Wiretap probe proposal rejected

GOP senators get White House approval to instead create subcommittee to help draft legislation

BY TOM BRUNE | NEWSDAY WASHINGTON BUREAU

March 8, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Republican majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday rejected the Democrats' proposal for a probe into the president's warrantless wiretapping program and advanced its own plan to beef up congressional oversight and craft a bill to legalize the controversial eavesdropping.

Republicans said they had reached an accommodation with the White House, which has resisted a legislative response to what it says is the president's inherent constitutional power to conduct surveillance in a time of war against terror.

And any legislation faces hurdles from key Republicans and many Democrats in the Senate. The House Intelligence Committee is also crafting its own proposal.

Partisan rancor continued to color the congressional response to the December revelation that President George W. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to skip legally required court approval for eavesdropping on Americans on U.S. soil.

Instead of the investigation proposed by the committee vice chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the Republicans reached an agreement with the White House to create a new subcommittee to be briefed on the operation and legality of the surveillance program.

After some Republicans met with White House aides, the 15-member Senate Intelligence Committee met for a nearly two-hour closed session and voted along partisan lines to adopt the GOP plan.

Democrats were excluded from the meeting with White House staffers, Rockefeller said.

"Today we reached an accommodation with the White House to expand the number of members involved in overseeing this important program to seven, about half of the number of the committee," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the committee's chairman.

The subcommittee will begin its work this week, said the author of the proposal, Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), but he deferred questions on its makeup and scope to Roberts.

The work of the subcommittee will aid the Senate in crafting legislation, which would be based on a proposal floated by DeWine and three other moderate Republican senators.

But Rockefeller blasted the Republicans and their proposal after the committee meeting yesterday.

"The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under control of the White House," Rockefeller charged.

In rejecting his proposal for an investigation of the surveillance program, Rockefeller said, the Republicans prefer to "legislate in darkness and in ignorance."

But the moderate Republicans sponsoring the legislative proposal rejected that charge, saying they had imposed their plan on the White House.

Sponsors include DeWine and Republican senators Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.