"Facing an earlier subpoena threat, the White House agreed last year to allow the commission to select the four-member group.
The panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, chose Mr. Kean; Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman who is a former House member from Indiana; Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration; and Philip D. Zelikow, the panel's Republican staff director.
They were allowed to take notes that, until this week, remained in the possession of the White House, with the White House permitted to block their distribution to the full commission.
The White House agreement on Tuesday to allow the notes to be shared with all 10 members was made after intensive negotiations with the commission and after several members suggested that they were willing to vote to subpoena the original intelligence briefings if the White House did not relent on the notes.
Despite the concession, some panel members said they still wanted to subpoena the original briefings, if only as a protest over what they considered the failure of the White House to cooperate with the commission.
Commission officials said that a vote on a subpoena was taken in a private meeting of the commission on Tuesday and that the motion failed, with a bipartisan majority opposed.
The Family Steering Committee, an umbrella group of victims' family organizations, said it was outraged by the decision not to seek a subpoena.
"President Bush stated that he is `cooperating' with the 9/11 Independent Commission," the committee said in a statement. "Yet the commission has been negotiating for access to these documents for over 10 months with no success. While the commission negotiates with the executive branch, this nation remains at risk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/national/11TERR.html
It's a disgrace the the commission is letting the administration off the hook by not subpoening the actual PDBs. They have the white house over a barrel because of the familiy group. The white house is scared shitless at the thought that the victims' families will hold a press conference, or even worse cut a commercial, denouncing Bush. So does the commission use that to demand the actual PDBs, and not some bullshit "notes"? No. What a farce!
