A high-ranking Republican lashed out at President Bush on Sunday, suggesting that the White House may have broken the law by failing to inform Congress of a “major” intelligence program and other undercover activities.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, complained that he had received a briefing from the Bush administration on several intelligence programs only after learning of them from a whistle-blower.
“It is not optional for this president, or any president or people in the executive community, not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing,” said Hoekstra, who revealed no details of the intelligence efforts during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”
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Alex Conant, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the programs but said the administration would “continue to work closely with the chairman and other congressional leaders on important national security issues.”
Hoekstra’s charges follow months of controversy over the disclosure of key administration intelligence efforts in suspected terrorism cases, such as the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping of people in the United States and the monitoring of international bank transfers.
Hoekstra had been informed of those initiatives. Like many other GOP lawmakers, he has defended the programs as important tools in combating terrorism and has resisted Democrats’ calls for full-blown inquiries into the programs’ legality. But he wrote a letter to Bush in May in which he complained of being kept in the dark on several undisclosed programs.
A close White House ally, Hoekstra told Bush that the failure to disclose the information “may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of law, and just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee.”
“The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play `Twenty Questions’ to get the information that it deserves under the Constitution,” Hoekstra wrote in the letter, which was first disclosed by The New York Times.
Hoekstra also used the May 18 letter to complain about the selection of the new No. 2 official at the CIA, Stephen Kappes, and about the growing size of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is supposed to coordinate U.S. intelligence-gathering activities.
“I am concerned that the current implementation is creating a large, bureaucratic and hierarchical structure that will be less flexible and agile than our adversaries,” Hoekstra wrote.
Whistle-blower gets credit
Hoekstra said Sunday that a whistle-blower had stepped forward to alert the committee about the intelligence efforts, which he described as an example of the process “working appropriately.” He said he then asked for the briefing by referring to the programs’ code names.
“There are lots of programs going on in the intelligence community. You know, we can’t be briefed on every little thing that they are doing,” Hoekstra said. “But in this case, there was at least one major–what I consider significant–activity that we had not been briefed on.”
The criticism of the White House was particularly surprising coming from a Republican committee chairman who has been an important ally of the Bush administration. Hoekstra has vigorously defended the administration’s handling of controversial issues such as the NSA operation, the prewar intelligence on Iraq, and the treatment and interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Officials said last week that the administration had briefed the House Intelligence Committee at least twice in recent weeks, after Hoekstra’s letter, to discuss details of the previously undisclosed programs. But some committee members say they remain wary that the administration is continuing to withhold information.
Numerous Democrats and civil liberties groups have alleged that the administration ignores laws involving due process and congressional notification in conducting surveillance and intelligence programs in the name of fighting terrorism.
Until Hoekstra’s letter was disclosed Saturday, the most prominent Republican questioning the administration’s tactics was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the intelligence panel, criticized Bush for not disclosing the existence of the programs sooner.
`No one is above the law’
“Vigorous congressional oversight is impossible unless the administration shares critical information with the appropriate committees of Congress,” she said in a statement. “No one is above the law, and the law requires that the intelligence committees be fully and currently briefed on all intelligence programs of our government.”