Democrats To Grill Bush Officials On Spying

While Gonzales will be sitting in the hot seat on February 6th, today's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing will give us a preview of how Democrats will confront the domestic spying scandal.

John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, was previously scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee to report on a worldwide threat assessment. As Newsweek reports, Democrats will seize the oppportunity to grill him and other top intelligence officials about Bush's illegal spying program.

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and his principal deputy, Gen. Michael Hayden, are scheduled to appear with several other top intelligence officials at what was supposed to be a routine Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to discuss the intelligence community's assessment of current threats to the United States, including terrorist attacks and nuclear proliferation. However, congressional sources say Democrats on the Senate committee plan to use the hearing to grill officials about alleged NSA domestic surveillance. They are particularly interested in questioning Hayden, who before joining Negroponte's office, served as NSA director. The controversial NSA monitoring program was launched under his command.

The hearing is playing live now on C-SPAN. You can watch it online here.

Update [2006-2-2 10:12:29 by georgia10]:: Just as a side note. Gonzales will be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose ranking members were "briefed" on the domestic spying program.