focus in large part on operational details of the surveillance program.

The Republican Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees are clumsily trying to balance White House pressure to kill any investigation with dissent from their own ranks.  In an election  year where even the rumor of a power shift is enough to make Karl Rove squirm, moderate Republicans are breaking the GOP code of silence and are explicitly questioning the program's legality.  Hard-core Bushites, like DeWine and Roberts, risk being painted as administration lapdogs if they ignore calls from their own party members for an investigation.

And while Bush wants this to scandal to go away, the current course taken by the Republican leadership has ensured that it won't.  The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding the first of several hearings on this on February 28th. Sensenbrenner's "51 questions" are due March 3.   The Justice Dept. docs are set to be released at the end of March.  This story isn't dying any time soon...